Guess I'll throw in a few thoughts in case someone new's reading this. Not really "tactics" so much as an etiquette for flying around a base your pals are trying to take.
1. If you are in a cannon-armed plane, take out the ack. Call out on range and ask someone to help you with this because you're less likely to get shot down if there's more then one target.
It only takes one burst from a cannon to knock out the ack and you don't even have to hit it dead on, whereas with machine guns, you do have to hit it dead on, repeatedly. It's just like vulching in a FW vs. vulching in a Mustang. In the Mustang you actually have to hit your target repeatedly to blow it up on the ground. In a FW, you just have to land a few shells pretty darn close and the high explosive striking the ground takes care of the rest.
2. If you are planning on bringing a Machine Gun only plane, by all means grab some bombs or rockets. Target the Vehicle Hangar (VH) first. You can see where the vehicle hanger is by bringing up your clipboard, right clicking on it, going to "clipboard maps" and scrolling down to the size of airfield you are attacking. After a few times doing this, you should be able to "know" where it is without this hassle, but it never hurts to double-check.
These are the two most important targets. Recently, many players have become very skilled at using both manned ack and flak panzers. Therefore, if a base is to be taken, it is imperative that they are denied the option of using either, as you must remember that every attacking plane shot down has at least a 3-5 minute flight from a sector away to rejoin the attack, whereas any defending planes shot down can try to take off again immediatly. If local air-superiority, or at least parity, is to be maintained, no friendly planes can be allowed to be shot down by ground fire.
The Fighter Hangers can be a useful thing to take down, but their destruction is not mandatory to successfully take an airfield. The town's destruction, however, is. If you have enough support near the field it is *usually* ok to leave the FHs up. (And always more fun IMO).
3. If you are vulching a field with 8 other people, and only two defenders keep trying to take off, you are wasting your time. Talk to people, let them know you're going to go throw 50-100/whatever cannon/mgs down on the town, and that you'd like a spot in the "death rotation" afterword. It's just a little impromptu agreement, but hey, vulching is undeniably fun (for awhile, at least) so no sense in you missing out on it! Just no sense in missing out on the base capture either.
Basically just ask yourself this question: "Can I kill 3 town buildings in the amount of time it takes to maybe get three assists vulching?" If the answer is yes, head over to the town. You'll have your chance to vulch later, it's a never-ending fact of life in Aces High.
