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How accurate is the intel for the allies when it reports "4595 men at Wake Is"....is this an exact number...or is it something thats "give or take 1,000"?

If it's from Sigint, it's pretty darn accuarate (that number needs no give or take).
 
If it's from Patrol/Bomber recon, double it.
 
If it's from Recons, is probably under by about 50%.
 
-F-
 

I'll let you in on a secret. I don't have any men on Wake Island. [:D]

I'll let you in on a secret. I don't have any men on Wake Island.

are you sure, i thought i saw a couple thousand men behind that sand dune to the right of the 300 plane airbase

If it's from Sigint, it's pretty darn accuarate (that number needs no give or take).

thanks Feinder...good to know. My Patrol planes have been scouting Kwaljein and came up with 17,000 men there, yet intel states there is 100,000 men there. Now i know to believe the code breakers instead of pilots counting the number of port-a-johns

It's all in the pilot's enemy recognition priorities: they think that ground pounders are inherently useless, and so only see one fifth to one tenth of those ground bound troops that they encounter. However, enemy aircraft are of paramount importance to them, so they always see twice as many aircraft as they actually encounter (and three times as many burning aircraft than truly exist).

Pilots also fear what they don't understand: ships. Due to this fear, every sighted ship is seen as twice as large as it actually is.

thanks Feinder...good to know. My Patrol planes have been scouting Kwaljein and came up with 17,000 men there, yet intel states there is 100,000 men there.

Wow. That's more than the "just double". It might be a bit of issues with scale. As in, if you get a report of 1200 guys there, it's more likely to be 2x that. But when you start getting huge stacks (like 100k), the algorithms, can't handle it (just guessing, it would be a similar vein that it never reports more than 10 ships in TF, even if there are 100).

I'll have to take the larger troop concentrations with a grain of salt then. But in my experience, Sigint has always been correct (and yes, Bodhi's Util is your friend : with an enemy force that large, you had better start positively IDing those units!).

-F-

theres always the good old Marine Raider Bn raid [;)]

I think its calculated from load cost. If you have static CD installations in place, such as on Kwajalein, Saipan, Truk, various Home island, Kurile and Taiwan bases, you will more or less always get numbers above 100k.

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

It's all in the pilot's enemy recognition priorities: they think that ground pounders are inherently useless, and so only see one fifth to one tenth of those ground bound troops that they encounter. However, enemy aircraft are of paramount importance to them, so they always see twice as many aircraft as they actually encounter (and three times as many burning aircraft than truly exist).

Pilots also fear what they don't understand: ships. Due to this fear, every sighted ship is seen as twice as large as it actually is.

I read somewhere on these forums that the more recon you do on a base the more successful your attacks will be...but if its comming back with the wrong info...ie...17000 troops when really there are 70,000 would'nt you get your proverbial arse kicked!!!

Just remember to plan for five times as many troops as the pilots claim are there, and you should be in pretty good shape. [;)]