I'm currently working on a campaign following 47 Sqn from their conversion to Beaufighters in Jun 43. They were a torpedo-bomber sqn and had flown Beauforts during the campaign to date (sinking 'Rommel's Last Tanker' along the way), so they went straight into the torpedo-bomber role with the brand new Mk.Xs that they converted to.

Typical strike missions consisted of 4 Torbeaus and 4 Beaufighters with cannon only in the flak suppression role. Potentially the game could handle this quite well. The AI can make a half-decent torpedo strike and it is possible to sink, with cannon-fire alone, many of the vessels which acted as convoy escorts and which could be sunk by cannon fire for real (torpedo-boats, MFPs). Furthermore, things like AA mountings on ships which can not be sunk by cannon-fire, can be destroyed by strafing (ships from PF only). So both the torpedo strike and the flak suppression could be represented with reasonable accuracy.

The problem is, how do you make AI controlled ac actually attack a ship with guns/cannon alone? Even when I 'set target' on a ship which can be destroyed by cannon-fire, the AI simply turn away ignoring that WP and head to the next one.

If I add rockets the AI will make an attack, but rockets had not yet been introduced, and rockets would sink ships which should only be suppressed. The same applies to adding bombs.

At the moment I can only think of getting the AI escorts to fly into the target area ahead of the torpedo-bombers to act as flak-magnets, which obviously is not going to look or be as good as proper flak-suppression. Placing some AA guns on those barge-like objects might give the AI something they would recognize as a target, but it would not be a moving target, which might spoil the scene a little.

I guess the other alternative is to make the campaign an online one for a squad of human pilots to play against the AI enemy.

If anyone has some cunning solutions to this problem I'd like to know.

Hopefully Zeus-cat can tell us otherwise but when it comes to strafing boats I get a big zero myself.
Unless I use rockets, bombs, or torpedoes I can't get them to attack.
I can't seem to sink any boats with just guns either when I attack them.

Wheelsup

kernow,

I'm afraid you have already figured it out. The AI will not attack a target with weapons that they don't "think" will destroy it. Therefore, AI aircraft will not strafe ships. The only way around this is to put an object on or inside a stationary ship that the AI will strafe.

Thanks ZC, I was afraid I'd got it worked out already

Depending on which source I follow, standard strikes were either 8- or 10-strong, with 4 or 6 torpedo-carriers and 4 escorts. As many target convoys had an air escort of Ar/He floatplanes and/or Ju-88s I can always tie up some of the escort in air-to-air work, perhaps leaving the player to do the anti-flak job - although I'm sure most people would rather use their Beaufighter to tangle with floatplanes instead of doing the dangerous flak-suppression job When the player has a torpedo I'll probably have to use the static object work-around to make it look like the escorts are doing their job.

Think I'll persevere with an offline campaign for now, as the AI can be made to deliver a co-ordinated attack. Standard search formation was a long line-abreast formation, with the torpedo-carriers in the centre and a pair of escorts on either flank. I think most players are capable of holding position on their leader in such a formation - and the AI will do as they're told, of course - and most could probably lead their section in the right place if they had to lead a flight. However, TBH, I'm not sure there are many groups of human players who could form and hold a wide line-abreast formation with 8-10 ac and then deliver a co-ordinated strike, so the online option would probably disappoint in practice. Maybe a training campaign that would work up to such a level of proficiency... I can see this project suffering from 'mission creep'. Originally a relatively short offline campaign, it might now be 2 campaigns.

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Was reading last night and came across plenty of occasions where Malta-based escort Beaufighters carried a pair of 250-lb bombs. Seems about half the escort Beaus carried bombs for flak-suppression. The Malta sqns seem to have developed strike wing tactics well ahead of either the Desert Air Force or UK-based Coastal Command, so bombs may not have been used for flak suppression by the Tunisia sqns, even by mid-43. However, it seems a plausible and (more importantly) workable way to get AI Beaufighters to do some flak suppression.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kernow,