May 8 practice run battle plan

Pruned: 7/15/13 - SS

S!

Since this is a practice run and I still have a few questions to hopefully be answered on TS tonight I'm keeping to a simple plan.

Simple battle plan map
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Goal 1: Confuse the Hun about our tactics.

Were going to do an "En-mass" attack similar to BA3 tactics.  Hopefully they will see it as a lack of imagination.  However, we will not wait before moving to the front.  We are going to penetrate the lines as fast as we can.  All flights takeoff and make for grid 10 bravo 7 where we will group up.  On takeoff try to keep the circling to gather your flights to 1 time but no more than 2.  You should reach the rendezvous below 1000' or you've spent too much time alting up.  The SE5s should arrive first and all planes should alt up until the group heads for the front.  

(Use whispers not flairs to group up.)

If green squadron is grouped up sufficiently by the time they reach the rendezvous and both red and blue flights are there and waiting, then don't bother to circle just head for grid 6 delta 1.  During this leg the SE5s will use their speed to gain altitude.  For ingress formation red flight will provide cover on the north (left) side of the package, blue flight will provide cover on the south (right) side.  Engagement of contacts at flight lead discretion.

(Any aircraft that lag getting in the air for whatever reason are not to slow down the initial group attack, but follow as soon as they can using discretion from any info obtained on comms.)

Once at grid 6 delta 1 green flight lead will determine the first target within the area in the brown circle and the flight as a whole shall proceed to the target.

Goal 2: Wipe out as many targets as possible in the brown circle.

Goal 3: Locate as many of the recon sites as possible, regardless of whether they are active or not.  Especially important, record accurate location and take screenshot for future reference.  I'm assuming inactive locations still have the u shaped hangers still present.



At red and blue flight leads discretion they may dispatch single fighters to recon areas outside the package path in order to locate recon HQ positions.



In addition:
Any aircraft finding the train or vehicle convoy should announce and destroy.

Once these 3 goals are met (goal 3 being the most important) further actions shall be determined by flight leaders.

Based on the way that went last night I would suggest that we don't have any more gaggles.

In a couple instances we started out with a nice manageable 2 v 1 and ended up with 4-5 guys on a single German plane. I had 2 collisions with friendly AC's

Also does anyone know if we miss that initial target brief like we did last night is there a way to determine the targets?

Also Also, We are going to need to organize the flights well before hand and determine if we are going to escort defend or patrol.

Since the Bristol is about 30Kph faster than the Pfartz we could get away with letting them do there own thing and just focus on defense and patrol.

Cool, In that case we should make sure we define a series of way points for the 2 seaters. This is very helpful for us scouts and it allows us to stay in your general area w/o actually seeing you.

Our challenge is the Germans are always around 6000 to 10000 feet and to be of any use at all we need some altitude.

Since you guys like crawling through the mud we have a difficult time seeing you.

If we know you are between say Wpt 3 and 4, even if we don't see you we know we can provide cover if you get in trouble.

At a minimum were going to need a start / assembly Wpt back from the front so the use of flares isn't a problem.

A Way point just inside or close to our side of the mud.

A Way point just inside or close to the German side of the mud.

and at least 1 way intermediate way point or one for every 10km or so covered plus the target.

Since coms are unrestricted we should be able to keep pretty close to you guys w/o visual contact.

ALSO one thing we used to do in AG-51 on ground maps is name certain land marks. i.e. those 2 D's in the river crossing the mud.

It makes vectoring help in a lot easier than trying to figure out what grid your in especially if your evading gunfire etc.

The WW guys said they were fine being a resource for us this time around, so they will be given access to this forum and will sign up like the rest of us. SS will task them according to mission needs.

I really like what Hawg is suggesting about having waypoints marked on the briefing map so that it can augment the grid locations. Very easy to say you're between waypoint 3 & 4 for a general report...grids for a more accurate report.

All great suggestions!

For SS's reference, Flatspin and I will default to Recon; Stubby14, Lexx and Zed will be the 'pure bombers' and will be going after the assigned and random targets.

The targets Green will be on in this campaign are:
1. Barge; location to be announced in game (bomber)
2. Arty Spot; location to be announced in game (arty)
3. Supply train (any)
4. Supply convoy (any)
5. Convoy supply depot (bomber)
6. Staging area (recon)
7. Trench Mapping (trench mapper, any 2 missions of the 4)

Yeah! I wasn't impressed last night! Seemed disorganized. Not SS's fault or WW's, just not everyone on the same page like even the map wasn't what we thought.

Comms: Still not great!

Wingmen: What wingmen? You start out with one and it is so easy to lose your wingie it's like what's the point? It takes too much comms to figure out who you're next to. It's hard to say...Out West and set up slashing attacks when you don't know if anyone is listening to you. I never did see SS last night or he me. One flight Rooster and I worked this a bit then we lost each other.

Oh well, this is what happens when you try to fly full switch without the ability to see as in RL. It is what it is. I have always been and always will be a proponent of short friendly Icons to aid in REAL wingman tactics.

Not Ranting...just sayin'
Duff

Formation integrity is essential to maintaining wingman pairs. In a finger-4, wingman pairs are the elements. 1&2 are element 1 and on the left; 3&4 are element 2 and on the right. Elements can become seperated by a little (Green does this on attacks- only 1 element attacking at any one time) and still keep track of the other element.

If anyone or any element becomes sepeerated or lost, call heading and altitude. When all flight or element members are on the same heading it becomes fairly easy to find your other guys, assuming it has not been long enough that you are in radically different locations. If all are heading somewhat south, all are in the same area. Going to the same heading assures no additional seperation.

I think Duff is right once the fight is on every just goes helter-skelter.

I think this is actually true to life. In most cases it was pretty rare that a wing man pair stayed together through the entire fight.

The best we can do is practice sticking together to the point of contact (Space's point) and manage the situation the best we can there after.

One thing we might try is Numbering or Letter our aircraft. I don't know if this is possible from a skin pack point of view but if we could have numbers on the tops of our wings and the fuselage it would make coordinating a lot easier. I know i were to see a red square with a big "1" on it I could call directly to Rooster and let him know I was in with him.

Of course this means 4 - 5 skins per aircraft per flight. Have a 1-4 plus a blank one maybe?

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Yes, once the fight starts chaos is inevitable.

If you get seperated and need to rejoin, call a heading and both planes in the element cut out in that direction together. That gives seperation on the same side of the fight, and since they are on the same side allows for some mutual protection.

No.42_Space wrote:

Yes, once the fight starts chaos is inevitable.

If you get seperated and need to rejoin, call a heading and both planes in the element cut out in that direction together. That gives seperation on the same side of the fight, and since they are on the same side allows for some mutual protection.

If this is available as an option I would say yes this is our first and best bet, however in a case where the flight member get separated to the point they cant support one another I think it also likely that forming up will be problematic. i.e. one or the other is engaged which is what likely caused the separation in the first place.

In the immortal words of Steven Stills "If you cant fly with the one you love. Fly with the one your with."

Last night was a serious cluster, At one point had 12 guys trying to shoot down 2 enemy. A quarter of the guys in our fight were on different coms, I had 2 friendly mid-air's.

On the up side we did a pretty good job of taking it to them and were able to re group on the Double "D's" in the river pretty well.

With the speed of the Se5a, it should all be about separation. Element passes through and shoots if solution is there, continues on through. No turning or the Pfalz will have you.

Yep it was a cluster

Just to clear some stuff up, don't take this as a rant... umm well maybe some... but just general grumbling not aimed at anyone... (tosses grenade in the officers club) don't take it personally


Ok first thing. I never intended for red and blue flights to share comms. That many pilots on 1 comm is a disaster and always will be. I had asked to be moved to blue flight and was moved. Sat alone in that channel for nearly 2 minutes before being put in red with every one else leaving me thinking "what the..."

I put red and blue flight into separate sides of the ingress formation so comms could be separate. Red was on the left side due to greater numbers and higher chance of contact.

The STAR Brief, which we all know didn't happen, was where I planned to clarify my intentions behind the plan. Also I thought I'd get a little time with WW to coordinate options with them. We all know that didn't happen either.

The fast departure test was fubar and the old map was Syndicate flack to the rest of the plan. (excuse me while I burn an effigy of Butzzell)



But the good news is there is no way to have worse preparation for any future game. Even not planning can beat it. So I can do nothing but improve. And since we know the opposition thinks they eliminated the ability to make strategic plans that makes the general strategy for the campaign I previously conceived much more viable. Will be sharing that soon.

No.42_Hawg wrote:

I think Duff is right once the fight is on every just goes helter-skelter.

I think this is actually true to life. In most cases it was pretty rare that a wing man pair stayed together through the entire fight.

The best we can do is practice sticking together to the point of contact (Space's point) and manage the situation the best we can there after.

One thing we might try is Numbering or Letter our aircraft. I don't know if this is possible from a skin pack point of view but if we could have numbers on the tops of our wings and the fuselage it would make coordinating a lot easier. I know i were to see a red square with a big "1" on it I could call directly to Rooster and let him know I was in with him.

Of course this means 4 - 5 skins per aircraft per flight. Have a 1-4 plus a blank

I love this idea with one minor modification that will allow us to do this today. Our aircraft are banded for the flights, red green etc. our streamers are not required for flight identification so why not use them for flight position?

Flight lead would fly a checkered one for instance. Position two red position three blue position four green etc. and for the bicycle drivers, who are mostly colorblind, Your flight pairings of two could wear the same colour or lead checkered and wingman solid You would always be able to know your wingman, or element lead. It would drive the Germans crazy!

Just a humble bomber pilots opinion.

Well I dont know if I would agree with all of that. Actually having red an blue on the same coms was kind of a two edge sword.

On one had we could coordinate very easy, but on the other it got a little chatty.

If we could get more disciplined in our communication we should be able to have 8-10 people on a single channel.

With the targets not being reveled until the last minute its going to make detailed advanced planning rather difficult, no?

Take it as a learning lesson and figure out how to do it better next time.

We could always request another dry run.

No.42_Hawg wrote:

One thing we might try is Numbering or Letter our aircraft. I don't know if this is possible from a skin pack point of view but if we could have numbers on the tops of our wings and the fuselage it would make coordinating a lot easier. I know i were to see a red square with a big "1" on it I could call directly to Rooster and let him know I was in with him.

Of course this means 4 - 5 skins per aircraft per flight. Have a 1-4 plus a blank one maybe?

[img][/img]

[img][/img]

On this note I'd like to make another plug at pennants being used for flight member positions. Yes, it's not as visible as paints, but unless we throw in the use of non squad paints we won't have this option for some time. If the colors are used to denote flight position it could help clear confusion and with everyone using one the enemy cant target flight leads.

But now that I mention it, the use of non squad paints might be a good idea.

Per Squirrel:

Quote :

On this note I'd like to make another plug at pennants being used for flight member positions.

Me thinks this idea has some merit, my two cents. Plus then Hawg wouldn't always shoot me down in practice....

No don't shoot.

S!

No.42_Hawg wrote:

With the targets not being reveled until the last minute its going to make detailed advanced planning rather difficult, no?

A little but not much. We know what the targets are, so can plan to that. Break it down into little bits. Flat and I do recon; someone does arty spot; some group does trench mapping twice during the 5 weeks, all look for convoy and train, etc. Can always plan it to go from one part to the other (north to south) and like that.

In The Art of War by Sun Tzu, that is the factor of Heaven and Earth. Some things you can have control over (earth) and some you cannot (heaven) and you must learn to embrace both sides of that.

I am not a huge fan of the pennant idea for the simple fact that they are too difficult to see and then be able to tell if its checkered or not? Fugget-aboudit.

I think some of the things brought up here are good, but there's some that are over complicating a bit, others just not viable solutions. First: skins. Skins are a major PITA in RoF requiring community voting to allow the skin to be included in a skin pack that must be downloaded by all for it to work in the game. Potentially creating 16 or more skins per paint scheme per plane and getting the votes is a monumental undertaking with minor results for this problem. We have TS and FL's are required to wear the colored banner of their flight. If you're close enough to see a number, you're close enough to see the banner.

"Jack, wag your wings" ... There he is...

In a flight of 4 that should be no problem. A gaggle of 15...well...I doubt comms, ribbons or even icons would help with the confusion if they're all fighting two unlucky enemy fighters. Maybe the solution here is: "hey, there's wa-ay too many dudes on those enemies, maybe I'll hang high here for awhile in case more of their buddies show up" because, it doesn't matter if YOU are the one who gets in-game credit for the kill.

BTW: I will never go in for magic floating labels over aircraft in any sim I play, talk about killing my immersion...I'd rather dig out an in-grown hair than fly that way — no offense meant to those who do, but I'll hang up my joystick before I go there.

Where we screwed up last night was right at the beginning and it all comes down to communication, the improper setting up of comms, not using comms correctly and not being organized enough to do anything about it.

That's kinda what I though about the skins.

Spotting a little banner on a wing and wing wagging just isn't always going to be an option when engaged in combat, in fact a lot of time neither is talking. There are times when I am so focused on flying and shooting I cant hear, talk or breath. So I can't fault anyone for not being Johnny on the spot with coms in combat.

An excerpt of last nights combat

Me to him ...."Who is the the Red SE5a nose high on the Pfalz?"

Him to me .....................................................

No one answers so I don't know who I am in with. After about the 3rd call out Rooster answers but it turns out it wasn't him, it was Hammerhead and the end result is no coordination and a collision. Now I can't really blame HH as it was his first time wearing a flight skin and the first time in real combat with the squad and he was knee deep with that guy but if there was a way for me to ID him I would have known it wasn't Rooster.

I am just looking for ways to keep the same thing from happening again. Coms Are key but any additional info or edge we can give our selves is worth a discussion.

On the skins.... Do you "have" to submit them? couldn't we just have them in the squad and everyone else would just see a default skin?

If not I understand and I am not going to insist we add 4000 new skins lol, Maybe they will add something like IL-2 has at some point that just does this automatically with a flip of a switch.

The only way to do that is in "Mods on" play which rules out multiplayer pretty much. If you want to fly with the rest of the community they have to be submitted and included in a skinpack. Don't download the skinpack, you see a default skin, however...your computer will still occasionally look for the skin — folks report lag issues when flying on skins allowed servers that they don't on default only servers.

So the other solution is don't go running willy-nilly into a fur-ball and expect to be coordinated.

Rooster always wears his banner...and sorry Hawg...I just don't buy that you're close enough to see a red skin and can't see the banner!

I do like the banner idea..it's at least something! Blue flight lead wears Blue with blue skin etc. I think we should at least try it.

{Quote}BTW: I will never go in for magic floating labels over aircraft in any
sim I play, talk about killing my immersion...I'd rather dig out an
in-grown hair than fly that way — no offense meant to those who do, but
I'll hang up my joystick before I go there.{End Quote}

No offense taken and we'll have to agree to disagree on its effect on immersion. It is what you say it is and that's NO ICONS.

Yes to this: Maybe the solution here is: "Hey, there's wa-ay too many dudes on those
enemies, maybe I'll hang high here for awhile in case more of their
buddies show up" because, it doesn't matter if YOU are the one who gets
in-game credit for the kill.

The flight lead then the element leads should help control. How many times do you engage one enemy only to have another unseen enemy join the fight? There should always be a pair or two high over the Fray for protection...Hammer and Anvil.

Ah well, we can only hope we can take good and make better as we progress. I'm betting we do!
Duff

A day after, I think what we're looking at is something like this:

It was the first mission testing a new planeset with a lot more planes in the fray than we've been used to. Communication broke down.

As we continue to practice with each other, we will get more familiar with our rides and less 'tongue-sticking-out-of-our-mouth' concentrating and not paying attention to the comms in our ears. We're getting better, but have a ways to go learning to fly with one another: some of us have been flying sims for a long time, but we're still getting used to flying with each other. We're working on flying in four plane groups...how should we fight?

No.42_Hawg wrote:

An excerpt of last nights combat

Me to him ...."Who is the the Red SE5a nose high on the Pfalz?"

Him to me .....................................................

I have to kind of disagree with you here. Someone who's in the middle of a fight they think is 1 on 1 might not have answering that radio call as the highest priority that particular moment. And there were 3 of us at least fighting with Pfalz's at that time so it could have been any of us.

It's seems like the lack of communication leading up to events like that is the real problem. We should know who all the planes are around us that are in our particular flight any time but that seemed to break down very fast with people chasing after things on their own or not staying at the flight leader's altitude and then having to get back together or whatever whatever. It seems like maintaining the integrity of the formation is not a high enough priority. People drifting around, people turning or diving or climbing without saying anything.