AI Aggression on Intercept Flights

[Ram399]

A recent change I've noticed in the behavior of AI wingmen on intercept missions in particular is that following the initial engagement of a target they seem to become unwilling to press the attack any further.

In the past you could practically force your squadronmates to engage an enemy bomber/ground attack flight by giving the "Return to Mission" order when in close proximity to the mission target on an intercept as the bombers were seen as the critical objective which they would immediately try to fulfill.

I recently flew a bomber intercept several times however, and this seems to have changed.  While so long as the mission critical objective has yet to be fulfilled, giving a return to mission order will result in your flight immediately engaging the target, as soon as they have either damaged 2 of the bombers or downed 1 of them, they will break off their attack and attempt to rejoin formation.
I assume this is a result of the mission being considered finished and compounded by changes in the AI focus on maintaining a cohesive formation more often (Which is definitely a good thing).

After this point is reached however, nothing I do or say (with the exception of 1 odd trick) can persuade my wingmen to reengage the often still plentiful bombers cruising around- to the point that I've flown in formation with the enemy while repeatedly spamming the "Engage Nearest Air Target" command to no avail.

The odd workaround to this issue I have found was rather surprising but is actually rather effective- its to give the "Cover Me" command, and then fly in front of the bomber formation you want to die.
It seems as if this triggers your AI wingmen into believing that the bombers are on your six o' clock, and results in them immediately bouncing the apparent threat with extreme aggression- to the point that I was able to coax my flight into downing 10 A-20s with this method over the course of a single flight.

All in all this doesn't seem like too big an issue- and the cover-me command certainly helps to rectify it more than a bit even if it is an odd tactic, I just thought I'd share what I had noticed.