by WW_Sensei
There are two times to egress the fight:
1) The target is dead, or
2) The bandit lives, but an outside factor determines that it is time to leave.
In case one, the Primary has killed the target or perhaps the Secondary engaged
and made the killing shot. In either case the wingman with the higher SA should
direct the egress. In general, the egress vector will be toward friendly lines.
Occasionally this cannot be done for other reasons (like a superior enemy force in
your way) so the higher SA should consider that. In most cases the Secondary will
be the one with the higher SA and should have been looking at possible egress
vectors all along.
Now, let's look at the second option where the target is not dead, but some other
factor has made egress a possible option. Usually, this means more bad guys are
coming or you both are out of ammo. If superior numbers are coming then a
"tactical retreat" is in order. If you both ran out of ammo trying to kill one plane
definetly get some gunnery training in! :-) OK, so you are the Secondary and your
N key picks up 3 or 4 unknown bogies coming from the general direction of the
bad guy homeland. Checking the Team chat offers no hope that it's friendlies on the
way back from a deep strike. You decide to call off the fight and head for safer
skies. The Primary acknowledges the egress call.
At this point there are three possible things your target will do:
1) Continue to engage the Primary
2) Turn and engage the Secondary
3) Run away
If the target turns to engage the Primary then the Secondary should engage and
make the kill shot. At this point it isn't necessary to kill the target--just make him
break off allowing you to egress. Remember you don't have a lot of time. If the
target turns on the Secondary this will either give your Primary a good
opportunity or you can use your superior energy state to deny him the kill and
possibly even get off a burst or two. If the Primary engages he must also
remember not to get target locked. Do whatever it takes to break the attack and
then get out of there. If the enemy chooses to disengage and leave then there isn't
anything for the two of you to do but leave. You have denied the enemy the free
use of your airspace and forced him to leave. It is a victory.
This concludes the series on Wingman Tactics Primer. This series is not meant to
be everything there is to know about being a wingman, but hopefully I have
provided some basics. I struck upon the idea after seeing the question asked by
many fliers, both squad affliated and independent. My aim was to help provide
some common ground for people to build their tactics from. The scenario's I
described focused on a 2 vs 1 situation, but many of the same tactics can be
scaled up. If two 4-ships engage the enemy one 4-ship can be Primary and the
other Secondary for example.
As I stated before, this is not original material. I based a lot of it on sources from
the net like www.combatsim.com, Worr on Wingman Tactics, Bullethead's
excellent series and a variety of other Warbirds, Air Warrior and other combat
sims. It is also based on my experiences both real life and in sims. My primary
contribution was in scaling the numbers down or adjusting different things for Red
Baron MMP play. For those that have made kind comments I Thank You. I hope
this has been of some help...
