1. To allow for the greatest amount of complexity (various prestrike / poststrike bases, strike aircraft, tankers, and targets) with the maximum achievable degree of automation.
2. To provide for unlimited scaling (that is, the required effort is the same regardless of the quantity of bases, strike aircraft, and targets.)
3. To provide for a high degree of fuel efficiency.
After several days of trial and error, I have come up with a workable, though imperfect system. I am not an experienced CMO player; I am not familiar with all game features, and I am writing this guide mostly for myself. I am posting it here because, in my thread, nobody has yet proposed a better solution, but there may well be one. If anyone has any alternatives or improvements to this method which they would like to share, it would be much appreciated.
Please read carefully, because although execution is very easy, there are several steps required in the setup, and lots of ways it can go wrong, as I have learned through a considerable amount of trial and a great deal of error.
NOTE: THIS METHOD ONLY WORKS IN THE LATEST BETA!
MISSION SETUP
The method requires setting up three missions; a “hold” track for both the strike aircraft and tankers, then a patrol box for the strike aircraft. The strike aircraft will be reassigned to the patrol box while in - flight, AFTER the tankers arrive at their hold track but BEFORE the strike aircraft arrive at their hold track. The steps are as follows:
Tanker Hold Track - SUPPORT mission - Time on Station - Two reference points
Set this mission with a desired time on station; make sure to clear both time boxes before setting the desired time. In mission settings, set tankers to RTB after completing one cycle (otherwise, your aircraft will turn back unnecessarily en route to their targets to try and refuel again.) Set the home base as close as possible to the tanker hold mission (this will be the tanker recovery base.)
The tanker hold track must be located within the stated “tanking radius” of the tanker, (that is, the tanker must use somewhat less than half of its fuel to get to the track, even if the tanker is using different launch and recovery bases,) otherwise it is impossible to generate a flight plan. This is the biggest limiting factor for this method which I do not know how to solve.
Bomber Hold Box - PATROL mission - Time on station - FOUR reference points
The purpose of this mission is simply to give the strike aircraft a point to fly TOWARDS. They must never actually arrive in the box, or it won’t work, because reassigning the strike aircraft after they arrive at the box will cause some (not all) strike aircraft to slow to loiter throttle when refueling in spite of all mission settings, and then never speed up back to cruise throttle when reassigned. Also, I don’t know why, but using a support mission (the more logical choice) for this task doesn’t seem to work: it somehow causes strike aircraft to RTB unnecessarily after refueling, despite being reassigned to a new mission.
Create the box slightly behind the tanker track, and set the time on station to slightly after the tanker time on station. ENABLE refueling, but click “configure” tankers in aircraft settings, and set "receivers start looking for tanker” to 1 percent of mission fuel (this means that your strike aircraft will not divert to refuel while enroute.) Also enable “launch the mission without tankers in place” and “proceed the flight with no tankers in place.”
In the mission settings, set the patrol and prosecution area as the same box, and disable “investigate unknown contacts outside the patrol area.” This (hopefully) ensures that the strike aircraft won’t actually do anything other than fly towards the box.
After finalizing the setup, remember to click “create / update flight plans” for each mission.
The combination of tanker / bomber hold tracks should look like this:
Bomber strike box (patrol mission)
This is your actual patrol mission. Using the mission editor, reassign the strike aircraft to this mission in the interval AFTER your tankers arrive at the tanker hold track, but BEFORE the strike aircraft arrive at the bomber hold track. The “box” is the prosecution area; for the patrol area, set a reference point on the near side of the box along the bomber’s desired ingress route, to act as an ingress point (otherwise, the strike aircraft will disperse throughout the entire patrol box before they start looking for targets.) This way, the strike aircraft will ingress in a single, coordinated wave and then progress outwards through the box, bombing as they go. Enable refueling and set the desired refuel threshold (it can theoretically be 90%, since no aircraft will actually be assigned to this mission until all aircraft are in place and ready to refuel, and all tankers will RTB after one refueling cycle.) Set the desired bomber recovery base as the home base for this mission.
Most importantly, DISABLE ENROUTE REFUELLING. If this is enabled, some strike aircraft and tankers will slow to loiter speed during refueling regardless of mission settings, and then never speed up again after refueling.
For good fuel economy, it is necessary to set “fuel state RTB joker” in air ops to NO on this mission. On any other setting, aircraft will leave huge amounts of fuel on the table on a long ranged mission (i.e. well over 1,000nm.) Manually inactivate the mission when your objective is achieved.
For ALL missions, set flight size to 1 (larger flight sizes might work, but I have not tested.)
ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS
The advantages of this method are numerous: only two actions are required after the initial setup; both the mission aircraft and tankers can launch from multiple different bases and at different speeds; aircraft will refuel at a desired point in space and time without needing to determine the exactly correct refuel threshold for each aircraft; with a patrol mission, you can determine mission profiles instead of being stuck with the loadout presets; and, most importantly, it is infinitely scalable, unlike methodologies which rely on strike missions and therefore require you to manually edit the flight plan for each individual flight.
There are, however, limitations. Some aircraft will often fail to refuel even though they are no further back in the queue than anyone else, for reasons I do not yet understand. Furthermore, as with any patrol mission, aircraft will behave unrealistically, seeking out and restriking targets which have already been struck but not destroyed.
The attached example scenario is the kind of use case which is well served by this method. The tankers and strike aircraft are each utilizing several different prestrike and poststrike bases and flying at very different speeds; the strike aircraft are temperamental B-47s which cannot ever, under any circumstances, be allowed to use MIL power (precluding large group operations, even with complete manual control;) there are more strike aircraft than tankers, meaning that aircraft have to queue for tankers, and there are many, dispersed targets which must be attacked in a single, reasonably coordinated wave.
EDIT: STEP BY STEP GUIDE - EXECUTION
Step 1: Set up all missions as described above; ensure that all settings are correct.
Step 2: Assign the bombers to the bomber hold pattern and the tankers to the tanker hold pattern, with bomber ToS 10 minutes after tankers.
Step 3: AFTER the tankers arrive at their hold pattern but BEFORE the bombers arrive in their hold pattern, reassign the bombers to the patrol box.
Step 4: If the bomber patrol box is set to NO BINGO, inactivate the mission manually when desired.
