Cannot launch combination strike??

[MikeCote]

I tried to launch 8 A-6 Intruders, 2 F-14 Tomcats, 1 KA-6 Tanker, 1 Prowler as a combo strike from CVN against a large enemy surface group and couldnt because it says no enemies for the Tomcats/Tankers/Prowlers?!? The AI doesnt understand Air Cover, Radar suppression or Tanking? Or am I doing something wrong?

[DWReese]

On Strike Packages, the planes are categorized as Strikers or Escorts. Any plane not a Striker, should be designated as an Escort. look in the box and you will see a spot where is says check for escorts. The Tomcats are escorts because they are providing cover/

I have never seen a strike package with a tanker attached. I don't know if that will work. Usually, you would have to set up a special tanker Support Mission about halfway to the target location and send the tanker there. Tankers aren't very fast and they would slow the progress of your attack.

The jammer will stay with the attack formation. It will generally fly behind everyone else, and will turn around and head for home only after all of the attackers are leaving. This is true for all escorts.

On a similar note......For fun, you can create the same mission and assign aircraft from two different bases to the mission if you like. The strikers will launch from one, and the escorts (if you desire) can launch from the other base. the escorts will catch up to the strikers and then proceed on the mission. It's pretty neat. The devs did a great job with this.

Doug

[Fido81]

I would just add to DWReese that if you are using the Prowler for OECM, its jamming equipment is sufficiently strong that you could possibly use it in a stand-off role. You can create a support mission for it just like your tanker (don't forget to go to that mission's EMCON page and set OECM to Active), and your Prowler will fly out to its waypoints and jam the radars from a considerable distance (farther away, so safer, than it would be as an escort to the strike mission).

If you're using it for SEAD with ARMs, I suggest making it an escort in the strike mission. In this case, be sure to go to the escorts tab of the mission and either verify that flight size for escorts is not strictly enforced, or change the escort flight size (because the default flight size for escorts that shoot is 2). And while you're looking at that panel, I suggest playing around with the distance from the package that the escorts will go to engage threats - I tend to find the default larger than what I want.

[kevinkins]

Not sure I ever was able to throw mixed forces into a single strike mission as contemplated by MikeCote (welcome BTW!) and get the AI to conduct the strike realistically or successfully. The the type of strike we are discussing requires a fidelity in timing and positioning that a single mission type can not handle. If a player wants to watch a "hands off" strike, then it's gonna involve several missions converging on the same objective in time and place. AEW, CAP, JAMing and the actual strike need to be handled separately - but coordinated. By the player. We will have to see if the advanced planner will help us with the time on target thing.

Kevin