I created a mission to bomb a target located at 500 nm using F-16s loaded with 12x MK-82 bombs, which give them an operational range of 450 nm.
To extend their reach, I placed an aerial tanker mid-way along the route (the tanker is airborne).
I set up a LAND STRIKE mission and verified the following conditions:
Target destroyed : Continue mission
Fuel state RTB : NO
Weapon state RTB : NO
(Both in general ROE and mission-specific ROE)
The mission was created with waypoints generated automatically according to the aircraft's loadout. Then, I added waypoint 4 (Refuel ) for inflight refueling on the ingress leg, and waypoint 13 for refueling on the egress leg after the strike. I positioned both waypoints near the tanker to ensure successful refueling.
When launching the mission, the aircraft take off, successfully refuel at waypoint 4, and execute the strike on the target. However, after the strike, they always RTB directly to base , ignoring the entire return route, including waypoint 13 and the planned egress path. They completely ignore all waypoints until attempting the return refueling, which results in them crashing due to fuel exhaustion .
"Once all MK82s are dropped and the target is destroyed, aircraft RTB."
This could be an issue because if a specific egress route was needed after the strike — such as avoiding a SAM site or navigating terrain — the aircraft won't follow it at all.
As you can see, this mission goes beyond the 450 nm range limit imposed by the aircraft’s loadout. My question is: Is this a bug, or am I missing something? I've thought about it a lot and tried multiple configurations without success.
Thank you.
Best regards.
