[FIXED INTERNALLY] B17 WW2 formation problems

[philstyle]

The B17s (and presumably any other aircraft set to behave as a WW2 bomber formation) are unable to stay in formation/ maintain their flight plans once the lead bomber is damaged to the point where it departs the formation/ crashed/ crew bail out.

 

The result is that the formations break up and individual aicraft or sub-groups will go into some kind of re-alignment process where they conduct aggressive maneuvers. This destroys the formation and can often result in collisions.

 

I attached 2 miz files and corresponding trk files as evidence of this. The files are all zipped together in the attachment.

 

They are as follows:

WW2 formation test followers have waypoints.miz

Bombers followers have wayponts.miz

In this set, the "follow" groups all had waypoints in addition to the instruction to "follow" the lead bomber. When aircraft in the lead group were attacked, some of the following groups made aggressive course adjustments, but it was not too extreme. This was, however still a problem.

Not only are the turns/ rolls too aggressive for such a heavy aircraft, but the formation still gets destroyed

 

WW2 formation test followers without waypoints.miz

Bombers followers without wayponts.trk

In this example the effect seemed to be much worse. The bombers didn't really seem to know what to do when the lead a/c was destroyed. If the formation had been much larger there would almost certainly have been collisions.

B17 formation problems.zip

[steph1258]

Hi,

Not really a helpful answer (sorry...) but I have encountered a similar problem with B-17s box formation on one of my self made mission.

 

My bombers perform weirdly and cannot keep their assigned altitude, position and it often results in collisions with devastating effects...

 

Using RedKite tutorial, I set up a combat box of 4 4-ship elements in close Combat Box (30x30m iirc), with a target assigned for carpet bombing. The aim is to intercept them with 4xFW-190 A8 before that happens.

All elements have a different assignment in the group (i.e no-one trying to occupy the same space), they are all created with the same initial altitude of 20kft and speed of 130kt and all have the same bombload of 12 bombs. I just changed the skill on some bombers inside each element so that all gunners don't wipe the FW out on the first pass.

​​​​​​

The problem begins as soon as we sight the bombers, they perform aggressive manoeuvers as described in your post above and they often collide into one another, ruining the whole mission.

 

I tried fixing the problem by making their bomb run into a straight line, thinking my turns were too sharp for them to keep up with (I read >20° was too much). That did not solve anything and even in a straight line they just wobble aggressively around their assigned position (with unrealistic accelerations) and boom! down they go.

 

In my mission, even with the Leader still alive, the group does not behave like a «normal» bomber box and all planes behave weirdly, and at random.

 

I submitted a ticket, thinking this was a bug but the answer was to post in the forum, so I hope that my answer will spark the interest of someone so that we can kill that (those?) gremlins.

 

I'm doing this on my phone so can't post any .miz file for now but will do tomorrow, among with a short video to show the whole thing if I can upload that.

 

Sorry, not the helpful answer you might have expected but hopefully some ED/ME wizard will see this and give a hand!

 

Cheers!

 

Steph

[steph1258]

As promised, although a bit late, here are the files (.miz, .trk, .acmi in a zip) plus a little video I made to illustrate the problem.

As you can see during the first video rush the leader of the Combat Box is still airborne and the other bombers are acting weirdly.

 

Cheers!

 

Steph

 

WW2 Bombers weird behaviour.trk

Tacview-20201106-152113-DCS-Normandy_FW-190A8_Intercept-2.zip.zip

Normandy_FW-190A8_Intercept-2.miz

WW2 Bombers weird behaviour.trk

Tacview-20201106-152113-DCS-Normandy_FW-190A8_Intercept-2.zip.zip

[Reflected]

Set reaction to threat= no reaction. I also make the lead bomber immortal to be safe.

[steph1258]

Thanks Reflected! I'll try that tomorrow.

[steph1258]

OK, so I tried to set reaction to threat = no reaction but sadly it did not solve the problem. It even made it worse for some unknown reason.

 

After setting reaction to threat to No Reaction on all 4 flights in the Combat Box, I eagerly tried the modified mission but here's what happened:

• Individual flights have broken formation upon mission start;
  
• They each start a complete 360° before turning on the set heading for the bomb run but without forming up with the rest of the Combat Box;
  
• The lead flight keeps its heading while the others perform their 360;
  
• All airplane keep on doing their aggressive wobbling around their speed, altitude and position in the flight.
  

There must be something wrong with my setting up the mission or the Combat Box option is just very buggy. Does anyone have in mind another piece of advice or something I might have overlooked in my settings?

Thanks in advance!

 

I have included the mission file and the .acmi (in a zip as the forum does not allow for such file extension) and you can find below the link to the video I took on my second attempt at running the mission today.

 

Files :

Normandy_FW-190A8_Intercept-2.miz

Tacview-20201115-164509-DCS-Normandy_FW-190A8_Intercept-2.zip.zip

 

Normandy_FW-190A8_Intercept-2.miz

Tacview-20201115-164509-DCS-Normandy_FW-190A8_Intercept-2.zip.zip

[NineLine]

Let me know how this is now, or even after the next update, thanks!

[steph1258]

6 hours ago, NineLine said:

Let me know how this is now, or even after the next update, thanks!

Thanks Nineline, I'll see that hopefully next week and let you know how that turns out!

[steph1258]

Ok, so I tried the second mission (Normandy_FW-190A8_Intercept-2.miz) without a change and it ended with the same result:

-erratic flying and aggressive maneuvering ending up with collision,

-first flight keeping its heading (but 3 planes collided due to rapid change of altitude and position)

-rest of the box performing a 360 before going back to formation and still behaving weirdly

 

After a quick thinking, could part of this be caused by my changing each plane skill setting within the same box (i.e. having a veteran leading rookies for instance)?

[NineLine]

Ok, that stuff should be fixed with the releases coming up. I will try and test in the Release Candidate and see if its all been merged. But let me know what you guys see after.

[steph1258]

Thanks Nineline, we'll let you know when the update releases!

[steph1258]

Hi, sorry I've been away for a few weeks and could only have a go at it right now.

 

Seems like the problem is still here, sadly...

I have run the same mission (see file attached) and the Combat Box still breaks formation upon mission start, perform a 360° turn and wingmen still wobble about their position although not as violently as before.

After that, the whole thing seems to unfold pretty well but the Lead formation is well in front and minus 1 B-17 who dived at the very beginning of the mission for no reason. 

 

I'll try and make another mission to see if this could be due to the .mis file itself.

 

In any case, I've attached the .mis, .trk, .acmi and log files for you to take a look if you need to.

 

I 'll let you know whether the new mission works or not.

dcs.log Tacview-20210104-145553-DCS-Normandy_FW-190A8_Intercept-2.zip.acmi Normandy_FW-190A8_Intercept-2.miz 20210104_WW2 Bombers weird behaviour.trk

[steph1258]

So, I've tried a brand new mission and all seems to be indeed fixed.

 

Now for a little analysis:

I tried to watch GR's tutorial video to see what could be different from Red Kite's and a sentence kept me thinking. It basically said that after having assigned a formation to the Lead in the Box we were warned not to select the next one right after but rather deselect everything (by clicking the X on the top right corner) and then select the next formation you'd want to modify. If you did otherwise, then it could mess things up.

 

That was something I had not done on my previous missions, I just jumped from one formation to another without closing the window. So this time, I just followed the advice, and IT WORKED! No more wobbling, no more formation breaking, everything working as intended.

 

To be sure, I just tried to make the mission "the old way" i.e. not closing the window and it changed nothing.

 

Therefore, my previous missions must be bugged for an unknown reason but it now works so : GREAT!

 

Now I have noticed that if the Leader of the Box is dead, no bomber would perform the carpet bombing. Is there a way to delegate this task to the next aircraft in the line so that it could be more realistic? Something like "if Lead is dead then task is passed on/carried on by Left wingman" and so on? Or better yet, when the task is assigned to the Box, it is automatically duplicated to each aircraft inside that Box so that every aircraft tries to carry out his task even if separated/lone survivor ?

 

Food for thought but anyway, thanks for the fix and for a great Sim! Hope to be able to give a few good SP missions when I can find some time.

 

Cheers.

 

 

[Reflected]

Has anyone noticed B-17 formations dropping bombs on each other lately? Will try to get a track. During their bombing run they fly right under each other, so there are always casualities.

[NineLine]

Its if you use an Open Formation. Us close formation now within the Large Bomber formation and it should be fine. A fix is coming though.

[YoYo]

On 1/5/2021 at 3:43 PM, steph1258 said:

 

Therefore, my previous missions must be bugged for an unknown reason but it now works so : GREAT!

 

 

Can you add here this new test mission? Id like to check your settings too of combat box. Thx.

 

Edit. ok, I found this tutorial, will try do own mission:

 

 

Edit2. it works for me with this tutorial :).

Edited January 12, 2021 by YoYo