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Gentlemen,

I wanted to bounce an idea your way concerning Recon helos and MC. I fall into the camp that recon helos should be a vital part of any 1985-era Germany campaign. With FOW on, both sides need their recon assets and recon helos are a big part of that. However, having been on the receiving end of what I considered gamey play with helos (dancing for OF, crazy stuff back in FG85, etc), and also having read and re-read this forum concerning MC helos and complaints, I am seeking a work-around. I am hoping to move Recon helos to the air support menu rather than having them represented in game as manuever units.

I am thinking that if I replace the stock sound file "AirRecon.wav" (which is a WWII-era propellor plane sound) with the sound of the stock file "helicopter.wav" (appropriately renamed to "AirRecon.wav") then I could add OH-58's, Gazelles, Allouettes, Mi2's etc to the air support menu as recon aircraft. When a player called for an air recon mission, these helos would be available and the helicopter wave would play when the air recon mission was executed. Jet aircraft-type recon units would remain available as appropropriate also.

An obvious gamey problem that this new method would create would be that players might start running helo recon missions way behind enemy lines, far beyond the combat radius of these small recon choppers. You know, like a Kitzingen-based OH-58A scout helo in the Zapad OOB flying a player-directed reconnaissance over East Berlin. But that is the only negative I can come up with. I can't think of any other negatives.

Any input welcomed. I am looking for a way to include what I consider a vital 1985-era battlefield intelligence asset while avoiding the known gamey exploits that recon helos provide to "creative" MC players. Seems like I could just make them air recon missions with a helicopter sound file associated and clear them off the map board without losing their function...

Taffy

As you noted, this is yet another area where "Reality" simply doesn´t translate very well into the "Simulation". Helicopters are essentially a special kind of ground unit. It has special supply rules and enemy units shoot at it use their AA rating instead of SA/HA. In addition it can "fly over" enemy units and automatically gets retreated in an assault. But in all other aspects it is a ground unit: It can block LOS and movement through the terrain it occupies.

I see another problem with your proposal: Scope. Let´s do a quick "back of the envelope calculation". Let´s just take the Bundeswehr alone, they are not particularly dense in helicopters:

-Each Division has a Staffel of 10 Observation and Liason type Helos (Alouettes or BO 105). That is at least 11 helicopter recon missions extra (or 22, if you retain the current 2x5 organization in the OOB)

-Each Corps Level Helicopter Regiment (be they attack Helos or light/medium transport types) also has Obs and Liason type helos in abundance. Lets call it 3 recon missions more (at least).

-In addition there is the extra Recon and Liason helicopters for the Territorialkommandos and directly under NORTHAG/CENTAG and TerritorialKommando Schleswig-Holsteain. That is another 5 or so Recon missions.

So that is about 19-20 extra recon missions for the Bundeswehr ALONE. Then we can start adding in the rest of NATO. It wouldn´t surprise me if you ended up w. something like a 100 extra recon missions once you account for everything.

Of course, you might then scale it back. Say, each NATO corps adding an extra Recon Mission on behalf of their helicopters. Perhaps w. a US Corps getting 2x Recon Mission on behalf of it having more helicopters.

(I will follow up the other thread at some point in the future, don´t have the time now).

Indeed, scope may make this idea a total dead-end. I will have to see how it plays.

Taffy