Fighters' weaving

[Lagarto]

Currently, when two flights of fighters fly together, one goes straight and the other weaves above it. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's not the way fighters flew, unless they escorted bombers. When they headed out on a mission, a patrol, sweep or whatever, they just pressed on together. Otherwise the second flight would have used up much more fuel than the first flight, and sooner or later they would have to split up, wouldn't they?

If I'm right, could DT possibly look into the matter and give us a proper fighter formation?

[Luno13]

I noticed this started occurring after the latest patch. Hopefully a fix will be made, or an option to split up flights with some covering others.

[Treetop64]

Lagarto is talking about when two fighter wings are flying the same mission, and the player is leading the first flight and flying along his route, the second wing always flies faster and makes S-turns and/or roundabouts to keep from overtaking the player's flight.

This issue is much older than the latest patch, as it dates all the way back to Forgotten Battles when DGen was first introduced. DGen always issues the second fighter wing to escort the first. If there are three fighter wings flying the same mission, the second will escort the first wing, and the third will escort the second wing, so you have a situation where - if the player is flying the first wing - the third wing is S-turnig over the second wing, while the second S-turns over the first wing.

It's not a big deal, though. Just let them do their thing, and they'll do their job of immediately pouncing upon any enemy fighters they spot. They ignore anything that's not a fighter so if you want them to attack bombers, you'll have to order them to. If it annoys you, however, simply order the third and/or second wing (in that order) to "Rejoin", and they will duly fly along the waypoints on their own (they don't actually "rejoin" you, per-se, but just re-establish the route). After about ten or fifteen minutes they will go back behind and above you and start S-turning again, so you might want to re-issue the Rejoin order every once in a while if nothing is going on and you don't want to be escorted.

[Luno13]

The trouble is when you're in the second flight...You have to try to keep in formation with a seemingly unpredictable leader, hence my concern.

[Lagarto]

Exactly, I usually start a campaign with the lowest rank, so I'm No. 8 in a two-flight formation, and have to weave all the way to the target, with no possibility to give any commands. On huge maps like the Solomons it can be tiring. Anyway, it's not realistic. Here's how Richard Turner of 354th Fighter Group described a proper formation:

"The high squadron took up station 500 feet higher abreast down sun, away from the sun’s position and the low squadron 500 feet lower abreast up sun or toward the sun’s position, which gave each better sight coverage of the other’s sun blind side and rear. […] The flight positions flown in squadron formation were essentially the same relative positions of those of the squadrons to each other in the group formation, nearly line abreast, staggered up and away from the sun’s position”. ("Mustang Pilot", London 1975)

No weaving!

[Juri_JS]

I have send Asura a link to this discussion, maybe he can fix it in one of the next DGen versions.

[Lagarto]

Thank you, I didn't realize it's a DGen problem.

[Juri_JS]

Treetop is right, it is a DGen problem and there are other old problems with the behaviour of fighters too. When you played my Solomons campaign you might have noticed that sometimes one AI escort fighter flight will not stay with the bombers but will fly ahead. I hope these issues can be fixed by Asura in the future.

[Asura]

The question with mutual position of groups exists. From the very beginning in the generator such construction when the second and third groups carry out cover of the first was realized. To change it it is possible, but at first it is necessary to solve a question with behavior of AI. I now play version 4.10 MOD and I know that if the player acts as the leader to it only the first group submits, other groups don't fly together with the player, and follow a route which is put in mission. If the player changes a route and/or speed of flight conducted groups don't repeat these actions. To force them it is possible to submit only having ordered to cover. With bombers the problem is even more - they always fly in itself. At 4.11 this situation changed? If yes, that I without problems make groups independent.

[Lagarto]

If making flights of fighters escort one another is the only way to make them stay together, it's better to leave it that way. It's not realistic, but at least they act as one formation.