Japanese Recon Aircraft and Cameras

[LowesyPC]

I am a player who likes to make informed decisions. When I booted up Japan for the first time to play a PBEM with a friend I was delighted to see not only plenty of Recon squadrons but because I am Japan the ability to build my own dedicated recon aircraft. No more 5 F-4 Recons a month from 1943. However, when I dived into it more a lot of the Japanese 'Recon' planes such as a the Babs have no camera's whereas planes like the Sonia and later fast moving twin engine 'fighters' do have cameras.

Now my first question is, how much do cameras help in Recon? I want to think that they do but of course this is War in the Pacific nothing is that simple.

Secondly if the Cameras are indeed better, would it not be better to use Sonia's as the main recon aircraft of the while better camera equipped planes become available?

[Trugrit]

I am a player who likes to make informed decisions. When I booted up Japan for the first time to play a PBEM with a friend I was delighted to see not only plenty of Recon squadrons but because I am Japan the ability to build my own dedicated recon aircraft. No more 5 F-4 Recons a month from 1943. However, when I dived into it more a lot of the Japanese 'Recon' planes such as a the Babs have no camera's whereas planes like the Sonia and later fast moving twin engine 'fighters' do have cameras.

Now my first question is, how much do cameras help in Recon? I want to think that they do but of course this is War in the Pacific nothing is that simple.

Secondly if the Cameras are indeed better, would it not be better to use Sonia's as the main recon aircraft of the while better camera equipped planes become available?

Like many things in this game it is tricky.

There are two factors involved in a recon mission.
1. The pilot needs to spot the target. Recon skill is the primary factor. Altitude is second.
2. If the plane has a working camera there is a random 0-3 boost to the detection level.

You have a chance to get better info on the target if the plane has a camera.

The Outlaw
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 0#p3434370

The manual is out of date:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 8#p3538128

The game can not seem very realistic in this area because you can often get
good recon info without camera equipped planes at very high altitude.

A Japanese pilot with only binoculars can often get good results on a target
located in heavy jungle from 30,000 feet.
In this case we can just say that the pilot flew much lower even though you
set the altitude to the max.

Also, here is a little inside baseball type information that is useful:

When a group fly's a recon mission only one or two planes (Pilots) fly the mission.
The game picks the pilots who will fly the mission based primarily on pilot experience
not recon skill even though recon skill is the one that is most important.

With that in mind what you want to have in your recon group are pilots
with both high experience and high recon skill.

This is an area where group reserve can be important. You can use group reserve to cull
pilots. Place you lower experienced and low recon skilled pilots in group reserve so
the game will not choose them for the mission.

This does not always work. I’ve seen the game pull pilots out of group reserve.
Rare but it can happen at least with recon missions.

New players often ask what good is group reserve. It can be used to “cull” pilots.

With this in mind focus on your pilots instead of the camera.

[dr.hal]

Secondly if the Cameras are indeed better, would it not be better to use Sonia's as the main recon aircraft of the while better camera equipped planes become available?

On first glance you might think the Sonia is better but there are a couple of problems. First, is that the Sonia's range is VERY limited, thus it has no reach to fly over important distant targets. Second, the pilot was trained as a level bomber, so that his skill level in "recon" might be very low. If you DO want to use this A/C in the recon roll, you need a few months of training up the pilots in their recon skills. Finally, the Sonia is slow which makes it highly vulnerable to CAP at the target. If you will note, most dedicated recon aircraft are relatively quick so as to outpace CAP.

[LowesyPC]

Secondly if the Cameras are indeed better, would it not be better to use Sonia's as the main recon aircraft of the while better camera equipped planes become available?

On first glance you might think the Sonia is better but there are a couple of problems. First, is that the Sonia's range is VERY limited, thus it has no reach to fly over important distant targets. Second, the pilot was trained as a level bomber, so that his skill level in "recon" might be very low. If you DO want to use this A/C in the recon roll, you need a few months of training up the pilots in their recon skills. Finally, the Sonia is slow which makes it highly vulnerable to CAP at the target. If you will note, most dedicated recon aircraft are relatively quick so as to outpace CAP.

Yeah that was my big issue with the sonia and the reason I was wondering about the significance of the camera. Because if the camera made a huge difference I would take that into account.

[WEXF]

Don't forget that by the rules a recon mission flown by a recon plane is much more effective than a recon mission flown by a non recon plane, if both missions actually happen.
Using a bomber with a camera may sound like a good choice but a recon plane is just so much more effective.
There are so many possible reasons for a recon mission not to fly but if it gets in the air and the pilots are trained decently in recon, better to be in a recon plane!
WEXF

[LargeSlowTarget]

Second, the pilot was trained as a level bomber, so that his skill level in "recon" might be very low. If you DO want to use this A/C in the recon roll, you need a few months of training up the pilots in their recon skills.

Or simply swap out the pilots trained in level-bombing for pilots trained in recon? And if you need the Sonias as attack aircraft again, send the recon pilots back into the reserve and pull-in the guys trained in level bombing. Air units and pilots aren't glued together, the pilots can be swapped depending on the desired mission of the air unit.

[WEXF]

Second, the pilot was trained as a level bomber, so that his skill level in "recon" might be very low. If you DO want to use this A/C in the recon roll, you need a few months of training up the pilots in their recon skills.

Or simply swap out the pilots trained in level-bombing for pilots trained in recon? And if you need the Sonias as attack aircraft again, send the recon pilots back into the reserve and pull-in the guys trained in level bombing. Air units and pilots aren't glued together, the pilots can be swapped depending on the desired mission of the air unit.

I think it is not that simple since when you move pilots from the reserve to active in a squadron there is a random delay before the pilot is available. That delay can be as high as a week. It is faster if the pilots you are adding are in the "group" pool rather than the "reserve" pool.
At least that is the way I think it works.
WEXF

[LargeSlowTarget]

In my experience there can be a delay for certain pilots sometimes, but usually I have no problems filling an air unit with pilots pulled from the pools via the "veterans" button and have them ready for duty immediately. After being pulled from the pool, they do show a delay of one day and their names are greyed-out like pilots in group reserve, but when I apply the "To pool: Active" button, their names turn white = active and the delay drops to 0 days.

[WEXF]

I will have to check that out.
Sounds like it makes the concept of "delay" meaningless.
Strange.
WEXF

[LowesyPC]

So part of the reason this question arose was because I forgot that certain squadrons can't have certain planes, so my plan was to use Sonias in the recon squadrons but I can't. Time to build other planes womp womp

[Trugrit]

I will have to check that out.
Sounds like it makes the concept of "delay" meaningless.
Strange.
WEXF

When the delay is 1 day you have to manually move the pilot to active duty:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 3#p3524403

As explained by Lokasenna in his post in the same thread:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6#p3526516

The 1 day delay keeps skilled and unskilled pilots from going directly into combat where they can be lost.

The Pilot delay overall is working as designed.
The design is an abstracted version of the Air Transport Command during WW2:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/blogs/ai ... ld-war-ii/

Flights were scheduled based on the most efficient method to move people and pilots.
Planes and fuel was taken into consideration.

What that means is that if you want to move a single pilot, or just a few, you will often get a delay because
the transport command would not schedule a plane just to move a single pilot. The pilot would have to
wait until there was enough demand for a flight to be scheduled near his destination.

This means it would be much faster to move a larger group.

If you want to move a large group of pilots that need alone would create enough demand for the
transport command to schedule a flight and they would get there quicker than if you try
and move one pilot at a time.

[RSchall08]

These posts from 2014 may be of some help on the wider topic:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 8#p3538048

"Are different pilot skills needed depending on whether or not the plane has a camera?"

"No. It is only the recon skill value for a recon mission. For a naval search or ASW mission, the relevant pilot skill is naval search or ASW respectively."

[LongLance93]

Don't forget that by the rules a recon mission flown by a recon plane is much more effective than a recon mission flown by a non recon plane, if both missions actually happen.
Using a bomber with a camera may sound like a good choice but a recon plane is just so much more effective.
There are so many possible reasons for a recon mission not to fly but if it gets in the air and the pilots are trained decently in recon, better to be in a recon plane!
WEXF

Was there a difference for flying q search mission between recon, search or bomber types?

Was there an effect to the DL if the target is on fire, day or night?

[Zeckke]

just do it at night, thouse four engines are deadly against CVs

[JanSako]

Whaddaya mean?

INJ patrol planes armed w/torps on a night search mission? Or have them on the actual Naval attack mission w/ certain % flying Nav Search?

[Zeckke]

Whaddaya mean?

Or have them on the actual Naval attack mission w/ certain % flying Nav Search?

100% naval attcack, dont really use the recon due his short range IJN, better used for recon troops in land, subs can do better spotting than planes.

next, put the altitude and the range correct and tou will hit Cvs at night.

[WEXF]

In my experience there can be a delay for certain pilots sometimes, but usually I have no problems filling an air unit with pilots pulled from the pools via the "veterans" button and have them ready for duty immediately. After being pulled from the pool, they do show a delay of one day and their names are greyed-out like pilots in group reserve, but when I apply the "To pool: Active" button, their names turn white = active and the delay drops to 0 days.

I did check it out and it seems that if the delay is 1 day you can move the pilot to active status that day. However, if the delay shown for a pilot is more than 1 day you cannot immediately activate the pilot. The screen simply says "pilot in transit".
WEXF