Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: DWReese

But, IN REAL LIFE, would Snoopy 1-4 be given generic orders like that? Or, would they be given specific ships to attack? Snoopy 1, you go and attack BG1; Snoopy 2, you go and attack BG2; etc....?

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They can also redirect aircraft in flight. In that case the C/JFACC may take an an appropriately loaded aircraft off an interdiction mission and redirect them to strike something important that was spotted by a Predator or JSTARs. They could even redirect them to CAS, which is fairly commonplace. Most strike aircraft aren't dedicated to flying CAS, waiting for a call that might never come when there are plenty of targets to be struck. That'd be a waste of sorties.

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Complicated question. It depends. In the US Navy, there's something called Composite Warfare Commanders (CWC). Around a protected high value unit (HVU), they define three layers. Outermost is the sensing area (SA). The next layer in is the classification, identification and engagement area (CIEA), and innermost is the vital area (VA). The idea is to sense things a long way away in the SA, then act on them in the CIEA them before they enter the VA where they can threaten your HVU. If goal is to defend the HVU from warships, then the decision making would fall to the sea warfare commmander (ZULU).

Depending on how the aircraft are apportioned (which involves horse trading among the various commanders, especially the WHISKEY, who is responsible for air defense), it may be the case that the ZULU has several fighters sitting on the deck with ASCMs on the wings, waiting to be tasked to go strike a target in the CIEA. In that case it's very much "arm 'em up boys, go get 'em." In that case, there's different levels of alert, which determines how much warning the pilots would get before having to take off. Effectively, armed aircraft in CMO are at the highest level. These days, they might receive the mission briefing in flight. The Navy is a little weird, though, because who is the commander at any one moment can change and many people have several bosses. As one really badass Navy captain once told me, "It's the Navy, it's squishy!" A good example of that is the Navy SUCAP mission, which is very unique. In that case you're working for both the ZULU and the WHISKEY.

As far as the apportionment of weapons to each target, it also depends. Some weapons need more specific targeting information passed to them. Some weapons can by easily allocated dynamically in situ. Others might need to be specifically configured on the ground. Still others can be passed information in flight using datalinks. Many advanced cruise missiles can do some really impressive things if they have the data to support them. It might also depend on the desired effect by the commander. The way you would apportion weapons might be different if you wanted to maximize the probability of sinking the vessel versus only achieving a mission kill. Maybe some of the ships in that group are more important than others? If the target is an enemy amphibious group, I might not care about the escorts at all, so long as I sink or disable the amphibs (and thus achieved a mission kill). A lot of this stuff isn't so much a failure of the simulation, though. It's a symptom of sloppy thinking by either the player or the scenario designer regarding what their desired effects might be. Not all ASCMs can be that precise, though. Older stuff might go after the first thing it locks on to. More modern stuff might be more discriminating. That doesn't mean the desired effect changes, necessarily though. It just means that you might be constrained somehow in your firing parameters because you want to make sure that the thing you really want to hit is the first thing that the weapon sees. Usually, when you plan a strike mission, the first thing you do is determine the desired effects on the target, and then plan backwards from there.

Does that answer your question?

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ORIGINAL: DWReese

That sort of reminds me of an old board game called "Fire Fight" which dealt with tank battles. Often, a group of unassigned tanks would be assigned to an "Over Watch" mission, which is sort of the same thing as what you were describing. While the frontline tanks are dedicated to fight it out with the OpFor, those assigned to Over Watch would be ready to attack targets of opportunity that may pop up.

Thanks again for your input.