Re-structuring the BCT

[Tukhachevskii]

The (AFAIK) best and most encompassing answer would be to pre-position scouts and surveillance teams up to a huge depth (~300 km). No matter which direction your Bde turns to, it would always have scouts ahead and cav for security available for its flanks.
This is obviously not practical with organic manoeuvre formation scouts.
Scouts and surveillance teams (this excludes dedicated FOs for fires) should be directly corps-attached troops.

[snip]

The U.S. Army sported a huge amount of talk and blather about "situational awareness". Shouldn't it be obvious that having scouts already at or close to locations which only very recently got your attention rather than to send them out when you become interested in a location?

The quite disappointing state of Operational Art today is the culprit. A look at a brigade alone cannot reveal the needs of a Corps or Threatre commander and whether the Bde is prepared to meet these needs. Sadly, a lack of corps-scale real and free-play manoeuvres means that we don't learn enough about our shortcomings on Corps level.

IIRC this was exactly US army doctrine between the 60s and early 80s before their technological fetishism got the better of them...remember the LRRPs and LRSU units? Force multipliers if ever their were any. Just imagine what the Afghan theatre would look like if those old LRRP regiments were let loose covering the gaps between IBCTs/Bde groups with UAVs used to cover gaps or cued by LRS patrols ... in fact you'd be getting close to the recce-strike concept hindered only by RoE and civilian considerations. If I'm not mistaken OP Anaconda started out exactly like that. Perhaps our American collegues (if I may be so presumptious) could enlighten us further (especially if I have misunderstood the current state of affairs).