lesson 1, this can be overridden
by the commander's priority intelligence
requirements (PIR).
That would
alter the type of reconnaissance and is
highly unusual.
To effectively
perform your mission, you are allowed a
great deal of freedom of action.
With this freedom of action goes a great
deal of responsibility.
During the mission you must avoid decisive engagement with the enemy. Your
mission is to gather information within a specific time period. Engagement
with the enemy, when not absolutely unavoidable, only hampers completion of
your mission. You should engage in combat only if it is necessary to gather
critical information, or in self-defense.
Such enemy contact should be
broken off as quickly as is reasonably possible. The specific rules as to
when to engage and disengage with the enemy will be contained in your
mission order.
When you reach an obstacle, or other location of military significance, you
must gather the information quickly, but without compromising accuracy.
All information must be reported accurately.
A route reconnaissance is
conducted to obtain information upon which to base decisions. All items of
a military significance should be reported. To be of value, reconnaissance
reports must be complete, timely, and accurate.
In lesson 1, you learned
how to gather and record this information.
As the team leader, you must
monitor the actions of your team members. This requirement must be balanced
against the others that are competing for your time.
1.
Timely Completion.
One, if not the most important, responsibility you have in leading a
route reconnaissance is to ensure that the mission is completed in the time
allotted.
Timely completion of your mission will depend on how well you
plan, prepare, prioritize, and monitor your patrol's execution of the
mission.
There are several reasons why timely completion of a route
reconnaissance is so important. Some of these reasons are discussed in the
following paragraphs:
The information you are gathering is needed in order to make decisions
about the trafficability of the road network.
These decisions are in
support of impending operations.
If the road network is not capable of
supporting the operation, the commander must find an alternate way to do so.
If your information does not arrive on time, one of two undesirable things
may occur.
There may not be enough time to find an alternate route, or the
operation may have to begin without the needed information.
Your
reconnaissance mission will probably have been integrated with many other
activities.
Other patrols may be conducting a reconnaissance on other
sectors of the route.
Patrols may also be conducting area or zone
reconnaissance operations in adjoining sectors.
All of these operations
must be integrated, so that the information from each reaches the commander
and his staff at the proper time. If one of them is not on time, it can
seriously affect the ability of others to complete their missions.
MP1028
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