give attack order

[jack333]

Hi, I have a question. In career mode, when we reach the attack zone, for example, the ground artillery, do I have to give my wingmen the order to attack, or do they start attacking as soon as we arrive? Thanks.

[YoYo]

1 hour ago, jack333 said:

Hi, I have a question. In career mode, when we reach the attack zone, for example, the ground artillery, do I have to give my wingmen the order to attack, or do they start attacking as soon as we arrive? Thanks.

There's no need. Besides, as you'll notice, if you find yourself in the target area, your wing suddenly forgets you're the commander 😎, reports the targets themselves, and proceeds to attack. Personally, when I have nothing left to attack, or I'm out of weapons and want to return to base, I give the Rejoin command and that's it.

In my opinion, however, it should be you, the commander, who issues the order, and only then do the AI attack the targets. Now, issuing the order will probably cause them to get their orders mixed up.

[Uther]

I let their x ray vision spot the targets for me.

[DEMON]

Nope, if you give order to attack specific target type they will obey. They may be too slow, but at some time they will attack. For example i command to search AA, and after a 30 seconds of precice maneuvering i can see how they starts to miss with 500 pound bombs and no using rockets at all 🙂 

[JG4_Moltke71]

7 hours ago, DEMON said:

Nope, if you give order to attack specific target type they will obey. They may be too slow, but at some time they will attack. For example i command to search AA, and after a 30 seconds of precice maneuvering i can see how they starts to miss with 500 pound bombs and no using rockets at all 🙂 

If rockets loaded I order em „use rockets first“ otherwise they always will bring em home.

When egress I order em to jettison weapon load so the group can quickly form up

 

I noticed when I give this order they wouldn’t shoot remaining rockets 

when I order jettison drop tanks they also not obey 🤷🏼‍♂️

[BlitzPig_EL]

In a career mission last night I let the AI go on their own, and they dutifully attacked some artillery and just to make sure, three of them kamikazed the target.

 

Edited Friday at 02:16 PM by BlitzPig_EL

[Koziolek]

On 8/21/2026 at 4:16 PM, BlitzPig_EL said:

In a career mission last night I let the AI go on their own, and they dutifully attacked some artillery and just to make sure, three of them kamikazed the target.

 

Well, normally I would ask if you had reported a bug but I start to think that this actually might be a feature

[BlitzPig_EL]

I did report it, with the mission file attached.

[taffy2]

Being in command of a flight is a complete waste of time, flying the Normandy map, mission- destroy the AAA at Carpiquet airfield, gave order to flight to attack they then fly off over the sea, fly around in circles and then return to the home field with all their bombs and rockets.

[AndreiTomescu]

You know we're talking about a different game here, right? The hole discussion/bug reporting has the aim to improve the AI ground attack behaviour, which has already improved greatly, like hugely, comparing Korea to GB.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Even so, the AI will bimble about, flying large circles away from the target area, as if they are on a tourist trip,. While they are off having a picnic, I can generally complete the mission by myself, while they all fly back with most of their under wing ordnance still hanging there.

[AndreiTomescu]

1 minute ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

while they all fly back with most of their under wing ordnance still hanging there

or get shot down by AAA, which is even worse, since i have to call replacements! or get stuck with damaged planes and wounded pilots.

But in general, mostly if i let them do their job without interfering with my orders, they do a decent job, and hugely a better one compared to GB. just my view.

[BlitzPig_EL]

Yes, I agree about being better than GB.  As I mentioned before, I never cared for single player before, now I quite enjoy it.

[AndreiTomescu]

45 minutes ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

I never cared for single player before, now I quite enjoy it

IMHO, since you previously run online mostly, you are used to smart wingman (like, humans). The AI ones can't get comparable to those. Since you are enjoying SP now, it means, at least imho, that even somebody with your great MP experience is somehow content with AI wingmen, and that means they are improvable, but decent. That is a very important and good evaluation scale for me. Thx!

[Jaegermeister]

2 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

Even so, the AI will bimble about, flying large circles away from the target area, as if they are on a tourist trip,. While they are off having a picnic, I can generally complete the mission by myself, while they all fly back with most of their under wing ordnance still hanging there.

If you reach a target area and your flight is given an attack order based on mission design, ordering them to attack will restart the attack routine, causing them to pull off target, circle around about 8-10 km from target, and then return to start what they were about to do all over again. That would take 2 or 3 minutes at least.

I think I will try to play some career missions to see if they are given an attack order based on "Attack Area" commands or not. and then I will know what is going on.

[AEthelraedUnraed]

2 hours ago, BlitzPig_EL said:

Even so, the AI will bimble about, flying large circles away from the target area, as if they are on a tourist trip,. While they are off having a picnic, I can generally complete the mission by myself, while they all fly back with most of their under wing ordnance still hanging there.

It's probably realistic though 🙂

If you read mission reports, you'll usual see that they circle the target once or twice to ID it, then setup a proper attack. That's what the AI does as well; part of the circling they do is to attack in the direction of the wind, to make the bomb/rocket trajectory more predictable. 

Like you, I also don't always have the patience for a proper setup and will often attack from whatever direction, Immelmann around when not even outside of Flak range yet and attack again until my ammo is spent, but that's not particularly realistic 😉

[Redeye]

3 hours ago, AndreiTomescu said:

IMHO, since you previously run online mostly, you are used to smart wingman (like, humans). The AI ones can't get comparable to those. Since you are enjoying SP now, it means, at least imho, that even somebody with your great MP experience is somehow content with AI wingmen, and that means they are improvable, but decent. That is a very important and good evaluation scale for me. Thx!

Ha you never flown with me! Trust me you will be begging for an AI wingman!