Thanks Witch. First night was a very chaotic start and obviously not optimum,
as I am sure you will be able to appreciate. Still we managed to pull
something out of the bag. I wanted to be fair to 322, so I offered for them to
provide fighter lead, which they did, as I had Boot leading bombers and
starting to plan a route and me acting as overall co-ordinator. I did not want
it to appear that we were hogging leadership on our first night together. I
wanted to give people some room to find out how things might progress in the
future and who was likely to step up. I left it up to 322 to organise fighter
cover the way they saw fit, to see what they would do with it.
I had to ask some fighters to land and volunteer for bombers as we did not have
enough, then suddenly bomber pilots who could not join managed to get in and we
had more. Lots more other issues also. Then more fighter pilots turned up,
lol. Some of our pilots have also been getting disconnected mid flight for
some unknown reason. Anyway, in the end it was prudent to get going and make
the most of it. I did not want for people to get frustrated and I did not want
to appear over controlling for our first outing. My priority was for people to
enjoy the fact that we were getting together and meeting up to get to know each
other first, rather than making it too much like hard work for them (though it
was for me). Small steps towards better things and continuous improvement. I
think we got it about right as folks were happy at the debriefing on TS and we
have had additional written positive feedback from 322 after the event as well.
You might like to know that we seldom fly low level to target these days and
make use of altitude and cloud for bombers. We also don't like to use odd
numbers for fighters. Feel free to join us and perhaps you will be able to
sweep forward for our ground strike packages, but we don't like to have flack
woken up over the target or early messages on the map to warn the enemy that
there are aircraft in the area (of course there is always the risk that other
pilots on the server will do that at the wrong moment).
Tomorrow will be only our 2nd night of joint ops and we can expect all the
delays and waiting about that come with organising large numbers of pilots and
associated problems with server connection and sudden joystick problems, etc.
However, you should be able to rise above all that as an independent pair
unless we need you to fit in with one of our groups to make up or even out
numbers. Be aware that I may offer 322 the bomber lead this week to share
responsibilities between us.
Happy landings,
Talisman
On Friday, 24 January 2020, 18:20:07 GMT, Lee Fisher
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I think I have a suggestion and it comes from my reply to klem’s “book length”
email the other day.
Klem,
Good reply, book length means you’ve put some thought into it, get your reading
glasses, some cocoa and get yourself comfortable in your favourite reading
chair ;)
Your reply is in 2 parts, one about the escorts and the other about future
scenario’s which I think would make great Co-op missions, something we are very
short of in il-2, probably because the mission builder requires so much work
compared to the good old days of Aces High and Air Warrior.
Anyway, Back to the escorting….
I totally get what you say but you know I’m a solutions man not a problems man
:)
I agree with the numbers you quote for real WWII missions and those RAF planes
were facing around 200 LW aircraft in northern France but the numbers in Il-2
are all scaled down and mostly random tactics are used by lone wolf’s quite
often.
But I believe, with a small adjustment, it is quite possible to do it even
better than at the moment now that you have the extra numbers of 322 Sqn, and
that’s why the Blaggards offered their services to bump it up a little more
again.
Last Sunday you had 12 planes, split into 2 groups, 5 escorts, in elements of 3
and 2, you also had 7 attackers in P-38’s.
The strike went well with the target being closed in one pass and multiple
buildings etc destroyed, IIRC you only lost 1 P-38 near target.
The escorts seemed to have a harder time of it, I sometimes wonder if 56 treat
the escorts as sacrificial as long as the bomber gets through?
Anyhoo, The escorts got some air kills but didn’t protect the lost Lightning
and they seemed to be in a challenging position to provide cover, being on low
power settings because of low fuel, caused by waiting a long time for the
strike planes to take off and therefore ending up behind the strike planes.
Seems departure needs some attention too but I saw that Talisman mentioned
better punctuality for mission starts.
Now, to me the escorts, they should only be in elements of 2, any “odd” numbers
should be in the strike package. If you’d have had 6 escorts last week, instead
of 5, you could have had 3 elements of 2 which may have been more flexible but
I believe a large part of the problem is the escorts position.
Looking forward, “if” the Blaggards get invited, there could be 4 elements of
2, now we’re talking decent numbers for an IL-2 server.
Remember you only see the odd enemy or two en route to target, once at target
you will see more “lone wolf” blue’s looking to vulch the next attacker.
So with say 5 attackers and 8 escorts, if you deployed in one of these ways I
think the survival for everyone would increase,
either:2 remote escort elements, separately, sweeping just ahead of the
attackers and 2 detached escort elements, 800 yards on both forward quarters of
the strike package.
Or,
1 remote escort element sweeping ahead, 2 detached escort elements, 800 yards
on both forward quarters of the strike package and a final detached escort
element, 800 yards above and only slightly behind the strike package I believe
you would have much more “secure” force all the way to target.
You’ve already recommended that as soon as the attackers have dumped their
bombs they go straight into being aggressive fighters and that is a great idea,
with the caveat they break into separate pairs to do that fighting and all the
Lightning elements should just be “near” each other, rather than maintaining
the tight formation used to get to target. Mutual support not individual
dogfights, although if you get in a turning fight in a Lightning it does really
well, trust me, I fly blue sometimes.
You must also consider the option of what the strike aircraft do should they
get bounced before target, I don’t know what your current SOP’s are but you’ve
probably lost the attack part of the mission if the enemy get within guns range
of the attackers, to me the attacked strike aircraft should dump bombs and cry
Tally Ho! You may get an air kill instead of a ground kill :)You can then
decide whether to re-plane with bombs or carry on as extra escorts for any
attackers still with bombs or, if no-one has bombs left, turn it into a huge
fighter sweep.
Patch changes mean that silver planes are not so easy to see will help but the
issue hasn’t gone away completely, low planes are still visible from higher
altitude. This brings me on to the subject I think will have the greatest
influence on overall success.
I know I’m a broken record suggesting the strike goes in at higher altitudes,
BUT, if the strike package goes in at very low level it makes the escorts
really vulnerable and really hard to do their job effectively. I’ll explain why
in detail below in the 2 examples I give of a strike package.
An example of a low level attack:With the strike planes on the deck and cloud
base at say 2km or higher, ~6,000’ or higher, ’ the detached escorts are
between a rock and a hard place, if they fly at cloud base they are too high,
too far above the strike planes to provide quick cover, if they fly ~800 yards
from the strike planes they will only be at 2,500’ to 3,000’ which means they
are easy prey for the blue planes loitering at cloud base, and the blue planes
have the option to just bypass them and go straight down to the strike planes.
If the strike planes, due to savvy route planning, get to target without being
attacked, the forward sweep escorts, who will have HAD to go up to cloud base
altitude, will sweep the target area and try and drag any enemy away or engage.
hopefully, this distraction will make it easier for the attackers who about to
start the attack run.
Attack just above cloud tops:Alternatively, the strike package sits at a
height above clouds where the leader is able to navigate from, say cloud tops
are 10,000’ the leader may choose to sit at 11,000’ to see through cloud gaps
to confirm his position. The detached escorts are then able sit the “right
height” above them, about 2,500’ higher and slightly behind with the other
detached escorts 800 yards out to the front, co alt with the attackers. The
forward sweeping remote escorts, just a couple of minutes in front, will be
able to warn everyone what’s going ahead of them.
At the target, the forward sweep do the same thing again, but with a bit more
energy, diving down through clouds to see if any enemy are about and either
draw them off or engage them, they can also make a report on the target itself.
The detached escorts come next, about the same alt’ as the strike planes, but
these stay higher over target to maintain energy should they need to dive down
and clear the 6 of the strike planes, all escorting done in elements.
As described above, in both cases the strike planes, when they drop their
bombs, convert directly into fighters, also in pairs, and fight together rather
than focus on egress, there should at this stage be around 12 friendly
fighters, about half of those in, very easy to ID as friendly, Lightnings,
making attacks on the enemy easier.
I don’t do bombing attacks so I can’t suggest how you would pair up the
attackers so that they can stay together and fight together when they need too,
I don’t have solutions for ALL the problems ;)
So, for a training session I would suggest positioning remote and detached
escorts as Shaw describes and see if it works, even a bit, for the escorts and
attackers, and evolve it from there in your own style.
Witch
On 23 Jan 2020, at 1:57 pm, Michael Colby (Redacted sender "michael.colby82"
for DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Gents,
On the odd Wednesday squad night I would like to sometimes slip in a training
session for the first hour or so on an opportunity basis.
The idea is to easily and quickly give us the opportunity to try out ideas and
engage in proof of concept activity should any of us have any ideas or
suggestions, perhaps emanating from a previous Sunday joint operations night.
I am not talking about anything too onerous, as I know that mostly people just
want to turn and start attacking the opposition on Combat Box. So, if folks
turn up on a Wednesday and are not keen to train or try something out on a
training server that I have identified then I shall drop the idea and we can
carry on as usual.
Happy landings,
Talisman
