Fighters' weaving
 

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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 :grin:

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

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.

In short, Freddie, cut that patronizing rubbish.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Yes! :) English is not my native language, sorry, but I do my best to make myself clear.