I was talking to a guy the other day about the army. Recon was brought up and he said it's as hard as commando's, what would doing recon be like in the army?
As far as i know Recon is specialist training for Infantry, he also said they have there own division(probs not the right word), I'm acctually motivated to Recon now.

Btw he said all the "nut cases" do Recon

Dig, what do you have to say about that?

Haha this is a piss take right?

Nah i'm just going by what he said, I honestly don't beleive the part about it being as hard as commando's, but i don't beleive the commando's are the be all and end all.
Why C-bomb do you have experience as recon or commandos?

You can't really compare apples and oranges mate. Recon platoons operate within Infantry battalions and although is a specialised role it doesnt require you to know such a diverse range of skill sets that a CDO requires to know.

The old Recon selection course used to be tough. Equally as tough as the old 4RAR selection course but i am talking from experience from 10 years ago when there was a low turn over and to get into recon took a fair bit of work and probably doesnt apply to todays standards.

"nut jobs"? nah mate. Usually you have to be fit and switched on to be in recon. A good pair of sunnies, a razor blade and a couple months supply of powerade goes along way as well.

If you want to go Recon, join 6RAR i hear they take anyone....

It's a nice long hard course with a reasonable amount of beastings, but it's not anything like Commando's.

It's a good job on ops but, or at least it was, when we were on ops.

From this I gather you aren't serving yet?


Baby steps concentrate on getting in first. Once in have a look around at the other support coy courses. Some are more enjoyable than Recon.


In today's Army? No way. Recon or the Batts for that matter aren't as skilled as they used to be IMO. It is a shame really, you would think with our high op tempo we would be up skilling not the other way round? Maybe that is the problem? But I digress.


This is where you will get some bites from some people on this forum. Luckily for me I am thick skinned. I agree the "old" Recon courses were absolute ass cavers. Most of them were run by losers who failed selection over west and decided to create some rediculous course to prove how big of a man they were. As for harder than Cdo selection, I am going to disagree. I never went for days without sleep or food on recon cse.

Not trying to impugn the credibility of your source but if he thinks that only "nut cases" go Recon the he is probably not RAInf or he is not the most switched Digger out there. Recon course is, and should be a bit of an arse caver, notwithstanding C-bombs points re: failed cats. It is not really comparable to Cdo selection. If Recon take all the nut cases, what kind of masochist does selection? If you can get through IETs and get the opportunity, jump on this course, you will learn a lot and generally speaking, work with more professional, career minded soldiers.

Just going from my experience mate, i did one of the first ever run selection courses down at holsworthy when 4 started to go CDO and was full of chocks. I found it no harder than the recon selection at 2. I guess it depended on the battalion. As i mentioned in my original post i know this wouldnt apply to todays standards and was in no way an attempt to discredit the guys who have passed selection.

Recon in my old Bn was good at first, then they all left and a pile of lids went in who thought they were special because they got to wear black PT shits and call themselves 'recon'.

90% of them were muppets who couldnt read a map. They could run, but that was about it.

One of my mates who was an ex-recon patrol commander chased a team by himself for four kms after they tried to recce us and made a total hash out of it. (hint to the wise, when you are told to recce a wire obstacle across a road, you dont walk straight up the road in broad daylight and attempt to pull it out of the way.)