Air bonus for "early air warning"

[m10bob]

With radar and coastwatchers, Chinese "early air warning" teams, I wonder if certain friendly bases could be given a special defense CAP bonus by making them effective at *all* altitudes?
Seems if a CAP has gotten word of an incoming flight, as reported by visual observation, the planes flying at 20,000 feet should not be penalized when intercepting an incoming foe at 5000 feet?

[el cid again]

First of all, aircraft spotter networks are almost everywhere (at least in friendly territory). IJA had a special service for spotting planes (and ships) - a military branch. UV gave special coding to certain hexes for the Aussie network in the Solomans area - and possibly WITP does as well. I have long argued (to no avail) that EVERY military unit should be allowed to give visual warning - sometimes - particularly by day. [GG's die rolls should apply here] In Japan the civil defense spotter network NEVER failed to give TWO HOURS warning of a bomber raid. Diplomats and POWs confirm the data from Japanese sources - and they are unanimous on the matter.

Second, warning is not always terribly useful. The Hiroshima bombers WERE spotted - but there was no alarm because such a small number of planes was interpreted to be weather or recon or both - not an attack. Spotters are not very good at giving you altitude - and anyway the enemy might change altitude (or heading even). [Japan went over to using "altitude spotters" in light planes - and these worked according to US analysts - and Genda's special unit - the last JNAF technical success of the war - extensively used recon planes to give real time data on bomber streams to the interceptors.] This sort of thing matters a whole lot more than other forms of spotting - because the planes can get a better sense of altitude and speed - and because the observers are professional fliers - with a better sense of what they are looking at. Even so, spotting is very much a function of daylight and weather conditions, and so it should not be a magic pill (like in UV - coastwatcher in hex = report).

Third, other factors matter in the detection problem. WITP has "hooks" for "electronic warfare" aircraft - and indeed these were used in this period. They might mess up radar detection systems for example. Some day I would like to see a more sophisticated detection system. Meanwhile - I have added the first form of ESM to the game - albiet for ships rather than aircraft detection. I also added magnetic anomoly detectors - for ships and subs - but it is not clear how to know if it works?

[m10bob]

You have considered this for a long time because you are prior military, and understand the need to report any kind of enemy activity.
I got the idea of fairly dent altitude reporting based on some coastwatcher books I recently re-read in which the Aussie abservers were reporting from mountains they were standing on, with binoculars.
These fellas are credited with saving Cactus (Henderson Field and environs) on a near daily basis, well before radar showed up as an effective tool.
Too, the ground forces used the old "nail in the board" tool to get fair estimates of a planes height based on known quantum,(like the general size of a plane.)
Since we can't look to give every occupied hex as an "observer", my question actually pertains to either the hex the friendly CAP is based in, or the long range CAP target hex..
Literally every land hex in WITP might be considered "occupied", but my question only pertains to those with a military need, and an amount of training/education to "spot",(or have that benefit of later radar.)

[el cid again]

I think the answer is to put spotter functions in all land military units. In fact - I just figured out to do it! The heck with code - we will soft program this.

[m10bob]

Since the original designers programmed coastwatchers in the islands (vs shipping), I wonder if they coded individual hexes as such, and if so, how they limited this feature to just those hexes?
Maybe it required a "coast" hex rather than a "base" hex?

[el cid again]

Probably a secret value in a field. Like the code that activates an implemented symbol for cavalry - something no one used until Matrix told modders about it. Just for drill, I tried all the other codes in that field - whatever they do - they don't give you implemented art.