Longest Recon

[Looon]

I thought I would get the old guys (Slowpoke and Steadfast) off to a running start.

You LR guys, what was the longest recon, of your careers?

[Slowpoke]

The longest for me, in terms of time, was six days. Normal missions were planned for three days, but on this one we couldn't find shit. No enemy sighted, no recent signs of usage on the trails we found, no shots heard or other human sounds, nothing. So at every afternoon sitrep, we got our mission extended for "One more day." We ran out of water on the fourth day, thank God for Monsoons. We tried collecting water in our bush hats and pooring it into a canteen, that really sucked. I remember laying under this big "elephant ear" plant and trying to catch the runoff in my canteen, but the big leafs kept dancing around and I couldn't hit the opening. Finally, on the sixth day, they were going to extend us again but our Team Leader told them if they didn't come and get us we were going to walk to the nearest village and hitch a ride back.

As far as the longest in distance, SOP was only moveing a thousand meters a day, which is a long way considering you're moveing without makeing a sound, and stopping every hundred meters or so, to check for sounds or movement around you. Our team never violated the thousand meter SOP when moveing normally. I think the longest distance we ever moved was the run we made that I told about in the "No Shit, There I Was" section. That was about three thousand meters all at once. A little note, I'm not that good at guessing distance, our Team Leader calculated the distance later because we all wondered how far we ran.

Last August, a group of us got a guided tour of the Long Range Surveillance Leadership Course at Ft. Benning, and I was really surprised that tactics haven't changed much since I was doing it. The equipment has had some tremendous advances, but small unit patrolling is pretty much the same.

[Looon]

Thanks Ranger Slowpoke ~S~

[Steadfast]

Thanks Ranger Slowpoke. As far as missions go, there were always AO's that were quiet. We still had to check out all the interesting and possible points that the enemy might take refuge. It was our jobs to look under every stone, in every crack and always around the next bend. Our enemies were masters at hiding in the jungle. We were expert finders. On airborne ranger dot com, Slowpoke had the saying "experienced peeker" under his nameand I can't say anything better than he has.

My longest mission was 9 days. We checked out a cold AO very throughly and completed our mission by the 4th day. Our mission typically lasted 4 days. This was towards middle of July I think. All our birds were being used for something that was happening with Division. So we had no birds available to extract us. I ran out of food after the 5th day. So I didn't eat for 4 days. Plenty of water we were able to fill our canteens during monsoons. 6th day still no birds available. We moved a bit out of our AO to avoid being in one place too long. 7th day still no extraction. 8th day the birds were headed our way, less than 300 meters from us and a bad storm closing in on us faster than the huey could fly, it turned around. One of our guys really wanted to shoot the bird down. We tackled him to ground and incident never happened again. Bird finally came and got us late on 9th day. Other than being out there for 9 days, the mission was uneventful and very quiet.

[Chiron]

Ranger school 5-82
and oddly enough after 3 years break in service.
LRSLC 5-87

The thing that I liked the most was the commo. The tactics are excelent.
\
My longest mission was between wives 7 years. I miss those years.
What could I say I had nothing in comparison to steadfast and slowpoke!
We did drill in the desert for three years prior to 1990. That was fun.

[Slowpoke]

Ranger school 5-82
and oddly enough after 3 years break in service.
LRSLC 5-87

The thing that I liked the most was the commo. The tactics are excelent.
\
My longest mission was between wives 7 years. I miss those years.
What could I say I had nothing in comparison to steadfast and slowpoke!
We did drill in the desert for three years prior to 1990. That was fun.

I got to see the LRSLC at Rabel Hall last August. Like you said, the commo equipment was fasinating. We usually only had commo twice a day, for about an hour in the mornings, and maybe two hours in the late afternoon. We all were amazed. Not to break OPSEC, but what they can do now is pretty cool.

[Chiron]

Ranger school 5-82
and oddly enough after 3 years break in service.
LRSLC 5-87

The thing that I liked the most was the commo. The tactics are excelent.
\
My longest mission was between wives 7 years. I miss those years.
What could I say I had nothing in comparison to steadfast and slowpoke!
We did drill in the desert for three years prior to 1990. That was fun.

I got to see the LRSLC at Rabel Hall last August. Like you said, the commo equipment was fasinating. We usually only had commo twice a day, for about an hour in the mornings, and maybe two hours in the late afternoon. We all were amazed. Not to break OPSEC, but what they can do now is pretty cool.

Can you imagine combining Ranger school with LRSLC and another I had in Virginia called op forces driving, you get to drive all kinds of nice vehicles. All combined makes for allot of fun.

[Slowpoke]

Mine ran between 70 and 80 lbs, depending on the mission, usually closer to 70. Got lighter as water was comsumed, but it was hard to tell because you were getting more tired too. We didn't carry ANYTHING that wasn't necessary, the Team Leader was pretty much in charge of what we carried. We didn't have to pack something some geek at Benning thought was cool, we just sorta did what we needed. The two most important criteria were, did you really, REALLY need it and would it make any noise? on our Team, camoflage and concealment, and noise disipline were the "Holy Grail."

[Steadfast]

How much does a one quart canten weigh. Are canteens today 1 liter? What does today's size water weigh?

[Slowpoke]

Most of the weight in my ruck was water, ammo, and a spare battery for the radio. That battery weighed more than the radios you have now, and every Team member carried one. I really don't know where they got our rucks, somebody told me they were Vietnamese. It was a soft canvas affair that looked a lot like a kids backpack of today, only a lot bigger. Still it was smaller than the things I've seen used today, but it was quiet. We even had to line up and jump up and down for the Team Leader before every mission, to ensure no one was going to make any noise. No clink, clank or rattle.

[Steadfast]

No thump or bump or ya was a chump.

[Steadfast]

Damn, I used to know how much a full 1 qt and 2 qt canteen weighed. :(

Ranger Steadfast, The weight of the steel canteens is probleby so close to the plastic ones that they are approximatly the same.

The steel one is probleby more useful for making go juice. The plastic being quieter, maybe?
Thanks for the info Rangers.

We were just a tad modern by 1969's standards as we had plastic 1 qt. canteens. On my ammo belt I had a plastic green canteen with my aluminum canteen cup. My aluminum canteen cup was very important to me as I used it to heat all my water that I used in my freeze dried food rations also known as LRRP rations. I heated my water with a small rolled ball of C - 4. In less than 2 minutes my 10 ounces of water was boiling hot. cooking with C - 4 was a pleasure. I talked with some of my Marine Force Recon buddies and they tell me they had only heat tabs that really sucked. I got a fresh C - 4 bar every mission. I used a steel frame ruck which was standard for my unit. I carried 8 qts. of water in my ruck every mission. I had three canteen pouches on the outside of my ruck, one on the left, center rear and right of my ruck. Green straps with small black buckles like the darkened rank collar pins but much thinner is what they were made of. They made no noise what so ever. I shudder to think that today's army may be using velcro straps. I would be scared shitless to hear the noise of velcro being opened when I am trying to be as quiet as possible.

Can anyone tell me how much a water full 1 qt canteen weighs?