As most of you have probably realized, Falcon 3.0 is a monster. After playing different versions of the simulator for several months, I've still not tried all the facets of the game. I've mostly focused on the campaign mode and, through much trial and error, have developed a few tactics that have increased my success. I've presented them here for your simulating pleasure. These tactis are by no means the only ones available, nor are they necessarily the best. These just happen to be my preferred tactics. There are no warranties either actual or implied! 1. YOU AS A SECTION COMMANDING OFFICER When you enter campaign mode you immediatley become the section CO. The High Command will dictate from unseen offices a list of targets and expects you to utilize your available assets within the resupply schedule to achieve those goals. This means you have the following responsibilites: 1. Assigning the proper number of aircraft to achieve the objective. 2. Assigning the squadron pilots in the most effective manner. 3. Manage your weapons and stores supplies. 1.1. ASSIGNING AIRCRAFT / SECTIONS Orders from above usually state: "You have been assigned to lead a section of X aircraft to do Y". You should consider these orders to state *THE MINIMUM* number of aircraft required to obtain the goal. Do not be afraid to assign other aircraft to the mission. OK, so you have 8 planes available for a given mission, how do you utilize them? Well, first, it's not necessary to always assign all 8 aircraft. Consider the target you are striking: 1. How strong is the target? Can two aircraft carry enough ordinance to destroy it? Heavily structured targets may require more weapons than two aircraft can carry to destroy it. Maybe a section of two a/c with 6 Mavericks each might be sufficient against an oil refinery or a bridge, but against an armored column with 40+ vehicles, you'll need lots of Mavericks to do any real damage. 2. On bombing missions, how many targets are available at a given site? Computer driven wingmen will follow your lead, and will attack the targets defined in the waypoint screen religiously. When you specify BOMB as an action for a given waypoint, you can only specify a single target (if there are multiple targets) at that point. Some sites, such as industrial sites, may have 2 or more factories, multiple bridges, and other high value targets. You could specify additional BOMB waypoints over the same site, but then you are exposing your aircraft to more enemy defenses. YOU NEVER WANT TO FLY OVER A SITE MORE THAN ONCE. If you go sightseeing over the enemy you will die. The alternative is to define multiple attack sections. Perhaps two flights of two a/c each. Send the first section against one factory, the second section against another factory. Have the different sections approach from different sides to further confuse enemy defenders. 3. How well defended is the target? Targets may have two types of defenses: air cover and surface to air weapons (SAMs and AAA). While in EDIT SECTIONS menu, you can use the TACT and STRAT views as well as the zoom functions on the map to determine what the enemy concentration is around the target. Check the icons in the STRAT view: are there airfields nearby? Are there enemy bases nearby. The higher the enemy concentration, the more likely you will encounter stiff opposition. heavily defended targets may need a "defense suppression" sweep ahead of the attacking aircraft to eliminate SAM and AAA threats. Perhaps a section of two a/c with HARMS and SHRIKES is required to suppress enemy radar installations. Most targets will have some form of air cover available. Those far from an airbase will still probably have some air cover avail, even it's only a couple of lowly MiG-19's. Remember, the cannon on a -19 fire just as deadly bullets as that of the SU-27. When you're heavily loaded with air-to-ground (AG) ordinance you're not going be able to dogfight. The most trivial adversary becomes a legitimate threat. In such an environment, a flight of CAP or ESCORT aircraft are appropriate. 1.1.1 EXAMPLE Let's take an example: A friendly armored column has trapped an enemy armored column between themselves and XYZ river. They have requested that TAC air finish them off. You have 8 planes available. You look at the maps, and find the target is east of your airbase. Zoom in until the view becomes a 3D view and you find that the enemy column is huge. This implies there are probably mobile SAMs and AAA in abundance. Unzoom the view and check the strategic view and you find an emeny airfield not far to the north and west. Fortunately, the south of the target is clear. Range to the target is fairly short, so you shouldn't need external fuel tanks. Expect heavy air resistance. Also, you're going to need lots of AG weapons to do any significant damage to the column. What do you do? OPTION 1: Assign 4 aircraft to a CAP section, assign 4 aircraft to the attack section. Load the CAP a/c with as many and the best air to air (AA) weapons you've got. Load each aircraft in the attack section with 6 Mavericks, 2 Shrikes, 2 AIM 9's (just in case) and an ECM pod. Make your approach from the south, and select SEARCH AND DESTROY (S and D) as the action at the target waypoint. More details on waypoints will be presented later. How does this work? Assume you already know how to define the waypoints such that the AA aircraft reach the target zone prior to the attack aircraft (we'll discuss this later) and set up a CAP patrol. Four CAP aircraft should be sufficient to keep enemy aircraft out of the region. When the strike aircraft arrive, they are are appropriately armed to destroy vehicles with the Mavericks and destroy radar units with the Shrikes. ECM gear is usually pretty effective against SAMs and AAA, especially before a missile has been launched, so the the strike aircraft can roam at will. By using the S&D option, strike aircraft will roam the target area destroying any hostile unit it finds. Don't use S&D when you have a specific building to destroy, but against armor columns, I figure it's the best choice. As a variation, you might want to break the CAP section into two smaller sections and set up a CAP position between each airfield and the target zone. This way you are less likely to get all aircraft committed on one front and get an unpleasant surprise from the flank. OPTION 2: Assign a section of 2 aircraft as CAP, loaded with the latest and greatest AA weapons you have available. Set their speed in the waypoint section to be 50 to 75kts faster than the other sections so that they will reach the target first and sweep it clear of enemy fighters. Define a second section of 2 ESCORT aircraft and overlay their waypoints exactly on top of the attack section's at the same speed. However, after reaching the target, set up a CAS screen of waypoints. Define the remaining 4 aircraft as the attack section as in OPTION #1. This provides the same basic attack package as option #1, and the same CAP protection as the variation of OPTION 1, but also provides air cover for the attack flight while enroute. Remember, the attack guys are heavily loaded for combat and can't defend themselves without jettisoning their ordinance. If you don't hit the target, but kill 20 MiGs the mission is still recorded as a failure. OPTION 3: Define the CAP/ESCORT as either defined in OPTION 1 or OPTION 2. Break the attack section into two small sections of two a/c each. Load the first section with 2 HARMS, 2 SHRIKES, ECM pod, 2 laser guided bombs and 2 AIM-9's. Define the speed in the waypoints screen such that these guys reach the target after the appropriate CAP sections, but before the other attack section. Set the action as S and D. These guys will procede to destroy SAMs and AAA since most of their weaponry is dedicated to this task. Define the last section of 2 a/c with lots of Mavericks, ECM and anything else you can throw on the wings. With this option, you have any CAS package you prefer, but now you have more ability to deal with the surface to air threat. A section of two a/c can carry a total of 8 HARMS, 8 Shrikes, and 4 Laser Guided Bombs. If all goes well, you could kill 10 or more surface to air threats from a standoff range. When the second attack section shows up with a total of 12 Mavericks and 4 Laser Guided Bombs, the result can be devastating to the enemy. 1.1.2 SUMMARY Of course, factors such as distance (requiring fuel tanks in lieu of weapons), and less a/c available (perhaps only 4 or 6 a/c instead of 8) will affect all of these decisions. You'll have to evaluate each individual mission and decide what's best. It's a tough decision, and the lives of your pilots depend upon it, but you didn't make section CO by passing the tough decisions to others. My general rules of thumb for assigning aircraft sections: 1. Use multiple sections of two planes each rather than one section of 4 or 6 planes. Wingmen tend to stay bunched together (the very definition of wingmen!) and are less effective. Independent groups of two are more flexible (you can assign flights to cover more area) and utilize the plane more fully. 2. Always have a CAP flight available. If you have a strike target, make sure there's somebody to keep the fighters off the attack a/c's back. If you're flying a CAP mission, make sure there's another section of aircraft stationed between you and your base. When you run out of weapons and have to bug out, you want somebody watching your back. Nothing is worse than being on final approach with gear down about to touch the runway when a burst from a MiG cannon grounds you permanently. 3. Use defense suppression techniques liberally. SAMs and AAA are deadly. Once they've been eliminated, however, the target is ripe for the picking. You have a generous supply of Shrikes and HARMS: use them! 4. Don't forget to use the ECM pods on any a/c that are likely to encounter surface to air threats. They have a weight penalty, but are effective. Just remember to turn them off when you're trying to avoid detection altogether! 1.2 ASSIGNING PILOTS You're in the campaign mode now. This isn't training and it isn't instant action. This is the long haul and you've only got 30 pilots and 18 planes to accomplish your missions. Who knows how long the war will go? You have to use your resources wisely, and that includes assigning pilots. 1.2.1 MANAGING PILOTS You have 30 pilots with varying abilities and skills in dogfighting, bombing accuracy, flying ability and fatigue. When looking in pilot information, there are two numbers separated by a "/" for each attribute. The right hand number is the maximum that pilot is capable of, the left hand number is the current state based on fatigue and number of missions flown. Your first tendency may be to pick the 8 best dogfighting pilots and send them on every mission. However, you'll soon see their fatigue rating drop and their current scores will become lower than the worst pilot in the squadron. Soon after they will be shot down and gone forever. During WWII, the Japanese kept all top fighter pilots in combat and never rotated them. Even the best will eventually get a bad break and be shot down, and by the end of WWII, the Japanese had almost no experienced pilots left. The USA, however, took a different approach. Pilots with 30 or so kills were the leading aces (compared to 80+ for contemporary Japanese pilots) and rotated back to the US to train other pilots. Overall pilot skill reached (and maintained) a high level for the US. So, if you want to win the war, you'll have to rotate the pilots. How are you possibly going to manage 30 pilots with names you've never heard before? Simple: change the names. You'll probably want to name the CO after yourself and put in your callsign. Go to the pilot info screen, click on the pilot name in the upper left window, then click on the "name" box and change the name to something appropriate. Press enter and then select the "callsign" box. Change the callsign and press enter. Scroll the window in the upper right down one and repeat. What do you name your pilots? Use familiar names. Use names of friends and family, other PC pilots, movie characters, actors, anything that is *very familiar*. Select callsigns that remind you of the person. If you use "Terminator", "Destroyer", "Killer", "Destructo", "Deathmonger" and "Doomslayer" type names down the board, you'll never remember who is talking to you when in combat. Put real world nicknames in for callsigns, or anything that reminds you of the person. The bottom line is, when one of the pilot name's is quoted to you, you should be able to repeat his/her callsign almost immediately. All communication during flight in F3 is accomplished with callsigns. If you have multiple sections of a/c it is imperative that you know who is talking to you. Another suggestion: think about the personalities of the people you select to honor in the game. Try to put names of people who are more inclined to air to air combat with pilots with good air to air skills. 1.2.2 MY SOAPBOX You as a human will be flying every mission. If you're like me, you want to keep track of kills you score. This implies that you will have one pilot with your name. However, as you fly this pilot, even though his computer scores do not affect your flying, his fatigue rating will drop. If you fly 8 missions straight with this same pilot, you may have a great kill record, but it will be unrealistic since no human could go 48 hours without sleep and still keep the combat edge. Now, maybe this doesn't bother you, but there is so much other emphasis on realism in F3 that I feel the need to more accurately model the pilot situation. I have, therefore, created, 4 pilots with my name. 1 is the CO, the other 3 are LT's. I watch their individual fatigue ratings and do not push any of them beyond normal human limits. This just adds a little additional touch of realism. The other option is to let your namesake rest and assign another pilot to your plane, then fly the entire mission on autopilot. 1.2.3 ROTATING PILOTS Remember to rotate pilots and give them rest. Also, don't send all the best pilots up in the first two or three missions and then be stuck with the bottom of the barrel. Poor pilots will only get better by flying. Good pilots will only become poor by flying too many consecutive missions. Mix your pilots so that that section leaders have high skills and wingmen have lower skills. Through effective rotation of pilots, you'll eventually have an entire squadron of effective pilots. 1.2.4 SUMMARY Remember, campaign mode can't be won by going it alone. You need the other pilots to ensure your success. Also, their success is a direct result of your leadership and decision making. You can go to pilot information and view your personal kills, but you can also go to squadron records and know that you are directly responsible for every number on that page. If your squadron has a high number of kills, then YOU have a high number of kills, regardless of your individual record. If your squadron has low kills and many pilots MIA or KIA, then you are losing the war, despite your personal record. 2. FLYING THE MISSION Now that the assignments are made, you take on a double role. Now, you are still the CO, but you are also one of the mission pilots and have a vested interest in seeing that the mission is executed as safely and as effectively as possible. 2.1 WAYPOINTS Even after you know who is flying what aircraft, you still have to decided how they are going to get to the target. Computer generated default waypoints seem to employ a direct, up-the-front-steps approach that may conserve some fuel, but is more likely to get you shot down. In the following sections, I mostly discuss computer controlled aircraft. Any section that you lead can always make snap, on-the-fly decisions. Computer controlled a/c will fly the waypoints as if they were engraved in stone and to the letter. The following tips should not only help you survive, but also increase the return rate of your squadron pilots. 2.1.1 STRIKE SORTIES Before sending strike aircraft into the lions den, take a few minutes to check the STRAT view on the waypoints map. Look for the follwing things: 1. How deep in enemy territory is the target? 2. Is the target surrounded by hostile bases, or is one side bordered by friendly troops? 3. Using the zoom view, observe troop locations and defense positions. The maximum zoom view is you equivalent to satellite intelligence photos, and you should use it to it's maximum advantage. Coordinate your attacks to take any advantage you can based on the above results. If one side of the target is bordered by friendly units, use this as a corridor to bring your strike a/c in. If the target is surrounded by hostile forces, perhaps you should break the strike force into small, two plane units that attack from different directions (e.g., one from the North and one from the East) and egress in different directions (e.g., one section escapes to the West and one to the South). The bottom line is: Don't take short cuts when planning the waypoints. Take the extra time to use the additional views and intelligence available. It's there for a reason and may just save your simulated life. 2.1.2 CAP SORTIES Spectrum Holobyte was very generous in their implementation of waypoints, especially in the air to air arena. For example, if you define a series of CAS waypoints (say wp's 1 through 3) and then another waypoint (wp4) as a LOITER waypoint, that section (when under computer controlled pilots) will fly through the series of CAS waypoints, fly to the LOITER waypoint, and (fuel permitting) will repeat the cycle of CAS waypoints. They will repeat this cycle endlessly until they hit BINGO fuel. Sounds wonderful, right? Set up a constant CAS sequence, set their speed so that they arrive at the target ahead of the strike a/c and clear the way, the strike a/c come up the pipe, launch their weapons, fly home, and sometime later, the CAS guys will get tired and go home. Isn't this great? Answer: NO! Once the CAP guys begin their flight sequence, there is no way to tell them to knock off early and go home. You may depart the scene of the crime and be sitting on the runway at home and the CAP guys are still cruising around in enemy territory. Once you've made your presence known (taken offensive action at the target) you can bet that enemy is going to respond. Surviving surface to air units are going to on the watch, and the longer the mission goes, the more chance enemy air units have of intercepting you. You're leaving those CAP guys hanging and they may not come home. Try the following: instead of using the infinite CAP sequence, define more waypoints that will ensure the CAP guys stay around long enough to cover you, then head for home when the strike team bugs out. For example, normal computer generated waypoints for a CAP mission over an enemy target usually place 3 or 4 waypoints circling the target, then head for home. This one pass may not be sufficient to protect you, but the LOITER mode is too dangerous. Add a few waypoints to the "circle", or even enough waypoints to circle the target again. That should give the strike team plenty of time, but still bring the CAP flight home safely. Don't get me wrong, the LOITER function does have a use. When you are assigned to patrol along the front and stop all enemy aircraft attempting to cross, the LOITER function is ideal for this. The job in that case is to hang out as long as you can, usually close enough to a friendly base that you can bug out and take cover. Defining multiple CAP flights (as described in section 1) and using the LOITER function is ideal in this situation. 2.2 ARMAMENT Finally, let's consider armament. There's not much to say here except this: BE SURE TO TAKE THE RIGHT WEAPON FOR THE RIGHT JOB. Don't take Durandals to kill tanks. Be sure the weapon you have is big enough to trash the target. Also, make sure you've got enough "other stores". If there's a high concentration of surface to air threats (more than zero units) carry ECM pods. Maybe not every a/c needs one, so use your best judgement on where to assign them. They are heavy and there's no sense carrying that extra weight if you're flying a milk run. Lastly, don't cut yourself short on fuel. Falcon 3 will let you cheat; if you're on your way home and you're too low on fuel to make it, you can hit "esc" and select "end mission". But with all of this emphasis on realism, who wants to do that? 3. CLOSURE That's about it. None of this information is earth-shattering or ground breaking, but some of it takes some time to learn. I wanted to share what I've learned so that others can start enjoying the game sooner. My methods are in no way the only way to play, nor are they probably the best. They just happen to be what works for me. Falcon 3 is a great game and I hope everyone out there enjoys it at least 1/2 as much as I do. CLEAN, CLEAR, AND NAKED!