AFK campaign: Just don't die?

[AgentZigzag]

Hi guys

As I mentioned I am playing through the campaign (on realistic) in an effort to get used to the game before getting my ass handed to me online and I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this:

Is it the case that on some missions all you actually need to do to complete them is not die?

I played two early missions last night (One of the Dover ones and the first Starlingrad mission) and over the course of the two I shot down a grand total of 1 enemy plane.

On the first mission "Red skies over Dover", I would chase one enemy only to have it get shot down by a friendly before I could get to it so I'd turn around and find another target only for the same thing to happen again.

On the Starlingrad mission "They shall not pass" I actually took no part in the fighting whatsoever. After an initial attack, the 3 enemy fighters took off across the map in opposite directions, far far away from the city they were supposedly there to attack so I just hung about above the city (the defence of which being what the mission brief had told me was the main objective) and after about 12 minutes all the enemy fighters had been shot down and... mission accomplished.

I'm not criticising particularly, I just wondered if I am having a freak occurance with some strange AI or if this is typical of other player's experiences.

On the one hand its unusual for a game to make you feel like what you do doesn't necessarily matter that much but on the other (if it is supposed to be happening like this) its refreshingly realistic compared to other war games (like COD for for example) where your allies are pretty much just window dressing and you are doing all the actual killing.

...Sorry that turned into quite an epic post.

Peace
ZZ