Iron Nest Mission 13 Phantom Battery Walkthrough & Medals

Iron Nest Mission 13 Phantom Battery opens with Iron Nest already under lethal fire, engine dead, and an enemy that shoots back like a mirror of your own gun. The mission’s own orders set the loop: start the engines, reposition immediately, rebuild your own location, let three listening posts collect bearings on the enemy, and spend armor-piercing shells on a battery that moves after it is hit. Each enemy spotter destroyed adds 90 seconds to the Counter-Battery Timer. This page separates what the mission record confirms from what players are still arguing about.

Quick Answer: Mission 13 Phantom Battery

Verified on build/version: Source-checked 2026-09-12. The cited mission record does not publish a game build number, so no version is claimed here. The developer has stated that three of the five post-launch patches rebalanced this mission, including a 2026-08-12 patch described as “Phantom Battery mission balancing”; exact mechanic changes were not published.
Fixed rules (mission record): Opening lethal fire with an order to start the engines and reposition; three friendly listening posts deployed; each enemy spotter destroyed adds +90s to the Counter-Battery Timer; the target is armored and requires armor-piercing; it repositions after being hit.
Random or run-specific data: All grids, bearings, distances, the battery’s position, and your post-move location come from the current operation. Do not copy coordinates from any guide, including this one.
Starting resources: 200 requisition and 10 powder charges are listed in the mission record. The roster lists 6 entities with 1 armored target.
Recommended shells: AP-family for the battery (the comm feed rejects non-AP hits: “SHOT INEFFECTIVE. ARMOUR HELD. REQUIRES ARMOUR-PIERCING.”). Whether APHE specifically counts is unresolved — see the conflict table below.
Gold thresholds (mission record, build unverified): Unaided Fire Distinction (no aerial recon, kills > 18), No Quarter Cross (kills ≥ 9), Marksman’s Cross (average impact distance ≤ 0.3), Counter-Battery Commendation (timer remaining ≥ 260).

1. Restart the Engine, Then Execute the Emergency Move

The opening salvo damages Iron Nest before you have solved anything. The comm feed is explicit: “You’re taking lethal fire! Start the engines and reposition immediately!” Get the engine running and the controls into the running state before triggering the Emergency Move — players who rushed the move with a dead or starting engine report runs that ended almost immediately.

Do not stop to repair every minor system first. The priority order that survives the opening is: engine → movement → position. Everything else waits until the battery has lost you.

One post-patch video claims the Emergency Move works without an engine restart and calls this a possible developer oversight. This is a single unverified observation; the mission’s own orders say to start the engines, so this guide treats the restart as the correct path.

2. After You Move: Keep, Discard, Rebuild

The Emergency Move throws away your firing origin, not just the enemy’s marker. A firing solution computed from where you were is worthless from where you are.

	After Iron Nest moves	After the battery moves or fires
Discard	Old turret bearing, range, charge selection, elevation, the red firing line	The old battery marker as an aim point — keep it only as history
Keep	Fixed listening-post markers, known spotter positions	Your own position (unless you moved), the listening-post network
Rebuild	Your own position first, then the full solution	Fresh bearings from new reports, then a new solution

The first Emergency Move typically leaves you with only a coarse area, not an exact grid. A coarse area is not enough for a precise AP shot: requisition Position Reports (two independent reports whose lines intersect) or use the post-move information the mission provides to fix your own location before spending expensive shells.

3. Let the Three Listening Posts Find the Battery

The mission deploys three friendly listening posts and announces them in the comm feed. Mark all three on the map before interpreting any report.

Listening-post reports come as an exact bearing, a distance, or a coarse direction.
Bearings start at the named listening post, not at Iron Nest. Drawing a report line from your own Nest is the most common way to build a confident, wrong solution.
One line is never enough. Commit to a battery marker when two independent reports agree; if they scatter, wait for another report instead of averaging unrelated lines.

4. The Counter-Battery Timer and the 90-Second Spotter Economy

The mission orders state it verbatim: “NOTE: Each of the Enemy Spotters destroyed adds 90s to the Counter Battery Timer.” Treat spotters as a time reserve, not a to-do list:

Battery position certain + enough time → shoot the battery.
Battery uncertain + timer collapsing → shoot a located spotter, buy 90 seconds, rebuild.

Do not chase spotters while the battery itself is well located — that spends the information advantage you already paid for. Players also report that the timer pressure is the mission’s real enemy: the developer’s own statistics put Phantom Battery’s failure rate about 5% above Siege of Cartagena’s, and three post-launch patches have rebalanced it.

Unresolved: whether moving pauses the Counter-Battery Timer. One public walkthrough states that Emergency Relocation pauses it; multiple players report taking hits mid-move with the timer still running. This guide does not claim either rule — plan as if the timer does not pause, and treat any pause you observe as a bonus.

5. The Battery Moves: Finishing a Mobile Armored Target

The comm feed tracks the twist in its own words: “Reclassifying enemy: single unit · multiple guns · mobile · heavily armoured. Designate: Enemy Iron Nest.” After your hits: “ENEMY IRON NEST HIT. STILL MOBILE, REPOSITIONING.” and later “SEVERELY CRIPPLED. ONE MORE HIT SHOULD FINISH IT.”

Practical consequences:

A well-built AP shot that misses is not automatically a math error. First ask whether the target was still at the marker when you fired. If the latest message says repositioning, stop aiming at the old point.
The battery tends to stay near its previous area after moving (single-source observation), so shift report requests to nearby grids rather than restarting the hunt from zero.
Reports may return a spotter instead of the battery — roughly a dozen spotters can be in the sector. Move the report window; do not reinterpret the battery marker.
Expect the kill to take more than one solid AP hit; the comm feed’s “one more hit should finish it” language implies at least a two-stage kill. One successful player report could not confirm whether the final second round was necessary.
Stop when the teleprinter confirms the Enemy Iron Nest is out of action and the bombardment is over. Earlier “hit” and “reassessment” messages are phase updates, not the finish.

6. Phantom Battery Medals — and the Accuracy Problem Players Report

Gold thresholds from the mission record (build unverified):

Unaided Fire Distinction: no aerial reconnaissance used (≤ 0) and kills > 18.
No Quarter Cross: enemy kills ≥ 9.
Marksman’s Cross: average impact distance from nearest target ≤ 0.3.
Counter-Battery Commendation: counter-battery time remaining ≥ 260.

The accuracy caveat (player reports, unconfirmed): multiple players report that the Phantom Battery’s own shots are counted as your shots in the mission statistics — dragging down your accuracy rating and, in their experience, making the Marksman’s Cross gold unreachable no matter how cleanly you fire. One player reports finishing with 73% accuracy despite not missing a shot. The same report claims Phantom shots that hit friendlies count as your friendly fire. The developer has not confirmed or denied this behavior as of 2026-09-12; treat the accuracy medal on this mission as unreliable until it is addressed, and do not burn repeat runs on it expecting a clean formula.

Common Failures

Triggering the Emergency Move before the engine is actually running. The opening sequence is unforgiving; finish the restart first.
Treating the post-move coarse area as an exact firing origin. Recover your position with reports before building the AP card.
Drawing listening-post bearings from Iron Nest. Each bearing starts at the named post.
Buying AP before the battery position is defensible. The battery can relocate while you are still solving the map.
Firing at the old marker after a “repositioning” message. The point can be mathematically perfect and tactically dead.
Assuming a missed AP round means AP is wrong. Check whether the battery moved before questioning the shell.
Clearing every spotter on sight. Spotters are 90-second time extensions; spend them when the timer needs it.
Waiting until the last seconds to move. The Emergency Move only helps if you survive long enough to complete it.

Unresolved Questions (Labeled, Not Resolved)

Public sources conflict on the points below. This page does not pick a side; each is written so the guide still works whichever rule is true.

Question	Conflicting reports
Does APHE count against the battery?	One successful player run recommends APHE for margin; another player reports APHE “doesn’t count” and only plain AP works. Unverified either way.
Does moving pause the Counter-Battery Timer?	One walkthrough says Emergency Relocation pauses it; multiple players report the timer running through moves. Plan as if it does not pause.
Is the engine restart required?	The mission orders say to start the engines; one post-patch video shows movement without a restart and suspects a developer oversight. Follow the orders.
Does the battery start near a fixed grid?	Pre-patch players report a consistent rough area; post-patch players report randomized spawns. Treat every position as run-specific.

Sources / References

Iron Nest DB — Phantom Battery mission record — Operation 13 briefing and comm transcript, roster, starting resources, the +90s spotter rule, the AP requirement, repositioning messages, and medal thresholds.
Steam discussion — Phantom Battery strategy report — one player’s full successful loop: engine, Emergency Move, air recon, position reports, linked AP salvo.
Steam discussion — Phantom Battery difficulty thread — 69-reply thread including the developer’s failure-rate statistics and patch history for this mission, plus post-patch RNG reports.
Steam discussion — accuracy medal report — the player report that Phantom shots count as your own in mission statistics.
Steam discussion — opening-loop confusion — the retreat/relocation/timer complaints that shaped the Common Failures list.
Whisper of the House — Phantom Battery walkthrough — first-person pre-patch run used for the keep/discard discipline; its example coordinates are single-run and not reused here.

Update Log

2026-09-12: Published the source-checked Mission 13 walkthrough. Medal thresholds are mission-record values with build unverified; four mechanic conflicts (APHE, timer pause, engine restart, spawn position) are labeled unresolved rather than guessed.

Previous: Mission 12 — Blind fire, whose observer corrections are the same discipline this mission demands under the counter-battery timer. The Campaign Mission Route Map keeps Missions 14–15 planned until their guides are verified.

Iron Nest Mission 13 Guide: Phantom Battery