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Not entirely sure if this is a bug, so I wanted to check.

(a) Selected an air group fitted with harpoons
(b) Clicked the "attack" (icon of launching missile) button
(c) Selected a target with the resultant crosshair pointer
(d) Target was out of range, so I get the "close to intercept?" dialog
(e) I click "yes"
(f) In the staff messages the unit indicates that it can not intercept and will resume prior mission

...At this point, what was previously a group is now represented as a single aircraft icon no matter how far in I zoom (was thinking that the unit broke apart into individual aircraft), unit detail describes a single aircraft, speed reads as "loitering" and its mission reads as "returning to base", even though the prior mission was a named ASu patrol.

Further, the indiivdual aircraft are listed in that mission's unit list still, but nothing I do will get these aircraft to return to the prior mission -- namely patrolling specific reference points -- until they go bingo fuel and land. I'm guessing that (f), above was because there wasn't enough fuel to close within launch range of the target (it was a good distance away), but was this supposed to happen this way?

Oh, FWIW I am using Harpoon ANW v3.7.1, the latest version of DB2000, and the "Consolidation" scenario in the "North Star Exercise" battleset.

ORIGINAL: mcoyote

...At this point, what was previously a group is now represented as a single aircraft icon no matter how far in I zoom (was thinking that the unit broke apart into individual aircraft), unit detail describes a single aircraft, speed reads as "loitering" and its mission reads as "returning to base", even though the prior mission was a named ASu patrol.

Further, the indiivdual aircraft are listed in that mission's unit list still, but nothing I do will get these aircraft to return to the prior mission -- namely patrolling specific reference points -- until they go bingo fuel and land. I'm guessing that (f), above was because there wasn't enough fuel to close within launch range of the target (it was a good distance away), but was this supposed to happen this way?

I think that this behaviour belongs under the category of "Unwanted", but I don't think that it is a bug.

The planes you ordered to intercept the ship were likely out of range. When they land and re-fuel, they will return to the previous Patrol mission you assigned to them. It would be really nice if the planes would simply go directly to their patrol mission instead of landing, re-arming, and then re-launching (kind of like a re-set button).

This is probably a left-over behaviour from when there were no Custom Ready Times. Now, with the long ready times, your planes can be out of action for hours. Previously, they would only be inconvenienced by 30 minutes.

Instead of using the F1 Attack button and ordering your aircraft to intercept, you can try clicking on the Target Icon and then hitting the F6 [AirOps] hotkey. This will show you a list of aircraft airborne and their fuel range. You click the box of the a/c you want to attack the target.

Welcome aboard, shipmate. [8D]

It does the same thing in regular Harpoon 3. I usually don't order the planes to launch weapons (via the F1 attack dialog) until one degree longtitude to get around that problem.

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