Intelligence, surveillance, targeting and reconnaissance (ISTAR) doctrine needs to change. I will explain how my battle group (1Royal Welsh) conducted ISTAR operations in their 2023 Combat Ready Training (CRT). 1 I will explain what the ISTAR group contained, where its frailties and successes lay, and its command functionality. I will conclude by reflecting on the doctrinal debate surrounding ISTAR operations at the battlegroup level and try to convince you that doctrine must be updated.
Context
Army Field Manual ‘Battlegroup Tactics,’ states that the:
‘ISTAR group is a highly mobile and balanced force, consisting of a reconnaissance element, integral engineer reconnaissance and sufficient combat power to destroy enemy reconnaissance elements, hold key terrain, and contain forward enemy units.’
This is certainly how the concept was understood in the R WELSH battlegroup, though its ability to muster sufficient combat power to attend to the latter three tasks has been restricted by vehicle serviceability (despite the herculean efforts by the men and women of the Battalion REME Light Aid Detachment) with the aged Warrior Infantry Fighting Vehicle, brought into service in 1987, often unreliable.
The CRT pathway throughout Summer 2023 demonstrated that reconnaissance callsigns were never able to operate with a desirable eight vehicles due to reliability. Instead fielding five vehicles. Gaps in the battlegroup screen were filled with Fire Support Team Warrior Observation Post variants from the artillery’s forward observers and the Battalion’s anti-tank Warrior platforms, reducing the combat strength and effectiveness of the ISTAR screen as a whole. With insufficient force ratios to balance the screen, the situation was compounded by porous Brigade boundaries unable to be sealed or resourced with Brigade assets. In sum, the reconnaissance platoon was overmatched, as was the anti-tank platoon. The only combat-arm force element available to operate with effectively was the sniper platoon operating with land-rovers.
To be of maximum utility to the Battlegroup Commander, the ISTAR screen must increase its survivability. Whilst this can and is attended to in training, both through tactical courses (Armoured recce courses, Armoured Infantry Platoon Commander’s Course, Armoured Infantry Commanders Course, Mounted Close Combat Basic Combat Skills, and so on), the platforms must also be suited to the task. Although, anecdotally, the anti-tank platoon is content with Warrior, with similar optics and firepower, and with greater manoeuvrability, an option would be to replace the reconnaissance variants with the surplus AJAX platforms currently held by the Field Army. This will bring the reconnaissance screen back to its optimum eight vehicle ORBAT and both, ‘enhance their capability and improve Brigade-level flexibility.’ Should this not be achievable then Warrior platform availability must privilege the ISTAR screen. Only when the correct vehicle ratios are attended too will the tactical training follow, and ultimately enhance survivability of the first echelon of the ISTAR screen.
The CRT pathway showed that the ISTAR screen was effective when correct force ratios were applied to it but the high point of ISTAR operations came with the urban investment of Altmark town as the battlegroup final training exercise. At this stage of the exercise, enemy forces held portions of the town and maintained a mobile reserve on the outskirts, as would be doctrinally pure. In order to make best use of the ISTAR group the sniper and reconnaissance callsigns rapidly advanced in cover to zulu-muster their platforms, outside of aural distance from enemy forces elements, and advanced on foot to the enemy objective. The reconnaissance platoon conducted a series of close target reconnaissance activities, gathering critical information on suspected enemy dispositions, whilst concurrently, the sniper platoon marked the forming up points (FUP) for the rifle companies, as well as covertly infiltrating various high points in the town to act as target designators and strike at enemy command and control. At H-hr, that time at which offensive fires begin or friendly forces advance, the rifle companies, joined by elements of the anti-tank platoon providing fire-support, breached the urban defences and proceeded to fight through the town, aided by reconnaissance and sniper platoon talk-on and overwatch. The anti-tank platoon at this stage having dismounted, took up positions of overwatch in the town, striking enemy armour, successfully fighting off an enemy reinforcement and talking on friendly force armour to conduct a series of local counter-attacks. Such was the success of the integration; the enemy were on one occasion reset, and then defeated in detail a second time. The ability for an ISTAR group to find and fight as both a mounted and dismounted force element is critical to battlegroup success. Recent real-world events have demonstrated that armour has value in close terrain as it does in open terrain, but it must survive in the open in order to be able to bring its considerable assets to bear in the close.
Critical to the effective use of the ISTAR group is the role played by the Officer Commanding (OC) ISTAR group. Often led by the OC of the Bn Fire-Support/Support Weapons Company, the role (and name!) continues to cycle through a seemingly endless series of debates and regurgitations of doctrine and warfare development (WARDEV) notes (it’s not lost on the author that I’m now adding to that debate!). For the 1 R WELSH Battlegroup, the OC ISTAR is from FSp Coy, and it was decided early on that he was best placed in Battlegroup Headquarters. The reasoning is threefold, it releases the battlegroup Chief of Staff (COS – the second-in-command of the Battalion) to think firmly in the G5 ‘future’ space and spend time across the functional areas of the HQ gaining complete situational awareness rather than be fixed to the current battle; on the latter, it provides command resilience within the headquarters, allowing the COS to go forward and assume command of the battle if required, knowing that there is an experienced OF-3 in the battlegroup HQ who can step-up. It also provides an experienced officer to oversee Common Intelligence Picture-Common Operating Picture (CIP-COP) Fusion. In doctrine, this fusion operation is described as the cell that allows for, ‘the fusing of the information gathered at battlegroup level together with the flow of information/intelligence from brigade headquarters and other providers. The fusion cell becomes a very powerful tool to assist the battlegroup commander and subunit commanders in their decision making and allowing the application of targeted effects.’ (Battlegroup Tactics, Para. 2A-03) Very wafty and very important sounding, there is no other mention of this process in current doctrine at time of writing, all the more interesting as this is a process from which the results form a large part of a battlegroup’s validation.
Undoubtedly an important function within a Battlegroup HQ, and a separate point of debate for another paper, there is no doubt that the OC of a FSp Coy is best placed to oversee the orchestra of effects necessary for the successful prosecution of a tactical action. Whether it is called CIP-COP fusion, effects integration, or just the provision of greater staff depth to the Current Operations team, and whilst many would wish to be forward in the tactical headquarters element, alongside the Commanding Officers vehicle, or elsewhere in the battlespace, the positioning of the OC ISTAR in main headquarters allows many others within that construct greater conceptual space to fulfil their part in the plan at the speed of relevance.
What is clear though is that the role of an ISTAR group, its composition, and its deployed chain of command, requires codification within doctrine, and for battlegroup standard operating instructions to align themselves to this. 12 Armoured Brigade Combat Team (12 ABCT) is alive to this debate, with our battlegroups collaborating on SOI development. As part of this, the positioning of OC ISTAR, as well as CIP-COP Fusion is laid out in as simple terminology as has been found through the recent lived experience. However, this must go a step further and be codified in AFM Vol 1 Part 3A ISTAR ‘The Enduring Doctrine,’ within which there is no mention of an ISTAR Gp, Sp Weapons, FSp Coy and its composition, and so on. Indeed, this publication has not been updated since Dec 11. In addition, there is no mention of ISTAR group operations in the Future Land Operating Concept (FLOC), Field Army Training Directive (FATD) nor is there a standardised Concept of Employment (CONEMP). For a sub-unit and chain of command that holds the entire arsenal of organic battlegroup firepower this is staggering and must change.
This note has, hopefully, demonstrated how survivability on task is key to effective ISTAR group operations and how that is being impacted by poor vehicle serviceability. Simply put, for a screen to be effective, it must be a screen and not suffer either porosity or backfilling from other battlegroup assets. However, if an ISTAR group can survive in to the close then it can and will be extremely effective. Consisting of some very highly trained platoons, its impact is out of proportion to its size and can deliver success. Furthermore, the placement of that sub-unit’s OC in battlegroup HQ gives the battlegroup commander both options on the design of his HQ as well as the confidence that the effects delivered by the ISTAR group can be plugged seamlessly into his plan at the point of relevance and speed. Finally, in order for these elements to all work in tandem, the debate must end, and doctrine publication must start. Separate debates are, ironically, stifling progress with the composition, command, and use, of a critical battlegroup asset. Leading the way on this is 12 ABCT, and the resulting brigade and battlegroup SOI development therein must go some way to producing a standardised doctrine that allows for streamlined training, vehicle allocation, command depth, and success for all Armoured Infantry Battlegroups.