With his lead shot down, Yak #3 heads over the perimeter. While he knows there will german ground fire he also knows the 109s will not pursue for that very reason. ```````````````````````````` The [German] error was in pulling up into the climbing left turn to the West on turn 2. It put the 109s heading 180 degrees away from the Heinkels which they were escorting. To understand why this was such a critical error you have to look at what JD has described as "Fight Flow" and "Anchors". In a simple air to air combat between fighters the "Anchor" tends to be the center of dogfight furball which may move one way or the other or stay mostly in one location. Whenever the combat involves target aircraft such as bombers, transports, reconnaissance, or even fighter bombers the "Anchor" is going to move with this aircraft formation. As such the "Fight Flow" will move with it unless the attacking fighters ignore them and simply engage the escort. Doing so however will generally cause the attacking fighters the scenario as it leaves the target aircraft to perform their mission which usually nets VPs. In this case we had three Heinkel 111 transports which, if left alone, would generate 30VP for the Luftwaffe once they exit the map to the East. In looking at the scenario setup you can see that they are the "Anchor" and it will be moving 4 hexes East each turn until they exit map. This means any turn of away from the "Anchor" direction puts the escorting 109s out of the "Fight Flow" for a number of turns, which I estimated to be around 8 to 9 turns. Far to late to be of any help to the Heinkels. Other errors were made, but this one set the tone for the whole scenario. I will note that this is an easy error to make if you have not played a scenario with targets in it. Once you have made this error you are unlikely to make it again. |