New Battle Lessons on Reconnaissance

It has been military usage from early times to put men on foot, or horseback, out in front of an Army to signal “enemy in sight.” This duty has been entrusted to run-of-the-mill personnel. Such personnel, so long as ground reconnaissance remained a simple task, performed the duty as well as any other sort could. With the advent, however, of mechanization and long range weapons, ground reconnaissance has become a complicated and vital phase of military art.

Theoretically, at least, we place those with the greatest military talents in command positions, but no commander, nomatter how fine his military characteristics or genius, can intelligently dispose his troops, strategically or tactically, without proper information of the enemy.

It has been fully demonstrated that men of the proper caliber can accomplish remarkable results in dissipating the so-called fog of war - our present alibi for mistakes in the operation of military forces. It is plain that if suitable reconnaissance personnel can lift the veil from the commander’s eyes (and unsuitable personnel cannot do this) reconnaissance personnel should be selected with the same care and with as much regard for its particular employment, as is the high command personnel.

A man performing a reconnaissance mission should have first, the intelligence to enable him to grasp general and special situations in order that he may seek the information which the high command most needs for evaluating conditions confronting it; second, knowledge of terrain, maps, military organization, and weapons; third, the ability to exercise good judgment under stress; fourth, bold courage; and fifth, physical stamina. In short, officer or noncommissioned officer material of the highest type.

It must be remembered that reconnaissance duty is continuous and never relaxed, that operations often will be conducted by individuals or by individual reconnaissance vehicles, that all the men of a vehicle crew, or of a dismounted patrol, are subject to the usual hazards involved, and.above all, that the information returned by these vehicles is always essential and vital to the success of the whole operation. From these factors, it is evident that all members of a reconnaissance vehicle crew must be capable men, each prepared to take over the duty of driver, radio operator, gunner, or leader.

Lieutenant Colonel Hoy comments on his experience in Tunisia as follows: “First and foremost, I am positive that all reconnaissance personnel should receive uniform basic training and that training must be specialized. A properly trained reconnaissance unit can do reconnaissance for a corps, an armored division, or an infantry division. “All the reconnaissance training you and I ever received is fundamentally sound. There are certain fundamentals, however, that I would stress. First, your information must be accurate, complete, and quickly passed. To be accurate you must always know your location; get expert in using map, compass and protractor to establish your position and the enemy’s. Never surmise, embellish or exaggerate, inaccurate information is dangerous. Truth is war’s first casualty, but reconnaissance leaders must protect it on the battlefield and fight rumors, lies and exaggerations with the same enthusiasm and ability that they fight the enemy. I cannot stress this too much, for I have found out that it is always the reconnaissance battalion that has to go out and check all rumors and all exaggerated reports. 22 French Renault Tankette, 1933 Never believe a straggler and seldom believe a casualty. The former lies to explain his absence from the battlefield; the latter, especially if he has been knocked out of his vehicle, is rarely rational. To be complete, report everything; and if no movement is seen, report that. That is information.

“To pass information quickly, we must use a definite sequence - a simple code, and I have found that when things are hot, I want to talk directly to the platoon leader who is actually in contact. I had all platoons and company commanders on the same net, ran as high as 13 or 14 sets in net. It worked fine after we got it rigidly disciplined. The company commander did not lose any of his prerogatives. In fact, he became more of a battlefield C. O. His place when things are hot is out there helping his platoons. With all of us on the same net, he and I could go bouncing off to any point and still be in communication. I had a 193 in a peep; it was worth a million.

“The reconnaissance personnel must be trained to handle their own mine sweeping. It’s no mysterious science and most of the mines we have found were removed by us. Of course, the big areas were later swept by engineers, but our own paths were generally cleared by reconnaissance personnel.

“Reconnaissance personnel should attend a battle school and have mortars, artillery and antitank guns fired at them, not to make them braver, because I have my doubts about that, but to make them recognize the sound of the weapons. Everybody has a tendency to report anything bigger than a 2 2 caliber as an 88mm. I would not let my men report 88’s, and we are the only ones who didn’t. Let a mortar land, a mine explode, or an artillery shell land, and the report will be 88mm. This is dangerous, for if believed by higher command, it will denote German troops in an area which may or may not be so. (However, after we took Mateur, I saw beaucoup de 88’s). Now that we have so much of the enemy’s equipment, all reconnaissance personnel should have an opportunity to see it. Don’t put it in a motor park, put it out in afield. “Last, but certainly not least, the best jobs that we have done have been where lieutenants with a small crew, through cunning and daring, get an OP deep in the enemy territory, or on his flank, and sit there for hours and report vital information. We used to say about such things, ‘OK for maneuvers, but not in war.’ This is not so. As an example, I had a lieutenant and three men go up on an OP about 4-5000 yards in enemy territory, stay there for two days with a radio set dismounted from a peep, and send back the information necessary.”

Tactics and Technique Mechanized reconnaissance vehicles, when not employed in reconnaissance in force, should be used in small groups for the following reasons:

1. Larger groups are often tempted to fight, and unless such fighting is merely to protect themselves, or to escape, they are losing sight of their mission while so engaged.

2. A wider, deeper, and more closely knit reconnaissance may be effected by the employment of many small groups than by the use of relatively fewer large groups.

3. Mechanized reconnaissance duty is arduous and hazardous and necessitates frequent relief. Such relief is normally possible where small groups are sent out, and becomes proportionately difficult if the groups are strengthened.

4. Vehicles in a small group can operate in support of one another on a mission at considerable distances apart by simply watching what the others do. In a larger group, orders must be exchanged on every change of purpose of the leader.

Colonel Hoy comments further:

“Beware of that misused word ‘fire power.’ Don’t tie a reconnaissance unit down with tanks, 81mm mortars, 37 SP guns, because it makes the unit too unweildy, and few officers can take care of all those additions and still do the job of gathering information. Understand me, I am in complete accord with General Scott’s statement that ‘Reconnaissance capable of only obsevation is not worth the road space it takes.’ The reconnaissance unit should have sufficient fire power, but too much is as bad as too little. Anyone in a reconnaissance unit who is not primarily a reconnaissance man must be there for a very good reason. If I get the armored car, then I don’t want the light tank.

“For clarity, I give you my recommended organization at this time. Reconnaissance battalion of 3 reconnaissance companies and Hq. company; reconnaissance company to have 3 platoons and Hq. platoon; each platoon to have 2 sections. The section is the basic unit. Each section should have 2 armored cars and 3 peeps; the first section should have an assault gun; both sections should be commanded by an officer. We have tried it out by using the scout car in place of the armored car. We are sold on the assault gun. Our companies fired it more than anyone in North Africa. It gives us poise and confidence.”

There is no theorizing in all this. In a command on the field which does not have a professional reconnaissance, the movement in a given direction is habitually a blind groping, or halting at a given place because of ignorance of the tactical situation. Capable reconnaissance personnel can return a flood of information that is remarkable - information that is never superfluous and is always valuable, and that enables the commander to know where he is going and why. If the Army invests only a small part of its most efficient personnel in reconnaissance units, its dividends in the form of increased fighting efficiency will be incalculable. Interspersed in these mites are quotations from Lieutenant Colonel Charles J. Hoy. who commanded a reconnaissance battalion throughout the Tunisian Campaign. Colonel Hoystates that his experience has been further confirmed by that of Lieutenant Colonel Lawson, 11th Hussars, who has had five years service in Africa and three years of combat as a reconnaissance leader. 23