Marching camp construction

[MonsGraupius]

Given that one of the purposes of marching camps was it’s use as a staging area it wouldn’t make any sense for a small scouting unit to expend the effort to build something similar. I’ve been in the army myself and when we operated at night, we would take minimal equipment, we wouldn’t want to leave any visible sign that we had been in the area. No fires, no lights and more often than not, we’d use ground sheets to make temporary shelters, we used the ground sheets to protect us from wind and rain    So that we could get a few moments rest. If we wanted to eat, we ate cold food and it was important that our food was odourless. I’m pretty sure that the same principles would have applied to those tasked with a similar job in the Roman army. I’m guessing that’s why we don’t find evidence of anything other than the large marching camps.

I was thinking today I would like to speak to someone who's been in the army! I'm having problems understanding the purpose and operation of "patrols".

I was trying to remember what activities occurred in a modern army in a "camp" in a theatre of war and I started thinking of all the films I've seen in the hope they have some realism. There's a film set, I think in Vietnam, where it's all fairly shambolic (I think some are on drugs), and part of the action is that they are asked to go out on patrol. When watching, it seemed the most stupid thing possible that they could do. It seemed to serve no purpose except to make them easy targets and I think the film did show the patrol getting virtually annihilated (which just re-enforced the view that they should have just stayed in the camp behind their defences). I think the film ends with the chopper taking off as the camp is being over-run.

This "patrol" is also a word that we used to hear in cowboy films with the cavalry going on "patrol". Again, these patrols were always ambushed, so I think I've got a very dim view of patrolling - it seems an open invitation to the enemy. However, clearly they have a military purpose. But what?

But thinking to WWII films and documentaries, these "patrols" seem to be totally absent. indeed, my only real concept of an advancing army comes from a bridge too far - where it just seems to be one long traffic jam, saving private Ryon, where there seems to be no front line at all and it seems totally chaotic and some film with Clint Eastwood and three sherman tanks where they try to raid a bank and it seems to be a combination of total chaos and a big traffic jam. So no camps, no patrols, just a "big push".

The problem I'm having is that, I've no idea whether these "patrols" are a routine thing or occur extreme infrequently. And this concept of advancing camp to camp seems to be unique to the Romans and not present in modern warfare.