Simple idea that may help improve strategic immersion.
As we all know, flat rate of the AH and removal of the pressure of the ticking clock affects our behavior a lot, mostly in a positive way.
Unlike WB, in AH it does not cost you extra money to fly as a gunner or to linger in the tower and chat, or watch the radar and direct your friends or take a vehicle, drive to the front and act as a forward observer.
That is what we could use more - forward observers equipped with binoculars (zoom feature) hiding in the enemy area and reporting enemy activity. Imagine all the radio traffc in your buffer sent by people who do not have to type and fly at the same time - reports of the visual contacts, activity, troop movements, etc.
The same guy could direct artillery fire and give damage assessment to the bombers.
We have to unable jumping with a parachute from any plane/vehicle with more then one crew member (more two-seater planes would be nice for that) without jeopardising your stats and becoming a forward observer.
The icon range on the ground observer and his parachute while in flight should reflect his camouflage.
It may be interesting to require an observer to return to his homeland or be picked up by a friendly plane/vehicle in order to be successfull, but that is probably more work.
On a related note:
How about the next vehicle being a one seater and/or a two-seater (machinegun - equipped) motorcycle for recon and scirmish? They won't be able to get close to unsupressed ack, so no treat to the current field capture scheme, but otherwise they should be lots of fun.
I've heard that MS Motocross Madness was a bestseller. If only we could entice all those guys to play AH! HTC would get more revenue and we would get plenty of targets to strafe.
miko--
