From the Combat Training Centers

Reconnaissance and Security After ARSTC: Cavalry Squadrons are out but R&S are still in!

By LTC James Carrier, CPT Mike Christy, CPT Mike McKeon, and COL CJ Kirkpatrick

October 1, 2025 | Armor, Fall 2025 Edition

Read Time: < 14 mins

Besides having some of the most complex terrain with the most variable weather conditions at any of the CTCs, JMRC has the unique opportunity to routinely train with Infantry, Mobile, Stryker, Armor, and Multinational Brigades. As the new Army Structure (ARSTRUC) is implemented across the force with multiple functional and organizational changes for all formations, consistent trends in reconnaissance and security challenges are evident. Understanding reconnaissance and security as tasks that enable specific purposes for the brigade combat team (BCT) remains critical and has only gotten more challenging as we integrate new technology into our own force while in contact with near peer capabilities. The tools are changing, but the fundamentals of reconnaissance and security remain reliable guideposts for planning, resourcing, and executing these critical tasks. The institutional Army – particularly the Maneuver Center of Excellence – and our CTCs remain the premier venues to adapt to these changes and train the force on reconnaissance and security.

Death, Taxes, and R&S Are Eternal

The Battle of Arracourt, fought in September 1944 between the US Army’s 4th Infantry Division and the German 5th Panzer Army, highlighted the critical importance of ground reconnaissance particularly when conditions were not ideal for collection via aerial means. During the battle, environmental conditions consisting of dense fog and poor weather limited American aircraft from providing aerial reconnaissance and close air support necessitating the commander’s reliance on ground-based reconnaissance assets to track German formations. Despite adverse weather conditions and visibility, these ground-based assets provided timely and accurate intelligence allowing US forces to set up a well-coordinated defensive position. The Americans destroyed dozens of German tanks and halted their offensive, resulting in a decisive American victory.

In 2016, after the reflagging of the Army’s last Armored Cavalry Regiment in 2011, US Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) directed the 1st Stryker brigade combat team (SBCT), 4th Infantry Division to conduct a study to determine the feasibility of a SBCT effectively conducting reconnaissance and security (R&S) tasks in support of a Division or Corps. Although this study was conducted at a higher echelon, a key finding resonates in the post-ARSTRUC era:

“Perhaps the most important lesson we learned is the tradecraft of R&S is difficult to master for both the individual and the organization. True expertise requires a career of focused study and attention. The complexity of R&S missions only increases as one moves from platoon up through the echelons to BCT-level operations. The achievement and preservation of mastery takes generations to build and can be lost in a decade or less. Regardless of the organizational design the Army ultimately decides, it is our position that the Army should maintain at least one or more brigade-sized combat formations with the primary mission to fight for information. We cannot wait to build this expertise after a crisis arises.”

This article is not a call for the return of the Cavalry Squadron. We as a force have acknowledged the need for a leaner Army; however, the requirement to conduct R&S still exists. The advent of new and more sophisticated tools such as unmanned aerial systems (UAS), unmanned ground vehicles (UGV), enhanced electronic warfare (EW), extended lethality, and artificial intelligence enhanced mission command systems all make the BCT exponentially faster, more lethal, and more survivable. But only if BCTs apply new tools appropriately to deliver reconnaissance and security for the formation to enable the main effort and accomplish the mission.

The Fundamentals are Fundamental

According to FM 3-98 “reconnaissance is a mission to obtain, by visual observation or other detection methods, information about the activities and resources of an enemy or adversary, or to secure data concerning the… characteristics of a particular area.” Whether pushing, pulling, mounted, dismounted, conducting aerial, or recon by fire reconnaissance, the fundamentals of reconnaissance have guided the basic employment of forces to obtain information critical to mission success.

Crucial to employment of these fundamentals is the basic elements of command reconnaissance guidance. Commanders – at a minimum – must articulate reconnaissance focus, tempo of reconnaissance, engagement/disengagement criteria, and displacement criteria to drive reconnaissance success.

According to ADP 3-90, security is a distinct and separate requirement for a BCT, where “the main difference between conducting security operations and reconnaissance is that security operations orient on the force or facility being protected while reconnaissance orients on the enemy and terrain.” The tactical tasks of screen, guard, and cover are often loosely used to describe a mission requirement to orient on the protected entity to provide space, time, and early warning to allow the commander to achieve the primary end state desired. Once again, our fundamentals have reliably guided the employment of forces to achieve a security end state that enable the main effort.

Observations from all the CTCs consistently highlight challenges in providing clear command guidance to enable effective R&S operations; timely military decision making process (MDMP) that allows R&S forces sufficient space and time to achieve commander’s intent; a lack of a synchronized or integrated information collection plan to enable mixing and cueing of capabilities; and insufficient resources applied to solve the tactical problem presented. So what’s new that’s worth mentioning?

Those previous observations were enduring with each BCT formation arriving at a CTC with a purpose built organization trained specifically in R&S tasks. With the implementation of the ARSTRUC, JMRC observer controller/ trainer (OC/Ts) are seeing these same trends defined in new ways. BCTs continue to struggle with the most commonly observed trends but that struggle is compounded by new challenges. BCTs now have a knowledge gap in the formation, are hard-pressed to allocate sufficient combat power to achieve desired R&S outcomes, all while having too many new technological tools that can do too many things.

Emerging Trends: Someone Has To Do R&S

As BCTs fully reorganize in accordance with the ARSTRUC a knowledge gap is emerging that challenges formations to effectively develop the battlefield. BCTs continue to execute effective intelligence preparation of the operational environment (IPOE) to provide a detailed evaluation of the threat and terrain. Visualization tools are allowing BCTs to build more sophisticated enemy event templates that visualize the enemy in space, time, and terrain.

These tools should drive effective information collection planning as units exit mission analysis and continue towards course of action development. The information collection synchronization matrix (ICSM) is the key warfighting product that synchronizes collection assets in time and space against both priority and target intelligence requirements and should be a key output of mission analysis. But too often the ICSM does not account for the limitations of new forms of reconnaissance and security. For example, ICSMs consistently reflect medium and long range reconnaissance unmanned aerial system (UAS) as 24/7 all-weather sensors. All systems observed at JMRC have limitations dictated by the complex terrain and often punishing weather conditions that inhibit advertised performance. For example, temperatures dropping below zero reduced the battery performance to less than 67% of the Motorized Rifle Regiment (MRR) platform’s advertised capability during rotations in the winter. Finally, operator fatigue, coupled with rest and security plan requirements, prevents units from executing their planned collection. In lieu of 24/7, all-weather assets, the brigade information collection (IC) manager must completely understand asset capabilities and deliberately schedule their use over named areas of interest (NAIs) to meet the priority intelligence requirements.

Further complicating R&S planning is the multitude of things UAS and other capabilities can do but cannot do all at once. Developing the situation, confirming or denying the enemy most likely versus most dangerous, developing targets, and assessing effects are all essential tasks. But UAS are limited in number, flight time, and field of view. They cannot do all these things at once or even in close sequence. UAS operators and collection managers must maintain a clear understanding of what is the most important requirement at any given time and remain disciplined in employment of assets. This does not mean strict obedience to the plan, but it does mean a full understanding and adherence to the commander’s intent as outlined in the reconnaissance or security guidance.

Without a dedicated ground R&S unit, a detailed IC plan is essential to provide situational understanding and targeting. The reorganized BCTs must execute routine assessments of IC after each key event on the event template to determine the performance and effectiveness of assets in collecting priority intelligence requirements (PIR) while identifying areas for improvement. These assessments should be completed by the brigade R&S cell, which should flatten the planning considerations of fires, information collection, and reconnaissance/security. The brigade R&S cell should oversee these assessments and feed into the continuous updating of IPOE, the IC plan, and the brigade’s targeting cycle. ABCTs are part of this dialogue as well – the incorporation of UAS, EW, and UGVs in the armor formation presents new challenges in maintaining tempo even with the retention of the cavalry squadron.

The information collection plan outlined in Annex L is the foundational product that drives the scheme of maneuver of any unit tasked with R&S. As an enabling task executed on behalf of the brigade, the R&S unit’s planner, S3, and/or commander should integrate into the brigade’s planning process, greatly facilitating parallel planning at the battalion level. As a best practice, the brigade commander and R&S unit commander conduct an R&S huddle as part of the mission analysis process. The R&S huddle is the initial dialogue between commanders to develop commander’s reconnaissance and security guidance, proposed commander’s critical information requirements (CCIRs), identification of R&S objectives, and addition of battalion assets to the brigade information collection plan. Key to successful R&S operations is a synchronized plan that meets brigade requirements, not a stand-alone battalion R&S plan independent of the brigade’s plan.

It is imperative that the commander’s R&S guidance from this huddle be published in the brigade’s warning order (WARNORD) #2 under the execution paragraph. This will allow battalion planners to stay within the commander’s visualization for the reconnaissance and security mission. This will ensure that the light brigade combat team (LBCT) R&S unit collect and report only the most important information in a timely and effective manner.

Multi-Functional or Multi-Purpose Reconnaissance Best Practices

The US Army has intentionally not defined the task and purpose of the new multi-purpose company, leaving brigade’s ability to develop their own doctrinal templates (DOCTEMP) on their employment that will eventually inform future doctrine. Mobile and Stryker brigade combat teams continue to experiment with a mix of organizations and technologies to fill the gap left with the loss of cavalry squadrons. A decrement of TOW/ITAS and Javelins with the deletion of the cavalry squadrons plus the loss of the weapons companies challenges BCTs’ ability to apply lethality forward to establish effective security or fight for information.

Multi-function organizations that combine UAS, Low Altitude Stalking and Strike Ordnance (LASSO), EW, mortars, and traditional scout platoons at the brigade and battalion level offer capability that answer some of the fundamental R&S challenges that must be addressed, but their purpose remains vague. Are they R&S elements? Are they more aligned to the fires war fighting function, focused on the “battalion and brigade deep fight? Do they focus on supporting companies in the close fight? Do they develop targets as part of the kill web? The answer is probably – all of the above.

The multi-function concept is intended to provide a flexible and adaptable force that can perform a variety of tasks, including reconnaissance, security, and targeting while also supporting the maneuver of the rifle companies. Gaps in the doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, policy, facilities (DOTMLPF) framework and implementation of this multi-functionality leads to brigades interpreting their employment in their own way. However these organizations are employed, the key to the unit’s success will be the early integration of the multi-functional unit commanders into the higher headquarters’ MDMP as the executor of the battalion and brigade’s tactical enabling tasks. Commanders at echelon must still provide reconnaissance and security guidance, employment of IC assets in time and space, determine priorities of fires, the high payoff target list, the attack guidance matrix, and target selection standards. Subordinate multi-functional commanders must understand how to employ their capabilities within the framework of these products to enable the ground tactical plan.

Where to Go From Here?

The great news as the Army continues to transform is that our R&S fundamentals are still sound principles to guide planning and execution, regardless of the new tools and organizations we are developing. The Maneuver Center of Excellence (MCOE) has some of the answers. The Cavalry Leader Course (CLC), Scout Leader Course (SLC), and Reconnaissance and Surveillance Leader Course (RSLC) are all grounded in the fundamentals. As new tactics, techniques, and procedures emerge we must continue to update our programs of instruction to provide the premier institutional education the force needs to solve old R&S problems with new tools.

All brigades must take advantage of that learning opportunity. Talent management is more important than ever to thoughtfully develop the key skills, knowledge, and attributes for key leaders in multi-functional organizations. Brigade commanders will ask these organizations to help solve the R&S problem at echelon – they must train them accordingly. Plan ahead to send and graduate the right leaders from key schools to lead new capability. If brigades want leaders who can leverage multi-functional capability to establish security or conduct reconnaissance, they better ensure those leaders understand the fundamentals. The tools are changing, but the fundamentals still work as a heuristic to understand planning and execution towards an end state.

As a profession we must continue to have flat and honest dialogue to share best – and worst – practices as we transform. The strength of our profession and our Army is our ability to learn through effective after action reviews and professional dialogue. Every brigade is rapidly learning. Flat communications and brutal honesty ensure we don’t learn the same things over and over.

Last but not least, our combat training centers continue to be the Army’s learning laboratory. All the CTCs are modernizing and transforming along with the Army to remain the premier locations to bring new ideas and methods to test in simulated combat. Our opposing force (OPFOR) remain devious, innovating at the same pace as our BCTs to provide the most realistic near-peer threat to challenge units to the brink of failure. We all remain the U.S. Army’s first battlefield for the force, where Soldiers and leaders can come sweat and cry in their first battle so they don’t bleed and die in their second.

TRAIN TO WIN!