Quote Originally Posted by 120mm View Post
But it's not a "good unit, bad unit" thing. It's a micro-culture thing.
Which exists -- and I'm not sure it's micro; all I contend is that good units can override that and the few really good ones do so.I'm basing my thought they still do on my son's experience as a Scout Dude in good and not so good units in recent years.
Even the best units get to the point where they don't see their own micro-cultural bias.
Best units, good people, most everyone falls into that trap on occasion.
Personally, based on working at the CTCs plus a couple of deployments, I disagree with the assertion that more units use their low-density specialties correctly. It certainly seems like more units misuse them than not.
I don't think I said that they did (though someone else may have). Even good units frequently fail on that depending on human variables. A bad S3 can destroy all the work of a good Commander and god Co Cdrs. FWIW from 1950 until I left troops in 1984, most Commanders did not know how to use their reconnaissance units. Specialty platoons and sections were very much dependent on their leaders; the good ones produced good people and good performance, the mediocre ones did not. I don't expect that's changed...
I don't see why a guy who isn't suited to the infantry "mindset" ...has to leave the army. All God's critters got a place in the choir, etc., when it comes to this here Army, which means we're discussing something we probably agree about. My point is that really good infantry guys probably won't make really good recon or sniper guys. It takes a different mindset, imo.
On staying or leaving, given a war, that becomes moot, in peacetime my point was that if it annoys someone, I can't see why they'd keep beating their head against the wall. However, people differ. He sure doesn't have to leave but if it irritates him for whatever reason (say more than three days a week ) then I don't see why he'd put up with it...

FWIW, LRS hasn't been disbanded, they're still in being, are being used and are doing some good stuff. They do have the problem of risk averse folks being afraid to use them properly but that's not an Infantry mindset, that's an Army mindset.

I don't really disagree on the mindset but my WAG is that about a third can do both jobs with obvious ranking from great to good (and not necessarily for most the same ranking in all three jobs), about a third are suited for either one or the other but not both with the Scout obviously being more demanding and the remaining third probably should have another job somewhere -- but are likely to be tolerated in the Infantry if there's a war on.[quote]Well, post 1991, upon the dissolution of the Cavalry Regiments, Divisional CAV became a mini-regiment, and absorbed the kinetic missions. This resulted in much less recon capability, ... so there really isn't a persistent direct observation capable force in the current force mix.[quote]Agree on that based on what I've seen -- we have lost the track on scouting and reconnaissance. Sadly, that trend goes all the way back to Viet Nam -- we did not properly use the assets and skills we had in that war; we took a lot of good Cav and Recon units who were not bad prior to going to Viet Nam and totally misused them. The skills got lost. We picked up a lot of really bad habits in that war, including micro management. In the reinvention of the Army post VN, Reconnaissance got passed over for going out Armored and looking for bear. Bad answer. Commanders also, as a result of the CTCs and their time compression lost the ability to be patient enough for the Recon elements to do their jobs. That's why the CTC OpFor always out-reconned the Rotation. That and knowing and using the terrain.
I don't disagree with WILF's or your assertions, but in tangential degrees.
Nor do I really disagree with your points as amplified but my initial point was, "I hear what you're saying but it ain't THAT bad." Which I can't say, really, now that I think about it. I can say it wasn't that bad 30 plus years ago but today's not in my vision block FOV...

I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be and sorta sure it doesn't need to be that bad, tho'