Questions on escorts??

[GBS]

1) If I make a strike mission and add two fighters to it and designate them escorts in the mission editor,will they fly along with the strike aircraft but at a different altitude? Do the escorts fly way out ahead of the strike aircraft or do they coordinate their speeds?

2) If I already have a strike mission in the air and want to add escort fighters to the mission with fighters already airborne,will they fly toward each other to join up? What about adding fighter escorts that have yet to take off? Will the strike aircraft loiter and wait for the escorts before proceeding?

[tombo]

bump??

[JohnSmith]

Good question!

[TMP95]

From what I've seen. They will fly ahead of the strike unit - and provide proper AtoA cover (not sure yet how far off they will look to engage enemies however)

[Curious]

ORIGINAL: GBS

1) If I make a strike mission and add two fighters to it and designate them escorts in the mission editor,will they fly along with the strike aircraft but at a different altitude? Do the escorts fly way out ahead of the strike aircraft or do they coordinate their speeds?

2) If I already have a strike mission in the air and want to add escort fighters to the mission with fighters already airborne,will they fly toward each other to join up? What about adding fighter escorts that have yet to take off? Will the strike aircraft loiter and wait for the escorts before proceeding?

If you already have the game set up those situations in the tutorial scenario and see what happens. Then let us know.

[catweasel]

ORIGINAL: GBS

1) If I make a strike mission and add two fighters to it and designate them escorts in the mission editor,will they fly along with the strike aircraft but at a different altitude? Do the escorts fly way out ahead of the strike aircraft or do they coordinate their speeds?

Just gave it a try using the Air Ops tutorial: not much happening, I'm afraid. Two F-14 I assigned as escorts to the SEAD-Patrol failed to return fire when attacked, just continued toward the patrol area. Didn't position them in front of the force they should escort.

I tend to do this manually: create a AAW patrol over or slightly infront of the target and assign 1-2 groups of figther to that mission. Gives me a further plus: I have the fighters grouped in pairs.

[Bazza042]

I must confess that I am having difficulties with escorts as well.

1. It appears to be impossible(?) to create a mission where one type of aircraft 'escorts' another, which somewhat defeats the object.

2. If they are of the same aircraft type then sometimes the 'escorts' stay with the force albeit ignoring attackers whilst at other times they disappear over the horizon in pursuit of of anything in range.

I suspect that there is away around this, as suggested above, but it does seem rather difficult to establish the 'escort' facility which is, after all, a fairly frequent requirement.

However I do think it a tribute to Command that, only a very few months after release, one is down to this level of concern rather than something somewhat more significant.....