By David "Hunter" Proeber

  OPERATIONAL PLANNING

If there was one lesson that reinforces the brilliance of Warden's book it would be the importance of establishing air superiority. With it, we can send our attack aircraft anywhere, at any time. Without it, we are severely limited in which targets we can engage without suffering huge loss of life.

Warden pointed out the importance of establishing air superiority in the Pacific during WWII. There is a lesson here for the Falcon campaigner. Some forces should be set aside early on to establish air superiority. They not only insure that our attacking aircraft will not be engaged, but it also insures that the enemy's ground attack aircraft cannot destroy our air bases or harass our men on the ground.

Just how many flights should be reserved for DCA or BARCAP? You'll have to figure that one out on your own, but you might consider looking at Victory conditions. You'll notice that just as in real warfare, if the enemy bombs our primary air bases, we're going to lose a lot of points. It might be worth setting up a constant BARCAP around our important resources.

Before planning ground attack missions, ask yourself what is worth blowing up that will save our forces or prevent the enemy from achieving his goals? Wars can also be won by degrading the enemy's center of mass. Such was the case with Japan and Germany during WWII.

In Chosin: China's Revenge, you can approximate the center of the enemy's mass by looking at his objective. Where is his local command and control? He wants to capture Seoul. How will he do that? Air power alone cannot win the battle for him. He must send troops down through the peninsula to occupy territory. We could wage a giant air campaign and level Peking, but it is politically unacceptable in this day and age .

Going on the offensive also requires substantial resources. A flight or two of F-16s isn't going to do much against a brigade of attacking Chinese armor. But throw in a couple of squadrons of A-10s and you have a formula for success. Packaging becomes critical. This is the second part of the play equation. You must build effective gorillas in order to achieve tactical success.

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BUILDING GORILLAS

I'll refer the uninitiated to my article in the Falcon archives on this site for detailed instructions. I will say, however, that you must combine a variety of aircraft types to succeed in most instances. For example, let's say you want to take out the airbase at An-Tung. You will not only require a flight of F-16s flying OCA with Durandels, you'll also probably need some F/A-18s flying SEAD and some F-15s flying CAP.

In building the gorilla, remember to unlock the takeoff time. It is imperative to lock the Time on target and give all members of the package time to arrive on time. Remember, red flight paths mean you are asking a flight to do the impossible. Look at waypoint distances and air speeds to verify that you are asking reasonable performance when you schedule a flight.

GAME PLAY

Let's say you've assessed the enemy's threat and are ready to begin building missions in the mission editor. Remember, there are no flights in this TE. You must call up the TE mission in the edit mode and add squadrons to air bases before you can add flights. The average squadron has about 16 planes, meaning you can task an entire squadron by adding four flights of four aircraft in the flight planning window. Just remember to keep the Time on Target locked.

After you've allocated your resources for the first two to four hours of the campaign, you can save the mission (I usually rename it ChosinA1 or whatever) quit the edit mode and re-enter in the play mode. There you can fly any F-16 flight you've scheduled.

After you have flown those scheduled missions, you should save the TE and re-enter the edit mode to schedule the next four hours of the campaign. I usually look at the game score under victory conditions, examine intelligence in the Mission Planning Window and attempt to figure out what has transpired in the campaign before allocating new assets to their tactical role.

It is far less confusing to delete any used or partially used squadrons from air bases tasked in the earlier hours of the game before you begin placing squadrons for the second round of air strikes (You don't have to worry about editing Chinese forces, their strategy and operational plan have already been set).

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