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chuckfourth said:
Hi Marek
Very interesting would you be able to expand on what a low level unit is?
The problem is obviously that enemy units spotted by Light AOP can easily turn out to be friendly and wont appreciate being fired on by there own arty etc. A commander at a "Low" level cant check the spotted units identity. you may as well send the info to someons who can, divisional staff.
Though in the game every unit knows everything on a battlefield you are a brave or a very well informed man to deviate from the plan. Or jump in with an "opportunity" attack.
All these things are normally coordinated from a higher level, the divisional staff, which is where I imagine all ariel recon is planned from and feeds its information into.
Best Regards Chuck.
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Aerial reconnaissance and dedicated FAC and artillery spotting is different. The US at least used light aircraft to direct artillery strikes, naval bombardment, and the like in
direct or more or less direct (normal chains of command apply) contact with the firing units. The USMC still considers artillery spotting and the like to be one of the roles for helicopters which replaced these light aircraft. These aircraft were also used in the convoy escort role and others where the plan was to spot ambushes and possible enemy formations
in real time.
I'd be surprised to find any of the light aircraft in game to be purely photographic reconnaissance, which you are correct, until recently required that film be returned to base for processing and analysis.
Edit: I just went and looked myself and from what I see the only issue is that the aircraft types themselves might be wrong. There's a heavy use of fighters in the USA and USMC OOBs to simulate this, probably because it was easier to copy some basic types rather than add a myriad of little known other types. However, it is still important to note that there were separate designations for Observation (O-X) and photographic reconnaissance (F-X) for a reason, as well as, Liaison aircraft being used in this role (L-X).