Graphic: U.S. Army Long-Range Surveillance (LRS) Company
Added 2023-07-22 18:57:06 +0000 UTCNew graphic depicting the U.S. Army's LRS Company before their deactivation in the mid/late-2010s. Their main jobs were surveillance, zone and area reconnaissance, target acquisition, and target interdiction. This might call for operations deep behind enemy lines, with airborne, air assault, overland and seaborne infiltration options (or stay behind operations). Unlike normal cavalry/scouts, LRS were not capable of security missions due to their limited weaponry and small size. Although the 75th Ranger Regiment assumed the lineage of the LRRPs during Vietnam, the LRS was their tactical successor.
At the time this graphic depicts (2010), they were intended to become part of Battlefield Surveillance Brigades (BFSB). However, previously they were part of Military Intelligence organizations, and from the mid-2010s the BFSBs started being converted into other types of brigades (like Expeditionary MI Brigades or Maneuver Enhancement Brigades) or deactivated.
Most members of the LRS Company were 11A/11B infantry MOSs. Doctrine at the time named LRS Companies as the main infantry R&S unit at the operational level, typically in support of division or corps commanders (SOF units in the special recon role were at the strategic level and scouts/cavalry in maneuver battalions and brigades were at the tactical-level)
Comments
https://slideplayer.com/slide/8385713/ This presentation is a older than the period I'm covering I think, so the organization is slightly different (6 LRS teams per detachment instead of 5). But it references the M203 as the highest casualty producing weapon and the M249 as an augmentation. Typically the M249 or M240 would be listed as the highest casualty producing weapon, so that implies that the M203 was the default key weapon in the LRS Team
Battle Order
2023-07-29 02:17:20 +0000 UTCAt the time of the TOE (2010), the company had 20x M240B, 21x M249, and 26x M320A1. With 15 LRS Teams per company, they could probably task organize them with 1 MG and 1 M320 per team, or just carbines. The manual doesn't prescribe any sort of weaponry mix explicitly. The NCOs were also authorized pistols
Battle Order
2023-07-29 02:04:45 +0000 UTCHow were the actual Dets equipment, like looks like 5x PAX? I’m assuming Fire Team equivalent (1 SAW, a 203 and the rest M16/M4?)
James Scott
2023-07-29 01:54:58 +0000 UTCI felt bad for the LRS guys when they got stood down. HRC kept sending people to the LRS units long after the decision was made to shut them down so you had a lot of LRS guys just spinning wheels for 2-3 years before being rapidly moved around. Some of those guys just ended up being absorbed into the parent E-MIBs and that did not go well at all. LRS guys had all the shiny on their formals so they ended up doing a lot of public relations/honor guard stuff until the axe finally dropped. Basically the BFSB's the LRS units were attached to were transitioning to the E-MIB concept and we're supposed to lose the LRS units in the process, around 2014-2015 or so. But HRC was still sending people in accordance with the BFSB MTOE until about mid 2017, so those LRS guys showed up only to help take things down and then get rotated somewhere else. They either got absorbed into the parent E-MIBs to round out holes in manning, the adjacent SOF units if they had the qualifications, adjacent infantry units if they didn't and finally just early release if their contracts had less then a year remaining on them. Each of the E-MIBs dismantled their LRS companies at a different rate but I'm pretty sure the slowest was the 201st E-MIB with Charlie Troop, they only formally stood down towards the end of 2017.
Haji_Bob
2023-07-23 01:08:48 +0000 UTCI have to admit, I’ve always been salty about the Army deactivating LRS units. I know drones have taken on a large role of reconnaissance and surveillance and they do a fantastic job at it, but as a former infantryman, there’s a difference between observing a village from a drone feed, and through the binoculars from a hide site. Hopefully the Army will relearn the value of LRS units before the next war starts.
Gd2go2
2023-07-23 00:49:00 +0000 UTC
