Thoughts after last AVG mission

[_AH_DarkWolf]

S! chaps,

Just some thoughts about how the last AVG mission went and how we can improve.

We had a total of 16 a/c, 4 flights of four. The enemy consisted of 6 Sally bombers followed some distance behind by a mixed forces of Oscars and Nates.

When we encountered the 6 Sallys, 10 of our 16 aircraft moved to engage. The remaining 6 aircraft continued on and tangled with the fighters but were heavily outnumbered in short order.

1 flight and 1/2 (6 a/c) should be sufficient to deal with 6 bombers. Maybe even just 1 flight, but the extra element gives some insurance. 10 was overkill. The idea is to commit as few of our aircraft to engaging a given group as possible. Sending in only what is needed to do the job and keeping the rest ready to engage further threats. Flight leads should be aware of what the other flights are doing and if sufficient friendlies are already engaged don't lead your pilots into the fight.

Now, there may be situations where we need to send in the majority of our force. Times when we need to send in 10 of 16 aircraft. In those instances the remaining 6 aircraft should not continue on by themselves as they might be quickly overwhelmed, as happened in the last mission. They should instead hang high above those who are engaged, remaining "on the perch" as Gonzo used to say. This allows them to drop in if the situation turns bad for the guys below, does'nt leave the smaller group isolated and keeps our strength concentrated in case a large number of enemies shows up. We'll be in better shape if we all stay in the same area and let the enemy come to us.

Just some things to consider before the next scrap.

DW

[_AH_Col._Hogan]

Well said General Chennault.

S!

[_AH_Lippy]

This all works if the flight listens and obeys thier leads and not go off and do what he wants to do. I have asked that my flight fly to the mission in formation as a flight and have yet to see all four or attached number of planes in formation. I also understand that this squad is not the military and our structure is built to have fun and I wish to continue to have fun. But there comes a time when we need to mix the two Structured/Fun together in order to obtain a goal such as what DW is stating. Just saying. Or is it Just Babling  (tongue)

[_AH_fraggmann]

Some flight leaders are just a guilty. :unhappy-059: In the past few missions after take off
I find myself chasing my flight lead to catch up and I over heat. :surprised-041: His wing man
forms up on him and they are gone. :thinking-008: So Im forced to slow down to cool and get left
behind...alone... :bomb-034: in a combat situation with an over heated engine. :help-sos-sos-29402: It's tough
to be combat effective when your engine is over heating and your Lead is
5 Kms ahead of you. :sad-056: Both DW and Lippy are correct in my case. :cool: I act alone because Iam
alone.
I know I'm the new guy and have now ruffled some feathers pointing this out but..... I'm just saying :lol-029:

[_AH_DarkWolf]

Both issues can be solved with communication. If you're a Flight Lead and you look back and your guys are spread out too much or not following you, tell em to tighten it up.

On the other hand if you're trying to form up with your Flight Lead and are falling behind, let em know. Let em know you're overheating trying to catch up. The Flight Lead should always cruise at a speed where the guys following can comfortably keep pace. If the Flight Lead is at 90% throttle, that only gives the guys behind 10% to work with before they are into the WEP. I always found going to 80% right after takeoff worked good when leading.

DW

[_AH_taldrg]

~S~
   My 2 cents from the old guy.
I'd like to mention some of the glaring mistakes wingman teams often make that lead to their downfall:
1. Sticking to the deck during separation. Altitude is energy and energy is life. Staying low and slow, or even low and fast, will get you neatly shot down by higher relative energy pilots.
2. Conflict with wingman over tactical style. For example, you are determined to fly BnZ, while your wingman is set on turn-and-burn. In this situation, mutual protection is all but impossible. Unless the BnZ pilot abandons his superior position, his wingman is toast. The T&B pilot will lack the energy to join his BnZ wingman.
3. Overly strict target selection. Selecting a target each at the start of a dogfight is fine, but keeping with the target long into the game almost always becomes a handicap. Play it loose and keep in contact with your wingman as to target selection.
Essentially, the key is communication. The rest is simply smart ACM on the part of both pilots. For every mistake you make, your wingman must also pay.

  Respectfully submitted:
      TD

[_AH_Lippy]

I will slow my plane to 90/80 after take off to form up. In the last couple missions I am seeing D flight survive more and wish to continue this pattern. I may ask during the ready up to swap chanels so i can speak with the members of my flight for a minute or two. Tuesday is my first time to do so, I hope it goes good.

[_AH_taldrg]

~S~
   Lippy...I think I posted once before that there is a way that you can..on Vintrillo...set your squad members on a 'wisper'channel and you then can have back and forth comms that will not interfere with the main channel. If I didnot post it...I will look it up and post it again if needed.

[_AH_taldrg]

~S~
   An other tid pit I remember from _AH_Gonzo when he was lead. He would always keep up his speed but would turn 45 degrees left for 30 sec. and then 45 degrees back to course heading and 45 degrees right and then back untill his squad was all in place. That way..he said...they would have fighting speed if jumped while forming.

[_AH_DarkWolf]

Saw alot of good stuff during the last mission, especially pilots and flights doing alot more looking before leaping. I saw alot of guys being patient and staying on the perch. (Is it spelled perch or is that just the fish....nah I guess it's perch) Well done guys.

Things to remember about calling in on bandits. Always call in as you are making your final move into firing position. If someone calls in on the bandit you are on, just calmly let em know you're already on em. Don't be snarky like someone is trying to steal something from you. In a big dogfight it's not possible to mentally catalogue every in and out call. So call in but be prepared to be called off right away.

Try and be aware of whats happening around a potential target. Once you spot em, look behind em, look above em, you can often quickly ascertain if someone is already on em or not. This can avoid some excess comms chatter with "Who is on X?" questions.

Lastly remember - Calling in on a bandit is not a reservation. You call in on a bandit when you are in the final act of taking a shot on him since that is the most likely place where a collision with a friendly a/c will occur. That's what you're trying to avoid. Do not call in on a bandit from kilometers away. Doing so may cause friendlies who are closer and could have engaged to ignore the bandit, who might then kill a friendly before you can get there.

DW

[_AH_taldrg]

~S~
   Now that is some really good stuff. That is why DW is the Boss and get that big pay envelope each month.

[_AH_DarkWolf]

Good job keeping the flights together after takeoff last night guys. Was'nt perfect but it was alot better.

Everyone also showed alot of patience in deciding when to engage and that's good to see. I know alot of us wanna be aggressive and get in there and mix it up with the enemy but when we take the time to look things over (when we can, granted we don't always have that opportunity) we're gonna be alot more lethal with less risk to ourselves.

Lastly, well done on the landings. We had a good survival rate and nobody pranged on landing. Very nice.

DW

[_AH_DarkWolf]

S! chaps,

Ok, the navigation during last night's mission was a bit of a cluster.  We got there eventually but we could'a, should'a done alot better.



This is where we were operating. The green line is the path we were supposed to take. The yellow line is roughly the path most of the group followed.

So how do we improve? First we pay more attention to our headings. We always have speedbar on, which is great cause it always tells you your exact heading without the need to try and find that particular instrument in the cockpit.



A really useful tool is to have a compass rose printed out and on hand at all times. I'll just post the URL to this one since it's kinda large, I think it's the one Jack posted up.

http://s21.postimg.org/lbla5hzwn/Compass_Rose.jpg

So if you know where you are on the map and where you want to go is to the north-west, you can look at yer compass rose and see ok I wanna head about 315 degrees. Since speedbar is always telling you your heading, you should always be aware if you are heading north, south, east, west or anywhere in between.

The second thing is landmarks. Unless you are flying way out over the sea or the desert there are always a plethora (I totally did'nt have to google the spelling of plethora) of landmarks you can pick up to assist you. This includes shorelines, rivers, lakes, roads, rail lines, islands, towns, forests and airfields almost always in some distinct combination or shape. After takeoff when you set off on your first course, always be looking for the next distinct feature on the map in that direction.  Once you spot it and arrive over it you'll know exactly where you are and you can start looking for the next feature. In this way you can go from point to point and work your way to where you want to be.

So to use last night as an example, we took off and set a course of about 110 degrees for the city of Madalay. Can't miss Mandalay, it's quite a large city. Once we arrive there where do we want to go? South, so we steer 180 degrees. Also we look at our map, the big arse river should be on our right. As we continue south it veers away from us at close to a 90 degree angle. There's a point of land to the right with an airfield on it which is a good feature we can see from some distance. In the same grid there is a T junction between two small rivers, one river heads east-west the other south. Looking at our map we can see the road\rail combo we want to be following is on the east side of that T. Once we pick up those lines we just follow em, using our heading to confirm we are going the right direction. There are roads that jut off to the west from the north-south one and also the point where the road and rail splits which are all excellent landmarks to determine how far south you have travelled along that line. When done strafing you just set a course north, 0 degrees, until you pick up the large river again. At that point you have many features to assist you, the course of the large river itself, the airfield on the point, the city of Mandalay, the large islands in the large river, the large lake near our home field. It's very easy to pick your way from point to point up to Sadaung.

All the while use heading to confirm what you are doing following landmarks and vice versa. If you think you are flying towards a landmark to the south-east but your heading is 225 instead of 135, you'll know something is wrong.

A setting in the conf.ini that can be very helpful in navigating is LandGeom=. By default, LandGeom=2. This means that in Clear or Good weather conditions, the terrain will be drawn out to a distance of 36 kilometers before it fades into that blue murk. If set to LandGeom=3, the terrain will be drawn out to 72km in Clear or Good conditions. So you have double the view distance for the terrain. Note that this does not effect your ability to see aircraft nor your view when flying in conditions other than Clear or Good, in which case the visbility is less than 36km anyways. Furthermore this setting can have an affect on your performance, so if your performance is already marginal you may not be able to afford the extra draw distance. You'll find there are two LandGeom= lines in your conf.ini, edit the one in the section based on what renderer you use, OpenGL or DirectX.

Another issue we had last night was squadrons playing follow the leader without actually navigating themselves. So when 1st went off course 2nd and 3rd blindly followed. If we are all heading to the same area, it's ok if the squadrons are following eachother but they should still be keeping track of their location themselves. In this way the error may have been detected by 2nd or 3rd and all 3 could have corrected earlier. This also allows the squadron leaders (or whoever is doing the navigation for the squadron) to check with eachother to confirm their position\course changes. It also would'nt hurt to have a couple guys in each squadron keeping track of navigation so there can be some correlation (Two Rs but only one L in correlation? Really?) and confirmation of eachother's findings. As a wise man once said "Not one of us is as smart as all of us".

Anyways, food for navigational thought.

DW

[_AH_Bear]

One thing we taught in Joint-Ops was "Dead reckoning", flying by using the ground features and compare that to the map... we never used game features like seeing your a/c on the map... Coming from JO, Hollywood and I are both proficient in this. Just saying... im sure we could both help out in some way during the flight, i wouldn't want to take over the flight as was suggested last night but rather help out by pointing out when we are going astray..
My 2 cents..
~S~ Bear

[_AH_gatlingun]

~S~
My problem is not knowing how to use the compass rose or direction as much as it is not being able to see the land-marks. I know how to follow a heading but the roads are not clearly defined on our maps,at least,not in my game.

[_AH_Jack]

Next week, we'll be following a river, using tributaries and islands as reference points.  It should be easier than trying to follow a dirt road that's invisible from 6000 ft.

[_AH_taldrg]

~S~
   The thing I love the most about being a member of Aces High is that almost every mission we fly there is always something in it that brings back old memeries of my flying days (i.e.) jack saying we will follow rivers. I remember my first night flight on a clear night and the moons reflection on the river was the only guide there and back. What about when it was overcast...you ask?  Well...you flew low...slow and prayed a lot.

[_AH_DarkWolf]

Remeber chaps, tommorow we'll have to do some navigation again.

DW

[_AH_gatlingun]

~S~

Well,don't be in a hurry for t/o tonight,I am going to read the brief word for word and write down every heading and every landmark and follow no one so 2nd. squadron follow ME.

[_AH_DarkWolf]

Following another squadron or HQ is fine when we are all heading to the same place so long as you still keep track of your own location on the way.

DW

[_AH_DarkWolf]

Something I just remembered about the Landgeom= conf.ini setting, it only works in Perfect mode. I beleive for Perfect mode to be enabled you must be running OpenGL as your renderer too.

DW

[_AH_gatlingun]

Yes,I'm using OPEN GL

[_AH_DarkWolf]

Good job last night fellers, it was good practice to just have to use the big river to navigate. Remember though, it won't always be that easy.

DW