WT - Beginner's Guide Part 5, Squad Fighter Tactics

Several months ago a subscriber asked if I'd make a video explaining how best to fly in squads, as in his experience it usually ended up with everyone doing their own thing on totally separate areas of the map. Its taken a while, but finally I've put my thoughts together and addressed the subject of what it is that makes a squad effective in Arcade, even a squad where not everyone is a veteran pilot.
This video covers the basic concepts of squad teamwork and several tactics that can be used to good effect.
Your comments are most welcome, as I'm sure there's even more ideas & techniques that I've missed here, but I do hope that people find this helpful and I see far fewer "fail squads" in War Thunder as a result :)
If you'd like to support me in my creative endeavors, you can do so at / long5hot
Music is by Plini, copyright to which is his - check out his channel he really is quite amazing.

[@malminstral]

Even though your videos are now old, as a newbe, I find them very useful, still current & entertaining, thank you long5hot.

[@long5hot]

You're welcome, glad they're helpful :)

[@starfighter1043]

Still helpful in 2020...now if I can just find some players w this thinking 🤔 can't find noone w 2 cents of common sense still playin

[@grandpops1000]

By far the best informative war thunder "How To" Creator in my opinion. Well done and thanks for your content.

[@husselbeh1058]

Agreed! It's sad he doesn't produce content anymore. Hope he's doing good ^^

[@thomasdavison7184]

I wish I could like this twice. Best video on KZbin about warthunder

[@marcwemmer4082]

I love to see some really good squad action. Thanks for that well made video. Maybe me and my squadmates can fly right with this tutorial in the future. This video will definitly help a lot...

[@barringtonraffington7070]

Wow, this is very beautiful! really thought we had to have voice comm

[@trimanbhullar647]

would love to fly with you guys sometime

[@CoyoteCourtney]

Excellent vid, as usual, and entertaining as well! This reminds me of one of the first times I flew with some pilots from DMH, including Agent. We engaged a B7A2 at altitude and I went in first, hoping to hit him fast and hard, then keep him close to prevent him from getting a shot at me with those cannons. Didn't work out how I planned it, and three turns later I started losing the fight... BUT Agent was in the observer position. This was before I installed TS, so I speed-typed "take him" and in less than five seconds Agent swooped in to save my miserable life. I often observe that a major strength of a squad, or specifically a two-man team, is how quickly and easily they can change from hot and cold positions when responding to threats or attack opportunities. If you ever want to fly with a fairly-competent squadmate that especially enjoys going out in under-appreciated fighters, then I respectfully submit my name for consideration if and when convenient to your efforts. =)

[@Spiritsmell]

Best squad tactics video I've seen so far.

[@AndonEXE]

I remember when i was first trying to fly in formation and i was so busy trying to get my Friend to get into formation and so was everyone else in the squad we all either got are pilot knocked out or caught on fire.

[@sweetiebelle1668]

I bet this took you ages to put together! It's a shame I'd only recently met other players such as yourself, as squadding up makes the game a LOT more enjoyable. It also makes dealing with all the head-on fetishists a lot less painful.

[@long5hot]

Sweetie Belle Yes it certainly did take ages. Thanks for contributing so much quality footage though, it really helped a lot :)

[@sweetiebelle1668]

novocas7rian Glad I could help :) I think it's quite cool the way such good team-work can happen without so much as a written word for communication. As a newbie, I thought voice comms would have been an absolute necessity. Glad I was wrong about that!

[@cheems4301]

Taking your tutorials as gospel man, just got 4:0 using your advice from the defensive tactics video

[@CPB24421]

Thanks mate, great vid as always, especially enjoyed the theory bits

[@trimanbhullar647]

awesome video!

[@thesittingacheroraptor7565]

Thx man you helped me ALOT thx again

[@frazerhooke3433]

Nice new intro, good work

[@ronaldasberger129]

Great video as always. Keep the good work up!

[@hiphip4808]

Yes there is no I in team but there is a M and a E.

[@thomashazlewood4658]

Cool. In the intro I assume they were flying in a 'Vic' formation. As always, very enjoyable, Nova. Thanks

[@long5hot]

Thomas Hazlewood Yes it would have been the Vic, though in reality that's just a Fighting Wing with 3 planes instead of 2.

[@thomashazlewood4658]

An interesting observation from Wiki- "Luftwaffe pilots were disparaging about the RAF’s use of the Vic formation during the Battle of Britain, calling them Idiotenreihen (“rows of idiots”)"

[@long5hot]

Thomas Hazlewood From my understanding (and I could be wrong) that wasn't a comment about the Vic so much as their practice of whole squadrons flying along in a line at the same altitude (a line of Vics) with nobody providing high cover and no horizontal separation between the planes either. Hence the entire squadron was vulnerable to being bounced and massacred.

[@mark109s]

Long5hot when are you coming back to WT ?? , I enjoy all your vids.

[@arenaissanceishman6689]

Thats great and all, but how do you find like minded people to squad up with?

[@Matt-og5os]

great vid mate bit too quiet on the ingame coms and sound

[@adventureswithrwgoeasy9325]

Longshot, please make more tutorial vids for us newer players!!

[@long5hot]

I intend to - as soon as my schedule clears up and I can get back to playing the game.

[@adventureswithrwgoeasy9325]

Understandable. I find your tutorials very helpful. I'm currently practicing the energy fighting basics in custom battles before I jump into matches.

[@TKNikhilSeenivas]

From what movie is this clip from?

[@miklcph]

Battle of Britain from 1969 - a must see movie for fans of War Thunder

[@antonjames4867]

Its all good until your leader has a faster plane than you and you can't keep up

[@rickusana2113]

what about ground targets?

[@long5hot]

What about them? Any numpty can shoot/bomb ground targets, although there is skill in doing that while avoiding getting shot down. The reason I don't cover bombing/strafing in my videos is that it's not hard, especially if you don't care about losing your plane, and in ground strike it usually results in short games which aren't a whole lot of fun.

[@starfighter1043]

The sound of that spit tho 😍

[@Im_Faded1225]

There is an me in team and an i in mi team lol

[@scottytshow]

I enjoyed the video however your friend made a comment about sitting on the enemy spawn. To me this is NOT cool gameplay.

[@long5hot]

It's actually not cool level design. Neither fighters nor bombers should be spawning in from a fixed predictable point. On the other hand, bombers shouldn't be able to suicide-dive at high speed, dolphin-kicking their elevators to avoid fire, and take out targets before crashing and respawning in the next for another suicide run.

[@Mornomgir]

teamwork? dont be silly your mates are more likely to fly into you and kill you than to do something even remotely productive.

[@vangoth74]

As much as i love most of your other videos, i have to say i quite dislike this one. All you do is stacking your team up against arcade rookies mostly flying on their own. I have a squad as well but we stopped applying squad tactics in arcade mode because it just wasn't fun after a while since every victory achieved felt cheap and unfair. In realistic battle mode, hell yes...but in arcade? Nope.