Two Annoying Glitches

[rubenandthejets]

Couple of small things that I noticed last night.

1: I was sent on yet another photo recon mission. Now, it seems a little illogical to me to sail from Fremantle to Singapore, take some snapshots of a ship and then sail home. It takes weeks to return home and by then that ship has probably sailed.
Why bother? I usually sink the sucker anyway! "Here's some grainy, outdated photos of a ship that I sunk in Singapore harbour nine days ago" "Good work, carry on" I can understand taking shots of installations, or sending sighting reports of vessels by radio, but photos of ships?

2: After the Singapore jaunt (which made me miss the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot ) I decided to test out the spanking new 5.25 incher on a Kent class cruiser in Freo harbour. It worked. Hauled off by the MPs, I was upbraided for killing fellow Americans. Um, sorry, (and appologies to all the US citzens reading this) but as far as I know Australia is a soveriegn nation and definitely NOT part of the USA....otherwise I could carry a gun, have to wait until I was 21 to drink beer and I wouldn't get a holiday on the Queen's Birthday. BTW I love how American and (oh, yeah, I think there were a few Australians too, might mention it as a little aside) Australian forces stop the Japanese in PNG in '42. C'mon! Credit where credit is due! First major reverse for the Japanese on land , in a desperate defence and counter attack along the Kokoda Track by outnumbered Australian millitia and the Americans get top billing?!!!! Not happy, Jan.

[Torplexed]

On Kokoda, I'll blame the gloryhound MacArthur. :p For some weird reason he seemed to have a poor opinion of Australians as soldiers. General MacArthur was supposed to head an Allied command, but he jealously excluded Australian officers, and for that matter USN officers, from his headquarters. His land force commander was an Australian, General Sir Thomas Blamey, a tough experienced officer who had commanded the Australians in the Middle East. But MacArthur schemed to ensure that Blamey wouldn't be premitted to command American troops in action or to get much glory in the press.

Sadly war breeds egos. Look at the competition between the various US sub commands at Pearl, Fremantle, Brisbane etc.

[breadcatcher101]

After your photo mission, report in and chances are you will be given new orders.

[rubenandthejets]

I know I'll get another mission when I call in, my point is the whole set up of photo recon missions is flawed. Why take pics of ships that will leave port soon, aren't even warships and that I usually sink?

If it was a recce and I either radio in the ship info like a contact report or take photos of the installations / bombing raid damage it would make sense. I might be missing something but I just don't get the reasoning behind it. :hmm: Any help on the rationale of photo recon of merchant ships in enemy harbours would be appreciated.

[Sandman_28054]

Originally Posted by rubenandthejets

I know I'll get another mission when I call in, my point is the whole set up of photo recon missions is flawed. Why take pics of ships that will leave port soon, aren't even warships and that I usually sink?

If it was a recce and I either radio in the ship info like a contact report or take photos of the installations / bombing raid damage it would make sense. I might be missing something but I just don't get the reasoning behind it. :hmm: Any help on the rationale of photo recon of merchant ships in enemy harbours would be appreciated.

In the game, your always asked to recon/photo some harbor.

And likewise, in order to complete a mission in the game, it involved locking onto a ship and taking a picture.

However, in real life, that was not the case. Oftentimes, the US did not have sufficent intelligence on defensive strengths, AA guns, traffic in and out of a harbor, types of ships, terrain, warehouses, docks, dry docks, etc. And that is where the sub came in.

Reconnaissance (also scouting) is a military and medical term denoting exploration conducted to gain information. Militarily, its shorthand Australian, Canadian, and British form is recce , its American U.S.A. and U.S.M.C. usage form is recon . The associated, linguistic forms are the verb reconnoitre in British spelling, and reconnoiter in American spelling; informally, recce and recon are used as a verb.

Militarily, reconnaissance is the active seeking to determine a foe's intentions by collecting and gathering information about an enemy's composition and capabilities along with pertinent environmental conditions, via direct observation, usually by scouts or military intelligence soldiers especially trained in critical surveillance.

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Reconnaissance

Before a bombing raid was planned, reconnaissance was needed to determine what and how many AA positions there were, and the strangth and location of enemy barracks.

This also helped to reduce civilian casualites.

We don't purposely make war against civilians, but unfortunately some will perish. (That is why it is call "war") And recon helps to reduce this number.

Unfortunately, just because you take a picture of a ship, then sink it, does not necessarily mean the recon work was for naught.

Remember "The Karate Kid"?

Wax the car, right hand, left circle, left hand, right circle".

"Wax on, wax off."

We may not, and oftentimes more than not, we don't know the purpose behind what we are ordered to do, but they, (higher ups) don't answer to us, we answer to them.

I'm sure it sounded stupid when they ordered the 509th Composite Bomb Group to go practice bombing over Tinian when they had already flown 12 combat bombing missions.

(A little FYI: the 509th Composite Bomb Group was the group the Enola Gay belonged to)

[peabody]

I suppose using Sandmans ideas that it is possible the game has you taking photos of a ship, simply because they didn't put in the other stuff to photograph, and if they did you couldn't lock on to it and get a photo the way the game is set up.

Peabody

[Soundman]

I'd like to suggest you install the RSRDC mod. It has a vastly improved campaign with historical traffic and......I doubt you will see a recon mission. Give it a whirl, you won't regret it.

[rubenandthejets]

Cheers everyone-some really comprehensive answers!
I never disputed the wisdom of recon. missions, just the way the game makes me conduct them

It is possible the game has you taking photos of a ship, simply because they didn't put in the other stuff to photograph, and if they did you couldn't lock on to it and get a photo the way the game is set up.

Peabody[/quote]

That`s sounds pretty convincing-a way around the "nothing exists on land" programming.

To Sandman-have you heard about the US Navy divers who did close in recon of reefs and islands with bands painted on their wetsuits at one foot intervals to help the measure tidal changes and channel depths? "Drop off and pick up recon. divers" would be a cool mission....I'll have to try out the mission editor!

To Soundman-still getting through a umodded 1.4 career. Once the war is over I'll have a go.