Understanding the spirit of Reconnaissance.
Even though reconnaissance and security missions haven't changed much over the years, many Soldiers and leaders don't know much about what they are or how they work. But the platforms that scouts use to do their jobs vary a lot between brigade structures (armored brigade combat team (BCT), infantry brigade combat team (BCT), and Stryker brigade combat team (BCT)). Commanders shouldn't look at the platform to figure out what mission to give it. The platform that scouts are on doesn't change how they go about a reconnaissance mission. The mission of the scout is set by how detailed the commander's reconnaissance is. The argument that dismounted scouts and tracked-vehicle scouts do different reconnaissance jobs is not true. The way scouts move around the battlefield doesn't affect their mission as much as the commander's reconnaissance instructions.
This article will help you learn about the five reconnaissance missions and how multiple platforms are used for reconnaissance. In this article, "reconnaissance platforms" mean the different kinds of platforms that scouts use when they go on reconnaissance missions.
Reconnaissance missions
To understand how a commander's guidance on reconnaissance affects a mission more than the platform scouts use, we need to know about the different kinds of reconnaissance. The Army Doctrinal Reference Publication (ADRP) 390 lists route, area, zone, reconnaissance in force, and special as the five types of reconnaissance.
Route reconnaissance
is a planned effort to learn as much as possible about a certain route and any terrain that the enemy could use to stop or slow down movement along that route (ADRP 390). Route-reconnaissance missions can change a route by focusing on either the terrain or the enemy template. Commanders may want to know how to move their maneuver forces from the line of departure to their goal as they look at the route's terrain. When a route-reconnaissance mission focuses on the enemy that affects the route, the mission takes on more risk. A commander must decide if the natural skills of the scouts are enough to lower the risk of an enemy-focused route recon.
Area reconnaissance
is all about finding out as much as possible about the terrain or what the enemy is doing in a certain area (ADRP 390). Most of the time, a place is shown on a map as a named area of interest (NAI), but it can also be shown as a checkpoint. NAIs can cover a large area or just a single point. This is because of how much or how little mission analysis the staff does when coming up with the area of interest.
Zone reconnaissance
is a planned effort to find out as much as possible about all routes, obstacles, terrain, and enemy forces in a defined area (ADRP 390). A zone reconnaissance gives subordinate leaders the chance to look everywhere in their area for the most important intelligence needs (PIR). This is different from area reconnaissance and route reconnaissance, in which the higher headquarters tell the information-gathering asset to look at a certain area. During a zone reconnaissance, it's usually harder to get a clear picture of the area of operations. This means that subordinate leaders have to take more initiative.
Reconnaissance-in-force
is a planned military operation meant to find out about or test the enemy's strength, movements, and reactions, or to find out other things (ADRP 390). A reconnaissance-in-force is a mission where the scouts need more protection because they will be under direct fire from the enemy to see how they react.
Several things make a reconnaissance-in-force different from an enemy-focused zone reconnaissance. A reconnaissance-in-force only looks at the enemy, while a reconnaissance-in-zone can look at terrain or civilians. The goal of a reconnaissance-in-force is to find a weak spot in the enemy's formation so that the main force can take advantage of it. This is different from a reconnaissance of an enemy-controlled zone, where the goal is to find out its size and location so that the main group can carry out offensive operations.
Special reconnaissance
is a type of reconnaissance and surveillance that is done as a part of a special operation in a hostile, denied, or politically sensitive environment to gather or confirm information that is important for strategy or operations by using military capabilities that aren't usually found in regular forces (ADRP 390). Special reconnaissance won't be talked about in this article because Cavalry units in BCTs don't do special reconnaissance on their own.
Methods of insertion
When on a reconnaissance mission, scouts use reconnaissance platforms in many different ways. Air insertion, dismounted insertion, wheeled vehicle insertion, and tracked vehicle insertion are some of the other ways. ABCTs, IBCTs, and SBCTs all have these ways of getting scouts to their reconnaissance goals. The ways you can move around on each platform are very different. But each platform is just a way to get scouts from their starting point to their reconnaissance goal. Every reconnaissance platform does the same things on the reconnaissance objective.
Most people first think of stealth when they think of scouts. This happens often in dismounted formations and even in some formations with wheeled vehicles. Others think that scouts have a lot of protection to help them survive first contact and can send reports while under direct fire. This is a common pattern in some formations with wheels, but it is most common in formations with tracks.
Usually, one should use a scale to compare the different kinds of platforms (Figure 1). The air and dismounted method is on one end of the scale, the wheeled vehicle method is in the middle, and the tracked vehicle method is on the other end. On the same scale, the air and dismounted method is directly related to stealth, and the tracked vehicle method is directly related to protection. Use this scale to imagine how scouts would carry out any of the reconnaissance missions. Based on this scale, vehicles with wheels have some element of stealth, while vehicles with tracks have some kind of protection. Choosing which type of platform is best for a type of reconnaissance depends on the mission variables, of course. Based on this basic analysis, it seems reasonable to say that each type of platform can do each type of reconnaissance as long as the scout has more information about how to use his particular platform. The commander's reconnaissance guidance gives this extra information.
The recent development of the 6x36 scout platoon has given each formation more abilities, making it possible for each platform to be both stealthy and protect itself. With 18 dismounted scouts in a tracked-vehicle formation, the tracked-vehicle scout platoon can combine stealth and protection depending on the mission. This adds to the idea that all types of formations can do all kinds of reconnaissance as long as mission variables are taken into account.
Figure 1:
The size of platforms used for reconnaissance.
Commander's reconnaissance guidance
Through commander's reconnaissance guidance, commanders of Cavalry squadrons and Cavalry troops talk about their plans for each part of an operation. When scouts go on a reconnaissance mission, they look at the six parts of the commander's reconnaissance guidance: focus, tempo, engagement criteria, disengagement criteria, displacement criteria, and bypass criteria. To understand how important commander's reconnaissance guidance is in shaping a reconnaissance mission, we must all agree on what commander's reconnaissance guidance is.
Focus tells the scout where the plan is missing information and what information is important to report. Focus tells the scout how to do the reconnaissance mission so the scout knows what kind of information is most important to the mission. It also lets the leader of the subordinate group know what kind of risk the mission involves. For example, reconnaissance that focuses on threats puts the scout in more danger than reconnaissance that focuses on the terrain.
The operational schedule is directly linked to the tempo, which tells the scout how quickly to do the reconnaissance mission. Tempo can be described in four ways: fast, slow, quiet, or loud. The amount of information a scout must gather within a reconnaissance objective depends on how quickly and carefully they do it. Either the scout will take a long time (carefully) or only a short time (quickly) to gather information within the reconnaissance objective.
How long it will take the scout to move from one reconnaissance objective to another is described by the words "stealthy" or "forceful." Either the commander wants the scout to move slowly and quietly (stealthily) or as quickly as possible (forcefully). Figure 2 shows that quick or deliberate is (A), while sneaky or forceful is (B).
None of the four terms has a set amount of time attached to it. So, the commander can tell the scout exactly when it should gather information and when it should move by using a timeline.
Figure 2:
Engagement criteria tell the scout which targets he or she should shoot at directly or indirectly (Field Manual (FM) 320.971). The engagement criteria should say which weapon system should be used to attack those specific targets. FM 320.971 gives clear definitions of the words "aggressive" and "discreet," but even then, these definitions can be interpreted in different ways. Engagement criteria are also clearly defined by answering how the scout will engage the target, how the scout will synchronize fires with other scouts, and the rules of engagement.
The scout can't be decisively engaged because of disengagement criteria. At this point, the commander has decided that the scout shouldn't keep shooting at the target. Disengagement criteria are only based on the enemy and not on time. People often confuse disengagement criteria with displacement criteria, but the two are very different. When the scout stops fighting the enemy, they are often forced to move.
Displacement criteria are the events or times that tell a scout when to move from one reconnaissance objective to another reconnaissance objective in order to keep the mission going. It can go forward, backward, or sideways. When disengagement leads to displacement, the scout usually moves toward the main body to make space and allow lines to pass behind it.
The commander sets up bypass criteria that tell the scout which information needs to be gathered first.
For example, the commander might need to know about the terrain before he or she goes up against enemy scouts. So, the commander would tell the scouts to stay away from the enemy scouts until the PIR about the terrain is confirmed.
Before deciding what kind of reconnaissance to do, the commander's reconnaissance guidance should be made. The different criteria and areas of focus between a zone reconnaissance and a reconnaissance-in-force could make a difference. By using the focus to figure out how dangerous the reconnaissance mission is, the subordinate leader can plan how many observation posts to set up, what extra resources to ask for, and the plan of action. By telling the scouts what to do when they come into contact and how fast they should move, you can greatly reduce the amount of risk. With these clear instructions, the scout can use any kind of platform to gather the needed information.
Conclusion
It's hard to say enough about how important a detailed commander's reconnaissance guidance is. By making this plan, the scout knows what actions to take to reach the reconnaissance objective. If leaders spent less time trying to figure out how to use a specific platform and more time giving detailed instructions for commander's reconnaissance, subordinate leaders would have a better understanding of their mission. Success does not depend on how a scout got from the line of departure to the reconnaissance objective. During a reconnaissance mission, scouts are successful when they act on the reconnaissance objective.
