Attack Railyard/Airfield/Troop missions

[SouthPaw. 0]

So, do these missions serve any purpose other than to put you down on the deck over enemy territory where if the machine gun fire doesn't get you the inevitable horde of enemy aircraft that jumps you will?

 

I have lost many pilots to this type of mission already - including my 14 confirmed kill/15 hour Camel ace.

 

Some examples:

Flying Albatros D.IIIs for Jasta 18, we were to attack ground forces marching at a location. Despite this being just my third mission with this pilot and my rank being set as low as I could when I created him, I was selected to lead this attack (you ALWAYS lead in these missions, it seems). We get there, I find troops and vehicles on the move at the assigned area. I target them and order my wingmen to attack. They do nothing but fly circles on the deck while I strafe trucks and troops. Then we get bounced by the Storks. That ended as one might expect, although I did blast Guynemer out of the sky before Dorme returned the favor.

 

Flying in a Camel equipped squadron this time we were once again assigned to strafe troops. I make a few passes while my flight picks their collective nose, and sure enough, here they come! Pfalz to the left of me, Albatros to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with fools! We engage the enemy aircraft in a lopsided 7-3 contest. I just keep spinning my Sopwith around and around, putting bullets in whomever is unlucky enough to enter my crosshairs at a given moment. Then 4 more Camels come charging in and we have ourselves a FURBALL! After avoiding several FRIENDLY near-collisions, I find the fight has spread over a wider area. Now I have 2 Pfalz around me while the Albatros are engaged by the other Camels. I don't know what's become of the 3rd Pfalz nor my two wingmen at this point, but I can handle 2 Pfalz on my own. One goes down with a good burst to the cockpit (gotta love that Wilhelm scream), the other is Bolle, and I'm following him in a right chandelle easily... drawing lead... ready to fire... aaand my engine shuts off for no good reason. Down I go, crash-landing behind enemy lines. 14 hours and as many kills stopped short. At least he lived.

 

Then, in the last 2 careers I attempted before this post, I decided to try my hand as an American SPAD pilot on the 95th. First mission? Attack a railyard. I shot anything that would respond to bullets (machine gunners and a truck) and soon enough... Fokker D.VIIs. The machine gunners had already crippled my wing and I was barely staying airborne as it was. A D.VII dove on me, I evaded his shot, and spiraled into the ground. So I deleted that dossier and made it again - same name, same squad and date. This time the first mission was recon. I had to keep a wingman alive after loitering over an area for 18 minutes. Sure enough, we get there and what do dumb and dumber do? They dive for the deck. Well, being the sort with an eye for patterns I decide to keep my altitude. Ah ha! Here they come. 4 Albatros D.V and 2 Pfalz. I get their attention and drag them away from the other 2 planes from my flight who are at this point going back and forth over the front low enough that the trenches are firing at them. My SPAD far outclasses my adversaries and I have them well below me, so I toy with them. At some point I lose 2 of the Albatros and am left with 2 Pfalz and 1 Alb well below me, and 1 Alb. about 500 feet below and behind. I decide to start rope-a-doping these boys. I pick off the top Albatross with ease. A Pfalz falls victim next as I work the fight in a downward spirial. We get near the deck before I get a clean shot at the second Alb, and the son of a gun pitches up sharply and to the right after I kill the pilot. My wingtip brushes his. I make a break for it, leaving the remaining Pfalz to fight another day. I find the nearest airfield, put the crippled SPAD down... and roll over & die.

 

I have survived ONE mission where my objective was to attack a ground target - and that was because I returned to base alone after my wingmen were killed in two separate encounters before we even reached the target area and I was out of ammo from killing 8 D.Vs. These missions are the kiss of death! I may start feigning engine trouble whenever they come up. At the very least, I'm not going down to the deck and waiting for the enemy planes to attack anymore.

 

So my question is this - am I right? Are the actual stated objectives of these missions impossible and it's really just a trap? Do wingmen ever actually shoot ground targets? Am I paranoid or are they REALLY out to get me?

[Check Six 2]

SouthPaw,

 

I can't say I've ever seen AI flight members strafe ground targets, but if I am selected to lead the flight and we are assigned a ground attack/railyard/troops type mission, I always select bombs or rockets if we are equipped to carry them.

 

I have actually seen my wingmen's bombs drop on a railyard. I dived to about 100 or so feet, came in strafing, and simulataneously ordering my wingmen to attack. I'm pretty sure they erred on the side of caution and stayed up high, but dropped their ordnance.

[Mr. Lucky 0]

I've survived numerous ground attack missions, ridiculous as they may seem. But, I still try to do my duty, but here are a few tips I can offer.

 

1. If I encounter and fight enemy aircraft on the way in, the mission is off, I don't know how much ammo I've expended nor if I've taken any unseen damage. After the dogfight, I head for home.

 

2. When strafing or bombing, NEVER make more than one pass. As you've seen, your wingmen almost never are with you, therefore you are the only apple of the gunners' collective eye. The first pass, they may not get you...the second, you can bet on it.

 

3. After the ground attack, head straight home, avoiding all other encounters for the same reasons in #1. Plus, the ground gunners have a nast habit of planting one right in your fuel tank that you may not realize til it gets real quiet.

 

The reason you always lead ground attack flights, is the AI, when leading, has a tendency to go to the wrong target or not attack anything at all, so you, the homo sapiens has to lead.

[SouthPaw. 0]

I survived one!

 

Flying an SE5a for No. 74 Squadron, I got the call to attack ground forces on the very next mission after learning that enough of my claims had been accepted to make me an ace. "Great," I thought, "the AI decided it's time for THIS pilot to die." Since we were in SE5a's, I was able to load out with bombs and chose to do so. Much to my amazement, my idiot wingmen DID in fact attack the troops and trucks with their own bombs. After my flight made its attack, scoring several successful hits, I gathered them back up and headed for home.

 

Now, another problem with these ground attack missions is that the "warp" feature doesn't ever take you home - only back to the scene of the crime. So I settled in for the long journey home which was thankfully over friendly territory. About halfway home my 3rd wingman suddenly fell out of formation, losing altitude rapidly. I suspect damage he took on the attack finally caught up - perhaps a slow fuel leak as you mentioned. The remaining two members of my flight shortly there after came upon a sight that I just had to laugh at. 4 Albatros D.Va attacking an aerodrome. Justice! Now the tables are turned! I bagged 3 of them in short order while my wingmen chased 1 all over the deck before knocking him down.

 

I landed safely, and when I did so Lt. Wright - my usual flight leader - was most definitely in the air. I sited him as my witness on the claim form. After I submit the form I'm told he did not return and his whereabouts are unknown. *sigh*

[Waldemar Kurtz 1]

I'll be honest. start off by using labels and the TAC. it's the ONLY way to learn how to accurately strafe ground targets. it kills your immersion, but eventually, you get good enough where you won't need it. I've single-handedly laid waste to an entire French infantry position using nothing more than a Roland C.II!

 

the critical thing is before you even put yourself in harm's way. get a good look at the lay of the land. find ridges you can hide behind. look for trees that can get in the way. start around 3000 ft and build up a lot of speed, pick the machine gun nests off first. that's THE most important thing. usually they're the easiest to spot! just look at where all the tracers are coming from! then spray the hell out of it.

 

ground attack missions are unhistorical for German fighter squadrons-- so I would bypass them altogether unless I'm flying Rolands (which were probably used for piece-meal ground attack missions at best).

 

it's almost easier to use a single bore-sighted machine gun when tackling ground forces because they usually don't require a lot of bullets to disable. that sounds crazy, I know... but I figure I'm on to something if I could wipe out 20 ground targets with the Roland. (after I expended all of my ammo with the forward gun I tried using the observer's station but was only able to disable one lousy target)

[godzilla1985 0]

I know a couple of patches back your wingies would attack ground targets when told to attack. I have mostly been playing QC lately but a couple months back I had a campaign going as a French Ni-17 pilot. My flight (3 planes) was tasked to blunt an German infantry build up in prep for an offensive. The weather was very bad that day, gloomy and raining and I had trouble finding the target even with the TAC on. So I ordered my wingies to attack, sure enough they winged over and started peppering a nearby tree line. A couple seconds later there were some secondarys and some MG fire rising to meet them. But I will agree after the intial pass they never pressed the attack despite my commands to do so.

[Waldemar Kurtz 1]

I know a couple of patches back your wingies would attack ground targets when told to attack. I have mostly been playing QC lately but a couple months back I had a campaign going as a French Ni-17 pilot. My flight (3 planes) was tasked to blunt an German infantry build up in prep for an offensive. The weather was very bad that day, gloomy and raining and I had trouble finding the target even with the TAC on. So I ordered my wingies to attack, sure enough they winged over and started peppering a nearby tree line. A couple seconds later there were some secondarys and some MG fire rising to meet them. But I will agree after the intial pass they never pressed the attack despite my commands to do so.

 

I noticed the same pattern in CFS3, so I think this is hard-coded. beyond a certain point your AI won't attack for lack of ammo. it's very likely that if the AI is not subject to gun jams that they expended all of their ammunition in that first attack. if they don't have bombs or rockets-- they might make one solid gunnery pass but after that nothing will happen until you've summoned your flight back into formation. I had the same annoying experience in CFS3. I'd command them to attack a target--and then they would refuse to attack "the target is too far away" or "already engaged". so the trick was to command them to rejoin--and then, before they've gotten back to where you are-- you can then command them to attack another ground target. I've never actually gotten to command a flight in OFF-- I usually die before that happens--but since the game is based on CFS3 I suspect that the 'work-around' on ground attack missions probably still applies.

 

attack

rejoin

attack

rejoin

 

repeat that until they become utterly useless (which might not be long)

run out of ammo

or get killed

 

.... have fun! ;)

[Check Six 2]

Surprisingly, despite all advice, I have made multiple passes on a ground target (railyards mostly) flying the Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter. I select a target on my TAC at that railyard (vehicles, buildings etc). Like I mentioned earlier, I load up with 4 x Cooper Bombs. I wing over and line up on the rail line so I'm travelling along it, order my wingmen to attack, start strafing until I'm down to about 100 feet or less. When I pass over the last boxcar on the train, I release my bombs. I stay LOW until I'm a mile or so away, changing to spot view to see my wingmen's bombs fall (usually from a great height...they don't like to fly that low). Then I wing over, go in for a second strafing run. If there's another train on another parallel line, I'll switch to that one. If I'm satisfied I've done enough damage, I'll stay low for a mile or so, then climb our, calling my wingmen to join me.

 

DO NOT WARP at this point. Frequently, your briefing will tell you that you should stay in the area for 17 minutes or some such ridiculous figure. Hit SHIFT+W to go to next waypoint, make certain it's pointing to your base, then you can warp.

 

If you hit warp, and it sends you back over your target, I pity you. Hard to survive that.

 

Using that method, I have 100% success rate with my bombs, and have survived several ground attacks in a 1 1/2 Strutter.

[SouthPaw. 0]

DO NOT WARP at this point. Frequently, your briefing will tell you that you should stay in the area for 17 minutes or some such ridiculous figure. Hit SHIFT+W to go to next waypoint, make certain it's pointing to your base, then you can warp.

 

If you hit warp, and it sends you back over your target, I pity you. Hard to survive that.

 

Using that method, I have 100% success rate with my bombs, and have survived several ground attacks in a 1 1/2 Strutter.

 

Ah ha! I did not know that! I shall have to try SHIFT+W next time.

 

Thanks for your advice everyone. I didn't play CFS3 so I wasn't sure if this was a quirk of OFF itself, the underlying CFS3 engine, or my own stupidity. Good to know I'm not alone.