diff --git a/Mission-planning.md b/Mission-planning.md index f0e2305..3e9b6a5 100644 --- a/Mission-planning.md +++ b/Mission-planning.md @@ -34,10 +34,10 @@ A split point is added after the egress point. This is where flights will split ## Task types -Below is a list of all the currently available task types for flights. More will be added in future updates. Subscribe to [Issue 277](https://github.com/dcs-retribution/dcs-retribution/issues/277) for updates. +Below is a list of all the currently available task types for flights. More will be added in future updates. ### Air Assault -An Air Assault mission is a special helo mission which can be planned against enemy control points to insert troops and capture the point. The flights will fly to the pickup point to load troops and continue to the drop off location where they will insert the units. The units will then head to the center of the Zone created by the Assault Waypoint. It is important that the drop off waypoint is within the boundary of this assault waypoint zone. Otherwise the troops will not head to the target zone. When this mission is tasked from a carrier then there will be no pick up needed as the troops can be loaded directly from the deck of the carrier. +An Air Assault mission is a special helo mission which can be planned against enemy control points to insert troops and capture the point. The flights will fly to the pickup point to load troops and continue to the drop off location where they will insert the units. The units will then head to the center of the zone created by the Assault Waypoint. It is important that the drop off waypoint is within the boundary of this assault waypoint zone. Otherwise the troops will not head to the target zone. When this mission is tasked from a carrier then there will be no pick up needed as the troops can be loaded directly from the deck of the carrier. This mission type is only available when the CTLD plugin is enabled as it is required for the troop loading and extracting. @@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ Many ships have significant point defenses. Large numbers of anti-ship weapons a ### BAI -A Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI) mission can be planned at enemy objective areas with ground vehicles. Its purpose is similar to CAS, but instead of supporting friendly troops it eliminates enemy forces before they can reach the front line. The flight will rendezvous with the rest of its package and proceed to its ingress point, where it will begin to search for its assigned targets. +A Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI) mission can be planned at enemy objective areas with ground vehicles. Its purpose is similar to CAS, but instead of supporting friendly troops it eliminates a specific stationary enemy armour group. **Convoy Interdiction:** Convoy interdiction is a subset of BAI. An interdiction tasking can be created by selecting the CP that a convoy originates from, looking at the Departing Convoys tab, and clicking on the Attack button. From there, create a flight package as you would normally. @@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ A BARCAP mission can be planned at any friendly objective area. Its purpose is t ### CAS -A CAS mission can be planned at a front line by right clicking on it on the map. Its purpose is to provide support to ground forces. The flight will arrive at the target area at the package's TOT and begin searching for targets within a predefined range of the center of the front line. The flight will search for targets until it is either bingo or winchester. +A CAS mission can be planned at a front line by right clicking on it on the map. Its purpose is to provide support to ground forces. The flight will arrive at the target area at the package's TOT and begin searching for targets within a predefined range of the center of the front line. The flight will search for targets until it is either bingo or winchester. Note that AI-controlled flights will not actively search for enemy targets and will only engage what happens to enter their visual range. This is a DCS limitation. Therefore, AI CAS flights may not engage every single target on the frontline, particularly during poor weather conditions. ### DEAD @@ -76,9 +76,7 @@ DEAD missions are typically planned in coordination with a SEAD flight when then ### Escort -An escort mission protects any other flights that are requesting an escort. Most mission types (CAP types are the exception) will request escorts for their mission. An escort will fly a flight plan similar to the rest of the package and RTB. - -Note that the escort flight will not remain in the target area even if the rest of the package does not complete its mission quickly. To assign long-term air-to-air defense, use a CAP flight. +An escort mission protects any other flights that are requesting an escort. Most mission types (CAP types are the exception) will request escorts for their mission. An escort will join up with the escorted flight and defend them from aerial threats. ### Fighter sweep @@ -92,7 +90,7 @@ An OCA/Aircraft mission can be planned against an enemy airfield. Its purpose is An OCA/Runway mission can be planned against an enemy airfield. Its purpose is to damage the runway to prevent the enemy from using the airbase to launch future missions. The flight will rendezvous with the rest of its package and proceed to its ingress point before lining up with and bombing the runway. If the runway is sufficiently damaged in a single turn it will be destroyed. -The amount of damage required to destroy a runway is defined by DCS. Currently it takes a total of 6000 lbs of general-purpose high-explosive to destroy a runway: e.g., 12x 500lb MK-82/MK-82Y, 6x 1000lb MK-83, or 3x 2000lb MK-84 (or their LGB equivalents). On the other hand, with "bunker-busting" or penetrator warheads only 2000 lbs is required: e.g., a *single* GBU31v3 (or GBU31v4) is sufficient to kill a runway. (The GBU-24 in DCS is graphically shown with a BLU-109 warhead, but is modeled in the game as having a BLU-117 non-penetrating GP warhead, so until this is fixed it still takes 3 of these to kill a runway rather than 1). A successfully destroyed runway will show up in the DCS debrief as a "dead" event with initiator "0". +The amount of damage required to destroy a runway is defined by DCS. A single 2000 lb bomb (of any sort, it does not need to be a penetrator) is enough to kill a runway. Dedicated anti-runway munitions like BLU-107s will always work as long as at least a single one hits. If you use lower yield bombs, more than one may be required. A successfully destroyed runway will show up in the DCS debrief as a "dead" event with initiator "0". An airfield with a destroyed runway will not be usable for missions and aircraft cannot be purchased or sold until the runway is repaired. If an airfield has multiple runways, it is only necessary to destroy one of them. Repairing the runway takes four turns and costs $100M. The AI will attempt to repair the runway whenever they can afford to do so. If the runway is damaged again before repair is complete the repair progress will stop and need to be purchased again. @@ -104,29 +102,29 @@ In contrast to DEAD, its goal is not to score a kill. SEAD flights employing HAR The flight will rendezvous with the rest of its package and fire its weapons (or decoys) at the package target once it reaches its IP. After releasing its weapons the flight will RTB. -SEAD flights will be planned to accompany DEAD packages. When the SEAD flight uses HARMs it is quite likely that they will destroy the emitters (when not using Skynet), but they will never kill launchers/TELs without their own radar. DEAD will often carry bombs rather than ARMs or decoys so they can destroy the non-emitting parts of the SAM as well. +SEAD flights will be planned to accompany DEAD packages. When the SEAD flight uses HARMs it is quite likely that they will destroy the emitters (when not using Skynet), but they will never kill launchers/TELs without their own radar. DEAD will often carry missiles or bombs rather than ARMs or decoys so they can destroy the non-emitting parts of the SAM as well. -**Note:** SEAD flights have a ToT 1 minute ahead of the rest of the package. +**Note:** SEAD flights have a ToT 1 minute ahead of the rest of the package. If you wish to use TALDs, you should manually increase the time gap between the SEAD and DEAD flight to 3 minutes. A player performing this mission is expected to fire HARMs in PB mode so that the weapon's TOT roughly aligns with the package's TOT, even if the emitter is off. It is best to fire HARMs one by one, staggered by a minute or so to keep the site suppressed for as long as possible, always trying to keep one HARM in flight near the target. When using decoys rather than ARMs the principle is the same, but you'll just have to guess at the decoy's TOT. ### SEAD Escort -A SEAD escort mission protects any other flights that are requesting an escort from SAM threats. Flight plans that pass within the range of enemy SAMs will request a SEAD escort. A SEAD escort will fly the same flight plan to the rest of the package, escorting the main flight of the package while engaging detected SAMs. +A SEAD escort mission protects any other flights that are requesting an escort from enemy air defences. Flight plans that pass within the range of enemy air defences will request a SEAD escort. A SEAD escort will fly the same flight plan to the rest of the package, escorting the main flight of the package while engaging detected air defences. ### SEAD Sweep -A SEAD sweep will fly a flight plan similar to the rest of the package while engaging detected SAMs near the flight path and will then RTB. +A SEAD sweep will fly a flight plan similar to the rest of the package while engaging any air defences (SAMs or AAA) near the flight path and will then RTB. -This differs from SEAD by engaging *any* SAM threatening the package between the join and split points rather than only the package's target. +This differs from SEAD by engaging *any* air defences threatening the package between the join and split points rather than only the package's target. -A player performing this mission is expected to fly the route while searching for SAM threats (using TOO mode for the Hornet, HTS for the Viper, etc) and engage any emitter that begins to threaten the package. +A player performing this mission is expected to fly the route while searching for air defence threats (using TOO mode for the Hornet, HTS for the Viper, etc) and engage any emitter that begins to threaten the package. ### Strike A strike mission can be planned against enemy ground targets. The flight will rendezvous with the rest of its package and release its weapons on the predefined location. Some bombers will carpet bomb an area in a single pass, but most will aim at multiple targets. After releasing its weapons, the flight will RTB. -Note that strike packages are assigned coordinates to attack, not units. If the target moves the flight will not hit its target. +Note that strike packages are assigned coordinates to attack, not units. If the target moves the flight will not hit its target. Therefore, this mission type is best used against static targets such as buildings. It can be used against ground units (though likely with non-optimal effect) in poor weather where visibility would prevent visual target acquisition. ### TARCAP