Fighters' weaving

[Herra Tohtori]

Vertical separation between flights or flight elements was obviously an important part in the tactics employed by different air forces. They didn't just fly as a big formation at same altitude... maybe the DGen behaviour is an attempt to imitate that.

[Luno13]

The vertical separation is fine, no complaints there. Again, the problem is with the constant zig-zagging of the secondary flights.

[K_Freddie]

The way you describe it is the way they flew sorties... one flight looking out for bandits. Read a lot more books.. you'll see it all there

[Treetop64]

Originally Posted by K_Freddie

...Read a lot more books.. you'll see it all there

[SARCASM]OH, thank God you're here! We all needed that uppity, pretentious suggestion, as no one else would have considered that...[/SARCASM]

As mentioned by others in this thread, the issue under discussion is AI secondary fighter flights flying at full-throttle, burning excess fuel, and weaving and S-turning to avoid overtaking another primary fighter flight, not escorting traditionally slower bomber or attack flights.

Even when AI flights do escort bomber or attack units, or even fly secondary to another pure fighter flight that's just cruising along, they still use too much throttle, and do an excessive amount of weaving, roundabouts, and doubling back to catch back up with their charges.

[Lagarto]

In short, Freddie, cut that patronizing rubbish.

[eduzk]

Perhaps the AI could be modified so that when it is assigned to escort, it will behave differently when the escorted flight is fighter/bomber type? Stick in formation or fixed position with fighters and weave above bombers.

[FC99]

So what is the conclusion here, what is the desired behavior of flights that are on escort duty?

[Lagarto]

The behavior of flights that are on escort duty seems fine as it is. The problem is the behavior of flights on other duties, like patrols, sweeps and the like, when the first flight is 'escorted' by the second flight, while they should simply fly on together. But, as Asura pointed out, unfortunately this is what keeps them in formation.

[FC99]

Originally Posted by Lagarto

The behavior of flights that are on escort duty seems fine as it is. The problem is the behavior of flights on other duties, like patrols, sweeps and the like, when the first flight is 'escorted' by the second flight, while they should simply fly on together.

That's what I meant with my question, what should those fighter flights that are "escorting" other fighters do. Problem is,as I see it, that there is no "correct" behavior in these situations. I can find WWII examples for just about anything mentioned in this thread, from fighters flying perfect formation to flights weaving all across the sky while giving the cover to other flights.

[[URU]BlackFox]

The old AI grouped flights of the same squad when one was assigned to the other. That made them fly in level formation (multiple finger fours most of the time).

The new AI makes fighters treat the others fighters, even the ones in their own squad, as escorted (and so they weave above accordingly).

So I guess the idea of the thread is that when a fighter squadron has two or more flights attached to each other they should fly in a single group, and not have one weave above the other as if they were escorting an attack flight.

Having big formations (16+ airplanes) or setting the formation in FMB is something I would really like to see in stock version.

I hope the idea is clear, I did my best to explain.