Aerial Reconnaissance in WWII

[ZachariasX]

It should be possible to have recon flights. In RoF they are a standard mission. (Might be an issue though when taking pictures from 12 km altitude with out current view bubble of ~10 km...)

[Finkeren]

Not sure about photo recon, though my gut feeling tells me, that it wouldn't be that hard to do.

Visual recon and directing artillery fire is already a part of Rise Of Flight, so that should be easy to implement in BoX. Photo recon is there as well, but is so simplified (quite frankly arcadish) that I wouldn't want it to be in BoX in that form.

Edited May 3, 2017 by Finkeren

[DD_Arthur]

 

Also developing this game mechanic in a basic form in BoM, expand it to the naval operations in BoK and gear it towards and perfect it for Midway could give the stalking of the opposing carrier groups in the initial stages of the battle a playable place in the sim.

 

Thoughts?

 

I think photo recon - whilst a nice idea - was largely irrelevant to Midway and most naval search operations.  Whilst I've no doubt most PBY's carried at least some sort of Box Brownie aboard for the crew to take snaps, the purpose of the patrol would be to transmit a sighting report immediately and then, if possible,  shadow the movements of any surface fleet.  

[Sokol1]

How this photo recon can affect the gameplay/missions, specially in MP?

 

Actually with triggers one can fly with a give plane over a area and "reveal" their targets, but this don't require a specif Recon plane.

[Feathered_IV]

How this photo recon can affect the gameplay/missions, specially in MP?

 

Actually with triggers one can fly with a give plane over a area and "reveal" their targets, but this don't require a specif Recon plane.

 

If the reconnaissance aircraft lights up a target for the duration of the time they are in contact with it and are able to loiter in the vicinity.  Even better - if they are able to leech mission points away from the opposing team, every minute they remain in the area.  Even better again - if those points get transferred to their own team.  And even doubly better - if a share of those points get awarded to the pilot.

 

Being a recon pilot would quickly become a key role in online missions.  They would also become key targets.

[Scojo]

You guys think think implementation of areal reconaissance in the Game is possible?

I think of a camera version of a existing (heavy)fighter aircraft and/or a single dedicated aircraft for the nations, which could give the combatants more detailed information about ground targets (locations, which AA, damage  etc.).

Could bring a little bit more tactical gameplay to the MP.

Also developing this game mechanic in a basic form in BoM, expand it to the naval operations in BoK and gear it towards and perfect it for Midway could give the stalking of the opposing carrier groups in the initial stages of the battle a playable place in the sim.

 

Thoughts?

There's a spotting mechanic already in the game, or at least possible through the mission tools. One of the WoL missions has a spotting mission.

 

The spotting area is marked on the map, but you could change it so the area isn't marked and the player has to find it on their own. Also reduce the time over the area to increase the chances of finding it instead of the three flyover requirement they give.

[andyw248]

This may have been posted earlier, but I thought it was a pretty interesting account on the topic of reconnaissance flights in Spitfires:

[Retnek]

Wow, never seen that - heart-warming. THANKS!

 

For in-game-recon I'd like to see it done in two ways:

 

- simulating short-range-recon with planes flying low, crew looking for targets by eye & bonoculars. The results often were radioed, so the detected targets appear on map a few min after detection. Some online-servers do it this way, with a realistic retarder it's done by Coconut on his server.

 

- long-range-recon by "photo-planes" ("no bombs" for bombers, "no ammo" for fighters as a work-around) should deliver results 30 min after successful touch-down of the plane.

 

I'd love to see a way those results remain on the map over phases and they change colours from Green = fresh to brown = old. Or a little number behind it telling the hours after detection.

 

The Storm-of-war-server for IL2-CloD had it implemented nicely, was a pleasure to fly recon missions. During one phase a successful recon run "activated" that object as a target for the next large AI-bomb-run. So we checked out what base a certain squadron had, made a recon run and voila, vendetta without the need to do it yourself.

 

(This recon-job sometimes worked just because the RAF-fighters played fair and cared for realism - they've seen me several times, but had to stay high because the ground controller kept them in reserve to attack the bombers)

[Monostripezebra]

>Here are some really nice pictures made by a reccon crewmember:

 

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotofund-fotostrecke-108533.html

 

[Retnek]

oh yes, great series - anyone interested in further details might enjoy this, too:

http://www.spiegel.de/einestages/fotofund-aus-dem-zweiten-weltkrieg-a-948737.html

[Monostripezebra]

It´s pretty interesting to see, how much the german army depended on horse cariages.

 

How the real supply colums looked:

 

 

 

and.. then there are the other fotos by the same photographer of the people of Lubny shortly before beeing shot by the SS:

Edited May 7, 2017 by Monostripezebra

[LukeFF]

If you had to allocate engines, would you put them on Fw-190's or on that one?

 

Very good point. Plus, the Fw 189 was fulfilling the short-range recon role quite well, so the BV 141 was a plane without a job.

Did it actually saw frontline use at all?... 

 

I don't think they did, no.

This may have been posted earlier, but I thought it was a pretty interesting account on the topic of reconnaissance flights in Spitfires:

 

Also heartwarming to hear they were having flight model arguments back then as well:

 

"You can't fly a Spitfire from England to Berlin and back!"

 

"Oh yes you can, and I've done it."

 

[Lusekofte]

 

 

The Fw 189 had one single thing going for it,

 

Have to correct you a little bit. It had 3 things:

 

2. It could take a lot of damage, the twin boom construction did as you say make it manouvereable, but in at least one occation one 189 was landing with only one boom left.

3. It had 2 rear gunners with excellent view, it was considered very dangerous to attack it from the rear, this made it very difficult to land hits on 

[Kurfurst]

The recon Spitfire is most famous for repeated solo flights over Brest at the time the Kriegmarine had Scharnhorst and Gneisenau stationed there, keeping the British informed about the condition of the ships and their intentions. These flights contributed a lot to essentially neutralizing these two ships for the year they were stationed there. Luftwaffe pilots were joking about the daily Spitfire, being less than impressed with the British cross channel operations. The lack of understanding about the value of these recon flights and their effect for the Kriegsmarine is very typical for the Luftwaffe and the inter service relation to the Kriegsmarine at that time.

 

Sure, though I suppose there were no shortage of the French dockworkers who would have noticed two 35 000 ton battleships moored at the harbor, none of them would notice that 4000 German sailors would suddenly being absent from the local pubs at night and none of them ever contacted the French resistance who never had any capability or radios to broadcast that info to Albion.

[JtD]

A picture's worth more than a thousand words, and that's what the Spitfires provided.

[MiloMorai]

On 11 February 1942, the Kriegsmarine ships left Brest at 9:14 p.m. and escaped detection for more than twelve hours, approaching the Strait of Dover without discovery.

 

So much for those French dock workers and lack of sailors in the local pubs.

[ZachariasX]

On 11 February 1942, the Kriegsmarine ships left Brest at 9:14 p.m. and escaped detection for more than twelve hours, approaching the Strait of Dover without discovery.

 

So much for those French dock workers and lack of sailors in the local pubs.

That's just it. They were in the pub while the Krauts sailed. Zut alors!