Scratching my head over wingmen behavior in SP (career mode)

[Sybreed]

I went back to my trusty old A5 in BoK and did some bombing missions, for the sake of looking for AI tweaks in the latest patch that could have been forgotten in the patch notes. All in all, I can say that I don't really understand how my wingmen are programmed when it comes to attacking ground targets.

 

First, the AI "behavior" itself. Ground attackers like the A5 in BoK seem to have a tendency of forgetting about its mission and running after bombers or other fighters if they pass near them. In about 50% of my flights, my wingmen will jettison their bombs and go after enemy fighters, turning the mission into an automatic failure, as no one can attack targets and do sufficient damage without bombs. This is not the main issue though.

 

Secondly, AI seems to be told to only attack AAA units and forget about the actual target. I'll post a screenshot below and you'll see that only I attacked the designated targets. That's the big issue.

 

The first mission was a failure because my flight jettisoned their bombs and only I destroyed targets at the designated point (I decided to keep going and destroyed 4 transports and 3 heavy tanks). It never triggered the "Return to base" condition.

 

2nd mission was a train depot attack. I destroyed the locomotive, 2 train cars and 2 transports. AI only attacked AAA units.

 

3rd mission was an artillery attack. Only I destroyed cannons. My wingmen only attacked AAA units and never bothered with the artillery guns. I don't know if it's related, but both the train mission and the artillery mission made us go around the target for a solid 10-15 minutes before we got the "Return to base" condition. Is it triggered after enough units are destroyed?

 

In my P-38 career, the same issue arises. My wingmen will drop their 1000 lbs bombs on AAA guns and go back to base.

 

During a Mig-3 mission, my wingmen dropped their bombs on AAA Units, and wasted all their ammo on tanks and armored cars that couldn't be damaged by their guns.

 

So, my question is: Could it be possible to review AI behaviour in a future patch so that wingmen spend actual effort on destroying the designated target instead of just AAA? It would be also interesting to review what causes fighter/bombers like the A5 and Mig-3 to jettison their bombs as soon as a fighter gets close. Is it intended?

 

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Sybreed

[41Sqn_Skipper]

I recently started a career flying the IL-2 and there the AI ground attack behavior was very reasonable. The first operation was against a german troop concentration: tanks and motor transport scatered in a village. My flight circled around the target area and each aeroplane made several attack runs individually and on different targets, which was possible due to the mixed bombs-and-rockets loadout. First attack was to surpress ack-ack, which was sense if you intent to stay longer in the area.

I honestly was very impressed!

 

In my Spitfire IX fighter-bomber career the AI is different, but again in most cases reasonable. The whole wing usually make a single attack on the same target and all at once and directly when arriving the target area. 

 

Sometimes however something goes wrong. They don't attack in formation, circle over the area and sometime some aeroplane may not even drop the bombs. In this situation I noticed that some attacked ack-ack instead of the target. Maybe they don't find the intended target in the first place? 

 

Regarding focus on air targets: MiG-3 is a horrible fighter-bomber and Fw 190 is a superb fighter, so that AI focuses on aerial combat might be intended. Main problem in Fw 190 is that focus would need to be based on the Staffel you are flying: a Fw 190 A Staffel of a Jagdgeschwader flying improvised ground attacks will focus more on enemy aeroplane and a Kampfgeschwader equipped with Fw 190 G "JaboRei" would avoid dogfights. A Schlachtgeschwader with Fw 190 F would be between the two.

 

[Lusekofte]

3 hours ago, 41Sqn_Banks said:

recently started a career flying the IL-2 and there the AI ground attack behavior was very reasonable

I agree on this. IL 2 ai behavior have at one point been much better. I flown sea dragon campaign 3 times and now on the final mission I can say that I have a real squadron behind me. 
at some point, maybe not latest patch they have improved very much. 
but I do recognize the behavior he describe in a careerI started with 109 E 7 , they tend to prioritize fighter duty if opportunity shows themselves. 
In a JU 88 career I currently run all things are very well. 
So I guess if ground pounders fly attack planes or bombers ai behave. If they fly fighter bombers they behave as fighters. We need a better authority in command menu

[Sybreed]

Il2s behavior is okay if I recall but I'll have to dust out my BOM career again. Have you guys tried the A5 or the p38? Seems like the wingmen only go for AA units and not the target. Having them jettison their bombs is okayish in a certain sense, but having them ignore the target and focus on AA is an actual issue in itself because you can't complete the mission.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Sybreed

[Yogiflight]

13 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

Il2s behavior is okay if I recall but I'll have to dust out my BOM career again. Have you guys tried the A5 or the p38? Seems like the wingmen only go for AA units and not the target. Having them jettison their bombs is okayish in a certain sense, but having them ignore the target and focus on AA is an actual issue in itself. 

I only can second this. It is absolutely annoying. Even in PWCG missions, in which the player as ground attacker has fighter escort, fighter bombers and 110s attack every enemy aircraft coming along. The german ground attack missions in the game's career mode are anyway more fighter missions than ground attack missions. You usually take the bombs with you to show them a bit of the world, not to use them.

[Ribbon]

It's John Connor's fault!

[RedeyeStorm]

I do not have much ‘command’ experience so I noticed that your wingmen prefer AAA over any other target first. No a lot of problems if there are limited AAA like with attacking artillery or with planes that can carry some serious amount of ordnance like Il2 or the 110 with 2x 250kg and 4x 50kg bombs. 
 

But when in command can you not order your wingmen to do as you do? I always believed that’s the way to keep them in formation. I do know you would have to give that command after passing a waypoint otherwise they go back to default behavior. I noticed this with giving formation commands.

[Sublime]

15 hours ago, Sybreed said:

I went back to my trusty old A5 in BoK and did some bombing missions, for the sake of looking for AI tweaks in the latest patch that could have been forgotten in the patch notes. All in all, I can say that I don't really understand how my wingmen are programmed when it comes to attacking ground targets.

 

First, the AI "behavior" itself. Ground attackers like the A5 in BoK seem to have a tendency of forgetting about its mission and running after bombers or other fighters if they pass near them. In about 50% of my flights, my wingmen will jettison their bombs and go after enemy fighters, turning the mission into an automatic failure, as no one can attack targets and do sufficient damage without bombs.

 

Secondly, AI seems to be told to only attack AAA units and forget about the actual target. I'll post a screenshot below, but you'll see that only I attacked the designated targets.

 

The first mission was a failure because my flight jettisoned their bombs and only I destroyed targets at the designated point (I decided to keep going and destroyed 4 transports and 3 heavy tanks). It never triggered the "Return to base" condition.

 

2nd mission was a train depot attack. I destroyed the locomotive, 2 train cars and 2 transports. AI only attacked AAA units.

 

3rd mission was an artillery attack. Only I destroyed cannons. My wingmen only attacked AAA units and never bothered with the artillery guns. I don't know if it's related, but both the train mission and the artillery mission made us go around the target for a solid 10-15 minutes before we got the "Return to base" condition. Is it triggered after enough units are destroyed?

 

In my P-38 career, the same issue arises. My wingmen will drop their 1000 lbs bombs on AAA guns and go back to base.

 

During a Mig-3 mission, my wingmen dropped their bombs on AAA Units, and wasted all their ammo on tanks and armored cars that couldn't be damaged by their guns.

 

So, my question is: Could it be possible to review AI behaviour in a future patch so that wingmen spend actual effort on destroying the designated target instead of just AAA? It would be also interesting to review what causes fighter/bombers like the A5 and Mig-3 to jettison their bombs as soon as a fighter gets close. Is it intended?

 

 

Theyll go after aaa. My best luck was a p38 career. Dont issue orders and caery a nice heavy loadout they will use some customs but most loadouts like rockets n bombs the ai doesmt seem.to know wat to do.

So i take a couple 1k lbers or 2k lbers and let the flight carry the basic just 2 500 lbs whatever.

I noticed giving no orders and attacking and orbitting near enough to see your flight attack far enough to be safe from.AAA - I noticed a good amount of flights bomb besides the aaa. The aaa is always hit but makes sense.

Ps this was p38 when career mode wrked for me.  I pwgc it now.  However i think i broke something messing with settings. I cant find groind targets not assigned ones.

[Sybreed]

26 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Theyll go after aaa. My best luck was a p38 career. Dont issue orders and caery a nice heavy loadout they will use some customs but most loadouts like rockets n bombs the ai doesmt seem.to know wat to do.

So i take a couple 1k lbers or 2k lbers and let the flight carry the basic just 2 500 lbs whatever.

I noticed giving no orders and attacking and orbitting near enough to see your flight attack far enough to be safe from.AAA - I noticed a good amount of flights bomb besides the aaa. The aaa is always hit but makes sense.

Ps this was p38 when career mode wrked for me.  I pwgc it now.  However i think i broke something messing with settings. I cant find groind targets not assigned ones.

 

But, if you're not the flight leader and you let the AI do their thing, they will only attack AAA

[Sybreed]

Aright, went back to my IL-2 career. We had an airfield attack and I think having an escort has an effect on whether you jettison your bombs or not if you get intercepted. In this case, we were intercepted by a squad of F-2s, but because we had an escort, so we kept going to our target and attacked it.

 

BUT, here's the main issue: Only I used my rockets and bombs and destroyed airfield targets. My wingmen did nothing other than attack AAA units and they did not fire a single rocket or dropped a single bomb. After a while, we had the "Return to base" trigger and we went back. All my wingmen still had their bombs and rockets.

 

Here's a screen showing the result. Yes, I know, I was killed. I was actually checking my allies loadout while retreating when a F-2 attacked me. I was still impressed by how solid the IL-2 is, because I took quite a lot of flak damage before the F-2 finished me off.

 

As you'll see, my wingmen only attacked AAA units.

[Gretsch_Man]

19 hours ago, Sybreed said:

AI only attacked AAA units.

Same here, but the AI already did so before the latest update, so the patch 4.005 probably won't have anything to do with that issue.

[Sybreed]

23 minutes ago, Gretsch_Man said:

Same here, but the AI already did so before the latest update, so the patch 4.005 probably won't have anything to do with that issue.

The new patch has indeed nothing to do with it. But, I think it's an issue that deserves dev's attention since it's been like this for a while. 

Edited April 12, 2020 by Sybreed

[Yogiflight]

2 hours ago, Sybreed said:

BUT, here's the main issue: Only I used my rockets and bombs and destroyed airfield targets. My wingmen did nothing other than attack AAA units and they did not fire a single rocket or dropped a single bomb. After a while, we had the "Return to base" trigger and we went back. All my wingmen still had their bombs and rockets.

Did you destroy the four parked aircrafts, that are the real target of airfield attacks? I guess, when you attack a german airfield it will be Ju 88s or He 111s.

What I found out in FW 190 A5 airfield attacks is, when I don't attack the four Parked Pe 2s, but the other parked aircrafts, that are really based there, as the airfields usually are close to the front, it is a fighter airfield, sometimes IL 2s, too, then my squadmates attack the four parked Pe 2s, additionally to the AAA.

[Sybreed]

Just now, Yogiflight said:

Did you destroy the four parked aircrafts, that are the real target of airfield attacks? I guess, when you attack a german airfield it will be Ju 88s or He 111s.

What I found out in FW 190 A5 airfield attacks is, when I don't attack the four Parked Pe 2s, but the other parked aircrafts, that are really based there, as the airfields usually are close to the front, it is a fighter airfield, sometimes IL 2s, too, then my squadmates attack the four parked Pe 2s, additionally to the AAA.

 

Honestly, I had no idea there were 4 specific targets that needed to be destroyed in airfield attacks. I only destroyed 2 parked aircrafts and as you can see, none of my squadmates destroyed any. They only destroyed AA targets. I did not specifically aimed for a group of 4 either. I saw random targets and attacked them.

 

edit: You guys can see the screenshots right? Just making sure xD

Edited April 12, 2020 by Sybreed

[Yogiflight]

Just now, Sybreed said:

 

Honestly, I had no idea there were 4 specific targets that needed to be destroyed in airfield attacks. I only destroyed 2 parked aircrafts and as you can see, none of my squadmates destroyed any. They only destroyed AA targets. I did not specifically aimed for a group of 4 either. I saw random targets and attacked them.

When you zoom the map in completely, it will show you a certain point on the airfield. At that point the four bombers are parked side by side, with four trucks in front of them. It is always this small group, which is put to each airfield, the player has to attack.

[Sybreed]

Just now, Yogiflight said:

When you zoom the map in completely, it will show you a certain point on the airfield. At that point the four bombers are parked side by side, with four trucks in front of them. It is always this small group, which is put to each airfield, the player has to attack.

 

Ok, well,  I just learned something. I did rocket one of these aircrafts, because I remember seeing a group with trucks next to them. But, as you can see on the screenshot, my teammates made 0 effort to attack them.

[Yogiflight]

When I attacked them, my squadmates left them out of their attack, too. You could next time try, to only attack the other parked aircrafts, and see, if your squadmates will destroy these four aircrafts.

[41Sqn_Skipper]

Screenshot from Spitfire IX career, attack on troop concentration. All attacked at the same time. One aicraft bombed the AAA (left explosion) and other 4 aircraft attacked the tanks and motor transports with their bombs (right explosion). Then they went for one strafing run.

Edited April 13, 2020 by 41Sqn_Banks

[Sybreed]

2 hours ago, 41Sqn_Banks said:

Screenshot from Spitfire IX career, attack on troop concentration. All attacked at the same time. One aicraft bombed the AAA (left explosion) and other 4 aircraft attacked the tanks and motor transports with their bombs (right explosion). Then they went for one strafing run.

In 6 months I haven't had a single teammate destroy an objective. I don't know why it happened with you.

[41Sqn_Skipper]

Maybe you can list the careers that you are running (squadron and time frame) and your campaign settings (airstart, density/front activity, commander yes/no) and also realism settings.

 

Can you give a description of your actions? Do you follow the waypoint? Do you attack before AI is attacking (they sometimes don't attack directly and prefer to choose a different attack direction)? Do you given any orders during the flight (e.g. return to mission or attack nearest ground target), especially close to the target or after passing the last waypoint before the target?

 

I had some issues when I manually ordered the ground attack and also when I bombed the target before the AI. So when I lead the flight, I navigate as good as possible by the waypoints to the target (I don't have map icons enabled, so not always possible) until the automatic "search for ground targets" message is send via radio.  Now AI no longer follows me and does the attack from the direction they prefer. I follow the AI and do my attack right after them and pick a suitable target that wasn't destroyed already by AI.

[Lusekofte]

On 4/12/2020 at 5:19 PM, Yogiflight said:

I only can second this. It is absolutely annoying. Even in PWCG missions, in which the player as ground attacker has fighter escort, fighter bombers and 110s attack every enemy aircraft coming along. The german ground attack missions in the game's career mode are anyway more fighter missions than ground attack missions. You usually take the bombs with you to show them a bit of the world, not to use them.

Ahhh I never ever get to target before my leader drop the bombs in a 109 E7. Shame really. Would like to fly that career. 
Bomber pilots in a E7 and FW 190 was a totally other breed than fighter pilots. Their training was different do it is not really realistic

[Sublime]

On 4/12/2020 at 3:31 PM, Sybreed said:

 

But, if you're not the flight leader and you let the AI do their thing, they will only attack AAA

Touche. I wouldnt know (career broken again) andbInrefuse tonfly career kod ujless as squadron lead now.

I dont know if its changed as LUKEFF verified he tweaked it so default A2G loadouts would be different but IME if I loaded my ai p38s with rockets and bombs theyd refyse to engage.

Leaving their armament alone saw them enage.  Further sometimes they *did* bomb stuff other than AA. Also interesting. N some of Ga Jades old missions the enemy bombing your airfield (p40 intercept for example) just dumps bombs in the middle ofnthe field it seems.

[Karl_Marxxx]

Are you flying from one of the ground attack squadrons?  Or is this a fighter squadron doing occasional strike missions?  I did a career in I believe it was SG.II and I thought the AI did well.  They only jettisoned if planes came after us, and they attacked  all types of targets on the missions.  They did so well as jabos that I came away impressed at the amount of damage we'd do to the targets.  I was never the flight leader, though.

 

The only disappointing thing was their tendency to linger over the target area and THEN get into it with enemy fighters.  To prevent huge losses to the AI I would make only a couple passes and then sprint for home with the boost engaged.  That way I could land before they got shot down, haha.

 

Here's a video of a few attacks, you can see the AI going after all kinds of targets.

 

 

[Lusekofte]

1 hour ago, Karl_Marxxx said:

Are you flying from one of the ground attack squadrons?  Or is this a fighter squadron doing occasional strike missions?  I did a career in I believe it was SG.II and I thought the AI did well.  They only jettisoned if planes came after us, and they attacked  all types of targets on the missions.  They did so well as jabos that I came away impressed at the amount of damage we'd do to the targets.  I was never the flight leader, though.

I believe I do. I must check. All missions so far has been with bombs. But we are attacked so it make sense to drop. 
what puzzle me is that leaders wingman do not drop bomb only the two leaders do. And all return to base and just circle the airbase with no sign of wanting to land. 

[Sybreed]

I'll try to answer some of the questions asked but bear in mind I'm at work and on my phone. 

 

1st I might change the original post as I don't believe having your fighters drop their bombs when intercepted to be an actual issue. I just wish it would happen less often but that's nitpicking.

 

2nd: I play career mode on default settings. So I'm not the flight lead. When bombing, I usually follow my squadmates so I don't get focused by AA. So, I don't think I'm doing something that might confuse my allies so much that they don't know what to bomb. I did realize that their first targets are always AA and they won't attack anything else ( see screenshots above)

 

Like I said in the mig 3 career, my allies used their bombs to destroy AA then tried to shoot down tanks with guns, making the attack run take forever. I think the ai is proprammed to destroy all the AA units first, then they will attack the target.  But, maybe because I'm playing on dense activity and moderate difficulty, there are too many AA units for  the AI to handle?

[Sybreed]

10 hours ago, Karl_Marxxx said:

Are you flying from one of the ground attack squadrons?  Or is this a fighter squadron doing occasional strike missions?  I did a career in I believe it was SG.II and I thought the AI did well.  They only jettisoned if planes came after us, and they attacked  all types of targets on the missions.  They did so well as jabos that I came away impressed at the amount of damage we'd do to the targets.  I was never the flight leader, though.

 

The only disappointing thing was their tendency to linger over the target area and THEN get into it with enemy fighters.  To prevent huge losses to the AI I would make only a couple passes and then sprint for home with the boost engaged.  That way I could land before they got shot down, haha.

 

Here's a video of a few attacks, you can see the AI going after all kinds of targets.

 

 

 

Are you the squad leader?

[Sybreed]

so, I did 3 more missions, one in an IL-2, two in a FW-190A5, brand new kuban campaign.

 

What I noticed is this:

 

In the IL-2 mission, there was almost no AAA, so the IL-2s went on actual targets like tanks and light vehicules.

 

In the FW190A5 campaign, one was a frontline attack, one was an airfield attack.

 

The frontline attack actually felt nice! My squadmates destroyed rocket trucks and cannons. There was only a few AA units around

 

The airfield attack went as expected. My squadmates dropped all their 250kg bombs on AAA units and proceeded to strafe the remaining AAA units. Only I was attacking the parked planes. There was at least 15 AAA units on the airfield.

 

So, as I suspected, I think there's a bug in the AI script that makes squadmates target AAA first, then other targets of opportunity.

 

Screenshots to prove my sayings:

In case you wonder, all the "1" are AAA units destroyed.

 

Edited April 15, 2020 by Sybreed

[Warmoer]

Overall in my careers (not flight lead) as fighter bomber things have been going well. There are a few head scratchers now and then; like the flight strafing a convoy (tanks) with zero effect in a continuous racetrack pattern until the flight lead finally gives up. In my Rheinland Spitfire MKIX we usually go up with a 3 bomb loadout, and the squad does surprisingly well. Survivability is another matter though. Sometimes  a mission will go well, and in the debrief I will find that someone crashed. Last night we flew an intercept of enemy attackers consisting of A8's and G14's. I thought it went well; I bagged 4 and had to run back to my base in Deurne ammo dry with a G14 chasing me. He finally gave up the chase when my airfield AAA opened up on him. 

In debrief I found that 4 out of 6 in our flight got shot down. The flight member that survived got 1 kill. Somehow I find this outcome hard to believe. What I really miss is radio feedback from my flight members on how their fight is going; there doesn't seem to be any flight comms outside of lead making a few mission related comments. It feels very sterile and I really have to use my imagination to get through these missions.

This is unfortunate as the campaign system has massive potential. These campaigns are really what sets IL2 apart from something like DCS for solo players, and it would be great if more could be done to flesh out the AI behavior during missions, and to provide better communication feedback to the player.

[Yogiflight]

5 hours ago, Sybreed said:

So, as I suspected, I think there's a bug in the AI script that makes squadmates target AAA first, then other targets of opportunity.

You can see this very well, when looking at the AAR maps in missions with ground attack of other squads. No matter if it is PWCG or the game's career mode, when there is ground attacking going on, while you are dogfighting, the AAR map shows it absolutely clear, ground attacking aircrafts, like the IL-2, Stuka or Bf 110, are only attacking AAA, nothing else.

When you fly ground attack missions yourself, there are mission types, in which AI attacks, what they should, sometimes attacks on artillery positions, and on troop concentrations in towns or at bridges. And other mission types, that are simply annoying, like attacks on truck convoys (AI only attacks the AAA), armored convoys (AI only attacks the escorting vehicles, BA-64 or SdKfz 251), and airfield attacks (AAA). In PWCG they only attack AAA, so my guess is, it only works correctly with missions, which are scripted to get the correct outcome, like the career missions, where you trigger action B, when you do A, and maybe there is a command for the AI, to attack that special target (usually tanks). But there are also missions, where AI first drop their bombs on AAA and then strafe the tanks with their guns, instead of doing it the other way round.

[41Sqn_Skipper]

Interestingly my mission yesterday was an attack on troop concentration. And there was a lot more AA defense than usual. This time AI attacked only the AA guns. So AI logic seems to depend on the amount of AA. This logic makes sense for aircraft capable of multiple attack runs, but not so much for fighter-bombers that can only make one attack per mission.

 

Some speculations: With that in mind the amount of AA guns may depend on the campaign. BOM may have a lot of AA guns as the ground attack missions templates were designed for strong attack aircraft like IL-2, and therefore might not be well suited for improvised fighter-bombers like MIG-3.

[Karl_Marxxx]

14 hours ago, Sybreed said:

 

Are you the squad leader?

 

No.

[Sybreed]

well, I don't think this will be fixed anytime soon. I tried PMing 2 devs but no answers and I don't want to annoy them with that. Unless someone has special connections within the dev team, I don't think this will be corrected anytime soon. I guess I'll stick to fighters only for career mode for now. 

Edited April 16, 2020 by Sybreed

[41Sqn_Skipper]

Make a bug report here, there's a template in the first post:

 

Attach all of the generated files for the mission, they are located in folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\1C Game Studios\IL-2 Sturmovik Great Battles\data\Missions" and called "_gen.*". Note that the files are overwritten when you start the next mission, so save them before you move on.

Mention your exact career and realism settings, could be related to amount of AAA or victory condition (not sure if that changes with difficulty/density).

 

Maybe also take some screenshots (e.g. the after action report that shows that only AAA was attacked). 

 

[Lusekofte]

Well I figured out that I wanted to do a JU 87 campaign and chose first step in Stalingrad. 
Medium difficulty and density. Ironman
long flight to target and we got message find your own target right over our objective. 
So I dived and dropped and blew up stuff. 
I looked for the other peep’s and found them on same sltitude I left them on route for home. 
When I finally cought up with them I saw nobody dropped their bombs. And did not before we was over our home base. 
Is this normal for Stuka campaign? 
I do not mind long flights in formation, but I kind of like some level of realism

[Sybreed]

32 minutes ago, 216th_LuseKofte said:

Well I figured out that I wanted to do a JU 87 campaign and chose first step in Stalingrad. 
Medium difficulty and density. Ironman
long flight to target and we got message find your own target right over our objective. 
So I dived and dropped and blew up stuff. 
I looked for the other peep’s and found them on same sltitude I left them on route for home. 
When I finally cought up with them I saw nobody dropped their bombs. And did not before we was over our home base. 
Is this normal for Stuka campaign? 
I do not mind long flights in formation, but I kind of like some level of realism

 

This happened to me with the il2 as well

[Asgar]

The A5 never was, is not and never will be a ground attacker

[Sybreed]

6 minutes ago, Asgar said:

The A5 never was, is not and never will be a ground attacker

 

1st: you missed the entire point of this thread. The A5 was used as an example because its faster to reach its target and therefore it was easier to get footage. The problem is with all planes doing ground attacks. 

 

2nd: I take it you haven't played the A5 in career mode in BoK? 90% of the missions are ground attack missions because that's what the aircraft did in that theater.

 

3rd: you're just wrong. A quick search on wikipedia would have told you that. 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Sybreed

[LukeFF]

4 hours ago, 216th_LuseKofte said:

Well I figured out that I wanted to do a JU 87 campaign and chose first step in Stalingrad. 
Medium difficulty and density. Ironman
long flight to target and we got message find your own target right over our objective. 
So I dived and dropped and blew up stuff. 
I looked for the other peep’s and found them on same sltitude I left them on route for home. 
When I finally cought up with them I saw nobody dropped their bombs. And did not before we was over our home base. 
Is this normal for Stuka campaign? 
I do not mind long flights in formation, but I kind of like some level of realism

 

You need to post the _gen mission file when problems like this show up, in the bug reporting forum if you want the developers to look at what the problem may be.

[Lusekofte]

7 hours ago, LukeFF said:

 

You need to post the _gen mission file when problems like this show up, in the bug reporting forum if you want the developers to look at what the problem may be.

Yes I should have captured it. I will if it happens again. 
I was mostly interested to know if this is “normal” I do not mind flying for an hour if things work. If it does not work I rather not do it. 
I got mission accomplished , so career wise mothing wrong

[Letka_13/Arrow_]

In my yesterday's Il-2 BOM mission, in railyard attack, my flight only went after AAA, stayed on the target for some 15 minutes, after that we were intercepted by 109s and obliterated. I managed to limp back to base and downed one 109, but only I attacked the railyard and the locomotive there.