AAW Patrol Questions (CAPs)

[pjcoia]

Hi,

I have a few questions about setting up CAPs effectively.

1. I note that if I put multiple aircraft into the mission (AAW Patrol), they don't stick together in a group and therefore don't benefit from the weight of numbers as the often end up in 1 v 1 shootouts. Is there a way to maintain squadron groupings?
2. If allowed to explore contacts outside the patrol area, and my forces have far reaching air radar coverage, I can find myself with an actual CAP while the aircraft go ranging far and wide. Restricting the aircraft to no exploring contacts outside the area can result in them ignoring aircraft which have launched missiles at them. Additionally, if the enemy bases are close, as in Canary's Cage, the CAP aircraft pursue the enemy fighters all the way back to base and thus into SAM range, and get shot down - not the behaviour I want from a defensive CAP!

So, how can I set up a CAP that behaves "responsibly"? At this stage, I am reasonably new to the game, although I think I understand the Mission Editor quite well.

PC

[Rory Noonan]

Not sure about item 1, but item 2 can be solved with prosecution areas--after creating the mission, define the area you want your aircraft to prosecute targets in with reference points, then select them and add to 'prosecution area' in the mission editor. Your aircraft will investigate and pursue aircraft within the area, but ignore them if they cross back outside the area. Hope that helps [:)]

[Casinn]

for 1, one option is to launch them as a group, then assign them to the premade mission after launch. That's how I usually do CAPs.
In the mission editor you can group them as well, select them together before moving over to the left.

[pjcoia]

Ah, it took me a while to find that one and I'd probably stared at that little tab a million times!

I also noticed the concept of exclusion zones, can they be used to ring off SAM/AA rich areas until you intend to strike them?

[Tomcat84]

Prosecution areas are your friend in this case!

What you are thinking about in the second part is actually No-Nav zones. Those make sure your own forces dont go in there.

Exclusion zones are more like, if a unit goes in there (and I dont know who it is but he's certainly not one of ours) then we declare him unfriendly or hostile.

You could for example put this around a known enemy airfield so that anything that takes off from there is declared hostile. Make sense?

If prosecution areas arent clear ask away and we will answer But with those you can limit the range your fighters commit on targets so they dont go flying across the globe. (you have to tick "engage targets outisde patrol area" when using a prosecution area though!)

[pjcoia]

Tomcat84,

Very informative and helpful, thank you! I had no idea about exclusion zones, and combined with No-Nav zones, they'll be very useful.

The prosecution zones work quite well and handle most of what I wanted, but the other two will come in handy too. I built a quick scenario based around a 1981 Australian carrier group to test it out and it worked quite well. I might post it somewhere for other newbies to use.