Hornet Leader Tactics

[Veldor]

Ok so I never played the boardgame. Someone tell me please why you would ever want to split up your planes? From playing it would seem to me it always works best to put them into one big group and keep them together.

[Dan Verssen]

I usually split them up to take out Approach area range-1 sites on the first turn with my Fast guys.
 
It is also handy to get more bandits within range 1 of guys who are not so good in air combat. That way, you can fire AIM-9s, which have a higher chance to hit than AIM-7s.

[Veldor]

ORIGINAL: Dan Verssen

I usually split them up to take out Approach area range-1 sites on the first turn with my Fast guys.

It is also handy to get more bandits within range 1 of guys who are not so good in air combat. That way, you can fire AIM-9s, which have a higher chance to hit than AIM-7s.

Yes, having never played the boardgame I've had to learn fast. Its easier to get away not using suppression on 3 day missions because you don't have to deal with stress as much. Now as I begin to play more 9 day missions I can see where suppression is utterly critical to overall success. Which in turn only works if you have a friendly in range (Which in the Gulf Mission I seem to be having trouble with given their ranges of 2 often). So splitting up might well assist in that.

As for the range-1 sites that makes perfect sense. I've probably been a little emboldened only playing on average and often ill just charge the whole group into the center and then have the Fast guys take out adjacent range-1 sites. I suppose it ultimately depends on the enemies deployment and the mission at hand (When the bulk of my pilots are MIA I just spend my saved special option points and nuke from afar. Of course I probably should figure a better way to stop getting my pilots killed so much instead.

Why is air combat and getting shot at so darn stressfull? lol..