Drop tanks.

[mark dolby]

If a schwarm bounces a fighter unit escorting bombers soon after crossing the occupied coast does the whole Allied unit drop tanks? A portion? The schwarm drops its tanks due to bouncing?
If both units watch each other I presume tanks are retained by both sides?
Thanks.

[simovitch]

only the individual planes from a flight that decide to engage will jettison tanks. Usually it ends up being the whole flight if the enemy flight stays engaged in a dogfight, but if an allied flight of 30 fighters jumps a 2-plane german flight it should end quick enough so that some of the allied planes never engaged and still have their tanks.

[mark dolby]

So I presume if a Gruppe of about 30 fighters executes a bounce, roughly the same amount of Allied fighters will also drop tanks?

[simovitch]

Each of the 30 a/c will try and execute the bounce, sometimes in groups of 2-3 etc. The ones that are successful will drop tanks and engage a single target a/c. In the end it could be somewhat even but if one aircraft is faster or has a better rate of climb than the other the results will be skewed as one tries to engage and fails, and another and another.