Dogfighting in the Spring
Offensive
I'm putting this information here in the dogfighting section, which could
easily fit in other parts of the Strategy Guide, but I saved it for here
because of the wide scope that dogfighting in the Spring Offensive entails.
Before you even plan for a mission that might involve getting into a
furball with one or more groups of MiGs there are several things to consider:
Morale and Aggressiveness
Flying & Combat skills
Pilot allocation
TOT (Time on Target)
Altitude
Number of available aircraft
Radio Silence
I covered Pilot ability, Morale and Aggressiveness under the BARCAP part
of the Escort/BARCAP section of the Strategy Guide, but I will reiterate
briefly.
Flying skill is basically how well an AI pilot can perform certain maneuvers.
Combat skill is using the right maneuver at the right time. Morale determines
if an AI pilot will attempt a maneuver that he is capable of (or even
one that he isn't capable of). A pilot with Regular Flying skills and
a high morale level, may try a difficult maneuver because his morale
is so high and mess it up because his flying skill is only Regular. A
pilot with Medium Morale and Ace level flying skills may well be able
to perform a fantastic maneuver, but will be unwilling to do so.
Aggressiveness is applied across entire MiG squadrons in the back round
and has to do with the tactics used by the MiG squadron as a whole. If
you've recently been hit hard by a particular MiG squad you will improve
their morale and increase their aggressiveness. They will therefore,
be more likely to drop down from altitude and attack. If you have hit
them hard recently their morale and aggressiveness will drop and they
will likely stay at altitude and even try and avoid you. If you force
a low aggressiveness and morale squad into a fight they may use zoom
and boom tactics and attempt to leave the combat area.
If you are the type of player who will re-run a mission until he gets
great results or are just very good at the Spring Offensive campaign
you will see the Spring Offensive turn into an almost entirely ground
pounding affair. Even the vaunted Red Tail MiG squad may seem unimpressive
if their aggressiveness and morale have been severely reduced.
Pilot Allocation
A very under rated aspect of MiG Alley is how you allocate your UN pilots
within the individual squads. The left-hand columns of pilots are all
the leads of each element of each flight. These are all the pilots that
actually initiate the attacks. The right-hand column are the wingmen
of the lead pilots and are responsible for covering the six of their
respective leads. Typically you will want your best pilots in the left-hand
column so they will eliminate their bandit as soon as possible. I start
from the top left-hand column with my very best pilots and go down the
left-hand column putting the next best pilot in each slot. Then I move
to the top of the right-hand column and continue in the same manner.
Do not underestimate the importance of pilot allocation. This has a major
impact of how a furball develops.
TOT (Time on Target)
You may be scratching your head wondering what TOT has to do with dogfighting,
but TOT can be the difference between having a 10/1-kill ratio and a
3/1-kill ratio. There are certain missions that default the TOT a half
an hour earlier than Strike or BARCAP missions. Armed Recon missions
being the most common one. If you have plans to surprise a squad of MiGs
on a BARCAP mission and want to catch them just after they have taken
off. You had better make sure there are no missions that are going near
that base before you. The Reds will be alerted by their radar and send
the MiGs up well before you get into the area. If you come in much later
the Reds will already be at altitude and negate any altitude advantage
you might have gained had your flight been the first one in the area.
Altitude and Number of Aircraft Available
I often will determine the altitude I enter the combat area by the number
or aircraft I can bring to the table. If I know I will have good numbers
of air to air aircraft in the area I'll generally enter the combat area
at the default altitudes and be looking for a fight. If my aircraft numbers
are down I will often stay low as escort and keep Radio Silence imposed
so I will attract as little attention as possible. Radio silence keeps
the MiGs detection ability to 8nm instead of the usual 30nm.
Auto-vectoring ON or OFF
Most MiG Alley fans realize that if you set Auto-vectoring to OFF they
will get those mysterious popup windows that give you at least a little
control over what the rest of your flights are doing. What frustrates
most MiG Alley fans is why it seems to automatically turn itself back
ON in the preferences without your knowledge. Suddenly you notice that
the AI is making the decisions for you and you never changed a thing
… or so you thought.
There are two things that will automatically change your Auto-vectoring
to ON while in flight. If you don't respond to the popup window commands
in time you are effectively changing your Auto-vectoring to ON. If you
choose the radio command "Give command" you also are essentially turning
Auto-vectoring to the ON position. There is a cure however. You can turn
Auto-vectoring back off again by giving the Post combat radio commands
IP, Disengage, Regroup, Send all home.
The Merge
Now that you know about how to turn Auto-vectoring ON and OFF you can
use it to your advantage. If you have Auto-vectoring OFF, but have still
not gotten a pop up window during merge the best thing to do is to "Give
freedom" once you are about 2nm from the bandits and let the AI take
over which will generally bring about the "Engage, select your own targets".
Sometimes you may accidentally use the "Give freedom" too early and your
other flights don't acknowledge you right away I suggest the following.
During the merge (under 2nm) give the "break" command (keyboard command
"z"). This seems to wake up the AI and often your other friendly AI can
take out several MiGs on the very first pass.
Hengist feels it is very important to use the Alt+F1 command to padlock
your opposite number. Generally speaking each AI aircraft from both sides
are assigned to go after a particular enemy aircraft. When you hit Alt+F1
you padlock the enemy that is assigned to you. If there are more enemy
aircraft than friendly in the area or some friendly aircraft get shot
down there maybe more than one enemy aircraft with your destruction in
mind so you still have to watch your six. Another reason you have to
watch your six is the wingmen assigned to cover the bandit you are attacking.
Wandering
Sometimes you don't have the energy and are not close enough to press
the attack and the bandit you are padlocked too will start to leave the
immediate combat area. Unless I can press the attack and still stay in
visual with several friendly aircraft I will break off and padlock a
friendly in a busy area and go to help. When re-entering the combat area
I will cycle through friendly aircraft and look for one in trouble and
use the "break" command and try to get the bandit off him with some long
range short bursts. Because of the enemies limitless MiG resources it
is far more important to save a friendly than it is to shoot down a MiG
in the grand scheme of the Spring Offensive.
You will also notice that your wingman may disappear in a hurry if you
wonder off. He will often get on a bandit that may have poised a threat
to you in the initial merge and be nowhere to be found after you wandering
off after some fleeing bandit. The ultimate nightmare is when you wander
off and another MiG squad shows up. Suddenly you'll be in a very target
rich environment and all by your lonesome.
Still another reason not to wander is the "Regroup" command. It will
take much long to regroup if you are very far away from the majority
of your squad.
The following three PICs are the A,B,C's of changing your active waypt:
Regrouping
Don't wait until every last bandit is shot down before starting to regroup.
Once the furball is clearly in your advantage use the regroup command
to bring everyone back together in a cohesive fighting machine. Throttle
down to 60% and stay in the area where any left over bandits are and
watch all the friendly aircraft come into the area. Any left over bandits
can be dealt with rather quickly using the same rules mentioned above
with the merge. This practice will cut down on those times a second group
of MiGs will catch you or some of you other flights with their pants
down chasing after a few scattered MiGs. This may be perhaps the most
powerful technique to keep your loses low and you kill rates high. For
all of you who have cursed the fact that MiG Alley doesn't have an attack
my target command, this procedure will dull your pain and add a lot to
the level of immersion experienced in MiG Alley.
Shoot n Scoot
There has been some debate on whether you should press the attack until
the MiG is dead or put a few short bursts and leave the wounded bird
for the AI aircraft. It doesn't seem that there is a simple answer. The
way I judge it is this. If I'm at altitude I will just put enough lead
into him to make him dive away because if I follow I get into the "Wandering"
syndrome as stated above. In furballs down low I am especially careful
with my energy and often will convert kinetic energy into potential energy
by going vertical to keep from over shooting. Sometimes overshooting
can work to your advantage as it often triggers your wingman into action.
When you go by the bandit your wingman immediately sees him as a threat
to you and often will press the attack. This can be a way to conserve
ammo by putting a burst into the bandit then overshoot and climb into
a loop and watch your wingman press the attack and finish off the target.
This doesn't work every time, but when it does it is very satisfying.
MiG, 12 O'clock High!
Don't play their game. They would love for you to come up to their altitude
and get nice and slow so they can zoom and boom and pick your guys off
piece meal. Ignore the high flying MiGs until they come down and become
a threat to your squad or whoever you are escorting. If I see a high
flying squad of MiGs that is my cue to go to the in flight map and see
who is most at risk and head in that direction.
I like to thank Dan "Crash" Crenshaw for the use of the one circle two
circle PIC and recommend his book "How to Live and Die in the Virtual
Sky". You can take a look at my review here KC23's
review of "How to Live and Die in the Virtual Sky"
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