Ægion.
axis has few arty/mortar units that you need as allies, dedicated arty to counter, on the other hand, the allies has a fair few more different mortar/arty units to counter, and i suppose thats why there are so many recon+offmap for OST compared to soviets, and parking a soviet AA Quad next to arty is very cheap and effective, and in many cases makes recon useless for vision needed off-maps.
But i see your point there is a mismatch between them.
but i feel that OST needs their recon more?
Issue is AA is not always reasonable. They are prone to RNG like everything else in the game. Additionally, there is a reason why Storm is used more often than Joint Operations in team games. The smoke bombs aircraft can not be easily shot down to stop vision, in fact rarely. You of course only need a brief moment to call in an ability. Changing these abilities can also help diversify doctrines. Replacing the stuka dive bomb in Storm Doctrine such as Stormtroopers would make Stormtroopers a good camouflage spotting unit for the Lefh 18s, and help with the name of
Storm Doctrine. Joint Operations doctrine could and can use the recon to spot for the left 18 to increase its accuracy. Jaeger Armor already have spotting scopes so why does it need Recon? By removing recon for this doctrine, it allows another option to engage the Elephant. ML20's and others can do well in forcing back the elephant if it gets direct hits as well its supporting elephants.
The problem with the ML20, is that it usually does not make an impact before it dies. My philosophy right now is that Cannon arty and Rocket arty should be different. One is for more sustain the other should be for saturation.
Note I do have a mod that address most of the design issues I have with the game. Just check the signature below.