IDF set to add recon companies to armored battalions

Each company is to include a reconnaissance platoon, a lookout platoon, and a mortar platoon.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
An IDF soldier on the Golan Heights 370 (photo credit: Courtesy IDF)
An IDF soldier on the Golan Heights 370
(photo credit: Courtesy IDF)
The Armored Corps is set to add a reconnaissance company to each of its armored battalions as part of its adaptation to the modern battlefield, a senior military source revealed on Wednesday.
The changes come after “extensive work at our headquarters” and are “aimed at maximizing our abilities,” the source added.
Each company is to include a reconnaissance platoon, a lookout platoon, and a mortar platoon, he added.
The reconnaissance platoon is to be made up of soldiers who specialize in terrain, can identify paths for forces to advance along, and direct units in the field, with an emphasis on tanks.
This platoon is to move around in armored personnel carriers.
The lookout platoon is to focus on intelligence gathering, and is to work with combat helicopters and radars. It is to travel in hummers.
The mortar platoon is to train in advanced artillery capabilities, and is to travel in armored personnel carriers.
The first soldiers to join the units are to be drafted in November’s recruitment cycle, and enlistment is to continue until November 2015.
It should take some 30 weeks to fully train the reconnaissance companies, he added.
The IDF Armored Corps is expected to play a dominant role in any ground maneuver. Its force building steps are designed to prepare it for all possible scenarios, from the current period, which IDF officials call “the war between wars” – the inter-war period of covert clashes, intelligence gathering, and military force build-up to a potential full-scale war.