I’m currently stuck in the 6th mission in the Georgia Front Lines campaign. Its a night mission and it gives you a MQ-9 the briefing says can be used for recon. Problem is it never finds anything no matter where I tell it to go while my units are dying from totally unseen units. What am I doing wrong? Any tips?
In short… how do I use UAV’s for recon in Combined Arms
The way I do that is to use the F10 view. If the mission uses Fog Of War, which I am thinking is the case, then the Reaper will unveil the enemy as it flies near. Same for any AI aircraft.
I play CA a lot and do not believe there is any other way.
Here you go.
Joint Pub 2-01 Joint and National Intelligence Support to Military Operations
Chapter III Sections A through C apply.
Enjoy 
https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp2_01_20170705v2.pdf
I think you just spawned a whole new usage case for “TMI”. 
Thats what I’ve been doing but it never reveals the enemy. Could altitude be an issue? The Reaper is set to fly at like 6000 ft. Maybe I should drop it down.
I am interested to know if that works.
If you are trying to use AI as a JTAC it is a bit broken at the moment.
I forget the function name but basically if you use “search” they will generally find anything, but if you use a series “search for group X” (same waypoint or one per waypoint doesn’t matter) they get stuck and stop doing their task.
6000ft is also a bit low, they won’t get a wide search area like that. Higher altitude would cover more ground.