It'll chose what the pilot (ie the AI software) chooses, planes belong to Crab Air and not you the player. Points values have nothing to do with target selection - closeness to its flight path and how the random dice fall if there is a target array to select from is all there is. The important thing is the x,y hex it eventually selects to search around - which is not necessarily the same one that you plotted. It is under pilot control remember - not army control. So its a roulette wheel sort of thing as to what the Jock in the cockpit decides to hit. And if he sees nothing he will sometimes just area fire at the ground.
Regular planes tend to prefer vehicles, the coin type likes soft stuff a little better. Both like ammo trucks and AAA assets a lot if there is one in the zone. Both types are Air Farce so are quite happy to do Blue on Blue as well, so keep air strikes more than 20 hexes from your toys, and try not to fly in overhead of your toys, as Crab Air don't care.
Circling gunships basically Z-fire at the target hex. Only useful against enemy with nil AAA, and at night against those with even a few Duskas. They are extremely vulnerable.
Bombers go to the X,Y and offload ordnance. All that class was ever intended for was for the Normandy breakout type scenario. However - a B52 arclight mission is still rather satisfying against opponents with no air defences
.
If you want to take out a specific enemy item, and not kill your own side then use an attack copter. Plus these can use your resupply elements.
Spotter planes and drones can be useful or not - like the circling gunship class, best when the AA threat is negligible. If there is any AAA threat, then a scout helo (used wisely, not in Gung Ho mode) is probably a better points spend.
Helos can pop behind blocking terrain if they discover AAA threats (and survive the shots!) where they can hide until your arty deals with them by dropping a shed load of HE on the firing area. Helicopters are very useful
provided that you don't use them like the AI and charge straight for the guns in full "Charge of the Light Brigade" mode.
Fixed wing
does have a place, but not in small numbers - you need volume. Very useful as 'armed recce' in an assault or similar situation. More useful if you have a very significant EW advantage over any SAM or radar AAA opposition, and especially if you have access to stand-off missiles.
(Of course if your PBEM opponent totally forgets to buy any AA whatsoever,
and uses only T-62s that didn't have any AAMG fitted then you can run riot, as my 4 Hunters did in a "Cuban Missile Crisis went hot" type scenario. Once I figured there was no defence I could plot runs in from his side of the map and shoot them up the kilt.
)
cheers
Andy
Re: The AI and Airstrikes - Tanks vs. Points
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