Planes AH appear as black dots at range and are easier to see with no icons than real life.
There is also the issue of AC identification, in real life, it was hard to tell who was who untill you got close, there wasnt a red tag above a target saying "this is a bad guy plane go ahead and shoot".
In any event, "short icons" are probably here to stay as a setting, but I agree with Daddog, it does make NOE flights a bit unfair at times. That being said, its still hard to detect a low flying group from alt.
Of course Daddog, as you well know, the other big reason why a-g attacks are so hazardous is because in WW2 you didnt email the LW and say "we are hitting V53 within the next 60 min" which is what you have to do in a FSO. That makes it 10x harder for attack planes to survive missions. Nature of events I guess .
Oh, and the blinking bases, they didnt have those in WW2 either, attacks came with no warning usually if flown down low under the radar. Even if the attack planes were spotted, that info was not immediately sent to interceptors like it is in the game. Maybe F-18s linked to AWACS have that in 2007, but you didnt have that in WW2.
A lot of it is fun and playability vs realism.
Just a few points.
