RECON units in MC

[Aaron]

What is the advantage of having a unit as REC in the oob. Im not sure i know all the advantages of making something recon.

What are all the advantages of making it REC instead of just having it marked INF.

Aaron

[JDR Dragoon]

If the Unit Type is Recon, the unit can take advantage of the "Reconnaisance" optional rule (ie. pay 1/3rd of its movement points for a potential chance to spot unseen enemy units in LoS). Or was it something different you meant?

Marking the unit as "Recon" also means it will show up on the map as a counter marked as such:



With appropiate stylistic additions if armoured or motorized of course.

[Aaron]

No thats what i meant i was just wondering if there was more than just that. So the only advantage is to be able to use the recon spotting rule which only lets u see units within its line of site?

Aaron

[Midge]

So the difference between that and Patrolling is what ??

[Volcano Man]

As JDR_Dragoon said, Unit_Type: Recon gives the unit the ability to conduct "Recon Spotting", which is made available by the Recon Spotting Optional Rule. It is a very useful ability IMO and the optional rule should be used if you want to give recon units a realistic capability (and further set them apart from non-recon units).

The Recon Spotting rule allows said recon units to use the Recon Spotting command in the Command menu which allows them to locate units within their LOS in the middle of a turn. Normally, enemy units that do not have LOS to your units at the start of the turn can only be "spotted" by bumping into them which can be very deadly (or by using recon aircraft of course). However, with Recon Spotting, a Recon Unit may move forward into an unknown area and then use the Recon Spotting command and any units within LOS of that unit at that moment *might* be spotted and displayed on the map. The alternative is to drive forward a little, end the turn and then see what it can see next turn OR drive around with reckless abandon, crashing into the enemy.

Patrolling has nothing to do with recon units per se, all recon and non-recon units can patrol (but not HQs, supply units etc from what I can remember). I wrote a post some time ago on the uses of Patrolling (which IMO is an extremely useful feature, especially at night, albeit very few people use it or know about it). In a nutshell, it is not just used for anti partisan activities but also used to gather intel on the enemy who are out of LOS (out to two hexes). As I mentioned before though the search feature seems to be broken in these forums though (or at least unavailable to me). :(

[Midge]

If Patrolling is "Regardless of LOS" (according to the manual) does this not make it a more effective Recconaissance tool than Recce Spotting, as you mentioned volcano, even more so at night ??

[Volcano Man]

Yes, it is useful at night or in restricted terrain (such as woods, cities, swamps, etc. or when you are in rough terrain). The limitations are great though, it has a max spotting range of two hexes and the first hex would be spotted anyway because it would be adjacent to the unit itself. The unit that is patrolling is also much weaker with its fire too, and has its movement restricted if it wants to move away from that hex since it must recall the patrols.

One use is to have select units on the front lines use Patrolling at night to see if the enemy, who might be two hexes away resting, is building up for another attack and you can also use it to spot for artillery at night. Another use is to have select units on the front line who are adjacent to the enemy conduct Patrolling to see one hex behind the enemy front line to spot those huge breakthrough concentration of tanks or other targets which might be out of sight on flat terrain or behind a hill, again for early warning and to spot for artillery and air units. However, it is no more useful than Recon Spotting -- they both are unique abilities with their strengths and weaknesses.

[Dog Soldier]

No Midge. You are comparing apples and oranges. These features are very different.

Patrolling will only reveal enemy units at the start of the turn, if they are in the patrolling unit's two hex range. You can not move a patrolling unit until you take it out of patrolling mode.

Recon Spotting will discover units during the turn that were not spotted at the beginning of the turn. Recon units can move, spot, move again and sometimes spot twice in one turn if you are careful with the movement points.

A fine but important distinction as VM tried to point out.

Dog Soldier

[Dog Soldier]

As I mentioned before though the search feature seems to be broken in these forums though (or at least unavailable to me). :(

Ed,
It might be something on your end. I just did a search of the forum and the function is working fine.
Contact me by email with some details and I will try to help you out.

Dog Soldier

[Aaron]

I just thought there might be more than being able to spot, i agree both the patrol feature and the recon spotting are great features. I think the problem i have with it is like u said u move forward and bump into something and u get nailed,now if i can c him in line of site from 2 hexes away for the most part he can c you to and since recon units are all hard targets if he has a HA of 2 he nails ya. I dont like that all recon units are hard targets except if its MOT but then its half useless b/c it needs to stay to the roads in order to get anywhere. Most WP recon units and the Dutch i believe were infantry based but u cant create them b/c if u make it a REC TRK in the oob it will count 240 M-113s instead of 240 infantry on M-113s. Being a soft target it wouldnt have to take the shots from tanks/inf units who have a range of 2HA when its deployed out front of your units. I would like to create infantry based recon units and cant do it, now if we had something like a box where we could flag a unit recce like we flag it for WMDs then we could create these units and even HEL based inf units for recon and the recon spotting feature would work for them.

Aaron