Yes recons would move ahead of the main force to find the best route for the following units as well as probe into different areas in order to find locate the enemy and thus establish where the enemy line of defense or advancement is located . If you read up about the recon units you will see they have various tactics on how to find the enemy . One example is the German armored car being used to drive slowly towards a treeline and when getting close it would quickly speed up and hurry away in order to make the enemy think they had been spotted and consequently open fire on it , which if course confirms the presence of the enemy even though they didn ' t actually see any when they executed the fake run away maneuver . But Recon units were not snipers , special forces , commandos or anything like that . They ' d find the easiest way through the terrain for the main force to follow , probe out enemy positions andor monitor enemy movement while relaying the information back to the main force . In a game like HnG though recon is a rather wasted role since the maps area all known there is really no unknown terrain that needs to be scouted and there is really no need to probe for enemy line cause everyone knows the enemy is coming from the area towards whatever objective or control point they own . So recons , at least in the action game , really have no purpose as far as reconnoitering goes .