Regiment Huzaren van Boreel

The Regiment Huzaren van Boreel is an armoured regiment of the Royal Netherlands Army, named for Willem Francois Boreel. It currently serves in the armoured Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition, Reconnaissance (ISTAR) role; the regiment provides two armoured reconnaissance squadrons assigned to each of the army's two mechanized brigades, while an STA artillery unit, an electronic warfare unit, Human Intelligence (HUMINT) unit and imagery intelligence unit all formed into a single battalion attached to the Combat Support Brigade.

Armoured reconnaissance
The most important role of the regiment Huzaren van Boreel is armoured reconnaissance. To perform this task, the regiment has two brigade reconnaissance squadrons, one per mechanized brigade: 42 BVE (Brigade Verkennings Eskadron) for the 13th Mechanized Brigade, 43 BVE for the 43rd Mechanized Brigade.

Nowadays, the motto of these units is "See without being seen", as opposed to the cold-war period "Find, Bind and Strike", where the units would find the enemy, engage them, deliver an artillery strike, and speed off. The goal here was to delay the Russians long enough for NATO troops to arrive. With the new philosophy the combat task of these units has faded away. Where the units previously were armed with tanks, AIFVs and even their own artillery, nowadays they are equipped with the state of the art Fennek reconnaissance vehicle.

A BVE typically consists of three recon platoons, eight vehicles each, 24 people total, an anti tank platoon, equipped with four Fennek MRAT (with the Spike medium range anti tank missile), a logistics platoon and a staff platoon. The two armoured reconnaissance squadrons of 103 ISTAR battalion, 103 and 104 GGVE (ground based reconnaissance squadron), are similar equipped, but instead of an anti tank section, they have three Fenneks to support a Tactical Air Control Party in the forward air control role.