CPT Hastings,

Thanks for publishing your thoughts. Having been through several rotations, I find that our big nuggets often get bogged down by the dreaded “now write a paper on it” and then we get back to garrison life. As a planner in the CAV in a SBCT, I felt we did not have any idea how to get unity of effort between the BDE S2, MICO cells (to include -int enablers), Fires/air, SQDN, and the BDE planners oriented on the BDE recon and security objectives. Part of this is an educating the force. But when do these elements ever cross paths, let alone train together? In the complexity of the CTC fight, with CUOPS quickly bleeding into plans,  there are myriad issues, many of them simple, but adding up to large issues. We spent two phases trying to get a JCR into the MICO and then to the UAS Platoon to help them get connected to what we were seeing on the ground once the other available chats went down.

In the subsequent rotation with the same unit, some of those issues were resolved and we did more training between S2, MICO, and ourselves, but only marginally. Talking with the BDE and MICO personnel, it seems everyone shares the language of intelligence gathering; where we diverge is what is the ultimate use of information and how do we re-package it into answers. some cells seem to focus on the collection of intelligence to the exclusion of analysis and purpose, as if full employment of all cells across a broad spectrum will actually somehow paint a picture of the battlefield to someone who can read it, like reading code in “The Matrix”.  I agree with your post’s proposed solution: focus on using all the BDE’s tools to solve a projected problem set to achieve a simply stated objective: where’s the enemy and what is he doing?

In that rotation, I believe the SQDN was value added in giving recommendations on PIRs, though the timing was now the issue. Often, our greatest recon successes came when the rest of the BDE was unable (due to attrition/regen) to act or was not agile enough to pivot from the plan based on battlefield insight. Then, once the advantages of night vision and CAS were lost, our information was stale or the SQDN was decisively engaged. We needed greater operational awareness across the battalions to maintain some part of their element at the ready to act on recon wins with RHO/ BHO, as CPT Hastings pointed out, or by using commanders guidance and initiative to advance the fight. We died, of course, but not without providing some key insights.

I think this is the greatest hurdle to overcome in the BDE re: the recon fight: battalions were convinced of the value of the SQDN, but their concept of their role was to let the sqdn fight it out until they pitched their OPORD some time after the BDE pitched theirs’ except that OPORD is stale based on what we found on the battlefield. So, where is the sweet spot of timing? How do we get maneuver bns to truly use us to pull them into the fight? Going into my third rotation with the unit next year, I look forward to focusing on the next repetition and getting better.