What is the Difference Between Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance? (C4ISR)

C4ISR stands for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance. Surveillance is normally static - you wait in one place for the bad guy to come to you or look over a certain spot. Reconnaissance is when you go out and find the enemy. Intelligence is gathering all of this information and turning it into a picture of the battlefield.

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C4ISR stands for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance. Surveillance is normally static - you wait in one place for the bad guy to come to you or look over a certain spot. Reconnaissance is when you go out and find the enemy. Intelligence is gathering all of this information and turning it into a picture of the battlefield.

For uncensored video, check out my substack at:

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Watch all of my long form videos:

Twitter:
@ryanmcbeth

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Want to send me something?
Ryan McBeth Productions LLC
8705 Colesville Rd.
Suite 249
Silver Spring, MD 20910
USA

[johndane]

Reconnisance: I'm looking for shit.
Surveillance: I'm watching shit.
Intelligence: I know shit.

[blackcountryme]

"Military intelligence, two words combined that can't make sense" - Hanger 18, Megadeth

[anthonydavis]

"Waiting for an important high ranking General" Hogan's Heros. Such a good show.

[guillaumedep]

Interesting that the two are the same word in Russian. Language influences the way we think, constraining or allowing, depending on vocabulary used for different concepts.

[loganlabbe]

Reconnaissance: go get the info
Surveillance: watch and wait for info to come to you
Intelligence: the info

[hdvsmith]

Kudos on the Hogan's Heroes reference!😅 Best show on earth! 🙌🏾

[musoangelo]

The thing that amazes me is that, on this one (of many) issues, you present an intelligent (see what I did there) approach to finding and using information. As a country we have people, in incredibly powerful positions who don't have the first clue about what they're charged with. They're there for the power. There is increasing content that suggest that for all the progress that we've made in many fields, the one we haven't made progress in is choosing leaders. Our primal instincts has us drawn toward sociopath's who tell us what we want to hear but don't have our best interest at heart.

[zhaunju]

Розвъедька😂Спасибо, Райан, за ролики, ты крут!

[ph.hunts_rebels]

Reconnaissance is like scouting.
Surveillance is like detection. Like cameras that keep an eye on certain area or spot for bad guys.

Intelligence is using both to pin point a person or a group etc. Precisely.

[BruceThaJuiceBanner]

Ryan- I feel like we can call you Ryan by now- Thank you. Knowledge is power & u give us al that strength. Fr man just.. Thank you.

[stuffy]

Always love to learn from you
It's easy to digest and to the point

[Concord]

THANK YOU! this short and simple explanation was exactly what I needed.

[Lukas]

So, from what I understand basically

Reconnaissance- Is where you move to find shit

Surveillance- Is where you stand still but find and observe shit

And Intelligence - Is basically what kind of shit you found and process them for HQ

[Neopolitan]

So recon is essentially in the field gathering of info, surveillance is waiting for the info to come to you and intelligence is the culmination of those two

[DenysLukoshkin]

There is a word «рекогносцировка» in Russian. Which is a transliteration from reconnaissance

[Anmatgreen]

In case this Russian speaking fan sees this, here's a more or less direct translation:

Surveillance: наблюдение
Reconnaissance: разведка
Intelligence: разведданные

For those wondering, the "razveddanny'e" that's the word for Intelligence can be more or less literally translated to English as "reconnaissance data"

[stephan]

Including the picture from Hogan's Heroes just gave me a huge smile. Thank you, Sir!🫡

[blackrob]

Russian FSB member asking Ryan questions

[lodragan]

I was a 19D (Cav Scout). And there were times when we would do reconnaissance (e.g. route recon, zone recon, area recon etc), and there were times when we would also do surveillance (e.g. hump 10 km and set up an OP to observe an area, road, etc). This was in the days of acetate overlays, paper maps, and grease pencils - the only piece of electronics we had was an analogue FM radio. My understanding is they moved snipers into the scout platoon - so maybe even more surveillance opportunities today?