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Post by Hans1942 on Jul 2, 2013 12:21:19 GMT -8
After doing the TTA Air Friday night ops, I think we need to rethink air.
We should STOP putting all our mossies in one squad and all our liberators in another. It doesn't work. The result was that few mossies were actually defending their liberators cuz they didn't know which liberator to defend.
Solution:
We develop our squads to support a liberator or two. Perhaps a good ratio would be 1 lib for 4 mossies. That way a full squad runs two libs.
It will make it easier to identify which liberator we need to defend and track. A lot of the times we were running after our targets and forgetting about our liberators who were getting pounded by enemy ESFs. Furthermore, this will help us keep a healthy amount of liberators in the air. If you don't see a liberator in your squad, it is time to get one. So the leader of the squad would call out who are the next Liberator runners.
Think of the Liberators as the sharks and Mossies as the Pilot fish. This will also allow commanders to have more depth in their strategies in terms of placement of their respective air wings.
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Post by magnifiscent on Jul 2, 2013 23:07:58 GMT -8
Groups need to be smaller, for sure, and integrated, but rather than man coverage, I think a zone defense is going to be more realistic.
Communication breaks down between libs and escorts - things get frantic too quickly. Assigning specific ESFs to specific libs leaves a lot of room for breakdown of cohesion. If all ESFs in an area are responsible for all libs in an area, then we have overlapping escort coverage.
I'd like to see 2-3 libs assigned to a squad with 2-3 mosquitoes mixed in. Squad leader sets a way point which becomes and area of operation and designates a fallback point for resupply (marked with personal waypoints). Liberators focus on ground targets while mosquitoes focus air. The trick is to stay within the AO (area of operation) and not chase back and forth. Mosquitoes keep tabs on the liberators and the libs communicate their moves or needs to the mosquitoes. The biggest trick here - and something that real fighter pilots had a hard time doing in WW2 - is NOT CHASING. Escort isn't about making kills, escort is about protecting bombers. This takes discipline. Discipline is not naturally occurring. We need to train this behavior.
If we could get 2 semi-independently operating squads set up like this, they could be self contained packages that could be assigned where needed. Rather than putting 10 or 12 guys in the same air space, we could spread the unit around or let them set their own AO as the opportunity presents itself.
If we had left over mosquitoes I'd like to see them set up in pairs and operating as an aggressor unit - hunting enemy air and scouting along the front in a large AO. This job would be for newer pilots who haven't learned not to chase and need to practice cooperation.
We still need to fly together and get better about flying TOGETHER; calling out targets, backing each other up, and learning to cooperate closely.
Wednesday night ops are great times to work on this - communication is good during the times I'm able to be a part of those events.
Something that could also be a big help for us might be writing up a quick after action report on nights we have ops. I'm not going to demand this happen; this is a game after all. However, if a flight leader or a volunteer pilot would like to post a quick run-down of the evening after a particular event, it could be a big help to us all.
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Post by snoggy on Jul 3, 2013 4:39:21 GMT -8
Right, well, from a liberator's point of view.
Mossies are useless. They are either:
A) Crowding the airspace... hard to engage ground target when you have to dodge mossies in addition to AAA batteries.
B) Off chasing 1 ESF. A single reaver or scythe shows up, every swinging dick banks to engage... 10 v 1 is a little overkill.
I will point out I liked a few ideas the TTA has used. Place an objective, a hex or somesuch. Liberators generally stay in that area. Obviously, liberators are looking down more than up, so that suits us.
Fall-back points. Before TRG went to shit, the air squad actually had a fairly good thing going. Basically, you had a fallback line. So you have an Objective, and a fallback point or somesuch. Groups would dive in, make their strikes.. and fall back to said point... if they had problems the covering force could dive in.. sort of a bag and drag.
To be honest, my biggest problem is Mossies tend to be distracted far too easily. Most tote silly hellfires and think they are suddenly supposed to fire on ground targets. Most hover at 100m and plink at infantry.
I know a lot of mossies are not experienced fighter pilots... that is... they have played PS2, not Il2 or any of the serious sims... altitude is your friend. Your advantage is height and surprise. Most mossie pilots are more interested in farming ground targets, rather than engaging enemy aircraft.. hence the mistaken belief that hellfires are the best secondary weapon.
To be entirely honest, you won't fix this in one or two days, you need to completely focus mossie pilots on engaging air targets and forgetting about the ground.
Keeping the liberators corralled is fine, and can be worked on, but the first thing that needs to be fixed is the attitude of mossie pilots.
(For funsies, I found an old video of a friend of mine, gutted, from IL2. Insane deflection shots.)
Oh well, I spose I should post one from my old air unit, JG26....
As an aside, one strategy we mastered was vulch cap. Basically, you prowl behind enemy lines and pick off enemies one by one... as they are flying to targets... hit them hard, fast and escape....
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Post by Hans1942 on Jul 3, 2013 7:16:05 GMT -8
"Communication breaks down between libs and escorts - things get frantic too quickly. Assigning specific ESFs to specific libs leaves a lot of room for breakdown of cohesion. If all ESFs in an area are responsible for all libs in an area, then we have overlapping escort coverage."
-There is a big problem with this. As snoggy said, when one enemy ESF comes in, all mossies just run after it and forget about what they are supposed to protect. So one ESF comes in and the overlapping escort coverage just disappears. It happened in TTA and I noticed that I was one of the few ppl actually escorting the Liberators.
"I'd like to see 2-3 libs assigned to a squad with 2-3 mosquitoes mixed in. Squad leader sets a way point which becomes and area of operation and designates a fallback point for resupply (marked with personal waypoints). Liberators focus on ground targets while mosquitoes focus air. The trick is to stay within the AO (area of operation) and not chase back and forth. Mosquitoes keep tabs on the liberators and the libs communicate their moves or needs to the mosquitoes. The biggest trick here - and something that real fighter pilots had a hard time doing in WW2 - is NOT CHASING. Escort isn't about making kills, escort is about protecting bombers. This takes discipline. Discipline is not naturally occurring. We need to train this behavior."
- This I agree with. I think we need more training to stop the chase. Can 2-3 mossies really protect 2-3 libbies?
"If we had left over mosquitoes I'd like to see them set up in pairs and operating as an aggressor unit - hunting enemy air and scouting along the front in a large AO. This job would be for newer pilots who haven't learned not to chase and need to practice cooperation."
- So like a chaser unit?
- Perhaps we can get a review from the Liberators about how they felt about the air support, just like snoogy did in the previous post. They are probably the best ones who can give us good feedback as we are trying to protect them.
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Post by snoggy on Jul 3, 2013 11:28:05 GMT -8
TBH, you don't have to assign specific escorts, it quickly turns into a game of 'Where's my liberator i'm supposed to escort?'. Searching through all the planes in the air trying to find the right one.
Really it comes down to what Mag said. Stay with the liberators... stay high, above the liberators. All you really have to do is circle at max alt and patrol.
My biggest peeve was that we'd spend 5 minutes over an objective... and if there weren't any ESF's to fight you'd see all the mossies doing strafing runs... which just makes the air crowded and I spend all day dodging mossies.
Have one waypoint where some mossies are stationed, make it simple. "Hey I am dragging 2 reavers to the fallback from the west."
Makes it loud and clear. Liberator has 2 ESF's on him and he is going to a point that everyone knows.
Standard drag and bag strategy. Especially in high AAA areas, mossies putter about out of range, liberators zip in and make a run and then flee back to said point.. if an ESF follows the mossies can pounce, yet remain relatively safe from AAA fire.
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Post by magnifiscent on Jul 3, 2013 14:22:34 GMT -8
Snoggy has the right of it. The mosquitoes that will be working with the libs shouldn't even have ground attack weapons equipped and their eyes should be on the sky.
Combat Air Patrol is a high-altitude role focused solely on air superiority. Let the libs worry about the ground.
Drag and Bag is a fantastic way to deal with enemy air. Having a few mosquitoes ready to pounce instead of chasing whatever shiny object is around will make a big difference.
The concern about a swarm of mossies engaging a single enemy fighter is very valid and I hate it when I see it. Part of that can be handled with the sub-dividing. If we max out at 2-4 mosquitoes in an AO, maximum response is 2-4 mosquitoes. Training our pilots to break off once we've gotten a 2 on 1 fight going is hard and will take time. Everyone wants the kill. We need to drill in the concept that escort is not about kills and we need to develop trust. I don't worry about an enemy reaver when Colt or Hans say they are on him. That reaver is dead; I'm looking for his buddy and staying out of the way. Not only is it a waste of effort, there is a VERY really possibility that we'll crash 2 mossies in the process. Suddenly we've traded 2 mosquitoes for a single kill - not good.
I think we're mostly on the same page here.
As far as the aggressor squadron goes - let's table that for now. I got ahead of myself and it might complicate things. I want to get everyone working on the concepts we've outlined so far:
1. Escort, do not chase.
2. Stay out of the way.
3. Conservation of force - 2 mosquitoes to a target.
4. Effective Communication.
5. Situational Awareness.
The last one is very difficult to do, but trainable.
I'm confident we can get these things drilled and practiced in the next few weeks or months.
Once we're working together well on these areas we can talk about adding some extras like aggressor flights.
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