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Admiral Beez said:
Wouldn't a scouting party's job be to reconnoitre and report back rather than engage?
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My stepdad Bob was Marine recon in Vietnam. His description of their mission was "snooping and pooping". They had three firefights in his thirteen months there, because their mission was LRRP, not probing or fighting. His expressed opinion was that if they got in a firefight they'd gotten off the rails.

If these Russians were doing deep-prowl, then yeah, they fucked up. If they were probing defenses, as Grau points out, firing is necessary. We'd have to know their orders in order to assess their success or failure.

It looks more to me like an encounter fight, judging from how the Ukrainians were also a little surprised at the Russian presence.
 
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GrauGeist said:
The Ukrainians need to have some mobile artillery on standby for the next probe, hammer the eff out of them and then quickly relocate the artillery elsewhere.
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Perhaps they have it but don't wanna reveal that they have it?
Thumpalumpacus said:
It looks more to me like an encounter fight, judging from how the Ukrainians were also a little surprised at the Russian presence.
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If the russian come 5-6 times a day shouldn't be a surprise, no?
 
That had to be very nerve cracking. A small platoon deep in the enemy rear with little chance of support or rescue.
 
Escuadrilla Azul said:
That had to be very nerve cracking. A small platoon deep in the enemy rear with little chance of support or rescue.
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Right. Because Marine recon companies were much smaller than normal -- 79 enlisted, 2 officers -- they couldn't afford to get into a scrap. Any shooting at all revealed his company's presence, which defeated the purpose of the mission.

Their patrols lasted 30-45 days; a couple ran longer.

Bob was the radioman, so he especially hated firefights, because with the aerial he always drew fire.
 
Escuadrilla Azul said:
That had to be very nerve cracking. A small platoon deep in the enemy rear with little chance of support or rescue.
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Thumpalumpacus said:
Because Marine recon companies were much smaller than normal -- 79 enlisted, 2 officers -- they couldn't afford to get into a scrap. Any shooting at all revealed his company's presence, which defeated the purpose of the mission.
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LRRP vets I've talked with never said anything about company or even platoon size missions. They mentioned going "into the field" as a squad or reinforced squad. They said the smaller their unit, the safer they felt. They tended to be rather closed mouthed about their experiences until they had a few brews down. Brews I was glad to buy.
 

Bob's company went into the field fairly fully-manned at least once, to my recollection, but yeah, smaller was almost always better. Less trail left behind etc.
 
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