Night Fighter Sweeps

[pnzrgnral]

Does anyone use - or attempt to use - night fighter sweeps? I've tried a few times over the years but I' have yet to see a single interception or attack against a designated target (I play Allies so I can't speak to Japanese). There are no administrative issues (base size, air support, supply, etc). A few years ago I did a forum search and couldn't find any mention on this issue (disclaimer: of course my search skills may not be the best) and I'm currently attempting sweeps with absolutely no results. Discussion?

[BBfanboy]

I don't see how a squad of night fighters could coordinate with each other unless they carried their own radar. Ground based radar could give them general headings but spacing is too close for ground guidance. Showing a light would not be good either. Sweeping enemy bases would not even have the benefit of ground radar vectoring. If the game models a series of single aircraft doing their own hunting, I guess you could call it a sweep.

IRL, Germany and the USA had the best night fighters which carried radar and had guns adapted to shoot upwards or sideways (the Black Widow's .50 Cal turret was steerable). Since enemy bombers usually had a 'stinger' MG aimed directly aft of the aircraft, the NF ideal attack was from below or off the quarter. Again, this sort of attack would be hard to coordinate with other NFs.
And dogfighting normal fighters with a heavy radar in your aircraft's nose would be dicey too!

Over their own base, fighters could be assigned a box of sky to patrol and guided by radar to avoid straying into other fighters - but that's CAP, not sweeping. Ground searchlights and flares could help silhouette the enemy.

[pnzrgnral]

Thanks BB, all good info but it doesn't really address the issue: does anyone use the night fighter sweep mission in the game, and if so, how? When selecting a fighter squadron set to night missions, the available mission list includes "Sweep." Selecting this mission in the exact same way as day fighter sweeps produces no results (in my experience). So my question should better be amended to asking, "Does anyone use night fighter sweeps in game and how do you get combat from this?" The Germans and Brits, and later of course the US used their night fighters to infiltrate bomber streams and hang around enemy airfields where bombers would land post-mission; the single most important reason why I'm attempting to use the night sweep mission is to thin out enemy night CAP to lessen my own night bomber missions over the target. Thoughts?