Allies aren't equiped to deal with early lights vehicles though. They mostly don't get AT til they tech up, which would be a huge problem. Unlike ost with early snares and okw with early At guns. Brits especially would get fucked real hard.
I wouldn't mind if the vet 1 was switched with a flare ability. USF really doesn't have a method of getting consistent sight. Outside of support commander all their scouting stuff is single pass, and there's no snipers to scout.
The whole point of putting the mortar in the game was to diversify USF's opening. If it's behind tech then there was no point of adding it in the first place.
It's a question mark, it definitely doesn't refer to a new faction and they wouldn't put that much effort into a placeholder. Firesparks probably right, it's probably for a random choice.
Also I think it's important to take into consideration the commanders that these come in as well.
For ostheer, CAS is a extremely munitions intensive commander. It's only design is constant air support, and using the recon however cheap it is directly impacts your ability to use the rest of the commander, therefore you wont really see players abuse it other then for cheap arty wipes.
But luftwaffe isn't as munitions intensive. And at it's cheap cost there's not really a choice here. For each airborne assault you can use the recon 7 times. It's pretty much the cost of a nade and is just sort of sitting there whenever you feel like knowing what your opponent is doing. It's not really much of a choice as it is a convenience.
Then on the US side their recons cost the same as their upgrades. They pretty much have to make a direct choice between intellegence or actual firepower.