Aerial Recon on the Western Front

[swampyankee]

That's fine for strategic recon. For tactical recon the forward observer requires good visibility of the target he's adjusting artillery fire onto.

USN VOF squadrons, which directed NGFS shoots, used single-seat aircraft, usually operating in pairs. Among other things, they flew Spitfires, Hellcats, and Wildcats. Perhaps the USN was odd in this regard, but in its observation squadrons, the pilot was also the observer and the guy in back was a radio operator.

 

[Denniss]

My site at Airrecce The story of photographic reconnaissance looks at the history of photographic reconnaissance. Still a number of pages to add, but the WWII sections are more or less complete.

Nice site but several errors for german aircraft.

To name just a few:
No Ar 234 B-1 production, all recons were prototypes or B-2 with recon cams
Lots of problems in the Ju 88 section - first recons were A-1 and A-5 bombers with 2-3 cams in the rear bomb bay, the dedicated recon series Ju 88D had then in a more aft position so a fuel tank could be placed in the rear bomb bay. First production was the A-5 based D-2, then A-4 based D-1 as major production version, D-5 a variant of the D-1
Ju 188 recce were built alongside the bombers, starting in 1943 (not 44)
Bf 109E: no handheld cam, fitted to rear fuselage as in E-5
Bf 109F: No handheld cams in those, mounted in rear fuselage of dedicated recons F-4/R2 and /R3 and probably some converted fighter, no F-5 or F-6 existing, no reason to remove the engine cannon
Bf 109G: no armament removal unless it was a /R3 variant with an oil tank in place of MG ammo boxes
Bf 110G: fitting of two MK 108 to recons is questionable, either they retained their 4x MG or unit hack to 2x 2cm
Me 262: A-1a/U3 and A-5a were the same (name change as it was to become a production version), upper nose guns retained
Me 210: no drop tanks on 210/410 unless unit hacks, no Me 410 A-2 produced, Me 410 could install the same amount of cams as the 210 but not 2 on 210 and just one on 410 (either 1 or 2 is wrong), Me 410B had not uprated engines

 

[swampyankee]

Actually, working from negatives is usually better than working from prints - the quality of negatives is better because prints are inevitably one generation removed from the originally-captured image. Also "light boxes" (or the more capable light tables) provide a much better illuminant for analysing imagery than shining a spot lamp onto a print. As late as 1994 the RAF was still using wet-film photo recce and we were still analysing negatives on light tables using stereoscopes - not the best in the world but it worked and delivered results sufficient for the operation at that time.

It undoubtedly takes a bit practice to interpret a negative, vs positive, image, but any reproduction, such as producing a positive print, is going to introduce noise. For similar reasons, astronomers, before they went entirely digital, always worked from negatives.