User blog comment:Charcoal121/Favorite Weapons: Recon/@comment-28584497-20120108195332/@comment-28584497-20120109184045

To claim that SF was meant for "reconnaissance" is blatantly wrong. The SF was meant to go unnoticed by the enemy, wielding suppressed weaponry (their handgun), a carbine for close-range engagements (ie when they "go loud") and using remote-detonated explosives.

The closest thing to a true successor to SF (apart from specialist in BC1, which was nigh-identical to the SF in BF2) is the engie because their purpose is almost the same -- CQB. In BC2 this was especially true because they all have suppressors by default on their carbine, so they're the most discrete.

To be honest the SF kit was mostly eradicated from BF2 to 2142 and subdivided amongst the other kits, but the recon kit has always been what it is: a spotting kit. Nothing more, nothing less.