Escort missions

[ultradave]

I must be missing something basic. When I create say, a Recon mission with 2 Buccaneers (Uncle Mark's Uganda Air Ops tutorial), and add a couple of Lightnings armed with and AA load out, I want to select the 2 Lightnings and designate them as escorts (otherwise they race ahead to get to the recon box). But the bar is always shaded. I can select/deselect the aircraft with the box in the Units Assigned to Mission box, but can never designate them. The bar never lights up for me to click it.

I've tried this with the game's included air scenario too and same results. AEW mission with 2 E-2C's assigned. Assign 3 F-14's but can't designate them as escort.

What am I missing?

Build 870.4

[ultradave]

Works fine with strike missions but I thought there would be a way to escort an AEW mission or recon mission.

[Cik]

you can't escort support missions.

i'm sure there's a reason why somewhere, but in the meantime just use an AAW patrol assigned to the same reference points and it'll do the job fine.

[ultradave]

Ok, thanks. That usually works fine for AEW missions since they are behind the "lines". I was just hoping to be able to avoid a bit of micromanaging to have the escorts accompany a recon mission - where the recon plane is slower than the escorts.

[Gunner98]

Agree that its not perfect but you can help mitigate the micro in two ways:

-Have the AAW mission 'inactive' with a timed start. Do some calculations and figure out what the best time separation is for the two missions. It will run automatically from that point
-Adjust the transit speed on the AAW mission to match the Recon AC. This will induce some inefficiency to your AAW mission fuel usage but not unlike an escort task.

B

[ultradave]

Thanks Gunner. Yes, that's essentially what I've done.