Syncronizing Air Strikes

[blain]

Are there any tutorials out there for synchronizing air strikes over long distances? I am trying the Lost Province scenario. I added B-1s with LRASMs which are on Guam. I'd like to have the Reagan launch a SEAD operation before the B-1s arrive.

[stolowski]

You can create a Support mission (a "rally" point), assign all the desired aircraft to it, once they arrive to the designated area they will simply fly around there (since the support mission has no target/end conditon). Then re-assign them to the actual strike mission.

I'm not sure if this is the official way of doing this, but it works.

[Gunner98]

Some of the later 'Strike Tutorials' talk about this a little but you don't really have to cover long distances. I'm reworking them for CMO but that won't be included.

As stolowski says, a support mission or two is a good idea in a complex strike. I call them marshaling missions, it helps you control your units closer to the strike but it makes them vulnerable so you need to watch that.

One of the best ways is to build a simple spreadsheet and have it open in the background. That gives you the basic time/distance calculation, you should factor in weapon range and speed as well. The trickiest to coordinate is TLAM/ALCM and a mix of fast (F-18, Su-24) and slow (A-6, Su-25) aircraft. Make sure you plot your path for the cruise missiles so you have some control over the time.

Its a bit of a trick but one of meatier parts of the game.

[Patmanaut]

Thank you Gunner98 and Stolowski for the advice!

[guanotwozero]

I usually plan a number of phased missions such as SEAD & cruise missile strikes before main strikes, and use a spreadsheet to work out the times.

Each mission has a time/place anchor point for the target/destination, and a series of prior waypoints stretching back to launch/takeoff. I plug the distances & airspeeds into the spreadsheet to get the times at each waypoint, working backwards from the anchor point for each mission. That way I know when to launch each mission/salvo. Times are always approximate and I keep it easy by using cruise speeds, so I know when a flight will reach each waypoint.

This method allows stationing tankers en route, though that means manually loitering just-refuelled aircraft (in a temporary "support" track) until a suitable "continue" time, as it's hard to estimate how long refuelling will take. On the way home that's usually not an issue.

[vettim89]

Another way to do this is to set up a patrol mission with no prosecution zone and "investigate contacts outside patrol zone/within weapon range" boxes both clicked off. The advantage of this is that once all units are in position, you merely add the prosecution zone and the units will automatically go in and attack

[SeaQueen]

You've touched on the art of it!

Are you doing this for the computer controlled side or player controlled?

In the Community Scenarios there's a really wonderful example on the computer controlled end called "DCA Mini Ex." It's one of my favorite scenarios, and I keep coming back to it over and over again. It's very simple. You just fly a 2 hr VUL over Denmark against coordinated Russian airstrikes. It's also nice because it's fun to play when you don't have a lot of time (it's fairly quick).