Love793 said:
And my point, in brief, is that as the theatre evolves there may be a demand for those skills. For certain TFs it has been decided that we will not be deploying recce sqns , but rather surveillance sqns. That means reduced Reserve augmentation. Once we start sending over recce tps and recce sqns there will be a call for more reserve augmentation (indeed, a requirement for more reserve augmentation).
Define please a Surv Sqn. Surveillance is a Recce Task. A task that Coyote is very well suited for. Are you referring to a Reg (Coyote)Recce Sqn, verus a Reserve (Mud)Recce Sqn?
I believe that the reason the term "Surveillance Sqn" is used is to differentiate between a "normal" Recce Sqn, and one equipped with a Surveillance suite (in other words, the Coyote). The commanders on the ground (or in the air, I suppose) want instant, real time information, which, when all the equipment (I suppose IF is more the operative word here) is in place (a radio "uplink" of the data being received via the radar, TI or day camera), the Task Force commander could be seeing what 41D's surveillance system is looking at (a rioting crowd, an illegal police check-point, a weapon's system that is in violation of a cease-fire agreement, etc) with little or no delay, and form his plan from that information. The day's of an OP report being written in a FMP, handed off to the Tp Ldr, him passing off to the LO, the LO taking it onwards and upwards, etc, etc will be nothing more than a quaint memory one day: "You're shitting me Warrant!!! You used to have to WRITE an OP report!!! Talk about the stone-ages!!!".
One of the guys that did Cambrian Patrol with the Strats a few years back told me a telling story: he thought that they were being "high tech" by taking a picture with a digital camera of the objective, versus sketching it, or describing it in words. The judges/umpires weren't overly impressed by that, as nowadays real-time information is what counts, not a 3 hr old (or much older) digital picture of the objective.
Of course, we have to maintain the skills to go low-tech, as everyone knows that computers, electronic equipment, etc craps out at the most inopportune time. But the mentality shouldn't be "What if it doesn't work?!?", but "What if it does work?" and train that way.
Where does that leave "mud recce"??? Maybe an analogy of the Polish cavalry vs the German Blitzkrieg is a bit of a stretch, but maybe closer to the truth than any of us want to believe. I'll put it this way: how many people here write letters to someone, versus sending an email? Or get their news from the internet rather than reading a newspaper? They each have their place, but look for a carriage maker in the phone book. Probably won't find many.
Al