They're a pure scouting and artillery delivery platform. And despite being utterly useless in combat, they're still the best thing this doctrine and almost good enough to actually pick this doctrine over others because the very rapid fire, 140 muni artillery is exactly what you need to deal with massed HMGs and PaKs.
If only the rest of the doctrine wasn't so freaking terrible.
I'm the last person to talk smack on niche units and strats... Heck, dropping IR artillery is one of the most fun things you can do in COH2, but this commander was thrown together, has suffered multiple nerfs and is plain crap. That's why I was suggesting a Springfield upgrade for one rifleman in the squad that buffs the units vision and gives them a crit chance to replace the buggy Forward Observers.