RSTA CAV UNIT's?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSTA

I was just wondering if anyone has had any experience with these new RSTA units? Are they actually committing an Infantry troop to a scout/ sniper mission? Are they really fulfilling the roles of preparations for Air assault and water borne ops? Are they receiving any special training in targeting operations? Are they using TACP’s to fill their targeting roles?

6-9 Cav in the 1CD 3BCT has the RSTA mission, and from what I saw while in A Trp both Iraq and garrison, I can add some insight.

The actual field units, who do patrols will be a platoon of Cav Scouts, squad of Mortars and a couple Fisters. We have three troop elements who have two combat platoons which go out the wire. Route clearance included EOD, we did a lot of that and maintained a patrol base when not on the FOB.

Each troop rotated out of the patrol base every month, one was dedicated QRF which icluded DART missions if needed. We were ready for air assault, but never had to. While in Diyala at Normandy, we mostly focussed on SKTs due to the constant threat of IEDs. Humanitarian relief and presence patrols in the populated areas was another common mission.

As for all the high speed hooah jazz they are made out to be, we never really did the RSTA mission, we acted as grunts and just occupied the area. There were a couple of large missions clearing villages but nothing special.

Feel free to ask about any thing further. I'm just a little sleepy and saw this before calling it a night.
 
6-9 Cav in the 1CD 3BCT has the RSTA mission, and from what I saw while in A Trp both Iraq and garrison, I can add some insight.

The actual field units, who do patrols will be a platoon of Cav Scouts, squad of Mortars and a couple Fisters. We have three troop elements who have two combat platoons which go out the wire. Route clearance included EOD, we did a lot of that and maintained a patrol base when not on the FOB.

Each troop rotated out of the patrol base every month, one was dedicated QRF which icluded DART missions if needed. We were ready for air assault, but never had to. While in Diyala at Normandy, we mostly focussed on SKTs due to the constant threat of IEDs. Humanitarian relief and presence patrols in the populated areas was another common mission.

As for all the high speed hooah jazz they are made out to be, we never really did the RSTA mission, we acted as grunts and just occupied the area. There were a couple of large missions clearing villages but nothing special.

Feel free to ask about any thing further. I'm just a little sleepy and saw this before calling it a night.



No worries...

So I am guessing 6/9 has the same crest as 1/9? Being the 9th Cav Reg:confused: Just wondering, I spent some time with 1/9 out of FOB head hunter working the Hifa A/O in 2004-2005
 
From what I've seen the 9th has the same crest, I can only attest for what I've seen within the Division though.
 
Ok all of you knuckle draggers... I just got assigned to a RSTA unit... on Camp Taji.

If any of you are on Taji... shoot me a PM and I will let you know where my office is. Let's do a link up.

This is my first deployment with a conventional unit, so I will save my opinions on RSTA until I get some "Saddle" time... Cav. Meh.

Gary Owens?

LOL

SUA SPONTE!!!
 
Ok all of you knuckle draggers... I just got assigned to a RSTA unit... on Camp Taji.

If any of you are on Taji... shoot me a PM and I will let you know where my office is. Let's do a link up.

This is my first deployment with a conventional unit, so I will save my opinions on RSTA until I get some "Saddle" time... Cav. Meh.

Gary Owens?

LOL

SUA SPONTE!!!

I think it's "Gary Owen" without the "s" but I'll defer to your "local knowledge." ;)

Taji isn't a bad place, depending upon which side of the base you find yourself......:p
 
Gary Owen / Gary Owens... meh.

Not to take anything away from their history... meant no disrespect. I mean to blend in as much as I can, but am NOT wearing one of those blue cowboy hats. No sirree...

:)

I'm on the GI side of Taji... hell, they have a Green Beans here... I'm good!
 
Yeah, if you put on those spurs and that hat......I'll shoot you, myself.

One of my former Drill Sergearnts sent me a pic of him taking repsponsbilty of a company wearing that hat......I told him that I loved his wife and children, but I would hate to make xxx a widow if I ever saw him wearing.......

On the other hand, I think it would would be cool to earn spurs and a Stetson.

I've got a story.........
 
Yeah, if you put on those spurs and that hat......I'll shoot you, myself.

One of my former Drill Sergearnts sent me a pic of him taking repsponsbilty of a company wearing that hat......I told him that I loved his wife and children, but I would hate to make xxx a widow if I ever saw him wearing.......

On the other hand, I think it would would be cool to earn spurs and a Stetson.

I've got a story.........

Well Sarn't Major... I am gonna bust my ARSE for these guys, and mentor my troops as much as I can. If the Cav decides to award me some combat spurs, I would be honored. However... I don't see any horses. Just some HUGE fucking Strykers!!

I get to take my cherry ride in one tomorrow... Yippie Kay-YAY!!!
 
Well, then, ride, slowly, ride..... :D.......Good on ya! And Congrats! :)

Gary Owen!
 
RSTA is a joke, ISR, and sensors taking the place of the real Cavalry or LRSU team, replacing eyes on target with some ISR platforms is one of the worst ideas in the long sad history of bad ideas. lets not forget it was the "HUMAN" recon teams that busted the mystery of the heatless Muj, not visable on termals, and not a UAV. ISR platforms have there place on the battle field but not in a hide site were the recon men sould always be. Sorry im a little bitter about this, why they want to get read of us and call RSTA "Cavalry" is beyond me.
 
What I saw of this effort was a bunch of conventional Army kids using VERY expensive gear to play bootleg movies and porn on and spy on their buddies. They had a ton of great kit and absolutely no idea how to use it. Every time they sent some kid to get trained on it they'd move him to some other job shortly after he started figuring out what he was doing. This led to most of the gear sitting around unused in boxes, or going missing, and several compromised ISR missions due to lack of training and experience. That was a while back though, so hopefully they're improving.
 
Sensors are the way of the future. Soon we won't even need a man to gather intelligence.

Warm Regards,

ADM S. Turner
 
I was in 1-61 CAV the RSTA Squadron for 506 RCT at Campbell and my experience there was awesome. They converted all of the 3rd BN's on Campbell to RSTA's. Deployed with them to East Baghdad in 2005 to 2006. I couldn't ask the Army for better leadership. We were employed as a landowner though from New Baghdad all the way down to Salman Pak. Since then they have deployed to OEF twice. There are two mounted CAV Troops and one Dismounted CAV Troop. I speak for other members on this, but 1-61 is regarded as the best unit we have been in (both Scouts and Infantry). Much to the leadership of COL Winski who is the CDR of 4-1 CAV now. Easy on the POG calling Zues! You can tell that to the families of the dead! Take Care!
 
I came from a RSTA unit, I was in a Dismounted Recon (Infantry) Troop, my old Squadron had 2 Cav Scout (Mounted Recon) Troops, 1 Infantry (Dismounted Recon) Troop and a Support Troop.

I came from a Sniper Section, my old troom had 2 11B platoons, a commo section, and a 11C (M224 60mm) platoon, of course the HQ section and Supply. All in all it was a lot of fun, PM me for details if you want.
 
Oh yeah, we had Zodiacs, and the only time we used them is when we did Zodiac Carry PT. When I left, my Troop was about to get training in Amphibious operations with the Zodiacs, I don't know if they went through with it.
 
Alcon, I have been in CAV and LRS. In fact that's me they quote in the article posted by JAO. There are 2 types of RSTAs. One is the conventional RSTA you find in the BDE. And the other is the R&S Squadron you see in the BFSBs. The BFSBs were formed a couple of years back out of the MI BDEs which are a Corps asset. For some reason the component for the BFSBs is the Armor Branch. Don't ask me why I don't know. I had the opportunity to attend several conferences at Fort Knox to discuss the doctrine and task/org for the R&S Squadron. Needless to say me and the other LRS personnel who attended asked why LRS was placed under a CAV Squadron.

Gentlemen if you don't know LRS has a nonconventional mission. Cavalry has a conventional mission. Long story short we were not given an answer. LRS bridges the gap between conventional forces and SOF. What is even more frustrating is they asked us and I quote "Does LRS need to be an independant company in the BFSB?" We all said yes for 3 reasons.

1) Its a modular BDE. The Corps Commander is going to treat you like a menu and order what he wants. Its very unlikely your squadron will stay together during a deployment. Indeed some LRS companies have been split up by platoons and even teams.
2) Training: Just performing a static line airborne operation takes a lot of time. Forget HALO and Scuba. So while I'm trying to keep my company current in all that we obviously can't support what the rest of the Squadron is doing. If the Squadron commander overrides training, which happens often, those insertion/extraction and recon skills start to rot.
3) OPSEC: Needs no explanation. I was the Operations Officer for the last deployment. Even I didn't know everything my guys were doing. PM me if you want to know what happened when the CAV made us do a CONOP when we had been passed some intel by ODA.

They are currently developing yet another MTOE for the R&S Squadron and the BFSB. We'll see what happens. The current proposal is that the CAV Troops will be increased in size and receive mortar sections. (Thank God) Right now the Troops are half the size of a LRS Platoon. Additionally the BFSB may have its name changed to Recon and Surveillance BDE.

Finally I'll make the same recommendation I made 4 years ago at Fort Know. Make the R&S Squadron a regular RSTA and LRS an independant company under the BFSB.
 
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