Are snipers and recon still valid in infantry battalions?

[COMMAR]

.... and doctrinally it's not a stretch or even silly to have AT and Recon as the same people, for a who range of reasons I will not bore everyone with right now.

Its not a stretch at all. Its exactly what the Force Recon Hunter/Killer Teams did in the opening days of Afghanistan.

Force Recon Teams teamed up w/the BLT's (Battalion Landing Team) CAAT Teams (Combined Anti-Armor Team) to form up H/T Teams that operated as a separate Maneuver Element in Deep Battle Space.

These combined small teams conducted DA & Interdiction missions out in a 400+mi radius fr/ FOB Camp Rhino alone or sometimes escorted or by Cobras or LAVs.

The 1 famous Interdiction, only known b/c it was caught on camera, was the Shoot Out on Highway 1 which is just outside of Kandahar.

Excerpt fr/an LA Times article, "What The Marine Saw" referring to the Combat Cameraman attached on that particular Interdiction:

Once Camp Rhino was established, Marines from the elite Force Reconnaissance moved northward to intercept Taliban and Al Qaeda forces fleeing a major battle north of Kandahar to regroup and possibly mount a counteroffensive.

In Humvees and light-armored vehicles, Marines moved slowly through villages in search of fleeing enemy troops. They disarmed anyone suspected of being Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters and, if they were not hostile, let them go. Villagers, mostly old men and children, greeted the Marines.

He was also there a few days later when the heavily armed Marine "hunter-killer" teams moved cautiously toward the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar--unsure whether Afghan villagers would treat them as liberators or enemies.

...To prevent enemy vehicles from fleeing Kandahar, the Marines were ordered on the night of Dec. 7 to set up a roadblock. Thirty feet of razor-sharp concertina wire was strung across a narrow asphalt road and anchored by tent pegs.

Glowing "chemlights" were attached to the wire so the roadblock could be seen by oncoming drivers. Marines positioned their vehicles at the bottom of a berm beside the road and snipers crouched several hundred yards away. Chenelly took up his video camera.

Shortly after 4 a.m., headlights were spotted rushing toward the roadblock. A truck hit the concertina wire and skidded to a stop. On the video, Marines can be heard calling to each other excitedly, "He blew it. He blew it." Chenelly remembers the sound of the wire scraping the side of the truck. A Marine who speaks the local Afghan dialect shouted for the men in the truck to drop their weapons.

Instead, men in the cab and the truck bed--who appeared to be sleeping--raised their AK-47s at the Marines, some of whom were just 10 feet away. In an instant, both sides began firing--captured on video as green glowing tracer rounds. "Force Recon didn't hesitate for a second," Chenelly said. "They didn't flinch. If they had, I don't think we'd have all made it out alive."

The heat of the rounds ignited an ammunition cache in the back of the truck. Rounds, including rocket-propelled grenades, shot off in all directions, like some deadly Fourth of July celebration.

"It's very surreal when it's happening," said Chenelly. "For a second, you can't believe it. It's like an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It goes so fast and everything blows up."

Seconds later, Marines can be heard on the video calling out, "Go, go, go, quick, quick, get back." An authoritative voice--that of a master sergeant, the ranking Marine on the scene--barks out, "Let me know when everybody is in."

The Marines withdrew down the road, leaving eight Taliban and Al Qaeda members dead, their truck a flaming ruin. The Marines left the bodies on the road as a warning to others who might decide to fight rather than surrender. None of the Marines were injured.