Target distribution through mission planner

[Eggstor]

In addition to setting the Shooters Per Salvo to 1, you need to disable using the weapon (in your case, the 500 kg bomb) in self-defense.

I put together a small scenario that demonstrates this, both with unguided munitions that by default expend everything on a given target and with guided munitions that by default expend a set number of munitions.

The difference in strike behavior between groups with unguided munitions versus groups with guided munitions might be something to look at. Groups with unguided munitions attack only one target at a time, while groups with guided munitions can attack multiple targets at the same time.

[thewood1]

That's odd because I had no issues with that in my run through.

[TyphoonFr]

ORIGINAL: Eggstor

In addition to setting the Shooters Per Salvo to 1, you need to disable using the weapon (in your case, the 500 kg bomb) in self-defense.

I put together a small scenario that demonstrates this, both with unguided munitions that by default expend everything on a given target and with guided munitions that by default expend a set number of munitions.

The difference in strike behavior between groups with unguided munitions versus groups with guided munitions might be something to look at. Groups with unguided munitions attack only one target at a time, while groups with guided munitions can attack multiple targets at the same time.

In your scenario, the weapons transported by each aircraft are sufficient to destroy each target.
But what happens if it is not the case.

Do the test with a harder target:
# 1295 A / C Underground Aircraft Shelter (30x Medium Aircraft)

[Puciek]

I don't think that this scenario can be done without micromanagement as it is, and what you've described is only half of the issue - the other half is that for the pilots then there is no priority between confirmed occupied hangars and empty ones when bombing them, so unless you manually retarget them - they will eventually get to them, after the planes may already be in the air.

I really would like option to make AI smarter in both those issues, as with large scenarios like that it's a big pain.

[TyphoonFr]

This is my point of view, I may be wrong.

I think the multi target strike mission works like this:
The planes of a flight remains grouped to attack, according to the doctrine a plane leaves the fight as soon as it has fired its weapons.
Targets are ranked by priority (A,B,C,D ...).

Whenever a target is attacked (that weapons are heading towards it) is no longer a priority, and it is the next target becomes priority and is attacked.
But the priorities are redefined each time the weapons have reached their targets and one destroys or not.

If for example, while the planes attacked the target D and the weapons fired on the target A, were not enough to destroy the target A, then the target A becomes again priority the planes attack it again before attacking D .

I think that depending on the flight time of the weapon (which depends on the range and the drop altitude), the power, the guidance of the weapon, the WRA, the distance between the targets, of the target type,the results will be different.

Airplanes armed with GBU12 SALH bombs can attack and damage, at the same time, as many targets as there are planes to illuminate the targets. And as the bombs need to be guided until impact, an airplane with SALH bombs, will not attack any other targets until the one he has already damaged is destroyed.
With SALH bombs, the WRA setting is important, if you allocate a bomb for example for a target that needs 10 to be destroyed, the guiding time of each bomb will expose your aircraft to danger near the target. Its flight time may not even allow it to drop all its bombs before reaching the bingo fuel.

With Stand-Off weapons, their flight time allows them to attack each target.

For the multi target,in some cases,micromanagement or 1 strike mission by target are the best solution.

One solution, try an ASuW patrol(ground),and assign several filght, the new settings "Number of a/c that engage hostile contact" allows to assign a flight by target and "Wingmen can investigate/engage separate contact within" set to 1nm allows the aircraft to leave the flight and attack separately.

[TwarVG]

I think you're right on the target prioritisation thing. Even when you only allow 1 aircraft to attack each target all it really changes is that only 1 aircraft will employ their weapons against the target at once instead of all of them while the rest hover around waiting for it to either be destroyed or damaged, where they'll re attack that target if it survived (which you don't really want for airfield strikes where destroying the parked aircraft is the priority and not the structure they're inside of) or move onto the next one. Either way they hover around getting shot at for too long so it still doesn't really fix it. The best way for me is to let the strike mission plot their course onto target and to unassign them all near the end and manually use F1 to give them each a target, seems to work the best even if it is a bit of a pain. Guided weapons are no problem to play with, but there's a certain charm about using aircraft armed with dumb bombs flying in at high speed and low level that GBUs just can't replicate.

I wonder how difficult it would be to add a feature or button where you can pair up an aircraft assigned to the mission and one or more targets from your target list through the mission editor window and let the game handle it all automatically.

[Eggstor]

I created a second version of my test scenario above to test a few other aspects, such as what happens if the first pass doesn't destroy all the targets and a plane still has munitions, if multiple targets are in the DLZ of a short-range unguided-armed group, and if multiple missions are assigned to the same set of targets. That's not to say the first isn't still useful. What I've found between the two test scenarios:

- Every mission assigned to attack a particular set of targets sets the same order of priority of destruction based on distance from the base and BDA (the closest target not deemed heavily-damaged is the primary), regardless of the number of missions. I haven't tested whether assigning aircraft from different bases affects this.
- All aircraft will fly a path to attack the primary target.
- In the Weapons Release Authorization for the attacking weapon, if the number of weapons per salvo is set to "all" and the number of shooters per salvo is set to "fill the weapon quanitity requirement", or if the weapon is set to be used in "self-defense" regardless of other WRA settings, all the weapons of an attacking group will be fired on only the primary target.
- On a per-mission basis, if either the number of shooters or the number of weapons per salvo is limited and the weapon is not set to be used in "self-defense", once the primary target has the requisite number of weapons launched against it, while the other aircraft on that mission will not alter course from the primary (except for aircraft in that group to maintain stand-off distance if that is part of the mission doctrine), they will attack other targets that are within their weapons' DLZ.
- If a second mission's aircraft happens upon the scene before the target(s) launched upon by the first mission is destroyed, they will also launch on the same target(s).
- If, when adjusting course to a new primary target or to reattack the primary, an aircraft with appropriate weapons happens to have another target that is part of the mission enter its DLZ, it will attack that target rather than the primary target.
- In a mission with multiple groups, if no planes in a group have launched because all the targets in the DLZ have had the requested number of weapons were launched upon, that group will continue to bore in on the primary target even if the "maintain standoff to target" option in the mission doctrine is active.