wingman tactics

[Bruv119]

wingman flying for me is one of the biggest enjoyments an online game can give you.  Finding another player with similar skills as yourself who knows exactly what move you are going to do, without having to say so on vox and for him to be there in the right position at the right time to nail the guy on the rope.

You can teach it for hours on end but you only ever find one or two guys you are totally compatible with.  

Sometimes its like clockwork and the amount of enemies you can defeat and kills you can rack up are way more than you would alone.

I'm very lucky to have a squad that is full of talent and looking to improve their skills everytime they login.  Hopefully one day our flying tactics will be so supreme that we will kill everyone in our path repeatedly!

Recently we have been practicing with the 262 in and around enemy fields full of cons.  Low and fast and its great fun  

[Bruv119]

The right seperation is also crucial.

Most enemies if they see two cons together would turn and run.  You have to be smart and sneaky.   Stay out of vis range.  The lead guy merges, pulls a few turns, then breaks off goes level.   The enemy thinks the fight is won when dagga dagga dagga!  boom.

If he sees the 2nd guy in and turns hard the 1st guy pulls up and over and re-engages whilst number 2 stays out and keeps watch.

Being able to engage the enemy at any height, equalising the E states and then taking advantage.

In FA they used to have weekly squad events where a minimum of 6 guys would fight another 6.  2 seperate airfields, 20 minute time limit, most kills wins.  Winner stays on.   Sharpens up your wingman skills when a merge consists of 6 vs 6 or more merging at the same time.  I wish the community here could implement such an event.   KOTH is fun but for indivaduals.

[Adonai]

Originally posted by SpikesX
I fly as bait.

Speaking of which you and VansCrew make best bait in the game.

IMO Anytime a 262 is in the area I make him my wingman knowing how many spitfires believe they can catch a 262. Nothing like watching a 262 zoom climb out and 2-3 spits and La's struggling to catch in the climb.

[mussie]

Originally posted by hubsonfire
I normally fly higher and slightly ahead of or behind my wingman. When engaged, I either drag the con to him, or just fly away if the enemy engages my wingman first. This has proven quite effective.

Mental Note: Dont Wing With Hub

[Adonai]

Originally posted by Bruv119
wingman flying for me is one of the biggest enjoyments an online game can give you.  Finding another player with similar skills as yourself who knows exactly what move you are going to do, without having to say so on vox and for him to be there in the right position at the right time to nail the guy on the rope.

You can teach it for hours on end but you only ever find one or two guys you are totally compatible with.  

Sometimes its like clockwork and the amount of enemies you can defeat and kills you can rack up are way more than you would alone.

I'm very lucky to have a squad that is full of talent and looking to improve their skills everytime they login.  Hopefully one day our flying tactics will be so supreme that we will kill everyone in our path repeatedly!

Recently we have been practicing with the 262 in and around enemy fields full of cons.  Low and fast and its great fun  

Squad period is where you learn to develope those skills, wings of terror was a rook squad i joined just for that reason. Recently went up with VansCrew with c-hogs and like clockwork came down with 21 kills between 2 of us. I love seeing guys like Saber and MtnMan work together, last time I Ran into both of them was 3 tempests on pair of F4u-4's and nothing came out of a good 5 minute fight. You dont really need a squad either, if you prefer squadless just ask on country channel anyone wants to wing up, and practice. Granted formations are useless here, as my general rule "climb to 12k and level off ill slow down you catch up" is only formation i use.

[Bruv119]

Some of the fights myself and Kazaa have flown away from have been nuts.

I'm not talking sitting on a perch and picking off the edges either.

Fighting from underneath, disadvantaged in numbers and E.  Constantly moving and switching targets.  Real tight.

Theres wingman in a safe sense and then theres wingman in the deep sh$T.  

Not often I would kill a WoT in the latter.  No offence intended.

[Ghosth]

Communication and time spent flying together are the keys. Trust is a big issue for most, and time spend pulling each other out of sticky situations is a great trust builder.  

The other thing that cripples a lot of would be wingmen is being kill hungry.
Greed kills, period, patience and staying in visual range of your wingman will reward you with many easy shot opportunity's. Nothing is sweeter than to see a bandit focusing on shooting down my squad mate while I slide into his low 6 at 200 and rip him to shreds.

Diving away from your partner to try to ambush that low spit on the deck without saying anything is surely going to screw you both.

[moot]

It'd be cool if there was a re-run of the wingman clinic.

[Bruv119]

Originally posted by Ghosth
Diving away from your partner to try to ambush that low spit on the deck without saying anything is surely going to screw you both.

Totally right!   Even guys with knowledge the smell of blood is too much for them to not go for it.  Remaining patient and ice cool when your killing plays a big part.

[Shuffler]

Originally posted by hitech
My wingman has the tactic of me follow him, we go into ack and die.

Looks like a sound 80th action as well.

[Jappa52]

Originally posted by MjTalon
I normally fly in a flight of 4, 2 pairs, i also assign call signs so that the two flights do not get confused.  We normally fly Echelon formations, but from time to time we will fly in delta, and line abrest.


jappa, you by any chance rooks?

No Talen, squad is currently flying knights.  
We have been using the line abreast with a horizontal split of 600-700, an altitude split of 400-600, with the wingman set on the opposite side of the threat.  This allows me just enough space to be "out of plane" with the lead ship but near enough to assist in any offensive or defensive engagements.
I see lots of folks who employ the “grape” theory…  When we first started with these tactics all of our sorties ended with either the lead or wing being bait (the grape).  Worked for a while but ya better be quick and accurate or one, probably both of you is not going home.

[Bruv119]

My favourite one from years gone by is what I would call the flying circus or swarm.

10 guys or more all floating around the same bit of airspace moving forward.  The nearest enemy gets engaged by one or maybe two guys whilst the others grab around the outskirts and keep an eye out.

Basically just roam around base to base and keep the altitude advantage.

It's very hard to pull off but if everyone is top notch and keeps their discipline you could clear whole sectors and seriously piss off the enemy.

[JeepinAZ]

Originally posted by MjTalon
I normally fly in a flight of 4, 2 pairs, i also assign call signs so that the two flights do not get confused.  We normally fly Echelon formations, but from time to time we will fly in delta, and line abrest.


jappa, you by any chance rooks?

Or you wing with some guy that builds shoddy skins & get shot down while he's picking his nose...

[mtnman]

Saber and I wing up most of the time.  We don't actually use any specific tactics to come out ahead though, we just go by some basic ideas/rules.

We predominately use each other for SA.  The only time we actually fly close together is when on auto-climb, on the way to a fight or RTB.  I'll generally be reading a book at that point, so he'll holler if he sees a bad guy, etc.  I do the same if he's off grabbing a beer, food, etc...  

If we come across a bad guy while OTW to the "danger zone", one of two things will happen.  If the bad guy is co-E, alt, etc, (or above us) we let him pick one of us, and the other flies away.  If the bad guy is lower, etc, one of us will kill him while the other flies away.  The guy that flies away stations himself between his "wingman" and the main fight, to alert the "fighter" of new arrivals, and to intercept/kill them if possible.  If the "fighter" dies, the surviver gets to chuckle a bit at him.  

We look at it like "supervised" 1v1's.  We'll let each other die that way, in a 1v1, but will jump in to assist anytime it becomes 2v1 or greater.  The "supervisor" stations himself just out of icon range (to minimize stress on the potential victim), and watches for bad guys.

The only time we violate the 1v1 rule is when the engaged wingman is damaged, low fuel, low ammo, trying to RTB, etc...

We don't 2v1 unless we're exceedingly bored, and are suffering a lack of potential victims.  Even then it's not a true 2v1, it's simply a race to see who can kill the poor guy first.  An exeption to this is blocks of bombers- we actuallt tag-team those.  Saber gets the drone on the left, i get the one on the right.  The lead is killed by whichever is done with his drone first, or who "needs" more kills...

2v2, (or 2v more)- we actually help each other out and work as a team.  Lots of SA related chat, and working to set up the victims.  If the 2v whatever degrades to us v 1, one of us flies away again.

We generally work the edges of a fight, dipping into it to drag a few guys out with us, or with one of us.  Once just out of icon range of the main fight we kill the bad guys, and go back for more.  Most often this is one of us dragging a guy out for a fight/kill, while the other "babysits" where he can supply SA to the wingman who's busy.  We take turns watching out for each other based one who currently has more kills.  We try to keep it even.

We find this strategy to be extremely effective in allowing us to have "quality" fights- without worrying about getting cherry-picked, etc...  Not exactly a "win-the war" wingman set-up, but very effective in generating the fights we prefer.

MtnMan

[GooseAW]

True wingman tactics don't really work in the MA..as many have said.

There are just those people that suit each other's styles, and those that don't.

I have a few squaddies who fit my style.

Lippy and I seem to almost always make it out of the furball with some scalps. We aren't very disciplined but always keep an eye on each other's 6 even when engaged ourselves. If one of us gets in too deep the other tends to be close enough to clear him. It helps that we tend to be able to stay alive with a bogey on our 6...at least long enough for our help to arrive. In the more and more rare, 1v1 opportunities we will generally lay off unless many other cons are near. You will find us generally in, or on the fringe of the big furball. As opposed to coming in high we generally enter the fray under 10k and work our way to the center of the hairball...as opposed to 25k and working from the top down.

Hope to be killin again soon as I get a new mother board...