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Informing the Army’s Future Structure - CAMO Discussion

I get the sense that this is being imposed on the PRes, rather than being actively sought out. The inclusion in 2nd/Defence of Canada Division of things like the DOMOPS IRU role and the Canadian Rangers aren’t what the ‘Militia Myth’ crowd traditionally loves — but they are things that the Reg Force historically hates and view as a distraction to what it does think is important — high intensity war in Europe and lower intensity war everywhere else.

And if the PRes was really trying to build a ‘2nd best army’ then 2 Div would probably include the Reserve battle schools, which it won’t — they seem to be listed under the “Training Formation” — the successor to LFDTS/CADTC. Which suggests that individual and collective training for the 2 Div is probably destined to play second fiddle to the needs of the 1st/Manoeuvre Division.

Good points... I may have over estimated the 'pull' the PRes has these days.

Anyways, Gawd Bless 'em all and I wish them great success! ;)

cohen baron GIF
 
Help a sailor out.

If you have Svc Bns in the BGs and brigades already.

Why have a brigade sized Svc Bn ?
Wow. That's a question that could take a book to answer. There are very many different ways of structuring CSS in a field force but let's bring it to the two key issues:

1. fighting elements - companies and battalions exist well forward in austere areas where the more agile a force is, and therefore unencumbered by a large administrative tail, the better. More complex CSS functions can be better carried out in more secure areas to the rear; and

2. CSS must be continuous. Generally it works on day cycles albeit that sometimes, in an emergency, it may need to be more often than that. Distance from supply depots becomes a factor and how many days of supply you can keep as far forward as possible or how far you have to frag damaged equipment back in order to repair it.

In a true divisional structure, brigades are mere tactical units which fight in the close battle while divisions are ones that use their resources to shape operations for the brigades be it through fires or CSS management.

These factors mean that CSS at the company level is tiny, maybe one supply vehicle and a veh recovery team and electronic maint team. At battalion it gets bigger to a maintenance platoon and a supply platoon. At the brigade it grows again to a maint coy and a supply company. For an independent brigade that may be enough with the service battalion tying into a national support element.

Once you build divisions with doctrinal structures, you need to provide both elements for brigade service battalions to tie into and to also provide a service battalion level of support for the divisional troops. Some resources follow different paths such as artillery ammunition from that of small arms and food.

There are many ways to structure this. In many divisions there are no brigade-level service battalions. The divisional CSS brigade does it all - the newly transformed US light divisions with their small MBCTs are an example. There the BSBs are part of the div sustainment brigade. In American armoured divisions, the combined arms, engineer and artillery battalions do not have CSS companies of their own. Their forward support companies are actually part of the TO&E of the brigade support battalion (BSB) but are habitually paired with their supported battalions. Unlike the light divisions, the armoured brigades in an armoured division have their own BSBs. Their division sustainment brigades are basically small and have only a few battalions as standard - a special troops battalion (where you keep funny little groups like finance people, mortuary folks, etc), a sustainment support battalion (supply and transport mostly) and maybe an MP battalion. But they are organized to be reinforced by specialist battalions such as logistics, transport or maintenance as required from the vast herd of USAR and ARNG CSS battalions they have. Note that American fires brigades generally do not have their own BSBs. It matters too as to whether behind the division there is a Canadian-like NSE or an own nation corps or theatre support structure.

To get back to the main point, the structures can vary greatly based on how the relevant army considers and weighs the best way to satisfy the two key issues listed above. IMHO, there does appear to be some redundancy and I do have a hard time understanding the doctrinal concept behind the structure. While I have no issue with a svc bn with each of the CMBGs, I do wonder about the need for a svc bn with each of the arty bde and CCSB. I would thing that the divisional CSS bde should be able to handle that. BUT - and its a big BUT - I don't see 1 Div as a deployable div per se. I see it as a force generating entity that may end up deploying a division-level task force made up of bits and pieces of 1 Div and, again IMHO, you can never have enough CSS force generating elements to draw on - so redundancy is good.

🍻
 
I haven't seen or heard anything beyond the speculation here and on Battle Order. I can see 4 PLDG as it was the only armoured regiment in 1 Inf Div in WW2 as the div recce regiment. But that's just me rationalizing.

🍻

There was a Modernization Naming powerpoint that hammered out the details for new formation names and changes to existing names. In that deck there are two slides, one for the RCAC and one for the RCIC, both slides stated that neither corps had made a decision on naming yet. DHH had suggested the PLDG for the new armoured regiment, and re-badging the LIR to the Royal Rifles of Canada. It was specifically noted that there is a strong desire to avoid regimental names that have a geographic association for Regular Force units, sorry FGH, you are out of the running.

The LIR is now the 3rd CLIR, but I don't know if that is the end of the naming and hat saga for that formation and its units.
 
Wow. That's a question that could take a book to answer. There are very many different ways of structuring CSS in a field force but let's bring it to the two key issues:

1. fighting elements - companies and battalions exist well forward in austere areas where the more agile a force is, and therefore unencumbered by a large administrative tail, the better. More complex CSS functions can be better carried out in more secure areas to the rear; and

2. CSS must be continuous. Generally it works on day cycles albeit that sometimes, in an emergency, it may need to be more often than that. Distance from supply depots becomes a factor and how many days of supply you can keep as far forward as possible or how far you have to frag damaged equipment back in order to repair it.

In a true divisional structure, brigades are mere tactical units which fight in the close battle while divisions are ones that use their resources to shape operations for the brigades be it through fires or CSS management.

These factors mean that CSS at the company level is tiny, maybe one supply vehicle and a veh recovery team and electronic maint team. At battalion it gets bigger to a maintenance platoon and a supply platoon. At the brigade it grows again to a maint coy and a supply company. For an independent brigade that may be enough with the service battalion tying into a national support element.

Once you build divisions with doctrinal structures, you need to provide both elements for brigade service battalions to tie into and to also provide a service battalion level of support for the divisional troops. Some resources follow different paths such as artillery ammunition from that of small arms and food.

There are many ways to structure this. In many divisions there are no brigade-level service battalions. The divisional CSS brigade does it all - the newly transformed US light divisions with their small MBCTs are an example. There the BSBs are part of the div sustainment brigade. In American armoured divisions, the combined arms, engineer and artillery battalions do not have CSS companies of their own. Their forward support companies are actually part of the TO&E of the brigade support battalion (BSB) but are habitually paired with their supported battalions. Unlike the light divisions, the armoured brigades in an armoured division have their own BSBs. Their division sustainment brigades are basically small and have only a few battalions as standard - a special troops battalion (where you keep funny little groups like finance people, mortuary folks, etc), a sustainment support battalion (supply and transport mostly) and maybe an MP battalion. But they are organized to be reinforced by specialist battalions such as logistics, transport or maintenance as required from the vast herd of USAR and ARNG CSS battalions they have. Note that American fires brigades generally do not have their own BSBs. It matters too as to whether behind the division there is a Canadian-like NSE or an own nation corps or theatre support structure.

To get back to the main point, the structures can vary greatly based on how the relevant army considers and weighs the best way to satisfy the two key issues listed above. IMHO, there does appear to be some redundancy and I do have a hard time understanding the doctrinal concept behind the structure. While I have no issue with a svc bn with each of the CMBGs, I do wonder about the need for a svc bn with each of the arty bde and CCSB. I would thing that the divisional CSS bde should be able to handle that. BUT - and its a big BUT - I don't see 1 Div as a deployable div per se. I see it as a force generating entity that may end up deploying a division-level task force made up of bits and pieces of 1 Div and, again IMHO, you can never have enough CSS force generating elements to draw on - so redundancy is good.

🍻

Thank you kind Sir. I appreciate that.

:salute: 🍻
 
Official 3 CLIR article


“The new 3rd Canadian Light Infantry Regiment gives 1st Canadian Division the agility and flexibility to respond where heavier formations may be constrained. By integrating with armour, fires, aviation, sustainment and other capabilities, we provide the Division Commander with another tool to generate combat power at scale.”
– Colonel Ben Irvine, Commanding Officer, 3rd Canadian Light Infantry Regiment
 
Official 3 CLIR article


“The new 3rd Canadian Light Infantry Regiment gives 1st Canadian Division the agility and flexibility to respond where heavier formations may be constrained. By integrating with armour, fires, aviation, sustainment and other capabilities, we provide the Division Commander with another tool to generate combat power at scale.”
– Colonel Ben Irvine, Commanding Officer, 3rd Canadian Light Infantry Regiment

Light Infantry Regiment... half a league away from the 'Light Brigade' ;)
 
In reality it is essentially a reactivation of 3 CMBG, without the Mechanized and Group parts.

Or, interestingly enough because of the three different Infantry regiments represented in their silos, the Airborne Regiment...

... upsized to Battalions instead of Commandoes.
 
Does RCAF have plans to grow pilot training capacity? Fleets are growing (in number of fleets and size) but there's been no discussion I'm aware of to grow pilot training capacity (or to streamline and reduce pilot training time by acknowledging that rotary and fixed wing are different).

They do. That's part of the training fleet restructuring. It just takes a while to make instructor pilots. And once the new fleets are in, it's easy to buy a few more birds if needed.
 
Was there ever 3 CMBG, wasnt it just 3 CIBG?
3 CIBG became 3 CMBG became 3 CG. There are textual records over on Library and Achieves Canada to support this, but you can also find it here:
I've seen a couple of previous postings with questions about the 3rd CIB so I thought I would provide the following.

The Headquarters of the post war 3rd CIB was authorized on 9 Oct 1952 and originally located at Camp Valcartier. It was the only brigade headquarters of the four in the field forces without an antecedent. The 1st CIB was authorized as a replacement for the HQ 27th CIB, the 2nd CIB was the redesignation of the 25th CIB Replacement Group and the 4th CIB was the redesignation of the 25th CIB. None of the brigade headquarters, with the exception of the 1st CIB in Germany, had any permanently assigned troops under command (TUC). The Canadian based brigade headquarters only exercised command during scheduled exercises or in the plans put forward by AHQ for the organization (in times of emergency) of the 1st CID. Regional location of the sub-units did not play into these plans as one version of them showed that 3 CIB would have as TUC one infantry battalion each from Eastern, Central and Western Commands.

During the 1958 reorganization of the field forces away from the divisional structure and towards independent brigade groups (which was believed to be a better way of dealing with formation command and control on the nuclear battlefield) all four of the brigade headquarters were redesignated as headquarters of infantry brigade groups. On 15 March, 1958 the 3rd CIB became 3 CIBG. Permanent TUC were to be assigned. 3 CIBG, the largest brigade group, had its TUC located in Quebec and Eastern Commands. HQ 3 CIBG was moved to its new location in Camp Gagetown right after the 1958 summer concentration concluded. HQ Camp Gagetown had been authorized on 28 March and activated on 27 June 1956. The 1/8th Canadian Hussars was already in situ having been organized there on 29 Jan, 1957. The remaining units of 3 CIBG were to arrive at Gagetown over 1958 and 1959, however some did not arrive until well into the 1960's.

The first infantry battalion, 2 RHC, arrived during May, 1958 from Aldershot. Over the next several years the major units rotated in and out of the brigade group as NATO commitments came and went. Temporary unit postings to Cyprus and UNEF also took place. HQ 3 CIBG was also responsible for the field forces located at Camp Valcartier and the Citadel in Quebec City. Valcartier would have (depending on the NATO commitment) one or two battalions of the R22eR, the medium battery of the artillery regiment located in Gagetown and, until it was rotated to Germany, A Squadron of the 1/8th CH. The Citadel always had an R22eR battalion in residence.

On 1 June, 1968 the three brigade groups in Canada were renamed and retasked as combat groups (eg, 3 Combat Group). One of the major changes involved in the new tasking was the relinquishing of operational control of the TUC by the combat group headquarters. They now had only an administrative and not an operational role. This was part of the new Mobile Command field force structure which sought to increase response flexibility by doing away with structured brigade groups and replacing them with ad hoc task forces. These task forces, whose headquarters would be created from HQ MobCom personnel or from the HQ of the combat groups, could be assigned units from anywhere in Canada depending on the needs of the task force and the readiness of the individual units to respond. While good on paper (or not) the ability of the combat group headquarters would have been severely limited to provide anything resembling a task force headquarters as the new structure; a) encompassed the group commander's responsibilities as a troop administrator and as a base commander b) split the brigade's (or rather the group's) signal squadron off from its associated headquarters, and c) had an establishment of only 11 officers, 11 other ranks, and 10 civilians.

None of these changes would actually affect 3 Combat Group in the long run as its future demise had already been decided. The previous month (May, 1968) a new group HQ for 5e GC had been authorized. The creation of 5e GC meant that the land forces now had a combat group too many. The new group also meant that 3 Combat Group's Quebec-based TUC were assigned to it. No regard was given to the fact that the 5e GC did not yet exist, did not have a functioning HQ, an artillery regiment (even the Valcartier-based battery was in Cyprus at the time), an armoured regiment, could not receive a Brigadier-General's position for its commander until 1 January, 1969, or that CFB Valcartier could not yet support the aforementioned without a massive infrastructure increase, the die had been cast.

Within two years however, 5e GC was ready and 3 Combat Group's time had come. On 27 May, 1970 the entire group paraded for the last time under its commander, Brigadier-General CJA Hamilton (late PPCLI). Taking part in the march past and roll past were HQ 3 CG, 2 RCHA, The RCD, 2 Field Squadron, 3 Signal Squadron, 1 RHC, 2 RHC and 3 Service Battalion. At midnight 3 Combat Group was no more and standing in its place was the new Headquarters Combat Training Centre and Camp Gagetown under Brigadier-General Duncan McAlpine (late RHC). Two months later both battalions of the RHC were placed on the Supplementary Order of Battle and its soldiers badged as members of The RCR. At the same time The RCD was transfered to Germany and replaced by C Squadron of the 8th Canadian Hussars. 2 RCHA was transfered to CFB Petawawa less E Battery which remained in Gagetown to support the CTC. In time 3 Signal Squadron and 3 Service Battalion would both be disbanded.

This then, is a short review of the 17 1/2 year history of 3 CIB / CIBG / CG.
 
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