Formation During Combat in CAS

I'm comically bad a formation flying. It takes up nearly all of my brainpower to stay with my flight lead, and this leaves me almost nothing left to keep situational awareness. "Do you have eye's on the tracer fire?" my flight lead will ask, to which I then reply, "nope! I'm just trying to fly in formation with you!" Hell, I'll even come close to causing a mid-air collision just fencing in.

This got me thinking... If I invest the time to get better at formation flying while an active battle is unfolding on the ground, what benefit should I expect to gain? I know it looks cool and makes you a better pilot and whatnot, but what I mean is, will the flight be more effective? Will the team get ordinance on target faster? Does it make the flight harder to find on radar? Why is it better to attack starting from formation instead of having everyone orbit at different flight levels while one person deconflicts and calls out targets?

Thanks for your help!

I'm glad you posed this question. I am very interested in real world tactics in this regard as I have the same issue. Whenever I fly lead (I use that term loosely), I have the flight go tactical spread as we near the AO. To my mind, it then allows wingmen better situational awareness. That's just my common sense approach, I am very curious to find out how its done professionally.

Take a look at the below link and the TTP that it leads to.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=165469

Close formation can be fun, but it it has many drawbacks in combat. The most obvious: it is very demanding and even stressing, you cannot cover your leader nor your leader cover you, it is not agile for turning, and if an enemy spots one element, it will spot the other one too.

I see no reason to fly formation once you've arrived at the AO. I never do it. It's not like you're gonna lose each other, you have a TAD.

Better question: Why on earth does anyone even consider doing it?

My understanding for flying in different formations is mutual support which include look out responsibillities, ie. who is has primary responsibillity for looking for threads in which area so that both pilot in a 2-ship aren't focused at the same area.

Close formations during combat doesn't make much sense. But you would still be in a formation even though the separation between you and lead is 1-1½nm, (e.g. Wedge or Line) or 1-3nm in Trail.

Take a look at the document Snoopy linked to on Figure 3-36 you wlll see there are plenty combat formations and none of them are closer than 500ft.

Cheers

Hans

Combat spread 500 to 1500 feet is good. But with current visibility (if using no imposters) I will say 500 is the optimal.

I'm comically bad a formation flying. It takes up nearly all of my brainpower to stay with my flight lead, and this leaves me almost nothing left to keep situational awareness. "Do you have eye's on the tracer fire?" my flight lead will ask, to which I then reply, "nope! I'm just trying to fly in formation with you!" Hell, I'll even come close to causing a mid-air collision just fencing in.

 

This got me thinking... If I invest the time to get better at formation flying while an active battle is unfolding on the ground, what benefit should I expect to gain? I know it looks cool and makes you a better pilot and whatnot, but what I mean is, will the flight be more effective? Will the team get ordinance on target faster? Does it make the flight harder to find on radar? Why is it better to attack starting from formation instead of having everyone orbit at different flight levels while one person deconflicts and calls out targets?

 

Thanks for your help!

2D monitors make it very very hard to fly in formation. With VR, it becomes *SO* much easier because you have depth perception. As for formation flying, reading books like "Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat" should give you a good feeling of what it's like. It includes looking out for SAMs, coming in as second wave, covering egress. But they also talk about the congestion of air space. So some of it is traffic management. Everyone flying around all over the place simply doesn't work when you have to coordinate so tightly. BTW, this does not mean you fly wing-tip-to-wingtip during engagement.

Better question: Why on earth does anyone even consider doing it?

For the exact same reasons as in real life. Mutual support and tactical effectiveness.

I won't outline all the many situations, techniques, and formations themselves, as it's all in the 3-3 we released a few weeks ago which Snoopy linked above.

There is however a big difference between formation flying, as in airshows, and formation flying as in tactical combat formations. The former is, largely, just for show, the latter is essential. Tactical formation mostly range from 500 feet separation out to 9000 feet separation. Again, detailed in our 3-3.

Great! I'm reading the relevant sections now. Of immediate note is the spacing as many of you mentioned. I've definitely been trying to fly too close, like in the 200 ft range, which causes me all those headaches I described. With 5000 ft separation I can see it being easy to look around, check instruments, etc. and not worry about a mid-air collision. I think I remember in that recent TeamSpeak chat with a real A-10 pilot that he mentioned spacing of 1 nautical mile.

I'm just starting to read into the formation attacks starting on pg. 173.

Side note: I'm really impressed with this community. You folks are very helpful, so please accept my sincerest thank you!

Very interesting stuff from page 173 to 197. It's answered a lot of other questions I've had but it's also raised some new ones.

What formation attack is recommended when escorting a moving convoy? Do you typically establish a wheel that circles the convoy, or do you establish a holding pattern (like a racetrack) some distance away and ingress when called upon?

In such a scenario whereby friendly ground forces are taking fire from enemy ground forces, after your flight completes an attack, do you egress, rejoin at the IP, then re-attack in formation? Or do you and your wingman alternate between shooter and cover while flying a wheel?

Sorry, I recently tried FOB Vetka a few days ago so these things have been on my mind as of late.

Which attack type is best to use depends primarily on the target and the threat environment. What type of friendly formation you're providing CAS for isn't going to directly drive that. As to whet to hold, it quite difficult (almost impossible) to manage in single player as you don't have a FAC(A)/JTAC to manage the airspace and flights within it (the AI JTAC in DCS doesn't do any of this).

In an on call-CAS scenario, if the threat environment permits, you want to hold in a position that allows you to quickly employ weapons on any target given by the FAC. Orbiting directly over the unit you're providing CAS for is unlikely to put you in the best position for that.

Wheels are great for orbiting a target and performing multiple unguided weapon delivered in a low threat environment, but the key point is you need to be orbiting the target, not who you're providing CAS for.

As for reattacks, it depend on what the FAC asks for. If you're not in contact with a FAC or otherwise directly coordinating with friendly ground forces its not CAS, it's Air Interdiction.

Good topic! Over the years, especially with the same lead, all to often I would get pissed off! Being told to stay with me and then, being asked if I picked up the target, where is that coming from? Do you see anything? Jeesh,, as soon as I would go heads down long enough to start looking and slewing the TAD around a bit then only to look up for lead to find him No where, then to be asked, where are you? Why are you out of formation? So its not just me huh!

Good topic! Over the years, especially with the same lead, all to often I would get pissed off! Being told to stay with me and then, being asked if I picked up the target, where is that coming from? Do you see anything? Jeesh,, as soon as I would go heads down long enough to start looking and slewing the TAD around a bit then only to look up for lead to find him No where, then to be asked, where are you? Why are you out of formation? So its not just me huh!

This is why wingman shouldn't be heads down doing any slewing of anything. Finding targets and deciding on an attack plans is leads job, passing that info to wingman should be as simple as zapping a point or giving a pocket command, or even simpler, saying put your weapons on my impacts/mark.

I'm pretty sure all the sensor management contracts are stated in our 3-3 (but I could be wrong as we have a dedicated internal doc for them as well). I'd recommend anyone who flies at least some attempt at realistic 2/4 ships take a look and at them an try and implement them in spirit at least if not to the letter.

The various docs from the 476th are extremely helpful. We've been using them in our squad for wingman/formation training for some time now and I can't stress how much proper tactics and procedures improve the effectiveness of our flying.