I've been re-playing the WC series this time trying to get all the good endings (last time I gave up and went with the bad endings for the expansions), but I'm stuck on the last WC 2 Secret Operations 1 mission.

First: clearing the fighter cover of the two Fralthas is very difficult because my wingmen for some reason like to shoot at my same target through me (boy, the AI is shit, I don't remember anything like that in X-wing).

Second, if I manage to survive I'm often alone and if I'm not my wingmen cannot launch torpedoes before getting shot down.

Third: torpedoing the Fralthas without getting destroyed seems impossible with a Sabre, I can't reliably evade the antimatter guns without losing the lock, and I guess there is no way to dumbfire the torpedoes like in X-wing.

Am I doing something wrong? Is there some trick I didn't pick up on?

Okay, I've lost the mission on purpose and the "last chance" mission is better but only in theory as it seems that the only way to evade the enemy fighters is abuse the afterburner as no matter how I torture my joystick (no pun intended) they always manage to hit me somehow while the famous Particle Gun seems to do little damage, so I've retreated AGAIN and got the bad ending AGAIN.

The funny thing is that these last two missions would be much more winnable in an Excalibur bomber which is supposedly one of the worst ships in the game, go figure.

Of all the Wing Commanders games and expansion, this one is actually the hardest - so not surprising it's giving you some troubles. Hum, I don't remember that particular issue. Did you try giving different orders to the wingmen (break formation, stay in formation, attack this target, ...) ? Wingmen are useless against capital ships, you'll have to do that part alone - and yes, it's hard. You can't dumbfire the torpedoes - the "locking" of the torpedoes is actually them analyzing the frequency of the phase shield to find a hole in it, or something like that ;)

You basically have two options :

1. (The one I used, but took me many tries) : lock the torpedo from as far as possible, moving slowly towards your target, and avoid the antimatter gun by moving a bit but not enough to lose the lock, then once you nearly have the lock, afterburn towards the capships and deliver the torpedo from close enough so the flak gun doesn't destroy the torpedo. It's hard, but doable.

2. (That one I read on a forum, but never managed to use it) Stay as much as possible between the two capships, so they'll shot each other with the antimatter gun.

Good luck, pilot !

Yes, I tried giving them orders but when there is only one target remaining they tend to refuse to return in formation and in the mission with *four* of them you can order only one of them.

In my experience I often found myself losing capship kills because my wingmen decided to go against them when I was still trying to thin out their escort, I'm quite surprised it doesn't seem to apply to this expansion.

I always lock the torps from afar (but even then sometimes it looks like the capships are actively following you, no matter how I position my ship even coming at a stop they are always closing in on me) but when the capships fire the antimatter gun and you are too close to them it's impossible to avoid their shots without losing the lock, in one of my last attempts I managed three failed torpedo runs before getting shot to pieces at the fourth attempt.

I manged to finish the second expansion in the meantime, at least he Morningstar "superfighter" status isn't an informed attribute like with the sabre.

It's possible, but extremely difficult to get the two Fralthra to destroy each other with their anti-matter guns by flying between them. It's possibly the hardest mission in all of Wing Commander.

The second chance mission is a lot easier though still not a breeze. You've only got one anti-matter gun to deal with at least and you can time your bombing runs around it.

I did it (destroyed both Fralthra) and it is not hard if done correctly. Kill fighters by luring them out of range of Fralthra guns. To lock torpedo, slowly approach (50 kps) from out of range and immediately stop and start locking when target (Fralthra) is acquired. Turn you nose to any side to the maximum angle such that torpedo still locks. When Fralthra fires, quickly afterburn (not changing direction) to avoid a hit (often it fires into space, you can use this bug too). Then wait a bit until the lock is nearly completed, you should be at 8-9.000 range now , and afterburn towards the target ,fire torpedo from 2500-3000 range. Fralthra won't have the time to fire antimatter guns again. Retreat on afterburner, and repeat 3 more times. Also approach from such angle that both ships won't see you at the same time, otherwise you will have hard time avoiding 2 shots.