Quote:
Originally Posted by Anna Elizabeth
A question for Y'all: I was reading Raellus' excellent thread about supply, morale, and communications, and I was wondering if a recon unit, with motorbikes and horses would be a good choice to have a radio?
My Dragon "Light Infantry" kit looks like roughly Panama-era stuffs, and has a rack and a radio on the motorbike. I like Raellus' idea that you'd be lucky if 1-in-3 radios were still operable, so - would a motorbike unit keep it, or would they rely on their mobility to get reports back and save the radios for the CO?
I can see both sides of that, so guidance and opinions would be welcome.  |
I think this is the kind of question that your local HQ is probably going to answer on a case by case but also day by day basis.
So we know a motorcycle/horse unit has superior range to anyone on foot and obviously this would increase the distance and thereby the time taken to deliver any info they find. How far do they have to deliver the info, is the intel gathered important enough that it needs to be delivered immediately, is their AO through rough terrain that will slow down a dispatch rider, is the dispatch rider going to take away more members of the recce unit to protect them on the trip back? But also, does the enemy have the ability to intercept radio comms, do you have codes to foil any listening attempts, would the loss of a radio potentially compromise security (short term and long term security), in the T2k world you have to also ask is the enemy operating the same radio sets as you? Are you doing reconnaissance in force or by stealth because stealthy units typically have drastically fewer members per unit and thus less firepower for protection?
These sorts of questions would need to be considered by the commanders so they can make a decision on the issue/non-issue of radios.
Personally, having first joined a recce unit when I was in the Aussie Army Reserve, I strongly believe that any recce unit should have a radio. My argument is that late information can be as bad as bad information. And that can get your troops killed.
Generally, recce units are considered to have a short lifespan because of the potential trouble they can get into - fast delivery of any info they gather might be necessary simply based on the fact that they may not survive long enough to deliver it in person.
Plus the near-real time delivery of info through radio comms means the commanders can re-task the recce unit or send assistance should the situation change or should the recce unit get into something they need help with.
Infantry units can and did operate without having radios at every level of command. In the 1940s & 1950s you'd be lucky to see radios distributed below Company level in Western forces let alone Eastern European forces.
I think it was the 1960s when radios started to filter down to Platoon level and it was the 1980s-90s where you started getting radios at Section/Squad level. Specific circumstances can change the need for radios at lower levels of Infantry command such as operating in close terrain (think Vietnam jungle and the way units were forced by terrain to operate without visual contact) but again that comes down to a case by case basis - if a large Infantry unit is operating in the wide open spaces of say Texas, visual comms can be just as effective as radio comms.
And without radio comms at every single level there's the plus that you stop the Donald Rumsfelds of the world micromanaging... sorry, that really should be "interfering with"... troops down to the Fire Team level.