How to Group AWAC with Fighter Escort

[Geckomeister]

Hey Guys,

I am pretty new to CMO.
Have two questions:

1. How can I group an AWAC with a couple of fighter escorts on a mission and will the fighters actually escort the AWAC (ie. fly in formation and defend the AWAC)?

2. I tried a tutorial mission where I selected two pairs of fighters in Aircraft Operations, but they were different fighter types (ie. 2 x F16 and 2 x F18). I then selected launch as group, but they didnt group the 4 x fighters together, and if I selected the G key, they still wont group together. Am I missing something?

Cheers
Gecks

[Kushan04]

The answer to 1 and 2 is the same. You cannot group dissimilar aircraft together or the same type of aircraft with different loadouts.

if you have two aircraft of the same type and with the same loadout and they don't appear to be grouping; hit "v" to toggle between unit and group view mode.

[Geckomeister]

Why for the love of God cant they be grouped?!?! [:D]
In real life I could have a mixed sortie [8D]

[maverick3320]

ORIGINAL: Geckomeister

Why for the love of God cant they be grouped?!?! [:D]
In real life I could have a mixed sortie [8D]

+1

[boogabooga]

1) You can get the behavior that you want, but you just have to get used to CMO's rather abstract mission system.

Play the attach example as BueFor. Notice that with a Patrol Mission and relative reference points, you can define an area around the AWACS for an air patrol to prosecute and set up the patrol path within that area. This effectively acts as an AWACS escort, even if you don't explicitly definite it as such.

Escorts can be explicitly defined for Strike Missions, but AWACS probably would not be able to be assigned as the "strikers, but perhaps you could do something clever such that the AWACS and fighter escorts are all assigned as Escorts for a strike mission.

[thewood1]

I'm not sure what you mean by mixed sortie. What does that mean?

[thewood1]

One of best ways I have found to escort support missions is to create two different missions. One using a support mission for the main unit. The other is a patrol mission for the escorts. The escorts' patrol zone is a set of relative RPs that follow the main unit while its on its mission. I only use the built in escort function in missions that are fairly simple, like an AWACS mission with a couple escorts. Using two missions approach gives a lot of flexibility to use the escorts as reserves and to retask them. It also makes working with lua and events a little simpler.

[stww2]

As a practical matter, in most situations involving AWCACS it's probably going to be more useful to deploy fighters ahead of the AWACS aircraft along the most likely threat axis (which thewood's solution will allow one to do). This will allow them to better respond to threats to the AWACS than if they are flying in formation with it as the OP is requesting.