# Inter branch politics - Army, Navy, Airforce, and a Joint Force



## Zipper (26 Mar 2005)

So I ask. What is this all about? How deep does it go? And how much is it holding us back?

I've heard it mentioned many times during arguments for an "all arms" force, and also for the pulling of reasorces between the Army, Navy, and Air Force. But is it within each as well?

Just wondering.


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## PPCLI Guy (26 Mar 2005)

We have a zero sum funding game, so any service that gets funding, de facto gets it out of the hide of another service, which contributes to interservi e rivalry.  The same holds true, to a lesser extent, within the Army.  

Don't even get me started about the Artillery Corps... >


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## SeaKingTacco (26 Mar 2005)

> Don't even get me started about the Artillery Corps...



Whew- for a second I thought that you meant the "Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery"- then I realized that you were probably talking about the US Army when you made the "Corps" reference...

Cheers!


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## ArmyAviator (29 Mar 2005)

> Whew- for a second I thought that you meant the "Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery"- then I realized that you were probably talking about the US Army when you made the "Corps" reference...
> 
> Cheers!



SeaKingTacco

    PPCLI Guy was not mistaken when he referred to the Artillery Corps.  In the Army the term Corps has a couple of meanings.  There is the formation - Corps - which consists of two or more divisions or it can refer to a grouping of one of the Combat Arms such as Armoured Corps, Infantry Corps, etc. 8).  Not trying to be a smart***, just passing on some gen so that you can say you learned something today.


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## Ex-Dragoon (29 Mar 2005)

I think the original poster was trying to determine "Inter _Element_ Politics" vice Inter _Branch _ Politics


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## SeaKingTacco (29 Mar 2005)

> PPCLI Guy was not mistaken when he referred to the Artillery Corps.  In the Army the term Corps has a couple of meanings.  There is the formation - Corps - which consists of two or more divisions or it can refer to a grouping of one of the Combat Arms such as Armoured Corps, Infantry Corps, etc. .  Not trying to be a smart***, just passing on some gen so that you can say you learned something today.



ArmyAviator-

You may just want to flip through my profile before you start "educating" me about the army and the Artillery in particular...

Not trying to be a smart*** either.

Having just reveiwed the RCA Standing Orders online at www.artillery.net, I can confirm that the Artillery, as a collective in Canada's Army, is generally refered to as the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, and not as a "corps"  (in the same sense of a Infantry Corps or Armoured Corps).

If a currently serving gunner wants to correct my interpretation of the Standing Orders, I'm listening.

And to get us back on track, the discussion is about whether or not interbranch (ie Army, Navy, Air Force) politics are holding us back.  Can't say for certain, but if the zero-sum funding games that go on within the Air Force are indication of what is happening between the services, I would have to say- yes.

Cheers


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## Zipper (29 Mar 2005)

Thanks for the posts guys.

I did ask the question in the broad sence. But also in the seeming war between Armour, Arty, Inf, Support, etc. as well. This can also be applied to surface fleet and sub. East coast and West. Base Cold Lake and Trenton.

It seems to me that there are vague refences to other Orgs if you will taking up more money to the negative of others. Or is this just whining?

I ask this because of the push to have a ONE Org type of military. No Army/Navy/Air Force. No Armoured Corp/Infantry Corp/Arty. And even to the point of no Regiments.

So how valid is this mystery? And does it/will it effect these decisions?


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## SeaKingTacco (30 Mar 2005)

Zipper-

What you seem to be proposing (forgive me if I'm placing the wrong words into your mouth), is an organization where no one is specialized and any one can move anywhere within the CF as they chose/are needed.  This, IMHO, is not realistic.  It takes time and money to grow MARS Officers, Aircrew,  Combat Engineers, etc, etc.  If you don't allow them to work enough in one field, they don't get good at their jobs.  

Using Maritime Helicopters as a prime example, for a while after unification (I'm told)  pilots within the CF were viewed as largely interchangeable- one year's fighter pilot could be next year's Sea King pilot.  The problem is, there are vast differences in cultures to bridge-working off a ship is a whole different set of living conditions, the tactical environment is completely different and even the flying skills are different.  Eventually, you more or less stayed within your community for life, because you developed expertise.  I think this a good thing.

The valid point which you have raised is: at what point in each of our careers is the best time to be forced to learn about how the other elements work?  At what point do we start to stress loyalty to the CF as a whole, rather than your unit or community?

I kind of did it to myself by leaving the Army for the Air Force and flying for the Navy.  This has given me a pretty good grasp of pan-CF issues, but I'm pretty short of solutions to the problem we have of overly-developed tribalism in the CF.

Cheers


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## Zipper (30 Mar 2005)

LOL, nice post and thanks 

However. I am not proposing anything of the sort. In fact I am wondering at the rumblings within the top brass about it, and them using my question as a argument for it. At least thats what I hear. Which may be all BS that I am just imagining.

In other words, they are thinking of moving the CAF towards a more Marine type org.

Thanks


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## ArmyAviator (30 Mar 2005)

SeaKingTacco:  I stand, humbly, corrected :-[  I have heard gunners use the term, apparently incorrectly, to describe their (your past) organization.  I guess this is were I picked it up. 

As stated back to the original intent, I certainly have seen directly and indirect inter-service and interbranch politics played out at all levels.  We see it in 1 Wing all the time.  (From discussions with Sea King Aircrew it would appear as they get almost as much as we do - or maybe more.)  It even occurs between Fleets in the Air Force.  Senior staff try to screw each other over a few sheckels to bolster "their" community.  (Qualifier: This is not to say it is rampit, but it happens and the damage is often far reaching.)

For inter element there are problems that are difficult to surmount.  With 1 Wing, we try to be responsive to the needs of the Army and try to put forth our plans that are in sync with the Army transformation.  However when it comes down to actions and money we have to go begging to the Air Force for the technical, Staff, and financial support.  The Air Force has its priorities and for the long term 1 Wing is not one of them.  So we go back to the Land Staff and tell them that the Air Force won't support.  The Army can't wait around for us so they carry on and 1 Wing takes one more step in the direction of irrelevance.  The ERSTA project is a fine example of this.  Look at the TUAV situation as another example of inter-service politics.  The Air Force bitched and wined about the Army actually flying something.  Instead of being cooperative in helping the Army get through the Airworthiness process they often were a hinderence.  Eventually, (and this now gets into third hand info so info is vague and subject to correction,) The CLS had enough and gave the Air Force the TUAVs with supporting PY's as long as the TUAVs went to 1 Wing.  

_As a side issue, my personal take on this is that in the Air Force we tend to align the C2 of our forces based upon the easiest logistical structure. Where as I believe you should align forces under the proper C2 structure and the logistical and admin support adapts.  This to me means 1 Wing should be under command of the Comd of the Army.  Let the Airworthiness, aircrew and tech trg align itself to support 1 Wing not the other way around.  (My little rant )_


Hmmm.  Can't get the spell check to work.  Damn, I'm in trouble. :blotto:


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## FSTO (30 Mar 2005)

Zipper said:
			
		

> LOL, nice post and thanks
> 
> However. I am not proposing anything of the sort. In fact I am wondering at the rumblings within the top brass about it, and them using my question as a argument for it. At least thats what I hear. Which may be all BS that I am just imagining.
> 
> ...



Take a look at the USN, (I know, we can argue forever about who actually "owns" the USMC) you could argue that Hellyer should have looked at their org as a template for our own "Unified" Armed Forces.

_Just as an aside, when we had a carrier, every summer our Sea Furies and later Banshees would train with the army in Shilo Manitoba (flying out of Rivers Manitoba) in close air support exercises. I think we were more "Joint" in the 50's and early 60's than we have ever been since unification_


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## McG (30 Mar 2005)

FSTO said:
			
		

> Take a look at the USN, (I know, we can argue forever about who actually "owns" the USMC) you could argue that Hellyer should have looked at their org as a template for our own "Unified" Armed Forces.


I've read in a few places that Hellyer did look to the USMC as the model for unification.


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## Old Sweat (30 Mar 2005)

The whole subject of unification got very muddled, and I lived through it, because the administrative issues such as removal of duplication and inefficiencies of scale became confused with operational matters. Thus strange things happened such as the reduction of the number of trades to less than one hundred because Mr Hellyer stated that as one of the goals of his grand design. People in the support world generally came out of this much the worse for wear, as opposed to say the combat arms who were screwed about to a much lesser extent. 

When the commands were unified, which was the second major step after the creation of Canadian Forces Headquarters, Maritime Command absorbed the RCAF maritime patrol world and Mobile Command took over what little tactical fast air we had, a few T33s at Rivers, I believe. The army at that time already had integral aviation including 1 Transport Helicopter Platoon with six (I think) Voyaguer helicopters. The old RCAF transport and air defence commands remained relatively intact and Air Training Command became the nucleus of Training Command which absorbed the other services' schools.

Mobile Command was very roughly based on the Fleet Marine Force and consisted of the land forces in Canada, including the aviation assets, the tactical air squadrons and the Buffalo squadron which was being formed at roughly the same time. It was planned to have a mobile logistics tail as was the case for the Marines, but force reductions soon ended that.

The forces in Europe, Canadian Army National Force Europe and the 1st Air Division, remained as two separate commands reporting to CFHQ at this time.

The reserves did not belong to any of the operational commands, but were part of a separate chain which did all sorts of harm.

Where the "jointness" fell down, and this was never resolved, was that the existing operational roles were single service. For example Maritime Command including Maritime Air Group had a very real and very necessary operational role under the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic. Mr Hellyer liked to complain that the services all had different concept of operations with the navy seeing itself escorting convoys, the army fighting a 30-day land battle in Europe and the air force going out in a blaze of nuclear energy. All this was quite true, and it was precisely because these were the roles of each service in a period of escalating tension leading to the outbreak of conventional war in Europe that could go nuclear at any time.

It was very difficult to become joint under these conditions which really remained until the end of the Cold War. Today we (or rather you) are in a whole new game and logic seems to indicate that jointness is the way ahead, at least until something completely unforeseen comes along again.


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## FSTO (30 Mar 2005)

MCG said:
			
		

> I've read in a few places that Hellyer did look to the USMC as the model for unification.



Maybe so but he didn't realize that your need a Navy (and Air Force   ;D) to get your marines to where they need to be.


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## FSTO (30 Mar 2005)

Old Sweat said:
			
		

> When the commands were unified, which was the second major step after the creation of Canadian Forces Headquarters, *Maritime Command absorbed the RCAF maritime patrol world * and Mobile Command took over what little tactical fast air we had, a few T33s at Rivers, I believe.



There was a drive in the 50's for the RCN to take over Maritime Air Patrol duties from the RCAF (modled on the USN) but was shot down by internal RCN politics and a concerted effort by the RCAF. When unification came about Admiral O'Brien (sp) was delighted to pick up Maritime Air Patrol group. Legend has it that the Navy went down to Greenwood and kicked out about 20% of the deadwood that the Air Force had accumulated there. Shortly thereafter Air Command was formed and (for want of a better word) they got their stuff back. But for a very short time the Navy (on the east coast at least) owned the Argus.


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