Slight tangent from the vehicle but USMC reconnaissance from this summer
https://www.defensenews.com/interviews/ ... al-forces/
As far as the 2nd Light Armored Recon Battalion, we developed it in experimental mode: a mobile reconnaissance company with a mobile reconnaissance team. These are Marines who might have been communicators, intel specialists, mechanics or scouts. We looked at who is best suited to do this, who could operate in a smaller team, and who has an interest in making some of these systems come together when they might not have been designed to work together. We had four mobile reconnaissance teams, and that was the primary sensing force that was out there. Each of those teams had about four to six Marines and sailors; we had a headquarters element forward, away from Naples, led by one of our O-6s, and below that an RXR element. We had some other sensing elements forward doing different types of intel collections. The key was all that was brought back and fused in the fleet headquarters, and that all together was recon/counter-recon.
Because you’ve got to be able to get there and be flexible, “small form factor” was our theme. We have great communications systems, backpack radios and the Harris system radios — the AN/PRC-150, the AN/PRC-160, the AN/PRC-117. We’re able to leverage those and apply methodology to use them at the right time in the right place so we’re not revealing ourselves. We’re being smarter about how we’re using our current systems. That was one of our goals.
We originally wanted UTVs because they’re able to get us around quicker, and they are still very viable because they fit inside a CH-53 helicopter or V-22, and they can extend our reach and speed. What’s not viable is a larger vehicle that we would have to get strategic lift for or transport on a ship.
The key term for us, “small form factor,” was about the ability to tap into something called the Common Aviation Command and Control System, or CAC2S. It’s about linking into the Link 16 network, which would have in the past taken four or five Humvees, big radars or generators. Now, think about a couple laptops and a couple of small-scale PacStar-type terminals that can fit in a backpack or on a UTV. That CAC2S was the heart and soul of taking all this stuff we’re collecting and entering into a process, a system, that would then eventually kick out a Link 16 link between us and supporting assets, whether that’s an F-35 or a destroyer, or providing our ability to link back into a fleet headquarters, into that maritime ops center, and having our locations show up in a command post.
We bought commercial off-the-shelf FLIR [maritime recreational] radar systems that we were able to link into Link 16. That was kind of the missing link in the sense that no one had ever done that before. So you’d have these off-the-shelf radars that can, yes, acquire a target, but it took those Marines a number of different littoral exercises to figure out how to connect it into that CAC2S system. So light, mobile, very flexible forces; low numbers of very highly trained Marines that really trained themselves specifically for this kit. Then we’re able to reinforce it with support from the fleet headquarters, and then mobility assets from the ARG-MEU. Other supporting platforms across the task force and 6th Fleet enhanced what we’re able to do in recon/counter-recon.