The idea is that no one person needs to keep track of all that, and certainly not at all times. The main idea is that those squads not directly engaged can keep track of nearby friendlies, and coordinate defense, attack, escape and the like without having to wait for direction from the CO.
Here's what happened to us last frame:
A. We came in to target, unsure of our assigns because the group ahead of us hadn't reported.
B. On egress, we selected an RTB field and started going that way. We got a contact report (minus altitude) from a squad near that field.
C. We spotted dots enroute, and repeatedly requested ident. on channel 2. We had to send two ships at mil power to investigate. As luck would have it, the fuel those two ships burned probably made the difference between survival and death.
D. The squadron at the field got eliminated, and failed to report this and the status of the cons (6-8 on the deck, very near the airfield). We came in over clouds and spotted 6-8 cons, and assumed they were the contacts.
E. We got wiped out and didn't bother telling anybody.
Hell, if you're engaged, you ignore meaningless reports. The brain is designed to filter rapidly out all kinds of information.
Position updates aren't always for the CO.
Hell, I've often been on scenarios where one person is designated flight leader, and leads, and one is the radio/nav officer, reports position on regular intervals, and monitors the position of other units. It's not rocket science.
[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: Dinger ]
