Matrix Games Forums

Just started to get my toes wet with the air war aspect of this potentially awesome game. Now I'm in up to my waist and the water's rising fast !!

Some very basic questions (playing as the Axis in the Normandy campaign):

(1) An Italian FB unit is currently assigned to ground support as a consequence of its HQ AD setting. I want to re-assign this unit to air superiority. How do I cancel its current AD setting and assign it to a new mission ?

(2) In the Commanders Report for air units I changed some of my unit missions to rest and then noticed an asterisk appeared next to the mission status. There are also asterisks after some pilot numbers in the pilots column. What do these asterisks mean ?

I am sure that this information is in the manual somewhere but I did look and could not locate it. Sadly this is not the fault of the manual but of its inept owner....

Thank you for any help you are able to provide

(1) If you want to assign specific group to a specific AD, you have to go to the "GROUPS" line in the AD editor. It's set on "auto" by default, which means the AI will pick whatever units it see fits to achieve the mission. The numbers between ( ) are the number of aircrafts and escorts available for the AI to choose from. If you click on it, you can specify manually which air units you want to assign to this AD. Don't forget to click "Done" when you're ready.

(2) * after pilot numbers means not enough pilots to have a complete air group. You'll see the * whenever the pilots number is lower than the max aircrafts number just next to it. You also have a color code : pilots number in yellow = less pilots than max aircrafts, red = less than ready aircrafts. I don't remeber an * next to "mission status", not sure what do you mean ?

Thanks Nico.

As to (2) above I rechecked and the asterisk seems to mean that there more pilots available than ready aircraft. For example one unit has 12 ready aircraft and 40 ready pilots.

The other asterisk I mentioned appeared in the mission column of the CR when I set some units to rest (RS)--this now appears as RS* in yellow.

One other question: I have a fighter unit which has an air superiority AD but I want to release it from this AD and just have it intercept automatically from its base. How do I cancel its AD mission ?

ORIGINAL: 39battalion


Thanks Nico.

As to (2) above I rechecked and the asterisk seems to mean that there more pilots available than ready aircraft. For example one unit has 12 ready aircraft and 40 ready pilots.

Everything about the Commander's report is in section 26.2 appendix B of the manual.

Here's the passage about * and pilots number (p221) :

PLT (Pilot): lists the number of ready pilots in the
air group unit. If the number of pilots is less than the
maximum number of aircraft it will be marked with an
asterick and color coded yellow and if the number of
pilots is less than the number of ready aircraft, it will be
marked with two astericks and color coded red.

ORIGINAL: 39battalion

The other asterisk I mentioned appeared in the mission column of the CR when I set some units to rest (RS)--this now appears as RS* in yellow.

I see those * appearing when you select rest or train mission. I don't know if they have any specific meaning appart from attiring your attention on the fact those units won't fly any combat mission.

ORIGINAL: 39battalion

One other question: I have a fighter unit which has an air superiority AD but I want to release it from this AD and just have it intercept automatically from its base. How do I cancel its AD mission ?

I think the only way is to select manually the groups for every air superiority AD from this air HQ. Not too sure having this AD mission will stop this unit from flying some interceptions if they have enough miles left, but we would need some more knowledgeable advice on this one.

Thanks Nico