ORIGINAL: jarraya
I sent a strike package out to strike a target. I knew that the package would use 2/3 of their fuel getting to target. So, I place a tanker in a position to top them up on the return, within 1/3 of their fuel remaining. Top them up and they can fly home.
Under the current set up I can not send my planes beyond 1/2 their range without refueling first, despite manually being able to save the planes by correct placement of my tanker.
Hmmm, perhaps something is going wrong. Because it is possible, the only caveat being that you need to have the tanker in the right place before they hit bingo. Load the attached scenario. In it you will see the Middle East (how surprising!) with the USS Nimitz cruising in the Red Sea, a group of hostile buildings in central Iraq, and a KC-46 on station near the Saudi-Iraqi border.
If you just hit play, two 2-ships of Super Hornets armed with GBU-31s will take off to patrol the area around the buildings. Mission 1 has Use Refuel doctrine set to
No, mission 2 has it set to
Yes. This makes mission 2 decide to do pre-strike AAR (generally a very smart idea and preferred method in real life).
Mission 2 refuels and proceeds to drop all bombs then RTB, mission 1 realizes they arent gonna make it and turns back bingo, shortly after crossing the Iraqi border.
But I know, you said POST strike AAR. Well, in that case, load the scenario from scratch again and before unpausing, go to the mission editor (F11), select the mission Land Patrol 2 (AAR) and in the Doctrine/ROE/EMCON window set Use Refuel/UNREP doctrine to
No.
Hit play and keep a close eye on Victory 3 and 4. All four will start heading out again. After they are north of the tanker (right as they cross the border is a good time) pause and take a look at Victory 3. As you can see, he has about 6600 kgs of total fuel for about 800 miles range to fly left, but he is already over 500 miles from base. Hence, in about 69 miles (niceeee) he will hit bingo.
Now, go into the mission editor again and set the Refuel doctrine back to
Yes for mission 2
.
Briefly unpause-pause and you should see the effect this has:
Range to base (aka tanker) 62nm, range to bingo 526 nm and note that total fuel hasnt changed (still just under 6600 kgs) and distance to fly is still 797 nm.
If you now continue play you will see that shortly (in aforementioned 69nm) Victory 1 and 2 RTB bingo, 3 and 4 press on to strike the target.
On their way back (as they are RTB winchester), they will get some gas.
and finally they will land at the Nimitz.
So when does this not work? If you are not able to get the tanker on station by the time they hit their initial bingo. But then you might already be starting to cut it really close.
In short I think a lot is already possible and working well. One big thins is you need to be aware how to manage your Use Refuel doctrine.
Having said all that it does not mean I am opposed to introducing an Ignore Bingo doctrine. It might be useful for last ditch missile evasion, desired suicide missions etc etc
However: it should clearly be default to NO (as in: adhere to bingo is the standard) and perhaps it should have an additional Are you DAMN sure popup when trying to change it.
Also, for me it would not be the highest priority and if it's a bitch to code then maybe forget it. If it is relatively simple to code, then I am not against it, provided it defaults to current behavior, warns the player he is being risky, and also has a good note about it in the respective patch notes.
I hope this post helps some folks get more insight in Command fuel logic and AAR use!
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