Army Reserve Restructuring

[FJAG]

My point is that your 45.5 day calendar under estimates the training opportunity.

No I'm not. I'll say it again. This is for mandatory unit collective training for post DP1 personnel.

It's a balance of what you can realistically sustain as something you can force people to attend and their competing family and civilian work commitments.

Just like you I know that a year has 365 days and that you can make use of a lot more of those but those are for people who volunteer to take additional training. What is plain stupid is to set up one hundred days of training and then get all bitchy when over 80% of them don't show up.

Also, leaving training in the hands of 200 discrete sections of 11 (one per unit) seems to be at best inefficient and also likely to produce highly variable results.

Talk to the army. They created the ARE. That said, I've interviewed a few ARes arty COs on this very issue and they prefer unit training. Many see the CBG battle schools as black holes that suck up their qualified NCOs and give them back very little in the way of new troops.

Especially if those 11 are expected to prepare their own lesson plans and schedules and source training areas and materials while managing individual training for people of at least two skill levels (eg year 1 and year 2) as well as organizing collective training for each of the various arms.

Yup. I agree course programs should come with centrally prepared lesson plans. At worst, last year's course materials should be available. Frequently they aren't. Go figure. Individual and collective training should generally be separate. And then there was the whole TQ4 OJT program some genius created in the 1970s.

Does CADTC provide one single text/workbook that the new entry can work through and to which the instructors can supervise and teach?

No idea.

I remember being given a bunch of pams and being told there were many more in the system. I was then taught Methods of Instruction and how to build a lesson plan and told to carry on. The unit instructors got the same instruction and support.

And the RSS consisted of a Capt and WO. The WO's vocabulary often seemed to collapse to "DILLIGAS, Sir!"

It would be nice to think that CADTC had got round to creating standard courses that worked within the bounds of the Class A schedule.

Considering the prevalence of electronic systems available throughout the army you would think the whole thing would be simple, wouldn't you? My guess is that a lot of this material is already at CTC. If someone would go to organizing a system for collecting, collating and publish this.

 

[Kirkhill]

We're talking past each other again?

No I'm not. I'll say it again. This is for mandatory unit collective training for post DP1 personnel.

I am saying that much, if not all of the DP1 period (BMQ EFP BMOQ OFP?) could be done locally.

It's a balance of what you can realistically sustain as something you can force people to attend and their competing family and civilian work commitments.

Just like you I know that a year has 365 days and that you can make use of a lot more of those but those are for people who volunteer to take additional training. What is plain stupid is to set up one hundred days of training and then get all bitchy when over 80% of them don't show up.

Absolutely agree. That is why I was asking about one reserve unit being able to handle two training tracks concurrently. One for individual training and one for collective training.

Beyond that we are also in agreement. The allocated manpower (11 bodies) I don't have a problem with. I was trying to get at whether or not those bodies have been given any better tools to help them succeed at their tasks which are ultimately supposed to turn out a regimented soldier that would be interchangeable with any other comparably trained soldier in the CA.

I can't imagine that it would be too difficult to self-publish all the St-Jean BMQ course material and make it available to every training unit across the country.

I would hope that that has already been done.

Talk to the army. They created the ARE. That said, I've interviewed a few ARes arty COs on this very issue and they prefer unit training. Many see the CBG battle schools as black holes that suck up their qualified NCOs and give them back very little in the way of new troops.

Yup. I agree course programs should come with centrally prepared lesson plans. At worst, last year's course materials should be available. Frequently they aren't. Go figure. Individual and collective training should generally be separate. And then there was the whole TQ4 OJT program some genius created in the 1970s.

No idea.

Considering the prevalence of electronic systems available throughout the army you would think the whole thing would be simple, wouldn't you? My guess is that a lot of this material is already at CTC. If someone would go to organizing a system for collecting, collating and publish this.

 

[GR66]

Not allowed as our site guidelines

This is good news. Achieving this will require some bold and out of the box thinking to achieve which is exactly the kind of mindset required from our military leadership in the current state of the World. I hope it carries over to how they attack the many other problems facing the CAF.

 

[FJAG]

Very out of the box thinking.

 

[Kirkhill]

400,000 = 1% of the population.
200 Armouries

2000 on the rolls of each armoury
1500 Supplementary (Sedentary Canadians, Reserve Guard Danes)
500 Primary (Ready Canadians, Active Guard Danes)


Rangers CRPG 1 - 2,000 from a population of 120,000 = 1.7% of the population
Danish Homeguard - 43,000 from a population 5,900,000 = 0.7% of the population

 

[Colin Parkinson]

My Regiment used to run 3-4 courses concurrently, on Thursday nights and Saturdays and feed us on Saturday. The recruits got to help peel potato's early in the morning. Running a basic gunners course on a 105mm is not that hard.

 

[Kirkhill]

Mapped: America’s National Guard Personnel by State

See how National Guard personnel are distributed across all 50 U.S. states as of mid-2025.

www.visualcapitalist.com

Rather than focusing on finding 400,000 people ready, willing and able to take on the Russian Hordes (diminished) in Latvia perhaps we could look at other models.

The National Guard is a good one. The Danish Homeguard I continue to cite as a useful model (and no they are not conscripts, they are not even paid). The Canadian Rangers are also a good one.

 

[FJAG]

My Regiment used to run 3-4 courses concurrently, on Thursday nights and Saturdays and feed us on Saturday. The recruits got to help peel potato's early in the morning. Running a basic gunners course on a 105mm is not that hard.

That brings back memories.

Back in the dark ages (1965-69) we used to parade on Saturdays and were fed two hot dogs and a can of pop for lunch. There was an old Polish-Canadian sergeant WW2 vet whose only job was to do that in the dry canteen every Saturday. We signed some form of nominal role that I presume generated the reimbursement for that. My understanding was that the difference between what the government paid per capita and what the hot dogs and pop cost went into the regimental fund. We never saw a penny.

Those were my first hot dogs because my mother fed me on a proper German diet - knackwurst and bratwurst, yes; hot dogs, no. I still like hot dogs.