FORT BENNING, Ga., (June 10, 2015) -- With a smaller force comes a need for Soldiers who are smart, fast, lethal and precise with every asset available to them.
For that reason, the Maneuver Center of Excellence is working with the Aviation Center of Excellence at Fort Rucker, Alabama, to develop a program of instruction that nests the Army Reconnaissance Course at Fort Benning and the AH-64E Apache Instructor Pilot Certification tactics course.
The training put two reconnaissance platoons - red and blue - against each other June 5 at Fort Benning.
The red platoon was in Humvees and used the Apache for reconnaissance maneuver and mobility to determine the size of ground-threat elements coming at them. They mixed long range optic and ground observation posts with binoculars and other optics, with the capability of the Apache, including thermal site, gun camera and artillery targeting radar, said Sgt. 1st Class Michael Wade, instructor and writer, Army Reconnaissance Course, 316th Cavalry Brigade.
Blue platoon acted as the screen in static positions and let the enemy come to them to observe and report on them for alternate platoon engagement. A screening force provides early warning to the commander and unit.
The courses were integrated to provide knowledge of air-ground operations to the scout and aviation students before they go to their units, Wade said.
ARC prepares Soldiers to perform as leaders of reconnaissance platoons to meet the challenges of the future. The Soldiers, as the eyes and ears of the commander, are trained to understand why the commander needs to know information associated with route, area and zone reconnaissance.
"They're looking (at) land, looking for assault positions, support-by-fire positions, any pieces of key terrain that would be beneficial for a follow-on force to maneuver through and do a battle handoff with the reconnaissance platoon on the ground and move on to attack the objective," said 1st Lt. Andrew Billisits, acting company commander for red platoon.
The training allowed for scout students to use the Apache as an additional reconnaissance maneuver piece because it can fly over the terrain they couldn't drive through.
Through the training, Fort Rucker's pilots got the experience of working with a ground tactical plan and a ground tactical unit with a threat present in an actual field environment, and Fort Benning's scouts got the experience of working with aircraft in a reconnaissance role, Wade said.
"For the Apache pilots, it is all emerging doctrine, it is all emerging tactics," Wade said. "They're practicing and learning and making adjustments just as much as we are learning how to use the Apache."
In the future, both schoolhouses (maneuver and aviation) would have their lesson plans nested together, Wade said. So, every 27 days, when ARC goes to the field for their culminating event - the Last Stand - Apache pilots fly for the ARC students on the ground.
"We're doing it here for the guys who would be on the screen - they, for the very first time in their career - have to deal with a threat air platform," Wade said.
Soldiers executed the route reconnaissance mission for more than 80 hours before the Apache arrived and they transitioned to a zone reconnaissance mission.
"The one thing you're never going to have in reconnaissance is time," Wade said.
Wade said the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, such as Raven and Predator unmanned aerial systems, are just a small piece of the reconnaissance puzzle, but the scout on the ground must be a developer, an analyst, a planner and an executor.
"That way when (the commander) makes a decision, it's an informed decision, not based off of circumstantial evidence, hearsay or assumptions - it's based off of hard facts that are available to him," Wade said. "The next fight that's going to come along is going to require a combined arms team. We're smaller as an Army and we're still as lethal, but we're even more lethal."
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