Recon Patrol

[CzaD]

One thing that is still missing in MoW and as far as I know it will be missing in AS, is Recon Patrol units. In AS it would be awesome to see, for example, a 4 men Recon Squad next to the regular and special (10 men) infantry. They could be used, esp early in the game, to infiltrate enemy territory, scout the area, provide initial resistance, sabotage enemy guns etc. They also would be used to explore big maps.


Characteristics of the recon squad:
- speed – move slightly faster than special forces;
- high weapon skill;
- slightly better stealth skill;
- lightly but well-equipped: for US Recon that could be: Thompson SMG and/or Garand rifle, 2 hand nades, one AT nade, plus 2 men carring 1 AT mines each and 2 men carring 3 AP mines each.

It would be very useful to have a Mechanized Recon Patrol, for US that could be a Jeep. 30cal or Jeep. 50 cal or M3A1 Scout Car.



I don't like the MoW scouts and I am happy we are not likely to see them in As. They are more like assassins. The Recon Patrol, I mean, would be just a tiny bit better than regular infantry but could be used for many different jobs.

What do you think?

[Nikitns]

it has no point. If you want to make an early game raid just buy a jeep and drive it deep into enemy lines, hide the jeep and dismount the infantry.

or you could use a halftrack.

[KnightFandragon]

isnt the Scout the recon guy in this game....isnt he undetectable unless you use an officer or something, hes got enough explosives to blow the hatch off anything.

[Crni vuk]

I rarely use the scout. hes not usefull in my eyes as I have no trouble to either spot him or he gets always spoted. I dont see what kind of advantage he has over usual infantry regarding hiding. Hes sometimes usefull when you give him a bazooka. But before spending points on the scout its mose usefull to use them on assault infantry or para troopers. But thats my oppinion. Or even go for the officers.

[Nikitns]

a scout armed with a bazokka is extremely useful. I once killed ~ 5 heavy tanks with it on a 600 game.

people are sometimes lazy, and let holes in their lines develop.

[CzaD]

I play GSM and I got used to buying single soldiers: a SMG, a bazooka, a mp, an engineer and a halftrack and doing all possible mischief with them (of course that depends on who I play against, coz sometimes I don’t have time to do that). So I thought it would be nice to have a mechanized recon handy in the squad buying section.

As to the scouts, what do you think about their stealth skills? I used scouts to great effect (there are no Scouts in GSM) by sending them near the enemy spawn area and being able to bombard enemy artillery before they managed to fire it and than later destroy enemy squads. I know that some players use them like that.

[KnightFandragon]

Scout Stealth skill I like it, although ive been screwed by it time and again I kinda think its awesome that the scout actually has some usefulness in game. Instead of being a lightly armed, hardly armored expensive cannon fodder unit who you send out and he dies in 2 seconds he can actually do his saboteur job well. That stealth is nice allowing the dude to really mess up your enemy if they dont properly place infantry....I dont ever place infantry correctly...Ive lost a match b/c of a scout destroying my T29 the last, no kidding, 2 seconds of the game.....I saw a BOOM and then the end game score screen...I also drilled me a T29 with a scout. So the Scout is nice, just kinda tricky to use and requires Microing like no other.

[Nikitns]

scout is impossible to spot if moving in bushes (only thing visible is the rattling of the bushes). and he also has crazy run speed and stamina.

[Crni vuk]

yeah but they can be easily spoted even on far distance sometimes (without officers) no clue how that happens though. Maybe some elite troops have a better chance of spoting something on the move ? LIke assault troops or paratroops maybe ? I mean it makes sense that a vet might have a better eye for battlefield then a usual grunt

*though I think realisticaly the real scout in WW2 was more the sniper. But I am not sure about that right now. It changed also sometimes from army to army. But many times snipers would take usualy that kind of role, particularly on the soviet side. Not cuase of their weapons though but cause they have received usualy a good training and had excelent battle awarness.

[Nikitns]

tbh, I think it is funny how people say "sometimes this game is sooo random!!", forexample when a PZ4 kept bouncing his shells from my T-34 he said "this game is bugged".

What he didn't realize was that I put my t34 up a small hill, and thus the frontal slope increased from 60 degrees from horizontal to ~ 20-30 degrees from horizontal.

In the end I got his Pz4 with a T-34/85.


Same is with scouts. There are no "coincidence". ur scout was probably spotted by a sniper, officer or maybe a hidden rifleman.