Topic: Is the Canadian Naval Reserve all but finished?

[RCNVRSHAD]

Drastic changes about to be implemented to the Navres.

The Navres will no longer be an operational Formation.

It will be moved under MarPac west coast.

The majority of full time naval reserve positions will cease to exist.

If the Navres thinks they have a retention problem now (they do), what will it be like a year from now?

 

[Pat in Halifax]

It doesn't make it any easier but this was public knowledge with the restructuring of the Navy that commenced in late 2010. What will become of NAVRESHQ and CFFSQ as a physical entity, I do not know.

[Privateer]

I've heard informal discussions of this, but can someone point me to an official plan / message / document suitable for those without DIN access?   What happens to the KINGSTON class crews?  I don't see them being whisked off and replaced with Reg crews all of a sudden.

[Chief Engineer]

Drastic changes about to be implemented to the Navres.

The Navres will no longer be an operational Formation.

It will be moved under MarPac west coast.

The majority of full time naval reserve positions will cease to exist.

If the Navres thinks they have a retention problem now (they do), what will it be like a year from now?

 

There are certainly changes a foot. NAVRES is already under MARPAC. Little change really, NAVRES is still in Quebec and remain there as will the Fleet School. Yes it is true some positions will not be funded due to budgetary reasons. Some long term full time people on the coasts have been told there is no job for them, mainly people who do ATR type jobs, no one is having their full time contract cut. Some of the these people have been offered ship postions, however many do not want to sail. The MCDV's will still run 3 ships each coast with 4 crews for the foreseeable future. You will see more regs on the ships in the future, however they are hurting as well. The Naval Reserve was never a full time organization, however is very unique as they have been given a operational mission since 95 and have had many full timers, including myself.

[Privateer]

NAVRES is still in Quebec and remain there as will the Fleet School.

Is that a certainty?

[Chief Engineer]

Is that a certainty?

I guess stranger things have happened. I for one would love to see NAVRES and the Fleet school move to Halifax or Esquimalt. It is fact that they are viewed as a strategic asset and politics are in play. The latest NAVRES LINK magazine talks about some of the changes.

[E.R. Campbell]

As I read the navy's strategy, and its' been a while since I have read it, the NAVRES is still in OK shape, relative to the Army's reserve, in any event.

I think common training and co-manning is good for the NAVRES. There will be fewer full time careers for the NAVRES but that's not why we have reserves ... or, at least, it's not why we should have reserves.

The full time mission for the NAVRES was an interesting idea but I'm not sure it was ever the best use of ships or people. I believe there is a valid, indeed important role for minor war vessels. I also believe that some, a few reserve folks can have useful, long term, full time jobs, but most, the overwhelming majority of people we you the CF needs for full time service ought to be 'regulars.' The business of using "full time" reservists, by definition 'part time' sailors, to crew operational warships was not, in my opinion, thought through in sufficient detail. That the NAVRES did it so well, for so long is a tribute to the permashads. 

Times are tough, money is tight, everyone must adjust and adapt.

[Chief Engineer]

As I read the navy's strategy, and its' been a while since I have read it, the NAVRES is still in OK shape, relative to the Army's reserve, in any event.

I think common training and co-manning is good for the NAVRES. There will be fewer full time careers for the NAVRES but that's not why we have reserves ... or, at least, it's not why we should have reserves.

The full time mission for the NAVRES was an interesting idea but I'm not sure it was ever the best use of ships or people. I believe there is a valid, indeed important role for minor war vessels. I also believe that some, a few reserve folks can have useful, long term, full time jobs, but most, the overwhelming majority of people we you the CF needs for full time service ought to be 'regulars.' The business of using "full time" reservists, by definition 'part time' sailors, to crew operational warships was not, in my opinion, thought through in sufficient detail. That the NAVRES did it so well, for so long is a tribute to the permashads. 

Times are tough, money is tight, everyone must adjust and adapt.

I think you have a very accurate assessment there. I would imagine as the MCDV's are phased out over the next 5 to 10 years and the new ships will come online you will see naval reserve personnel augment crews on on all classes of ship either for a deployment or up to a couple of years if needed. There will be full timers of course but in small numbers. Its encouraging though that many full timers will try to be employed in order to make minimum pension requirements if close.

[stoker8]

Question asked of the new admiral November 2013

How do Reserve Force sailors contribute to the overall capability of the RCN?

Answer:

The Naval Reserves are an integral part of our “one navy”, and they have been ever since Walter Hose established them as the RCN’s visible footprint across Canada in the 1920s. In many cities and towns, the Naval Reserves are the navy, and that speaks to one of their most enduring functions. I’m really proud of our Naval Reserves – those who have chosen to make a difference by serving as part-time sailors within their own communities, as well as those serving full-time in the fleet and elsewhere in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).

From their stellar performance in responding to domestic floods and providing maritime security during Op Podium (the CAF mission in support of the 2010 Winter Olympics), our part-time sailors have demonstrated the importance and utility of having a strategic reserve whose competence is centred in sea service. At the same time, the full-time reservists who make up the overwhelming majority of our Kingston-class maritime coastal defence vessel crews have developed indispensable skills in coastal defence and mine warfare.

By the way, the Admiral joined as a reserve stoker and spent five years at HMCS Cataraqui prior to transferring to the regular Navy.

[NavyShooter]

Was briefed the other day by a real nice coat of arms representing some important folks in the RCN.

The ONE NAVY concept means that (as I understood it) we'll be seeing Naval Reservists sailing on all classes of RCN ships, with the exception of the Submarine Fleet.

The Reserve force will actually be better integrated, and offered more/different sailing opportunities than they may have previously seen before in the MCDV's.

NS

[stoker8]

Yes, reservists will be offered more platforms to serve on in the future other than MCDV's.

However, just how will a true Naval reservist ever gain a qualification on a Frigate/ Destroyer/ JSS or AOP's when the average Naval reserve member can only give a couple of weeks a year and parades one or two nights a week locally?

Regular full time Navy coursing is months in length not days or even weeks?

I remember the seventies and even the eighties when reserve sailors who came aboard "the heavy's" were treated as nothing more than cheap labor for cleaning stations etc. because they simply did not have the qualifications and could not even get loaded on the regular navy courses even if they could get the time off from their civilian work.

[Chief Engineer]

Yes, reservists will be offered more platforms to serve on in the future other than MCDV's.

However, just how will a true Naval reservist ever gain a qualification on a Frigate/ Destroyer/ JSS or AOP's when the average Naval reserve member can only give a couple of weeks a year and parades one or two nights a week locally?

Regular full time Navy coursing is months in length not days or even weeks?

I remember the seventies and even the eighties when reserve sailors who came aboard "the heavy's" were treated as nothing more than cheap labor for cleaning stations etc. because they simply did not have the qualifications and could not even get loaded on the regular navy courses even if they could get the time off from their civilian work.

You have a good point, but most of the reserve trades accomplish that now as most trades training is the same for reg or reserve. We have reservists now that sail on CPF's for a month here and a month there and they manage to get their packages signed off. Technical trades is another thing altogether, although the MESO's competently took the KINGSTON Class to sea for the last 19 years and they are only meant to be operators. Active reservists still do come out for several months during the summer  so much could be accomplished then. The days of the "Shads" acting like cheap labour are over thankfully.

[Monsoon]

However, just how will a true Naval reservist ever gain a qualification on a Frigate/ Destroyer/ JSS or AOP's when the average Naval reserve member can only give a couple of weeks a year and parades one or two nights a week locally?

I don't know who these reservists are - these ones that keep getting mentioned whenever this sort of discussion comes up. They definitely don't look like the majority of people in my unit. At the front end of their careers, reservists are either university students or straight up itinerantly employed (as most young folks are) and have months a year if not years straight to give. It's only once the rhythm of a career and family life settle in that the two-nights-a-week-and-two-weeks-a-year pattern is set. By then, you should only be needing to focus on refresher training.

The length of those six-month long QL3 courses in the Reg F is driven more by the rhythm of the posting season than by academic requirements. They can certainly be seen off in a few condensed months augmented by extensive DL/DT and an OJT package. The Reg F itself is looking at fixing its coursing this way. And quite frankly, a KYSB for a heavy takes maybe two weeks longer to complete than for a MWV once you're trade qualified.

Also, fixed this thread title.

[dapaterson]

See also: this thread or, for the Army Reserve, Reserves 2000.

[Pat in Halifax]

The length of those six-month long QL3 courses in the Reg F is driven more by the rhythm of the posting season than by academic requirements. They can certainly be seen off in a few condensed months augmented by extensive DL/DT and an OJT package.

Not sure where this came from but that (as Stuart said to Sheldon) "couldn't be more wrong". Not even training for trade specific coursing is based on posting cycles as courses, due to changing content, are always in a state of flux. Could DL be used in some cases? Yes, it could but we are already seeing that there are issues with 5-10 day DLs for the various Leadership courses due to limited bandwidth at sea and/or the inability to free up personnel on operational deployments. As well, did you know that submariners have to be landed for DL-sort of defeats the purpose doesn't it. DL is not the end all to be all that many leaders are counting on it to be and some people are going to have to wake up to reality soon. Every single QSP review I have ever been involved in has several goals and one is ALWAYS the reduction of time in a classroom and more time in an operational Unit. The problem is that some of these course by virtue of the trade requirement MUST be in the 12 - 18 month range and conventionally a Reservist is not available as there is a follow up 12 month OJPR attached to that. This is NO DIFFERENT than a Community College technician/technologist diploma.
Personally, I see this as the single most prevalent stumbling block to the MESO trade and God knows, many of us are trying to come up with a solution to this but someone either CTing or cross training to something other than KIN class is going to have to sacrifice rank and as unfair as that is, right now, we are scratching our heads trying to come up with a fair and equitable but also effective option. I think we will but it will be years and not months as the grown ups in Ottawa would like to see.  As effective as the KIN class and their crews continue to be, the 'Reserve only' crewing (yes, I know there's a WEng (NET) and ETech posit), and at no fault at all to those who gave their all in support of the training and operational deployment of these ships, the leadership forgot about one of the mandates of the Reserves; support to RegF operations. The crews had to become so class specific in their training that some trades (not all) ceased to be able to meet this mandate...again, no fault AT ALL to the dedicated women and men who continue to sail these ships.
Finally, I don`t like the change in the title you made. Based on what has occurred in the Naval Reservist world in the last 20 years, someone (high up) finally realized a fundamental mistake had been made; tying Naval Reserve training to one class of vessel. It took 20 years to realize this error and leadership wants it fixed `tomorrow`. No one ever said change was good, it is, however, inevitable and I can`t help but wonder where this conversation might be 5 years from now. If it were Pat`s decision right now, it would be a matter of a simple interview to see if an individual wants the RegF lifestyle and a CT over with no loss in rank but a restriction in employment until training can be brought up to the RegF equivalent-That a person`s career may be `stalled ` for a period is an unfortunate reality but atleast there is no loss of rank. Alas, that is a pipedream and I knew it as I typed.

My 4 am Saturday morning two cents worth.

Pat

PS: And yes, I am a firm believer that `atleast` should be one word!

[Monsoon]

Not sure where this came from but that (as Stuart said to Sheldon) "couldn't be more wrong". Not even training for trade specific coursing is based on posting cycles as courses, due to changing content, are always in a state of flux. Could DL be used in some cases? Yes, it could but we are already seeing that there are issues with 5-10 day DLs for the various Leadership courses due to limited bandwidth at sea and/or the inability to free up personnel on operational deployments.

You're right - let me caveat my observations to say that I was talking about the operator/non-tech trades, which predominate in NAVRES. Does an NCIOP/NAVCOM/Boatswain/RMS Clk/Cook QL3 really need to be six months long? No, but since the tech trade courses need to be that long, it makes it easier to establish an initial training battle rhythm for the fleet as a whole that sees all QL3s occupy roughly the same number of calendar months between BMQ/NETP and posting to ship.

MESO (and the Reg F tech trades) are an entirely different story, and one that frankly I don't know enough about to comment on.

As well, did you know that submariners have to be landed for DL-sort of defeats the purpose doesn't it. DL is not the end all to be all that many leaders are counting on it to be and some people are going to have to wake up to reality soon.

I hear this a lot from people. When I talk to them further it turns out they've had no exposure to DL/DT, but they "just know" it won't work, or they're thinking of those stupid online e-courses that it's become faddish to force people to take (not saying that's the case with you, but it speaks to a general resistance to, well, everything that predominates in our organization). Let's look at the USN training model - they do a lot of things wrong, but can anyone say that the largest and most effective navy in the world doesn't know what it's doing? Members get the minimal amount of training ashore possible and are posted to ship with the expectation that the ship's CoC will continue to drive their training through a mix of DL, DT (they're different things) and OJT. Their whole employment model is predicated on an assumption that the majority of members will spend only two to three years in the military: training and operational employment time. I don't think we want to go there as a force, but we sure as hell can learn from them when it comes to figuring out the minimal viable product we can post to sea.

Finally, I don`t like the change in the title you made. Based on what has occurred in the Naval Reservist world in the last 20 years, someone (high up) finally realized a fundamental mistake had been made; tying Naval Reserve training to one class of vessel.

I entirely agree - and now we're fixing that problem, effectively going back to the way it was between 1920 and the early 1980s when reserve training QSPs fell behind their Reg F equivalents, and we have people waving their hands and crying that "the end is nigh". The RCN suffers from a discouragingly defeatist organizational culture towards the base of the pyramid.

If it were Pat`s decision right now, it would be a matter of a simple interview to see if an individual wants the RegF lifestyle and a CT over with no loss in rank but a restriction in employment until training can be brought up to the RegF equivalent-That a person`s career may be `stalled ` for a period is an unfortunate reality but atleast there is no loss of rank.

If the reserve is organized to force generate individual augmentees, and those individual reservists don't have the necessary training to augment at their current rank, then what is the point of giving them that rank? Not saying that's how it IS now, but let's agree at least on how it SHOULD be.

[ModlrMike]

Small derail:

Until such time as they migrate all DL to a system that is easily accessed from home, the DL system will continue to be difficult for reservists to access, regardless of element.

[Pat in Halifax]

Also, when I mentioned that submarines have to land personnel for DL, it is because there is physically no way to do it when the submarine is deployed. As for operational sea going units, previously as NCM PD Chief in MARLANT, I would get 3-4 per session who just couldn't do it due to insufficient bandwidth. CDA/CFLRS has since come up with a workaround for that but the submariners are still hooped.
I think the Naval Reserve as we got to know it WRT KIN class will soon be a thing of the past but my comment about CTing over at the same rank is because in some cases, the rank is a requirement for the qual...again, it would mean restricting postings (other than training) to one class and a bunch of shore postings.
The RegF also needs to get it's s*** together WRT PLARS. MPs, RMS clerks (cooks?) are getting there but we are not yet for the majority. Even though the Navy has 2 technical training plans through civilian institutions, essentially if you join with this diploma as a civi, you wont get credit for all the stuff you did in uniform. We are hurting in the tech trade world and the Reserve force has the potential to be a resource as yet untapped.

[Journeyman]

Also, when I mentioned that submarines have to land personnel for DL, it is because there is physically no way to do it when the submarine is deployed.

Perhaps it's time to bulldoze the Canadian Defence Academy, if all those high-priced Generals and Colonels can't figure out a way to produce a DL program on CD that a sailor with a laptop/tablet can work on while at sea then submit once ashore.

I know of several civie institutions that managed that, before everything became internet-centric.

[Monsoon]

Also, when I mentioned that submarines have to land personnel for DL, it is because there is physically no way to do it when the submarine is deployed. As for operational sea going units, previously as NCM PD Chief in MARLANT, I would get 3-4 per session who just couldn't do it due to insufficient bandwidth.

Subs are different for a lot of reasons: the crews are small relative to the complexity of the systems (as compared to an MCDV of a comparable crew size), so I don't think there's a lot of room to accommodate junior members who aren't fully trade qualified (as compared to on a heavy) even in low-readiness sailing. But subs are the RCN's "special" capability - no one's talking about delivering JTF2 or CLD training by DL either. The 90% use case to target is paring back the time to OFP for operator trades on the heavies.

[Navy_Pete]

...
I hear this a lot from people. When I talk to them further it turns out they've had no exposure to DL/DT, but they "just know" it won't work, or they're thinking of those stupid online e-courses that it's become faddish to force people to take (not saying that's the case with you, but it speaks to a general resistance to, well, everything that predominates in our organization). Let's look at the USN training model - they do a lot of things wrong, but can anyone say that the largest and most effective navy in the world doesn't know what it's doing? Members get the minimal amount of training ashore possible and are posted to ship with the expectation that the ship's CoC will continue to drive their training through a mix of DL, DT (they're different things) and OJT. Their whole employment model is predicated on an assumption that the majority of members will spend only two to three years in the military: training and operational employment time. I don't think we want to go there as a force, but we sure as hell can learn from them when it comes to figuring out the minimal viable product we can post to sea.
....

Their model can't be applied to the RCN (or RN, RAN, RNZN etc) for a few reasons;

1.  They have a huge number of available billets on ships at sea.  They do a very significant amount of hands on OJT.  We have very few billets on actually operational ships.  We don't have room for many trainees oboard, so people have to show up with a lot of training already done, including a lot of the hands on stuff, which DL isn't really appropriate for.

2.  Their technicians are specialized; our sailors are generalists.  You need less initial training if you only do one small task.  We require more initial training as our sailors are required to know a little about everything (ie everyone does DC, FP, first aid, etc in addition to primary jobs)

Have a tonne of respect for the USN folks btw; their sailors are very professional and the experienced ones are experts in what they do.  They do however have folks onboard on some of the carriers that are untrained whose sole job is to do things like cleaning etc.  On the new ships they've specifically reduced the billets due to the lifetime costs associated with crewing them, so they have to have the crew show up better trained, which will eventually mean more ashore training.

Basically, comparing anyone to the USN is apples and oranges; if you look at the RN, RAN, or other similar NATO navies (French Navy as well), we all have similar trade training requirements.  Likely that we aren't all doing things wrong.

[Monsoon]

Their model can't be applied to the RCN (or RN, RAN, RNZN etc) for a few reasons;

...

Basically, comparing anyone to the USN is apples and oranges; if you look at the RN, RAN, or other similar NATO navies (French Navy as well), we all have similar trade training requirements.  Likely that we aren't all doing things wrong.

I agree for the most part, but I think we're kidding ourselves when we say we absolutely can't apply any of the USN's techniques successfully to pare a four-month QL3 down to, say, three months plus a longer OJT package and small DL/DT phase.

[ModlrMike]

To add, DL does not mean electronic delivery exclusively. It could be a combination of self directed learning and online exams or submissions of coursework for example.

[quadrapiper]

To add, DL does not mean electronic delivery exclusively. It could be a combination of self directed learning and online exams or submissions of coursework for example.

Which, while it might be a hassle-trending-to-unworkable for personnel on deployed units (barring solutions particular to those situations) sounds tailor-made for the NRDs.

[stoker8]

A good read here when time permits, pretty much sums it all up, even though it's a couple of years old.

http://naval.review.cfps.dal.ca/forum/view.php?topic=35

I for one believe that the title of this forum subject could be correct (hope not...). Not for al trades of course, but for Meso and even Mars bar...?

The Navres (Navy) has spent a huge sum of money over the last dozen or more years on recruiting and the good ole Navy bus attraction thing.

They put two fulltime recruiters at each unit and told them to "sell" the Navres by offering "employment" plain and simple, along with some tuition reimbursement and a class A dental plan.

When those that were recruited using this model figure out that the employment angle has pretty much dried up they are not going to hang around I bet.

The majority of units can barely maintain a decent size now, and the French units are in very bad shape personnel wise.

The coastal units fare better and also attract quite a few ex reg sailors as well, so they will be o.k.

The Navres has never achieved it's authorized manning level and is shrinking last time I saw the numbers.

The "grown-ups need to get a grip on this fast"...