Are snipers and recon still valid in infantry battalions?

[Infanteer]

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.

Interesting points and discussion on Recon (or, more properly, Recce...).

We are seeing a similar debate in our Army with Armoured Recconaissance units being slated to lose their Coyotes (LAV-25s) for the forthcoming JLTV. Issues with losing a fighting vehicle for a tough truck and debates as to what Recce really is.

As I mentioned before, we have a new manual on this which is pretty good at encapsulating all arms recce.

I find the argument of "saber or stealth" to be interesting - is recce "scouting" or "cavalry"? I caught this at an AUSA presentation a while back and found it interesting.

http://www3.ausa.org/pdfdocs/lwp_53.pdf

We had a long debate about it on a forum here, if anyone is interested.

http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.p...c,35526.0.html

I'll take the time to read through this thread again and try and offer more.

Cheers,
Infanteer