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Post by magnifiscent on Apr 24, 2013 9:03:59 GMT -8
Snoggy had the great thought that air superiority just ain't what it used to be; the ground should be our focus and I agree. The current state of the game is such that we are not going to be able to loiter in an air space and kill all comers. Especially with the ground force's tendency to push DEEP into enemy territory.
The air squadron is going to become more focused on directly supporting our ground forces with close air support and ground attack. I want to shift our focus from the air superiority mosquito to liberator gunships.
I want to focus the air squadron around the idea of the precision strike and ground force suppression.
I would like feedback from other pilots as I do NOT know everything here, but what I would love to see would be pairs of liberators flying together and focusing their fire to destroy targets as quickly as possible. I want gunners trained to be able to hit targets accurately at full speed. Libs have the ability to project awesome amounts of fire power onto a target. 4 or 6 liberators working in teams of 2 would be hard to argue with. Liberator sections (2 planes) will be comprised of a leader and wingman - the leader calls the target and has operational discretion. The ground or air commander might call for lib support in an area and it will be up to the lib section to prioritize targets and determine the best way to get the job done.
Mosquitoes I want focused into the precision strike role. I want them to become scalpels to remove specific threats to our ground forces. Mosquito pilots will work more closely with the ground for specific strikes on enemy tanks, sunderers, or even infantry clusters. Mosquitoes will also be used to provide escort for the lib sections - ideally one mosquito per lib pair. Scouting is also a tremendous benefit to ground commanders. I would love to see at least one mosquito available as primary scout for the platoon during major ops.
Right now we have a small roster. I'm working on expanding that. We will likely never have full attendance at any operation and that is fine. As such we all need to learn to be flexible and sometimes play double duty when needed. We'll more of that out in training to come.
The air squadron will be gaining a bit more autonomy from the rest of the platoon. During ops we are going to make ourselves available as their close, dedicated support, but we are not going to be hugging the air above them being slowly chewed to pieces by waves of enemy air. We aren't going to drive deep into enemy territory where we have no support.
I would like to have some volunteers to stop into "flight lead" positions. These would be guys willing to take operational command during an op and communicate with the ground forces to help the air squadron provide support. The more of you who step up, the less of a burden it will be on the individual.
Some of you have expressed concern over lack of leadership on Friday nights (concerns I share). This is a great opportunity to step up and make sure that doesn't happen anymore.
As always, please share any comments, ideas, or concerns regarding this topic below.
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Post by thelordlylord on Apr 24, 2013 17:51:41 GMT -8
Communication and coordination with our ground forces will be tricky. In order to effectively support our infantry and armor, enemy AA will have to be suppressed, but the most efficient way to do that is with infantry and armor. Flight leaders will not only have to both relay strike requests from the ground forces to the pilots but also call on our troops and tanks to eliminate Skyguards and Bursters.
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Post by snoggy on Apr 25, 2013 3:18:01 GMT -8
Not to mention we need to raise morale!
Libby pilots talking to Mossie pilots...
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Post by magnifiscent on Apr 25, 2013 7:14:12 GMT -8
Communication and coordination with our ground forces will be tricky. In order to effectively support our infantry and armor, enemy AA will have to be suppressed, but the most efficient way to do that is with infantry and armor. Flight leaders will not only have to both relay strike requests from the ground forces to the pilots but also call on our troops and tanks to eliminate Skyguards and Bursters. It isn't as complicated as it might seem at first; the command channel on TS is REALLY useful for coordination of that. I'll be getting all the flight leads set up with that hopefully on friday in case they need it some time. Yes! Any ideas you might have in this area, please visit the Esprit de corps thread and chime in. I'd love to hear anything you might have on this topic. |
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Post by Hans1942 on Apr 25, 2013 8:17:03 GMT -8
I think we will have to face the fact that there are two significantly different game types when we play.
Defense and Offense.
Defense:
From what I have been seeing, Air Squadrons are actually geared towards defensive play for the following reasons:
1) AA Maxes cannot hide in their Spawn shields
2) Sundies need to be deployed somewhere for the attacking squads to keep getting into the base
3) Air can quickly get behind enemy tanks as they shell a place. ESPECIALLY at night.
In fact, Air has been proven over and over again to be the most effective way to get to Enemy sundies. Here are examples (all of which I have used and seen it be effective):
1) Air doesn't need to walk through hundreds of soldiers defending the Sundy. Most soldiers are geared towards fighting infantry.
2) Air doesn't need to drive through tank mines and rocket launchers.
3) Air can drop engineers and LAs onto enemy sundees (I did it recently and it was super effective).
Remember this: This game when defending is all about destroying enemy sundies. Everytime you destroy an enemy sundee you greatly diminish the attack of anything. Especially zergs. Most of the time why our offensives fail is because our Sundees get destroyed. Most of the time why our defensives succeed is because the enemy sundees get destroyed.
Air Squad is perfect for this! If the Sundee is in the open we can get to it. If the Sundee is under a bridge we can drop engineers and LAs on it.
BUT, we cannot hover around the defense. Our strength in defense is to get in, destroy the Sundee and get out. When we are linked its easier to hover. When our forces are deep in enemy territory, we need to be going back to a safer area until the next bombing call.
Offense
This is the harder game for Air. We are super effective when there are few forces on the ground. However, the multiplier effect of AA Maxes are great here. This because they can easily sit in the Spawn and be safe. In this situation we have to be ALWAYS moving. We usually get shot down when we get lazy. I have seen some amazing Libby pilots keep their Lib alive because they use the terrain very well and are always moving.
At the same time, we will have the greatest down time here. Since no matter what we will always be repairing.
Our strengths here are actually more of a diversion. If they are shooting at us, they aren't getting on point. They aren't fighting infantry. That means our infantry forces can get to them. If they are getting on point, we can bombard them.
Once more we have to keep moving. This means we will need alot of training for leading shots while moving. This is very hard but not impossible.
Targetting
The leader needs to set the Squad waypoint on the target. Smoke doesn't help nor does calling shots. That waypoint can be great for bombing calls.
Exp
We need to be able to sacrifice our want to gain exp for the strategic value that we can become. We can turn battles but compared to other forces we will prob never get as much exp.
Summary
We need to become precision strike bombers that target first: Sunderers. We destroy them and we can reverse ALL momentum of an attack. We can be outnumbered 5 to 1 but as long as those sundees stay dead we can hold back anything.
Exceptions:
Biolabs. Sorry but we are utterly useless here. lol
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Post by magnifiscent on Apr 25, 2013 10:42:40 GMT -8
The rapid strike is definitely the way I'm planning to take us. There ARE situations in which liberators can hang around and provide suppression, but in most cases their main tactic may be a pass with the tank buster and a quick salvo from the belly to take out a target like a sundy. Daltons might become the primary of choice, but I'm going to let lib crews determine that and flight leaders make that call on the fly depending on the situation.
Mosquitos are EXCELLENT at killing armor. 1 mosquito can rocket a tank from behind and kill it in a single pass. The mossie is fast, small, and agile, meaning it can usually get around behind an enemy, strike and get out with some health left. It'll take about 3 mossies to get a sundy in a single pass which is why I'm suggesting running them as flights of 3. But the sundy isn't the only problem. Tanks are a real issue too. Our prowler pack is good, but having air protect their flanks can make all the difference in their attacks. Striking base turrets can be huge too, learning to hit them together and overwhelm them is essential.
These tactics are useable on offense or defense. Either way we aren't generally going to be sitting over the action where we can take fire from 3 hexes away. We are likely going to be somwehere safe (determined by the situation) either waiting for a strike order or doing our best to provide close air support for our platoon. I don't think we need to be sitting around doing nothing until called, but we need to be ready to go instantly when called - that means saving rockets for a pass if needed. We don't want to realize we're out of ammo at a critical moment.
We're going to develop some close air support doctrine that covers primary targets, how to go about attacking those targets, and what to do while we're waiting for a strike order.
On offense having libs overhead hitting defenders as they try to leave spawn or focus on the ground is a huge help. As you said, hans, it diverts attention away from the infantry and tanks, but this is much more than just a diversion. Having the enemy fear to leave spawn, or looking for covering or thinking about killing the libs causes them to be less effective on defense. We don't have to sit still and soak AA fire to accomplish this. A team or two of liberators making passes against a target can provide serious suppression without risking too much damage.
Targeting:
We are going to have to work this out. I've been thinking of multiple methods ranging from keeping as part of the main platoon all the way to creating our own platoon with individual squads for each flight. All of the options I've come up with have their advantages and disadvantages. We'll likely have to try out several and see which one works the best the majority of the time.
The squad leader waypoint just doesn't cut it, alone. With multiple flights in the same squad, you'd have the ability to mark only a single target. The smoke isn't as visible from a distance, but DOES allow you to mark multiple targets. You can see the smoke far enough out that you can make last-minute adjustments to your aim and it tends to render faster than targets giving you a second more two more warning than it would otherwise.
We're going to have to use combination of intel from the ground, some sort of general waypoint, the map, and then quick reactions to get a precision strike in. It might even require a second pass in some cases. This isn't easy mode flying, but when we get a handle on it and can pull it off in a pinch, we're all going to look like big damn heroes.
The more we put it into practice, the more targeting will work itself out. We'll try multiple options when we can - working with the main platoon, working with spec ops, using our own platoon and markers, etc. It'll take some trial and error, but we will work it out.
This is just going to take practice. I really want the skywatch to start flying together during the week and communicating more effectively while we do it. Holding a practice once or twice a week will not get this done - we are each going to have to adopt this behavior and make it a part of our regular flying habits.
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