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To be fair, we also had a fairly hard time mobilizing the population in both world wars — we were slow out of the gate both times, and we did have two full-on conscription crises.

Having a whole of nation mobilization plan, sitting on the shelf, with regular updates, makes perfect sense. It should include everything from legal advice on conscription and internment to estimates of which civilian industrial sectors are vital to the war effort and which can be expected to be...

If that’s what you’re looking for, you can already get all of that as a civil servant. What’s the extra incentive to put on a uniform? And quite possibly a metaphorical uniform, as we don’t even budget for uniforms for our current Supplementary Reservists, Maybe it’s as simple as that one week a...

The Canadian civil service more than doubled in size between 1939 and 1945. As it turns out, national mobilization makes government more, not less, busy. In a worst case scenario, the civil service will have their hands full handling what the Emergencies Act calls a “War Emergency”, they...

The CAF Retention Strategy (2022) quoted some numbers which suggested that the typical Regular Force member serves for 12.2 years. Now, that’s a median, and the release rate isn’t constant as it spikes at various lengths of service — but we are hardly the Roman Legions with their 25 year oaths...

Post-JCSP types are probably too senior to be Brigade G5s, and as Jarmy as CJOC can feel sometimes, that isn’t the right place to employ experts in land warfare. This seems specifically designed to produce staff for the manoeuvre division headquarters in Edmonton — and for those over in CADTC...

Having a reserve force many times larger than the regular force would be uncharted waters. I’m not saying we couldn’t do it, but I’m not sure any country has successfully implemented such a system without conscription in the modern era. Even the US, which has a bit of a tradition of...

The CAF has been using a wide variety of solutions, including new builds, legacy/heritage buildings, and buildings abandoned by the Reg Force (NDMC is one). All are expensive options. There’s also been an experiment in using modular FOB-style buildings - 30 Fd Regt RCA moved into this when their...

Don’t forget about the $100 million for the armoury to house less than 100 effectives. Seriously, in some, maybe most, cases the most expensive part of equipping a reservist is not the gear in his hands, it’s the roof over his head. Infrastructure has to be factored in.

There are other exceptions. In addition to CFR and SRCP, Reserve officers under RESO and Regular officers under CEOTP are not required to have degrees until they reach the rank of Major. DAOD 5002-8 and 5002-6 refer. So, in short, it depends on your commissioning plan.

I took a quick look at google maps, and an 8 hour drive is an unusual figure, as only one brigade group has a geographic size close to that number. The Quebec brigades and the 2 Southern Ontario brigades are much smaller (in the 3 to 5 hour range), and the western brigades are much larger (in...

The Triton/Global Hawk family doesn’t employ dropped stores. The SeaGuardian version of the MQ-9, however, shows promise. It has long endurance, can carry an impressive amount of sonobouys, and acts as a rebroadcaster for sonobouy data. I don’t think anyone’s dropped a torpedo yet from a Reaper...

Thanks for the backstory — so people were actually thumb dropping the hammer onto loaded chambers with the 1911 and BHP? Or at least often enough that there was a term for it? That’s just… wow. Seems so odd to have a manual safety but then ignore it entirely. The ancient ways are fascinating.

Didn’t you guys carry your 226s in Condition 2? That’s how I, and the people I worked with, would carry them. Hammer down on a loaded chamber. The only 226 that should be carried Condition 1 is the fairly uncommon 226 SAO Legion. Edited to add the late Colonel Cooper’s handgun conditions...

Pulling tanks out of Latvia I could live with, as they may not be supportable in the long term, but rotational infantry can’t be easily tied to a single brigade, or a single regiment. It risks burning out one part of the army while the rest is underemployed. Plus, specific to 5 brigade, 80% of...

US international borders can be changed by treaty — negotiated by the State Department, signed by the President, final approval by the Senate. This has actually happened, in 1977 the US and Mexico swapped some islands in the Rio Grande. In the US the county and state level seem to have no...

If we can staff them, we’re golden. Good to go for a generation. If we can’t, we’ve just wasted billions, and it’s going to be extremely challenging to get buy-in for future equipment with questions around whether there’s anyone who will be around to use them. I fear we’re drifting towards...

There’s hiring, then there’s hiring. It won’t help DND much if we get a sudden intake of a bunch of laterals from random departments whose positions got just deleted — experts in passport procurement won’t help. Bonus points if people come in to DND to retain their salary then suddenly claim to...

The USAF/RAF model of a security force formed completely within the RCAF is probably what is being envisioned, as it is compatible with the model used by the RCAF’s two closest partners, but an alternate model where security is provided by personnel drawn from the Army might also be doable. This...

That wasn’t good enough for nukes, and it won’t be good enough for 5th generation fighters. A proper security force isn’t optional — and everyone’s known this for a while. We were never going to be able to secure the world’s 3rd largest F-35 fleet with a padlock.