I have a few questions about tactics for Falcon 4.0 AF
some of these questions are about modern tactics in general, some are F4.0 specific.

1. Tower says to "find spacing", I know the general concept, but they give no position, altitude etc. where do I go?
2. in which situations would I want to silence my radar, any specific missions where this would be crucial? ( I was running a SEAD mission, and couldn't decide whether to keep it on or off as I made my approach)
3. repeat of question 3, but with jammer
4. locking up objective with radar, is this pure skill, how the heck should I know which one of those dots in that cluster is the SA-8 ?!?!?!
5. what is the proper procedure for a CAP, by that I mean how close to the steerpoint should I stay, is there a specific holding pattern pilots fly etc.
6. on strike missions, the IP and attack steerpoint are usually at 15-20K, am I actually supposed to drop my bombs at that height, in all the pictures I'v seen bombs are dropped at around 5-8K

Hello FrontierProject! I've not flown AF for some years now but I'll try to help. I may be off on some things as I've not flown Falcon for some years now and just starting to re-learn BMS...

1. In what situation does it tell you to "find spacing"? I assume during landing? Doesn't the tower give you vectors to fly anyway "for spacing"?

2. Lots of possible situations --- when you're on the ground (not to fry the ground crew) and during refuelling (be kind to that boom operator!), when you want to sneak up on the bad guy assuming someone somewhere else is providing you with SA, when you want to sneak up on some bad guy ground targets, etc. However, you would generally want to keep radar on as that gives you SA on your immediate surroundings.

3. You do NOT want jammer on when you suspect a missile is in the air, especially if it is possible that the missile has home-on-jam (HOJ) capability. You do want jammer on when you know someone somewhere is trying to pick you up --- it makes it harder for them to lock on, but again, they can fire a missile on HOJ mode so it's a risky tradeoff. I generally turn jammer on as I start an air-to-air engagement to make things harder for the other guy, but always ready to turn it off once missiles start flying. You may also want to turn on jammer on ingress on a ground attack, just to make things hard for any SAM operators in the area, though you are broadcasting a jamming signal shouting out to everyone "I'm somewhere in the area, find me!!" So for stealthy approaches, no jammer, but you may want to turn it on as you begin your attack run.

4. Pre-planned steerpoints. In the briefing screen (2D screen), look for your SAM site radar, assign it to a steerpoint that is OUTSIDE your nav steerpoints. For example, if your flight plan consists of 8 steerpoints, assign that radar to steerpoint 10 or 11. In flight, go to that steerpoint, lock radar on it (radar cursor will be on top of or very close to the target), and spread some CCRP love. Another option is to bring a TGP, and as the TGP does not take up weapon hardpoints, I don't see why someone would NOT bring a TGP when expecting to do some ground work. Plus it's fun to watch the carnage on the TGP.

5. I hate CAPs, so pass.

6. Not SUPPOSED to, you are always free to change tactics as you desire. What is the "proper" attack profile? The one that is safe for you and for your aircraft considering the threat situation.


Hope that helps!

1) Every time it tells me to find spacing it gives me instructions pretty quick after that.
2) Anytime you want enemy aircraft and SAMs a lower probability of detecting you.
3) I dunno if this applies for this particular sim but I enjoy turning my jammer on when i've detected a missile launch and then off anytime after that.
4-5-6 what Ice said

There has been some discussion in the BMS forums about the "usefulness" of the jammer when a missile is in the air. Turning it on then off is fine, but keeping it on might actually be hurtful for your survival chances. I usually turn it off as I go defensive and head for the deck.

I've read it as the jammer being on all time equivalent to "running around in the jungle at night screaming continuously."

Or going into a dark room with your flashlight on.

Thanx for the help guys. I gather that silencing the radar is a balance between stealth and SA. About the tower telling me to find spacing, as I request landing, the tower simply tells me something like "come inbound and find spacing", the manual has a nice bit on inbound procedures - stacking and all that- but that all seems to be out the door here, as tower doesn't give me any vectors or other commands till I'm #1 for landing, at which point I receive my final approach vectors. Never even as much as a hint of where the stack is.

I've been reading BeachAvi8tor's AAR's from the training subforum, and I'm totally drooling over how much more immersive his campaign seems than Allied Force's. What with the gunfire lighting up the night, Koreans attacking Allied airbases, canopys showing damage, squadron transfers, the list goes on. Which mods was he running when he made those writeups, and are they compatible with Allied Force?

I'm currently running 1.0.13, and can't find any way to edit buttons on my joystick, I know for a fact before updating the controls menu had a button bar which lit up the respective buttons as u hit them on ur stick, nothing like that now, supwiddat? The list of new resolutions is nice, but alas, no widescreen, so I'm right back where I started.

And lastly, I've been into the whole flight combat sim thing for only 4 weeks now, but what got me excited about it and my eventual goal is to run DCS Warthog.(I'm about $4000 short of a system that can handle those modern sims tho)So I'm really short on hardware right now, in light of that fact I was happy to find the game can be run with 2 joysticks, now I can use my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro as my stick, and an old Saitek ST290 I got with Xplane 9 (worst $15 purchase of my life) as my "throttle". I like the smoothness of the Saitek's throttle, other than that its a horrible stick. Now if I could figure out how to program buttons I could have 5 buttons close to my throttle hand.

Wait, you're not flying BMS?

Yeh.... BMS 4 is the dogs...
I believe the tower says "orbit for spacing" which I interpret to mean fly around in a circle till told otherwise. (but I usually just land as I'm always running on fumes)

Yeah, why not bring yourself up-to-date and get BMS?