Airfield defence role for PRes? (From: "Re-Royalization")

[McG]

If the Air Force wants to convert bits of its reserve force to RCAF Infantry, then I expect the results will fall short of the ambition.  But, the individuals will still be available along with all other PRes infantry to support CJOC operations.

However, what you have described as the requirement is not something that is met by PRes.  You want rapid reaction.  That was your argument against using existing Army owned infantry.

How quickly would the army respond to a 'fast ball tasking' the AF gets?  There have been people I know who've been out the door from the phone call in well less than a day, with an aircraft.  Mine 'personal best' was just over 16-18 hours or so from the 'pack' to 'wheels up' time.  Like LRP or SAR units, we could have a flight of these folks on Ready status 24/7 and they'd be out the door with us, if needed.  Having this capability built right into the air force, under air force command, just makes sense. 

Something like this will take PYs. 

 

[Eye In The Sky]

However, what you have described as the requirement is not something that is met by PRes.  You want rapid reaction.  That was your argument against using existing Army owned infantry.Something like this will take PYs.

I'd like there to be people on the ground, sometimes, as things in the world change.  I am not sure where Ditch got his info, but I've no reason to doubt it isn't credible.  How the ARAF intends, or how the RCAF intends to manage these PRES folks, I've no idea.  I've some idea but based on personal WAGs.  I have, however, had friends who were B/As go to Class C in a heartbeat to deploy outside of Canada for operational stuff.  So I know it can happen and fairly quickly.

You can't fault a guy like me for liking the idea of a few sets of eyes who are tune into the local world and people that have their wits about them when I am coming down the ladder after a 24 hour crew day...

That's all I've got, for real. 

 

[Halifax Tar]

Sounds like you are following the RCN lead and creating a unit to specialize in the security needs that are specific to your environment ETIS. 

We did this with the ENBP.  A large portion of which is reservists on class C (I think, but not sure) contracts.  We employ them not just for boardings but for force protection in various scenarios.  And not one of them is an infanteer or even Army for that matter.  There are growing pains as this new establishment shakes out but I suspect when it is all said and done it will be well worth the $$$ spent on it.  Although I don't remember the Army folks droning on about how the ENBP should be an Army job.

I say good on the RCAF.  If this is a capability the leaders in the RCAF have determined is needed then give it to them, irregardless of what a bunch of pongos think is best.

 

[GR66]

My take-away from this is that the CF is really a "Joint" force in name only.  Either the Elements have never lost the mentality of being their own separate services with their own unique needs that only they can properly fill, or the integration at the top of the CF was never sufficient to allow the leadership to truly understand the unique needs of each Element. 

I'm not nearly knowledgeable enough to comment on which is the best way to fix this mess, but it certainly seems to me that this fundamental problem is the source of many of the capability (and equipment) issues faced the by CF.  No clear understanding of specific requirements.  This specific airfield defence issue is just a symptom of a much bigger issue.

:2c:

 

[PuckChaser]

ENBP is wholly different than what we're talking about. No new trade created, found a way to enhance training on a secondary duty to improve operational success. No one in the Army was complaining, because you can readily see the necessity based on the good work done in CARIBBE, etc and the lack of operational skillsets in the Army to conduct that unique of an operation. Guarding fences in an open field isn't unique, and doesn't require specially trained troops.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

ENBP is wholly different than what we're talking about. No new trade created, found a way to enhance training on a secondary duty to improve operational success. No one in the Army was complaining, because you can readily see the necessity based on the good work done in CARIBBE, etc and the lack of operational skillsets in the Army to conduct that unique of an operation. Guarding fences in an open field isn't unique, and doesn't require specially trained troops.

The opinion of a Sig Op Sgt.  Sorry dude, but do you have any air or navy training, experience or knowledge to base this opinion off of? Have you ever been on or even seen a NBP?  How about an ATF? 

It has long been recognised that often it is far easier to prevent the application of air power by attacking it on the ground rather than in the air. Hence, from its early inception the RAF has needed to protect its operations on the ground.

Air power effects are delivered by ever more individually capable but collectively fewer air platforms. They require protection, as do their essential enablers such as personnel, logistics, and information and communications, both at home and when deployed. The loss of even a small number of our combat aircraft or their enablers could significantly impact the successful application of air power, whilst the destruction of a single fully-laden passenger aircraft would have implications of strategic magnitude.

The RAF’s frontline capabilities face a spectrum of threats on the ground ranging from espionage and subversion, through attacks by ground intruders, to stand-off rockets. Moreover, ballistic missile and air attack can never be discounted, plus when aircraft are slow-manoeuvring on approach to or departure from airbases they are vulnerable to surface-to-air fire from missiles or small arms.

The RAF’s FP Force provides a significant proportion of the RAF’s FP capabilities, and is central to the planning of, command and control of, and training for, the Service’s FP, including the integration of other contributors.

The opinion of the RAF.

Airfield Defence Guards (ADG) are non-commissioned Air Force members who provide the specialist ground (combat)  force required to protect air power assets from the effects of hostile ground action in and around Air Force Bases and Installations, both in Australia and overseas during peacetime and on operations;. During peacetime ADGs support Air Force Security (AFSEC) and Air Base Protection (ABP) by conducing routine security tasks, including vehicle and foot patrols, static guarding and control of entry points. On operations ADGs form the basis of the Air Force's ground combat force, protecting Base assets, infrastructure and personnel against attack from enemy ground forces both inside and outside of the airfield perimeter. They also instruct other Air Force personnel in relevant ground defence techniques.

ADGs live and work as a team, normally in groups of five to ten personnel. Some typical tasks performed by ADGs are:
•foot and vehicle patrolling by day and by night in and around both established and bare base airfields and through vegetated or urban environments in all extremities of weather conditions and locations within or outside of Australia;
•Aircraft Security Operations providing protection to aircraft, infrastructure and personnel;
•construction of field defences and obstacles such as weapon pits and bunkers, fences and road blocks;
•search and clearance operations;
•manning of crew served weapons such as machine guns and anti-armour weapons; and
•instruction on small arms such as rifle, shotguns and machine guns.

The opinion of the RAAF.

I am actually more curious, at this point, to hear why you think you are qualified to speak to RCN and RCAF ops and FP measures.  op:

 

[SeaKingTacco]

EITS,

You are being deliberately obtuse.

Airfields need defending. Stipulated.

I am saying that RCAF does not need, nor can it afford its own infantry.

The RCAF is the air power provider to the CF (much as the Army and Navy might wish to own their own helicopters).

In the same vein, the Army is the land/ground effects provider to the CF. there are 9 Reg F and 50 Res Inf units (yes, I know that the Res units are closer to Pl-Coy) strength. There is no shortage of infantry in Canada.

Do you now see what I am saying?

All of the comparisons to Port Inspection Divers and Enhanced Naval Boarding Party are false ones, because they do things which do not exist as a function anywhere else in the CF. Securing a piece of ground? Check- pretty sure that exists already in the CF.

This is madness. This is a one trick pony that will consume PYs to no good effect, much like 2 AEW did. If your Sqn is anything like mine, we are so short of bodies we can barely hold together our peace time flying. And we are not at war. Make no mistake- the VCDS ain't handing out PYs for free. The bill has to be paid for some how.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

I am not being obtuse at all.  I am using facts and examples.  ERC suggests 10 days for the high readiness infantry and I've said I've done the CJOC mission and been back home in that timeline, or less.  I believe in the 'better to have and not need, than need and not have" stuff.

How is that being obtuse?  I understand the way the army FGs and the AF FGs etc and CJOC FEs.  I am saying, clearly I thought, that model doesn't always work and this would be a way to fill a hole. 

You want to do it with Reg Frce infantry?  Fine, just convince the Comd C Army to post a few folks to Wing.  It would be a jammy go, I'm sure they'd love it.  Heck would could even train them to be Obs/spotters.

However, according to Ditch this was debated discussed and is going to happen.  If it is, I say 'great' and hope there is some aspect of it that will be part of away trips.  I don't consider security for the crew I am on, or the really expensive ride over we took, a 'waste of PYs'.  Not all of us land on ships with all the FP that offers.

If that changes, things will just be ops normal as they are now.  We take security with lip service IMO. 

 

[PuckChaser]

RCAF can have it's own infantry. We'll just buy helicopters for the Army and Navy and duplicate effort. We're desperately trying to remove redundancies in the CAF to stretch dollars, and you're advocating we make a completely redundant unit just so they can wear a blue beret while guarding gates? The RCAF doesn't have a monopoly on needing rapid reaction units. Rest assured, if there was ever a need for force pro at an austere and high risk airfield, I can think of a couple units in the Army and CAF that would get that task.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

RCAF can have it's own infantry. We'll just buy helicopters for the Army and Navy and duplicate effort. We're desperately trying to remove redundancies in the CAF to stretch dollars, and you're advocating we make a completely redundant unit just so they can wear a blue beret while guarding gates? The RCAF doesn't have a monopoly on needing rapid reaction units. Rest assured, if there was ever a need for force pro at an austere and high risk airfield, I can think of a couple units in the Army and CAF that would get that task.

More than guarding gates dude.  That's the part you don't understand, or won't.  You ignore what I'm saying.  Less than 18 hours from a phone call to wheels up, and that was with a X hour pause.  It can be quicker.  SOF tasking?  Sure, that's what we train them for.  I think its a little below their skillset and reason for existing but...hey wait...why don't they do that now??  Hmmm.

I'm talking like, 10 people per wing on a half dozen Wings for FP, deployable and employed at homeplate.  Something like that.  If THAT breaks us as a military...well we're fucked and might as well start putting white gitches on mop handles.

If the RCAF want protection of their big shiny toys that aren't parked in our own driveways and people think that is retarded, they can think its retarded.  I hope those same people cancel their home, car and life insurance, because nothing has happened yet and they still drive their car to their home and they didn't die today.  No need for insurance, because each and every day is the same.  The crystal ball of tomorrow says so.

RLS on this thread starts....now.

 

[PuckChaser]

The RCAF isn't guarding anything so unique that it requires specially trained pers in a special trade to go do it. If it was an actual operational requirement CJOC would have units tasked from the Managed Readiness plan on call to provide that coverage. Like it or not, we're a unified military. That means guys with green berets will guard your airfields, and guys with blue berets are fixing up wounded at a CCP 500m from the X. We all get to pitch in for mission success. If that means some Army guys get to go hang out in a hotel and guard things on short notice, I'm sure they'd prefer that to sweeping floors in the Coy lines.

Needing something to happen fast once in a blue moon isn't a reason to dump money into a trade. I've even got a manning pool to task as a secondary duty: http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/rcaf-band/index.page

 

[dangerboy]

I'm talking like, 10 people per wing on a half dozen Wings for FP, deployable and employed at homeplate.  Something like that.  If THAT breaks us as a military...well we're fucked and might as well start putting white gitches on mop handles.

Those 60 PYs have to come from somewhere.  The 3rd BNs in the Infantry lost an entire rifle platoon per battalion to free up 100 PYs as the CAF created a new capability. The word from Ottawa is if you want a new capability you have to find a way to do it without increasing the size of the CAF.

 

[Halifax Tar]

ENBP is wholly different than what we're talking about. No new trade created, found a way to enhance training on a secondary duty to improve operational success. No one in the Army was complaining, because you can readily see the necessity based on the good work done in CARIBBE, etc and the lack of operational skillsets in the Army to conduct that unique of an operation. Guarding fences in an open field isn't unique, and doesn't require specially trained troops.

Make sure to use your blinker and check your blind spot if you are going drift out of your lane there jimmy.

I say we fold one battalion from each Reg force infantry regiment and give those billets and monies to the RCAF for security.  Whoops I didn't use my blinker...

 

[Zoomie]

Ok - lots of good opinions out there...

1 CAD has recently stood up its own SSO-Force Protection - this shows how serious the RCAF is at security.  We have deep pockets in Ottawa through DGDS and are getting the funding and results we need.

The ARAF project is moving ahead and has an implementation phase to it - this means it has already been approved and is moving ahead.

Currently - we use WASF and MPs for facility/aircraft FP.  The MPs have a specialty called TASO - basically deployed armed security for airplanes when they land in scary airfields.  We don't have the luxury of 6 months prior to train up people and enter them into CFTPO.  Earthquake hits today, we roll tonight into whatever country that is - with whatever security issues might be at hand.  Russians are being frisky, we deploy armed fighters to XXX FOL and send armed WASF to guard them.

We have armed RCAF personnel out there right now - not MPs, not Infantry.  We want to make those RCAF personnel not just qualified but specialized to conduct these duties.  We don't have the luxury of waiting days for a tasking of unfamiliar Green Berets to show up.  Quite frankly, I don't want green watching over blue assets - unless they are seconded by the blue side and indoctrinated, without "buy in" and mission focus - they are useless.

Lots of PY discussion going on - how about PY neutral?  ARAF has plenty of job openings, as does the Militia - we are short in the thousands right now for manning our Primary Reserves.

Infantry are excellent at what they are trained to do - "Close with and destroy the enemy" - that doesn't necessarily equate to armed domestic ops in the defense of RCAF assets.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Ditch,

I get that this a done deal, but the whole argument that green beret guys don't get our particular RCAF requirements, so we need our own blue berets infantry guys can also be used to state something like this:

What particular expertise does the RCAF (at the institutional level) have at providing shipboard and Army aviation to the RCN and Canadian Army? Should they not own their own capability, since we (the RCAF) are actually pretty dismal at understanding their needs?

I have been in the Army. I have guarded airfields while in the Army (for real and on Ex). It is not rocket surgery.

I suggest that if the CDS, VCDS, or Comd CJOC agreed that this was a real problem, each year Inf BN X would be tasked to have a Pl  to Coy sized element on 24hrs NTM.

And I  will categorically state that the Wings relying on reservists for this task (as seems to be the line of attack) will not get you deployable guys in a time line that any Reg F infantry Bn cannot beat today.

 

[Kirkhill]

Isn't an airfield just a really big Vital Point?

How about training, equipping and tasking troops to secure generic Vital Points.  You could even put some of them on High Readiness.

I hear echoes of the Advanced Naval Boarding Party debate here. 

They are both "army" jobs except the Army doesn't want to do them without their LAVs and their Leos.  Hard to get a Leo into a RHIB.  They could get a pair of Leos into C17s in a hurry.... but that would be to penny-packet armour and we couldn't do that.

 

[PuckChaser]

Glad we had to stoop to attacking personal experience based on a forum profile.

HFT: If you're going to block out stuff on your profile, the term is PERSEC or OPSEC. COMSEC would imply your location and unit are Cryptographic devices that require safeguarding, and I doubt you work inside a KG175D. I can flippantly read a profile as well. I'll stop defending ENBP and start refering to it as a waste of PYs desperately trying to be CANSOF.

Screw it, make a RCAF infantry unit. Don't stop there though. They'll clearly need BPara and Freefall courses as an insertion method. As well as dive training to seize the airfield if its near littoral areas. You can call them Joint Task Force Hotel, because of the mad rappelling skills from a Holiday Inn Express.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Glad we had to stoop to attacking personal experience based on a forum profile.

In case that was directed at me...man, I tried to show you what some countries include in this task so you could see it was more than 'standing at a gate'.  You ignored that and went with the 'standing at a gate' stuff.  I gave you examples of why having "a platoon of Inf tasked" doesn't really work so well with real world examples of people going out the door really quickly.  I said what little I can say, which wasn't much but that aircraft can go out the door quickly and not always to a 'coalition' airfield.  You just chose or wanted to ignore it and stick to the 'why do you guys think you're special snowflakes, Army Managed Readiness can fit the entire bill'.  I know it can't the way things are done now, because of my experience while in the flying part of the air force.  OPSEC dictates I go into no more detail than I did.  Not a personal choice of mine...OPSEC.

I wasn't trying to attack your personal experience, but tried to show you the experience of others (in air ops) didn't match with 'your' idea of what reality is.  Common sense would seem to lead me to believe that you'd concede and say "okay...I don't necessarily buy everything being said but I don't have any solid experience to prove otherwise".  You just didn't want to see what I was saying.  At all.  I don't make shit up, I'm too old and don't have the energy to just make shit up.

We don't need Para qual'd Airfield defence commandos.  We do need a group of people who's corporate knowledge and day to day "thinking" is around this stuff.  If they cut the band to make it happen, well that's what needs to be done to enhance operational ability.  No tears shed on my part.  Cut the tail, not the tooth.

I haven't been home lots the last 6 months, and none of it was spent in a hotel.  :2c:

 

[Eaglelord17]

Four points.

First point, this trade you are talking about for airfield defence is literally infantry which does less training. Look up the Force.ca Infantry page and compare it to the Airforce Defence Guards basic summary you posted here, and you will see they are basically the same except the Airforce Defence Guards do less. I see no need to create a new trade when you already have all the training for the trade in existence. I also couldn't give a flying fuck what 'element' it is considered, this isn't the 50s and we are all members of the CAF not the Canadian Army, RCAF, or RCN. If it is such a critical role you can easily post a infantry platoon or two to a Airforce base for quick reaction.

Second point, Port Inspection Divers and such, filled capabilities that previously no one filled. The training was unique, and not provided for in a other trade. It does make sense to make a new trade when there is a hole which no one else fills, however in the case of a 'Airforce Defence Guard' we already have a trade that does basically 100% of the stuff and more, we call it Infantry.

Third point, in regards to quick readiness, you can easily task a infantry platoon or two for being quick reaction. Its not like the Airforce is the only part of the military which has ever had to be on short notice. When I was in the Navy my ship, when we were ready duty ship, went from sitting in harbour with only the duty watch on board to sailing at sea in 3 hours (showed up as soon as possible then flashed up and went). It is not rocket science, you order your troops to be ready to move in potentially 'x' hours and that's that.

Fourth point, if this was to become a Reservist trade you realize your quick reaction force concept would literally be shot to shit? Reservists only have to show up once a month, and to expect a force capable of deploying in couple hours short notice isn't happening. People have jobs, other commitments, and you can't order them to show up (unless they call up the Reserves which isn't happening unless something really big happens).

 

[Kirkhill]

Eaglelord 17

Agree on all points with one minor variation on point 4.

The Reserves as currently constituted can't do High Readiness Taskings.  However that doesn't mean that the Reserves couldn't sustain a High Readiness Tasking IF the VOLUNTEERS new what they were volunteering for upfront and had the time to organize their lives so as to meet their commitment - or be prosecuted for failure to show.

Other foreign forces and other Canadian civvies do manage such taskings.

But, yeah, if you want a High Readiness Airfield Defence Force then set aside PYs from the reg force infantry (and lt armour) to meet the task.  And don't double hat them.