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My experiences were with both German and Italian army draftees and in general were quite positive. Italians even created sergeants and 2nd lieutenants from their draftee intake leaving a very small pool of officers and senior NCOs in the regiment to be "professional" soldiers. 🍻

That can certainly be done. We re-role field artillery to air defence. These are different skill sets. In the past we've re-roled cavalry to machine gun and infantry to anti tank. It can be done. The thing is though that there are so few army reservists, that it isn't necessary to re-role...

It wasn't when there were MilDists under MilAreas reporting the FMC HQ after Suttie from 1968 to 1991. I know that military memories are short but this appears full circle as it stands. Titanic! Deckchairs! Let me disagree, my friend. We're at the point where we need to start building mass...

They already were under a div hq with command oversight. If that wasn't enough then it was a systemic failure. I don't disagree that creating a "war fighting " division is a good step forward. I don't think that's what you're getting. What you're getting is an administrative entity overseeing a...

No it doesn't. The history doesn't impede anything if you have a proper future to work towards. The reason people look backwards is because they have nothing to look forward to. If I was a reservist these days and told that my future would be homeland defence and "no, we don't know what that...

I'm having real problems in putting my finger on where the problem is. During my interviews for WAFG I spoke to a very large cross-section of folks - from gunners to CDSs. Folks at the top aren't dumb. They're amongst the best that the system develops but it strikes me that, as a system, it is...

It gets back to our Brit heritage which was different from the European and American derivative of that. It's a peacetime/wartime thing. In peace you organize to simplify admin and training. In war its different. You won't see your FOOs and BC hardly ever, which is why we have BKs to command and...

Welcome back to my army. The Americans go partly that way albeit the folks involved still belong to the brigade's arty regiment. I'm not sure how they'll handle it once they go to full div arty. My guess it will stay the same way with habitually associated arty battalions to manoeuvre brigades...

I've been playing with my napkin army and long ago decided that the OP battery should be converted back to a gun battery. Tactical groups should just be a large troop inside the STA battery. In some ways FOOs are "sensors." :D Good to see things are moving on HIMARS. Incidentally saw this...

I don't mind the RCH gun module itself albeit I'm not certain how well, fast or protected reloading its magazine works. That's why I'm not fond of Archer. I actually think that RCH is too much of a turret for a wheeled chassis. I feel there's a bit of smoke and mirrors with the Boxer chassis but...

That's my problem. The RFI was entirely too limiting and seemed pointed at something wheeled. I don't know why the Canadian army has this fetish for air transportability, road speed and wheels. My only hope is that there is common sense and the RFP gets cleaned up to think Korean. My biggest...

I haven't seen the RFP, but the RFI had a speed provision which negated any tracked howitzer. IMHO, it was a stupid provision that's a residual of the medium wheeled army cabal. I'll be blunt - war in Latvia needs a tracked force if it wants to actualoly manoeuvre year round. One has to look...

They're both interesting questions and well outside my ground pounding expertise. I've been in doubt of the quick seizures of airfields and so on once you factor in a vast abundance of small light AD systems that are widely available and work quite well at the levels that para drops work at...

It's been a long and failed winding road for the US indirect fire modernization process. It all started with the non line of site-cannon but ERCA's barrel wouldn't cut it. The an commitment to start upgrading M109A6 to A7 - which is almost half way to converting the 6-700 they have in active...

Strangely enough, the "wet canteen" is a place where they wouldn't allow this 16-year-old kid in when the drinking age was still 21 in Ontario. On the other hand, there didn't seem to be any big problem getting into the "Gentlemen Only" side of most taverns in Scarborough and ordering a table...

The tiny bundles of cash this young (and dare I see significantly underage) gunner got from the paymaster went directly to the Brewers Retail for multiple 24s of Red Cap. At $4.00 per 24 even our pittance of a quarterly pay went a long way. 🍻

Which, IMHO, is a doctrinal mistake and is most probably caused by us continuing to think that a brigade is the biggest thing we'll ever deploy and therefore needs to be a mini-division with all the attached bells and whistles. Personally I think the problem comes with throwing all of our eggs...

My guess it means that Trump wants all the troops to come from Europe but SACEUR will remain a US general. :giggle: I would guess that if SACEUR became a European officer the Americans would take what's left of their marbles in Europe and go home. 🍻

Me for one. I think the CPC's affirmation of a leader who not only lost his slam-dunk seat and is currently incapable from forming coherent sentences and arguments speaks to the fact that they and I are parting ways. I'm still sitting just right of centre and its good to see that while the CPC...