recce: how?

[Cik]

hi i'm new

i have a fair background knowledge of many of the game's units, so with a little practice i've become mediocre at it. however the one problem i'm having is with the recon: more specifically, air recon. i'm having a devil of a time finding ANYTHING, even with extremely sophisticated modern tools. so a few questions (i'm probably just doing it wrong)

what mission do i use for dedicated recon units?

how close do i have to be for dedicated recon units? (for instance i was within 20nm with a U2S and i couldn't ID anything past mobile#432 or whatever.. unless the U2 is way worse than i thought it is, why is that?

are there any tricks to positively IDing things? why does it seem like even when my guys are shot at they still can't ID the enemy as missile launchers etc?

does "maritime surveillance" mean the craft is only built for finding ships, or does it mean it's a platform launched from ships?

in many missions i've had real problems finding and IDing the enemy; in shamal my RF-4C managed to miss several missile launchers around H3 (no weather so a useful example) the aforementioned U2S failing to ID the nuclear TELs in that pakistani scenario (lightning strike?) in english jets over uganda my recce buccaneers failed to find anything with several low altitude passes while being shot at etc. is there something i'm missing?

btw i should add the game's great, but i can't complete some of the aforementioned scenarios (lightning strike, at least) because i REALLY need to be able to tell the TELs apart from some of the garbage armor that the site is surrounded with, and if a U2S at extreme close range can't tell the difference between an enormous missile launcher and a tank i'm SOL. up until now i've just been doing recon-by-fire and using ELINT to whack LR SAMs, but esp. for shamal i really need to be able to target the non-emitting IR SAMs sitting behind every dune.
thanks.

[wild_Willie2]

Finding static and thus camouflaged units is difficult, even with modern surveillance equipment, and only gets harder with smaller units (e.g. a tank is easier to spot then an infantry unit). The only way to do this is by flying low over an area an hope you get lucky..

lower the altitude of that U2 and it will identify the target more easily. Spotting moving targets is much easier by the way...

W.

[magi]

Deleted

[magi]

does "maritime surveillance" mean the craft is only built for finding ships, or does it mean it's a platform launched from ships?

Actually I believe this mission works pretty well.... I've noticed that most any suitable unit you assign to it will behave in a manner given its abilities and do a good job id'ing what's in the patrol area.......

[Cik]

what mission do you guys use for recon? i've tried support and patrol ASUW (ground)

support seems to do the best just because it won't go on the warpath chasing every un-ID'ed contact it sees and get itself shot. i suppose it depends on the nature of the scout.

is the answer then for the U2 just to get closer? i wondered if there were boresight/tracking limits to consider when dealing with recon cameras etc. i'll give it a go; i don't think there are actually SAMs at minhas so it's worth a shot.