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Well i'm still playing the Canarys Cage scenario and last night resumed the save at the point where i launched a long range air raid on the surface group, in total using 20 F/A-18s with HARMs and LGB's with tankers to refuel. That managed to destroy the two remaining amphibious vessels, one perry class frigate and two of the other kind. Now all thats left of that group is a perry and one of the other frigate types.

But just before that strike happened, two enemy Mig-29s were headed north to engage 4 of my harrier fighters flying a BARCAP just south of the carrier surface group (Grupo Alfa). I then launched another 2 pairs of harriers which were going to be tasked with a TARCAP for the air strike but in the end i had them join the BARCAP to take on the incoming Migs. Couldnt believe what happened...all AMRAAMS except one missed the Migs, fired from 4 harriers and then all harriers were shot down by the Migs' AA-11 Archers, which along with the AIM-9X is the deadliest WVR AAW weapon. Went on to lose another 2 harriers to Archers before an AMRAAM finally hit the last Mig.

So if you have harriers dogfight Mig-29s with AIM-9JULI expect losses! 6 harriers lost to 2 Mig-29s.

Loving this scenario an absolute epic, shout out to Miguel Molina, legendary scenario author! still all previous scenarios that i've played have been fun too, and i've barely scratched the surface with the amount of scenarios yet to play..along with more that continue to be made, fantastic! and great devs working hard fixing problems and developing the game...well worth the price tag.

I tried to increase my PK in this scenario by getting rid of standoff, and even continuing to sidewinder range after loosing the AMRAAMS, but both tactics led to unsustainable losses when the Mig-29s or F-16s got in close. Since those two were the US and USSR´s dogfighters, that isn´t too surprising, even if the Harrier did well against earlier generation aircraft in the Falklands.

In the end, the tactic that worked best for me was to let the Hornets do most or all of the CAPs early on, leaving the Harriers for when the Hornets no longer have the range to cover the Battle Group.

Like marksi10 I think most of the AAW work in this scen is better handled by the F/A-18s.

The Harrier is best used for ground or surface attack; they don't have afterburner (remember speed is factored in for evasion), they have an agility of 4.0 and their DECM pods are late 1970s tech with a nominal 15% reduction in PoK. They're also limited to 2 AIM-120Bs per loadout, so if you're engaging more than one or two bogeys you're probably going to have to get in close (where you don't want to be).

The F/A-18s have an agility of 4.5, afterburners, and they have two DECM sets with late 1970s and late 1980s tech respectively each with a nominal PoK reduction of 15%. They can carry 6 AIM-120Bs each with their heavy loadout, which means a pair can reasonably expect to protect the fleet from most threats, while a 4-ship would be easily able to fend off a serious attack.

If you look at the threat aircraft, you have:
Fast and agile (4.9) MiG-29s and F-16s,
Mirage F1s which are roughly equal to the harrier but with the addition of afterburner,
the old F-4 Phantom
the fast but slow turning MiG-25,
and the SU-22 and SU-24 attack aircraft.

The Mig-29s and F-16s are actually better than anything we have, and should be dealt with either on the ground or in the air at long range or using SAM traps. The Mirages can be dealt with by F/A-18s by preference or Harriers in a pinch, the F-4s are still a threat with sparrow missiles but can be reliably taken out with harriers or F/A-18s, the MiG-25s can be dealt with by either Harrier or F/A-18 (if you can catch them), and the SU-22 and SU-24s are perfect targets for the Harriers if an F/A-18 isn't available, although again they have afterburners so can get away.

In my playthroughs of Canary's Cage I usually have a 2-ship of F/A-18s over the fleet with tanker support, on station for about 6 hours or so (which is the outer length of what a real CAP would last, I gather). I had used 4-ships but they went through tankers too quick; though 3 might be a worthwhile compromise. They deal with any urgent/immediate threats to ASW aircraft or enemy CAPs that get too close. I also reserve a pair of Harriers on the CV with the AMRAAM loadout for raid defence and targets of opportunity like the E-2Cs that occasionally bumble around on their own. With quick turn-around a pair alone should be enough (I also tend to ferry in the Harriers from Rota to beef up the carrier air wing).

For my own raids I use F/A-18s as escorts with the heavy loadout. They fly ahead and behind to cover ingress and egress. Jamming helps a lot with AAW on raids, as all the enemies long range AAMs are SARH missiles and need a good, continuous lock.

If you must use harriers, try to engage on your terms. Keep close to your AAW frigates, engage at 12-24,000ft where the Harriers can at least match speed in cruise/full and only be outpaced by 2-300kts or so (rather than 400kts+ at altitude) by afterburning enemy fighters. If an F-16 or MiG-29 gets in close for a turning fight, you are probably going to die. Try splitting groups and changing course manually to open up the distance between your fighters. If you're lucky you can get the enemies to go for one while the other gets on their tail; but as a first measure avoid any close in engagements with F-16s or MiG-29s.

You could also change your WRA settings to give the AIM-120Bs a better shot at hitting; I use 20nm for 4th gen, 25nm for 3rd gen, 30nm for 2nd gen and no use for AEW or Helos (easy pickings for guns/sidewinders).

Yea i have set ranges pretty much the same as you have for WRA. The BARCAP my harriers were assigned to engage 4th gen with AMRAAMS at 20nm with 2 rnds. Its true what you're saying and i knew those Mig-29s would wreak havoc on my harriers with dogfighting, especially with their AA-11 Archers not to mention their superior agility and afterburner. Throughout the scenario i've used the harriers from the carrier and the ones at Rota to defend my surface groups. At the start i created a strike package with my Hornets at Moron to destroy the ammo supplies at Sidi Slimane which was successful. I think it was all just my harriers that managed to shoot down 10 F-16s with AIM-120B, as well as shooting down 4 Mig-25s, Mirages and F-4s. But on that occasion with the Mig-29s nearly all the AIM-120B's were missing and that allowed them to get in close.
My harriers' AMRAAMS are better BVR weapons than what any of the threat a/c have. Every time an F-16 fired a sparrow at a harrier, it would turn when engaged defensive at the sight of an AIM-120B and so would break lock with its sparrow and it would drop out of the sky. What i found odd was the Mig-29s didnt fire any AA-10 Alamo's and just got in close after evading most of my AIM-120B and blasted away with their archers.

Interesting reading on your AAW strategies. Like Marksi10 i wouldnt use my Hornets to carry out BARCAP's to protect my surface fleet as they'd need tankers to keep them on station long enough. I needed all 4 tankers to refuel my strikes on the amphibious groups. Now i can use a sub to sink one frigate, and for the perry class frigate that will be obliterated by a harpoon strike from Grupo Alfa once they're within range. What i'll do next is have my Hornets mainly the ones at Torrejon (as Moron is out of HARMs and has no LGB's on mags) to strike the ammo pads at Los Rodeos and Gando. I will just use a 2 ship TARCAP from Moron as Moron still has plenty of AIM-120B on its mags. From Torrejon will be a one ship with GBU-10E to strike Los Rodeos (as that AB has only one ammo pad) and a 3 ship with GBU-10E to strike the 3 ammo pads on Gando, supported by a 2 ship SEAD to take out the sa-3 and harriers from the carrier for TARCAP along with the EW choppers on the carrier for jamming. This means just 8 Hornets for my 4 tankers to refuel, and they'll all need refuelling twice.

Sorry, I should have been clearer - I did use 2 Hornets with tanking (when needed) for BARCAP until the carrier group moved out of range, and then I used the Harriers with replacements from Rota for the rest of the scenario. The real problem in this scenario with the Harriers is not their agility (although that doesn´t help) but rather the fact that their carrier will run out of AMRAAMS if you exclusively use Harriers for CAP. When this happens you will be down to Sidewinders against more agile opponents.

You could still use Hornets for the CAP with tankers regardless of range but then that limits your air to ground (surface) striking options. I'm at that point in the scenario where my carrier has run out of AMRAAMs so all 5 remaining harriers on it have sidewinders. I would fancy their chances against Mirages, Su-22 or 24s and F-4s (thats if they're not tasked with striking your task force, where your harriers could struggle catching up with them) but against mig 29s or F-16s forget it, which is a problem i have now but my workaround is to have my BARCAP with harriers close to Grupo Alfa so they're within their SAM range. In my last battle against 29s i lost another 2 harriers (the last 2 from the carrier with AMRAAMs as they were originally from Rota and rebased) and a P-3 before SAMs from Grupo Alfa shot them down. At the same time an enemy sub popped up with torps fired at a frigate. Managed to sink the sub but lost a frigate so losses lately have mounted up a bit.

Carried out a recon of the Canary islands using a single harrier not long after that battle with the Migs. The harrier has onboard an LLTV and FLIR with 80nm range so set it a support mission to patrol close to the islands but staying out of range of the sa-3s. Found nothing else besides the 2 sa-3s and SSM's so planning air strikes on those but still have 2 enemy frigates (one a perry class) to contend with.

I´d be surprised if you can complete the mission successfully without using any Hornets for BARCAP, but that´s the great thing about Command, there is more than one way to skin a cat (or in this case a Falcon)!

Well at the moment i have no BARCAP available, well i could but only one harrier with sidewinders, one is readying and the other 3 are getting maverick loadouts to strike the SSM's on Tenerife. But i have SEAD and OCA strikes set up and will launch in an hour or so, with them will be 2 TARCAP flights to protect the SEAD and OCA flights but i could then also have the TARCAP's (which are hornets btw) to then be assigned to the BARCAP once the other flights are RTB and hopefully they'll still be some juice left in the tankers.

Problem i have now is i downloaded an update earlier and its' v1.10 but its' RC 5 and not final. Sunburn posted a link to download v1.10 final on here but as i havent done it before, i dont know how to do it. I downloaded it with Winrar and then extracted it to my command folder, then in the command folder i double clicked v1.10 final as its' a setup apllication so it loads up but then it says it cant recognize command being installed on my PC...need help.