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Red Baron II/3D - Tutorials


This series by WW_Sensei does an excellent job of discussing wingman tactics in combat. The series consists of 5 articles, and we highly recommend you read them all!



"The Wingman Series" - Part II "The Secondary"

By Mike "Sensei" Couvillion



In Part I we covered the basic role of the Primary or Engaged Fighter. This section will cover the role of the Secondary or Support Fighter. The Secondary is by far the more complicated of the two roles. While not a hard and fast rule, the more experienced pilot is often the Secondary pilot. I think you will see why.

These are the basic duties of the Secondary:

1) Keep an eye on the fight
2) Let the Primary know where you are
3) Avoid getting into the fight until called
4) Keep Situational Awareness (SA) of the immediate areas. This includes any information additional bandits and/or friendlies
5) Engage additional bandits. Make sure your Primary is aware of your engagement.
6) When the fight is over indicate the egress vector.

The Primary's Situational Awareness after a fight is most likely nil. We will go over each of these points. Another term often used for maintaining Situational Awareness of the area and engaging bandits as the approach is called Sanitizing the area. (Ref: CombatSim.com article).

Point 1-keep an eye on the fight. The Secondary should never be directly above the fight, directly below the fight or within 500 feet of the fight. Why? Good question. If you are directly above or below the fight you have to use the F3 view to watch it to see if the Primary needs help. If you are looking straight down you aren't looking around elsewhere. Granted, our WWI aircraft are equipped with 'N key' radar, but many times you can spot tracer fire or a dot in the sky farther out than the N key range. Stay 500 feet away so that you don't run the risk of a mid-air collision with the target. A collision is a loss for your team. There are tactics for two aircraft to engage an enemy, but without practice it becomes dangerous. Being below the fight in these aircraft is practically useless as your energy state is too poor to be of much use. If you find yourself below the fight, extend, climb and return. The most common cause for finding yourself as the Secondary is you were just the Primary in another fight, made the kill and your Secondary is now engaged with another aircraft. This is one case of a role reversal and why it pays for your squadron to, as The Rock would say, "Know Your Roles". :-)

Point 2-Let the Primary know where you are. This is important so that the Primary can possibly maneuver the enemy for a shot from you or use you to cover his egress if he has gone defensive. If you are at his high 3 and he breaks hard left and down he has just given the enemy a 6 shot with no chance of you helping.

Point 3-Avoid getting into the fight. What!? Another good question. What I mean by this is never put your aircraft in a position to be shot at by the target. If your busy dodging his bullets then you are not doing the other aspects of your job like maintaining SA. This is one reason to maintain the 500 foot separation. Of course, if the Primary is calling you in for a Lead and Bracket or that he cannot get a shot then it is time to enter. This is also a good reason why to never be directly below a fight. If you are below then you are just a big, fat no energy target for the enemy. Extend and climb. Get away from the fight until you can do something useful.

Point 4-Keep Situational Awareness. This is perhaps the number one most important duty of the Secondary. If neither the Primary or the Secondary are maintaining SA then your survival is relying strictly on luck. Ever gone into a fight 2 on 1 or maybe 2 on 2 and the next thing you know there is a furball around you? How many times were you able to leave that furball alive? See my point? The Secondary has to maintain SA because the Primary is concerned with getting his kill.

Point 5-Engage newly arriving bandits. Hopefully, your SA was good enough that you saw them coming. If they outnumber you then your role is to inform the Primary and help him egress the area. You may be able to make a few passes at either the original target or at the closest enemy in order to delay them and effect an escape. Contrary to the popular practice, one should not "Fight to the Death" at every encounter. If it is just one additional enemy then the Secondary is to tell the Primary of the engagement and then engage the bandit. At this point there is a high probability of a role reversal.

Point 6-Vector the Primary on egress vector. Chances are the Primary will be at a lower altitude than the Secondary in MMP and he will also have no SA left. This isn't always the case but it is the most common. In either case, the Secondary is responsible for telling the Primary which way to head out.

Part III will cover Role Reversals or better known as "Do I engage the target or not?".



WWSensei (Ret)

Wing Walkers Tactical Fighter Wing
http://www.wingwalkers.org/


Go to Part III

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