Not reading this whole thread to see if its been said, but coming from someone who does Bombing, GVing and fighters all evenly in this game... unless you do all three types of game play evenly, your opinion is useless because you will always be biased to whatever you do.
With that being said, being bombed in a tank is part of the game, GVers need to stop complaining about it. If you are worried that much about the bombs, then here is a thought for you... get a friendly air cap going... its a win-win situation. The fighters get to attack easy bombers and the gvers stay bomber free. Instead, most gvers just go and get bombs themselves and make the bombing issue even worse. two wrongs don't make a right. If you don't want to be bombed, then you or your friends cant be bombing either.
Now for the icon range itself. My biggest issue is that with this change you are making the game even gamier. It doesn't matter if I'm in a Storch or an A20, i can only see so far in both planes. Artificially giving the Storch a longer visual range while reducing all other aircraft's does not solve anything. It just makes it even more gamey and LESS realistic.
In world war two, when troops on both sides heard the faint noise of an L-bird or storch (whatever)coming , they didn't fire their anti-aircraft guns at it, they did just the opposite. They stayed silent and didn't move. The L-birds were the most feared a/c in WWII (that being quoted by multiple Germans and Japanese soldiers) because if they were spotted by the L-birds, they new ordnance of some sort was soon to come.
I think a good way to solve this issue fairly is to keep the icons the same as they are now. However, if GVs are stopped and under cover, their icon should only flash once for maybe a second when they fire. This gives them the realistic cover they would have had in RW, but gives the overhead attack aircraft the ability to get a general idea of where they are without them having the ability to exactly pinpoint them. If the GVs are moving or in the open, they should be able to be seen as normal at all times. However, when i say cover, it needs to be something thick. Parking under a single tree that is otherwise in the open, should not give the benefits of being in a patch of trees. If a line of site can be made of more than 1/2 the tank, then the above air cons should be able to see the icon as if it were in the open/moving. However, if the a/c passes over and the line of site of 1/2 the tank is broken, then the aircraft should only get to see it is if it fires. Or something along those specific lines.
