“Just drive down that road, until you get blown up”

[altipueri]

Apparently Patton said that about reconnaissance. I've followed his orders many times in this game.

I think Kurt Vonnegut in the early pages of Slaughterhouse Five says reconnaissance troops were expendable but that's just a book. (I know he was on recce and was captured and ended up a POW in Dresden)

I just thought it was my incompetence and impatience, but so many of my recces guys are chewed up in this game I feel I need some survival tips - many AARs and comments seem to allude to short recce life span.

To be sent on recce seems like compulsory kamikaze.


Recce survival tips welcome please.

[IronMikeGolf]

1. Put more time and space between recce and main effort forces. Scenarios tend to be time and space compressed in the interest of playability (i.e. get some action going early). If you rush recce, it riskier. So, chose when you accept that risk.
2. Decide what you want eyes looking at and why. Pick a covered vantage to view that spot. Pick a covered and concealed route to that vantage point. This will take longer to execute.
3. Provide fire support to your recce. This means you need to turn FSCC on and consider putting some assets DS to some recce forces. Once the recon fight is over and you're into the main effort fight, you can turn off FSCC.

[mirrorshades]

Provide fire support to your recce. This means you need to turn FSCC on and consider putting some assets DS to some recce forces.

+1

I have had a couple great successes with getting some quick barrages off against the main enemy HQ by having a battery in DS for my recce (right up until they were destroyed, which didn't take long... RIP, scouts). If you can spare an artillery unit or two (and they are in range -- remember to double-check for on-map units), it is worth the payoff especially if the recce units are likely going to get blowed up anyway.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: altipueri

...

To be sent on recce seems like compulsory kamikaze.


Recce survival tips welcome please.

a friend of mine who was in the BAOR in the 80s described one version of British infantry 'recon' techniques.

tell someone to stand up, try to judge where the bullets came from, everybody else fired at that spot.

This was apparently standard practice in N Ireland but the working assumption there was that PIRA were very rarely competent marksmen (or present in large numbers) - it may have worked less well up against the Soviets.

[altipueri]

Ah yes the old: Recon by fire.

Not far different from what Robert Graves describes in "Good Bye To All That".