KC23's Spring Offensive Strategy Guide - Escort / Barcap
Escorts
During the Spring Offensive you will have to make decisions regarding
when, where and how to use escorts. It is not enough just to see if the
MiG activity is rated high in the "Dossier" window. Often it can say
low MiG activity, but when you fly the mission a MiG squad jumps your
flight. This is not usually a random chance occurrence. MiG Alley's AI
remembers what targets you hit recently and will send a MiG BARCAP to
frustrate any further attempts. The best way to deal with this is to
simply continue to change target area selection from session to session.
The way I do it is I'll focus on the West Coast on one session and then
move to the Central targets. Occasionally I'll nip at the East Coast
to keep them honest.
Choosing which escort position to use in the "Task" window is simply
a matter of where you expect the MiGs to come from. Obviously you want
your escorts between the MiGs and the strike package. If you are attacking
an airbase that may be repaired soon on the West Coast and the closest
open MiG airfield is to the East you would use "Right and High" as your
escort position. Typically, I use "Leading and High" regardless because
this is a pretty save bet no matter where they are coming from.
Unless you really want to get into it with the MiGs select "Impose"
under Radio Silence. This keeps the MiG spotting abilities to 8nm instead
of 30nm. You end of with a rather uneventful flight, but you'll save
all your aircraft to fight another day. Surprisingly, F80s make excellent
escorts as long as you have a BARCAP out in front of the mission to back
you up. If you really want to get into it with the MiGs use BARCAPs with
F86 escorts instead (described below).
BARCAP
If you are an air to air kind of person and would rather let the computer
do the strike missions you can still have your cake and eat it too by
flying lead in a BARCAP with an escort. I like Derek Bond's BARCAP tactic.
This attaches a BARCAP via the "Ins Wave" icon to my northern most strike
mission and then ads a large group of F86s as escort. When I reach the
IP in the mission, I ask "The Dentist" about the nearest bandits. If
he responds with something like "Bandits at Saiwon bearing 332, 100
miles, 1,000 feet" (1,000 feet means they are just getting ready to
take off) then try the following:
Point your nose to bearing 332 and go into map mode and accelerate forward
watching the message bar at the bottom of the in-flight map screen (or
you can just fly real time). The miles from the bandits will count down
in the in-flight info bar so you will know when to exit the in-flight
map and attack the newly airborne MiGs. You then have all the energy
advantage and are down low where the F86 is at its best. Picture
Note: If you have ask the Dentist about nearest bandits and all he
says is "Bandits taking off at …" with no reference to bearing or distance,
just keeping asking the Dentist over and over again and sooner or later
he will give you the whole picture.
You may be wondering why I don't just change the BARCAP waypoints
closer to the enemy airfield. The answer is you don't want to end up
at an IP near the enemy airbase and find that a MiG squad slipped by
and is now jumping the strike package.
Technically speaking this is a fighter sweep and it can be a lot of
fun to fly and rewarding as well. Just what kind of a reward you ask?
Here are a few quotes from the lead programmers regarding how the enemy
AI works.
[ Jim Taylor ] "Morale controls the tendency for the aircraft to take
certain risks. A high morale, but low skill pilot will tend to attempt
difficult maneuvers and then screw up. Obviously a low moral Veteran
may well be capable of brilliant maneuvers, but be too timid to attempt
them. Fear the happy hero pilot!"
[ Mark Shaw ] "There are other factors at work in the background that
are applied across entire MiG squadrons. For example, squadron aggression
dictates which tactics a squadron will use. A very aggressive squadron
will go looking for trouble with Sabre patrols. A less aggressive squadron
will generally avoid Sabres and use safer hit and run tactics like dive
and zoom. Aggression is like morale - MiGs will become increasingly aggressive
if you don't give them the occasional bloody nose."
You will know when you have given them "a bloody nose" by keeping
a close eye on the intelligence reports. When the intelligence report
says, "the MiG squadron has rotated out much to your advantage" you have
given them a whipping and the MiGs will be much less aggressive and their
moral will suffer. This will take a lot of the MiG heat off your strike
packages for about a day or so and then it is time to give them another
bloody nose.
There are seven different color schemes to the MiG squads and they
vary in their maximum ability. The lowest being Regular level AI and
the highest being Ace level AI. There are also some instances where
early in the war a particular paint scheme will be at one level AI,
but later in the war they will be something else. Keeps you guessing
to say the least. All this is also modified by how many "bloody noses"
you given them recently as well. I was given a prapriatory table of
how this works, but this is all I'm gonna say so I don't spoil it. Don't
worry about figuring it out, with the aggression and moral variables
it is too hard to predict even with the table. The only hint I'll give
is to be careful of red tailed MiGs, especially if you haven't bloodied
their nose recently.
After discussing this part of the Strategy Guide with Hengist he told
me of a very interesting real world technique he used successfully.
Apparently MiG Alley has modeled a blind spot for the enemy MiGs. If
you come from out of the sun the MiGs will won't see you and you can
really get the drop on them. Key to this is to use your radio and tell
your flight to go only on your order. You do this by using "r" (radio),
"3" (Combat), "2" (Take command). Then get between the sun and the MiGs
and attack. Hengist has an a very good site dedicated to MiG Alley at:
http://www.hengist.co.uk/MigAlley/
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