[1468] Strike Missions Generating Bizarre Waypoints

[kahta]

In the attached file you will find two strike missions- CVG 1 Strike and CVG 3 Strike

After launching, when the flightplans were correct, the waypoints began to jump around and move at random to locations that do not make sense. If you load this scenario from this point and let the NATO strike missions play out, the same behavior can be observed.

[Raptorx7_slith]

Thanks for the report. It looks like this was caused by constant massive changes in the targets ambiguity area causing the target waypoint to jump around erratically. I recommend only launching the strike when you have a better fix on the target or alternatively using a patrol mission with a strict patrol box so the aircraft don't fly all over the place due to that, it will keep them in one area and ensure that they only look in a more accurate/stable place for the targets.

We are aware of this problem and were working on a long term fix

[thewood1]

It actually might be a little more realistic to have this issue. If you have a target with only a sort-of location, this should be happening. Otherwise you probably should use flight plans.

[Raptorx7_slith]

It actually might be a little more realistic to have this issue. If you have a target with only a sort-of location, this should be happening. Otherwise you probably should use flight plans.

I agree but this can impact AI missions as well. It doesn't make sense for these aircraft to dance around all over the place over a distance of 1000 miles, these ambiguity areas should be more consistent in where they're generated and where they jump to.

[thewood1]

I always try to keep the AI's perspective in mind. And there are ways to mitigate this specific issue with proper planning. The flip side is an AI generating a flight plan, better detection comes in, the AI ends up sending its strike to empty ocean.

If you can let the flight plan auto-adjust, I guess that would work, but I can see unintended consequences.

[kahta]

I've done some additional testing and I think there are a few areas of opportunity:

1) This becomes a bigger issue when there is a long travel time from the base to the target (EG Backfire raid against a Carrier group with 2+ hour travel time)

2) The movement of the waypoints is wildly out of proportion to the travel distance of the target between when the mission is launched and when the waypoints shift around.

3) The shifting of the waypoints almost always creates a guaranteed bingo fuel situation because the new distance far exceeds the range of the assigned aircraft. This is a real headache for units with a 20 hour stand down time.

[thewood1]

#3 is especially a very real concern for strike planners. The point that is being missed in all of this is that there is a reason pre-strike recon is as important as the strike itself. No realistic flight planner would just lay out and launch a large strike without either having pre-strike recon or have the strike also running their own search pattern. And having the strike doing its own search would severely alter the range and bingo calcs.

The short of it is that you shouldn't launch a strike without a minimum location confidence without planning on reducing range to allow the execution of some search. There might be times you are desperate enough to do it, but the commander has to weigh and mitigate the risk.

[kahta]

For #3- Agreed.

In this circumstance, the target was located and being tracked by a Tu-95 about 150nm out. The issue that caused the flight plan to go crazy was when the first wave launched the missiles and they were detected, the jammers were activated which resulted in ambiguity that messed up the second wave which was only about 30nm behind the first.