Thread: Squad AIR CAV

We tried doing an organized air cavalry squad last night on a couple rounds. It was fairly disorganized and hectic; and I couldn't fly worth a darn. But there was a lot of potential. So much so that it's got me up in the morning at 5:30 thinking about all the possibilities.

Here's the set up I've got in mind:
a full squad of 6. 3 pilots and 3 gunners.
2 gunships, codenamed 'lead' and 'draft'
1 transport codenamed 'fatboy' (if you come up with better code names I'd love to hear it)
lead gets a gunner, fatboy gets two gunners, and draft just has a solo pilot.

At all times the two gunships stick together, flying as wingmen. Use a straight line formation with draft following immediately behind lead. The gunships would certainly get more kills if they flew separate, but flying in formation ensures their survival. Also, coordinating in this way brings a new level of teamplay that I'd like to see. Fatboy does not fly formation with the gunships since he can't keep up and the two gunships have more than enough firepower.

For general combat the gunships and transport fly around just spotting stuff, killing stuff, and helping each other stay alive.

If the commander wants AIR CAV to take a base then watch this for inspiation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHjWD...eature=related (it's a full 18 min so maybe don't watch it right now). Fatboy gets in formation behind draft (and plays Ride of the Valkyries). Lead and draft swoop in and take care of the armor, fatboy arrives shortly thereafter. The commander should have one of the ground assault squads spawn out of fatboy to take the base. But if need be one of the gunners can jump out and take care of it. Lead and fatboy maintain a perimeter over the base providing cover while draft patrols for enemy aircraft.

We don't want lead to be hovering any longer than necessary since he's vulnerable. So once the flag/silo is grayed out, lead stops flying perimeter and joins draft patrolling the area for enemy aircraft. Since draft has already been doing the patrol and lead's missile camera is not very crucial on air patrol we have draft fly in front of lead until the base is clear and it's time to leave.

Now suppose it's a titan map and the friendly titan's shield is down. Squad AIR CAV can assume guard duty as follows.

fatboy's crew leaves the transport and assumes the following three duties:
priority 1: keep the ground underneath the titan clear of all APC's.
priority 2: keep the top deck clear
priority 3: maintain control of the silo nearest the friendly titan

The gunships fly high patrol hunting for enemy transports and occasionally attack ground targets.

With this setup the opposing team will find it hard to get on the titan and impossible to spawn on the titan. You'll still need a squad to defend the corridors, but not a full squad of 6.

OK, now for some specifics.

Here's the kit assignments for the squad.
Lead's crew:1 engineer, 1 support. Lead needs the vehicle sonar and a support personal to resupply the sonar when it gets destroyed.
Draft's crew: 1 engineer for the vehicle sonar.
Fatboy's crew: 1 support, 2 engineer

Fatboy's gunners should be engineer to repair in flight. It also helps to drop mines on vehicles below. A SAAW might be nice to have in the back. I've had pretty good luck hitting ground armor with the default rockets. I don't use the pilum but I doubt it'd be of any use. One of the engineers should keep a vehicle sonar on fatboy, the other engineer can put his sonar on draft when his gets destroyed. The pilot should be support to resupply the crew and provide an infantry sonar.

Here's a few thoughts about the role of the gunner sitting in lead.
Lead's gunner uses the missile view to spot armor out of visual range, not as a weapon. He can fire the missile as a means of advanced scouting but he should rely on the two pilots to destroy armor. The gunner himself switches to the cannon well before they get in range and is responsible for taking out infantry. If the gunner tries using the missile as a means of attack, by the time the missile hits, the gunship will be close to the target and he doesn't have time to switch to the cannon and get oriented to take out infantry. Since the gunships are fully capable to take out armor without the TV missile and are mostly incapable of taking out infantry without compromising their safety I'll :4 any gunner who doesn't have the cannon up and ready in advance.

The missile camera is still incredibly useful for spotting armor out of visual and sonar range so I still want that to be in use, and for this reason I want lead to have the gunner instead of draft. Of course, if fatboy is following close behind then lead's gunner can use the missiles to help destroy armor.

Here's a typical attack pattern for the two gunships. They're flying around and lead's gunner sees enemy armor through the missile camera. He immediately calls out directions to the pilot and fires the missile. The directions should be in left/right up/down since his orientation is the same as the pilot's. Keep in mind the missile camera is pointed lower than the pilot's target reticle (on my screen it's about 2 inches lower). While the pilot is maneuvering into position the gunner lets the missile fly until he gets a momentary view of the target. He then reports what he saw and switches to the cannon. The gunships go in for the kill. The gunner does not stay with the missile until it detonates. But keep in mind that by switching to the cannon before the missile detonates the next missile will not reload until you've switched back to the missile camera.

OK, next time you see me in squad AIR CAV you know what I've got in mind. I may not be the squad leader because that role distracts from concentrating on my flying, but I will have created the squad and this is what I expect the squad to be about.

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

I like, and not just from the perspective of possibly having more stuff to shoot at with my SAAW. Very well thought out and written Artheuss.

I think you're gonna find it awful hard to hit gunships following this formation. It's built to be able to maintain max speed throughout an attack run and still demolish enemy armor. And if they stay close enough it'll make it hard for you to track one individual target with the SAAW.

The fatboy will still be vulnerable, but the two engineers should be able to keep it flying long enough for the gunships to come to the rescue or to fly out of range of ground AA fire.

I was hoping you could gun for me last night when you were in my squad. Sorry it didn't work out. But next time I think you'd very much enjoy taking one of the engineer positions on fatboy. Talk about the ideal position for a SAAW player.

Kind of like a flying goliath but with the crew sitting exposed to fire. I think it was bigdog who pioneered this kind of transport a while ago. I seem to recall he had a name for it but I don't remember.

Originally Posted by Artheuss

Kind of like a flying goliath but with the crew sitting exposed to fire. I think it was bigdog who pioneered this kind of transport a while ago. I seem to recall he had a name for it but I don't remember.

THE FAT DRAGON!

Originally Posted by KromMonkey

THE FAT DRAGON!

Yeah, that's it. But I like fatboy better because it's easier/quicker to say over voip.

I was thinking the name fatboy might be a little sexist and upset some of the female players on the server. So maybe we could name it fatgirl in honor of them and avoid any female trouble. Waddya think?

Originally Posted by IronStomach

Very nice! *cough*http://www.texasteamplayers.com/index.php?topic=28047.0*cough*

Wow, thanks for the compliment. I hadn't considered writing this as an article. I'll have to wait until squad AIR CAV gets a few field tests and then I'll work on writing it up again in article format.