Introduction

The following introduction is taken from the Tankograd website:

With amalgamation of the German army's main reconnaissance forces into the Army Reconnaissance Force in 2008, this troop type has a broad, complementary spectrum of ground-based and airborne reconnaissance capabilities. This variety of different assets, from reconnaissance to unmanned aerial vehicles and field intelligence forces, enables to gather a broad mix of data, plus it links human sensory perception with the use of technical sensors. Reconnaissance units always reliably contribute to an up-to-date picture of the situation by providing constant and comprehensive information, sometimes in real time, and they create essential prerequisites for the successful conduct of operations. In doing so, reconnaissance units often fulfil their mission independently, in small squads and on their own for several days. Following on seamlessly from the tradition and experience of the Armoured Reconnaissance Force and other reconnaissance carriers, the Army Reconnaissance Force has proven itself in training and exercises since its birth, and it has successfully participated in stabilisation missions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Mali. The Army Reconnaissance Force is rightly proud to be the eyes and ears of the commander. This publication shows the vehicles, equipment and the soldiers of today's German Army Reconnaissance Force in many exercise photographs.

Review

Reconnaissance has come a long way since the days of a man stood on a hill to the present with satellites in orbit around us. However, the humble soldiers with a pair of binoculars to remote controlled drones all have a place in the reconnaissance role today. This offering from Tankograd looks at the current resources in use with the German military in the recon role. The author of this title is Daniel Nowak, this is a soft backed book with a nice glossy card cover and 64 semi-gloss pages within. This offering is one of Tankograd’s duel language books, with German on the left and English on the right of each page. The dedicated text within the title is considerable compared to the amount that I am familiar with, but as with all text in Tankograd titles it is worth reading through if you have an interest in role and function of reconnaissance units. The images within the book, are all accompanied with duel language captions which provide clear explanations of what you are looking at. The subjects covered are from their simplest - a soldier with binoculars all the way through to in the field launched aerial assets. However, the information gathered is pointless if you can’t get it through to where it needs to be, assessed and acted upon and so this title also looks at the field communication equipment that gets the information gathered to where it needs to be. This is a typical high quality publication from Tankograd, with some fantastic pictures.