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Originally Posted by codman
At the moment it always seems to takes to long to to get them into a position where I can use them for actual recon.
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This is a common problem with recon elements. A suggestion that I got in another thread was to start your recon elements moving on turn one, but hold off moving your main body until a couple of turns have gone by. You can also simply deploy your main body 500 meters or so behind the deployment line and your scouts right on it. This works in advances and assaults because your enemy isn't going anywhere, and often in delays and defends because you arn't going anywhere (ideally). It's those darn meeting engagements that are tricky.
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When I do find the bad guys, it's almost always by feel and they do tend to evaporate rather quickly.If I mechanize them I thought it might become possible to move even faster early on and then creep them forward on foot.
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I understand this statment to mean that your scouts tend to evaporate quickly in a hail of enemy bullets shortly after finding them. If that is what you mean, then I can say that the same happens to a lot of people, myself very much included. The think with scouts is that they can be used either as recon or selective premtive strike units, but rarly both. Recon units should see but not be seen. This preserves their longivity, not to mention their lives. It's hard to remain unseen when you've just close assaulted an enemy tank.
If you mean that the enemy tends to evaporate under the eyes of your scouts, my recommendation is to have two levels of scouts. One pair of eyes that can hopefully spot the units and another set to hurry to the area that it looks like the enemy is going. You can bet, in most cases the enemy is headed along the easist or sneakiest route to the objectives. If you're playing a human opponet, he might be headed for your rear, is is normatlly just due east/west of where they are.
I agree that if you sprint forward and then proceed on foot, things work fairly well. The trick is not to sprint right into the enemy's position, or right into the enemy's scouts. The best way to spot something is to be parked yourself and watch somebody else moving. But you probably realize this. Just remember that the enemy may be using the same route you are.
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Right now I have each scout formation paired with a couple of lend lease Stuarts for some added firepower as a couple of rifles and hand grenades aren't as much help as one thinks.
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That depends on what kind of help you want. If you are looking to find the enemy and ambush them before your main body hits, then stuarts are great help, but remember, once your scouts attack somebody, they're not going to be very good recon as they will draw fire themselves. One thing that I've started doing, and other people have attested to it, is to couple some scouts with a FO/AOP. That way, when you spot the enemy you can call in accurate fire on them. You could also have a pair of T-34/57s/76s/85s travel with the scouts, but have them hang back a bit until the enemy is spotted and then-boom!
There have been some good ideas here. My ideas are simply ones that I've got and things I've learned from experience. While learnign from experience teaches you a lot, it's painful
. Personally I have two scout units in Konsomolets (60 battle LC, Russia 11/41), one of them has a AOP along for the ride. I also like to attach a support recon element to my core forces in addition to my own scout units. In many cases "support" is the same as "sacrifical" as not many of them live through the battle. I like to run my core scouts along the flanks, watching for enemy movements there and, ideally, penitrating back so they can disrupt artillary in the rear, or ATGs and AAAs that may be waiting in ambush in the event my tanks break through. The support units - often a company of motorcycles w/ riders - move along the assault route and look for trouble. This means that I have two levels of recon. After the MCs engage enemy fire, and my main body sweeps through, I still have my core units spotting for the next level of enemy units. Ii have had so many problems with my recon force being in shambles after first contact that I'm not ready for the second contact. This helps ilivate this problem.
Take this with a grain of salt - I know it's a lot and doesn't work all the time. Difine what you want your recon force to do and then build it to that model.
favorite scout types
cavalry mounts for standard scouts are, IMO, the best bet for snowy or muddy forests. MC mounts are great in the late spring/summer on the open plains, and are one of the few things that will keep up with a T-34 formation, though they are PAINFULLY vulnrable. The Komsolets mounts do work well for slower armored columns, esp if you add a couple cheap snipers, or an ATR team to bulk up the patrol.
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