Army Reserve Restructuring

[PrairieFella]

Calgary mess is at Mewata, so units are currie rarely go. They are trying new ideas to get people to come out but it aint what it wss ten years ago

Pretty healthy culture in my neck of the woods but the mess has kept up with us. Lots of events, dinners, parties that people actually want to do. Spending money on cool shit we vote to buy. Also genuine benefits like drill cane and mess kit subsidies, family care plans and using it for networking/legit PD.

 

[KevinB]

Strong disagree.

Sort of maybe but maybe not

The CAF needs adequate training capacity to avoid PAT brigades.

Not mutually exclusive from what @Harris said.

You need larger throughput than what you have.

But having a legion of poorly trained/partially trained folks doe no one any good.

For the Res F it also requires occupational design to per.ot skills acquisition and, more critically, maintenance within the time available.

There are a lot of instructional tools that can do EDI in a VR setup so the student gets “hands on” training where needed.
The CAF needs to align a lot more support/maintenance functions to the Reg force - and look at having some Trades split into niches for the PRes.

If it takes six years to reach OFP, and then those skills can't be routinely practiced, the system has failed.

Agreed.

 

[Kirkhill]

Calgary mess is at Mewata, so units are currie rarely go. They are trying new ideas to get people to come out but it aint what it wss ten years ago

I doubt if many of us would have stuck around after hours at Mewata if we had to traipse over to Currie or Sarcee after parade hours.

Part of the attraction was that after you broke off you just headed up stairs.

And for those of you that think it was just a social club in our mess we talked shop. I suspect a lot of militia messes were the same.

Two hours in the mess was broadly equivalent to two hours on army.ca. A learning experience.

 

[MilEME09]

I doubt if many of us would have stuck around after hours at Mewata if we had to traipse over to Currie or Sarcee after parade hours.

Part of the attraction was that after you broke off you just headed up stairs.

And for those of you that think it was just a social club in our mess we talked shop. I suspect a lot of militia messes were the same.

Two hours in the mess was broadly equivalent to two hours on army.ca. A learning experience.

Most troops cant be bothered when Mewata doesnt even have enough parking. I aint paying for parking, after a ten minutes drive to save a few dollars on beer and chat. Most of us just go to a pub closer to, like wild rose brewery right next door.

 

[Harris]

Strong disagree. The CAF needs adequate training capacity to avoid PAT brigades.

For the Res F it also requires occupational design to per.ot skills acquisition and, more critically, maintenance within the time available.

If it takes six years to reach OFP, and then those skills can't be routinely practiced, the system has failed.

I'm not saying I agree with that. I'm saying the CoC wants a large number of troops on paper. Whether they are TES seems to be a non-requirement due to numbers dropping. Yes there is a training funnell currently, but there is also lack of will at senior levels. For example we (Former 5XX) had a OCdt in one of the units that had been an OCdt for nearly 10 years. Was in three units and never completed BMQ. I raised the issue and there was lots of head nodding, but no action. He wasn't the only one. When I was DCO at my former Unit I tried to get a bunch of people on NES but the CO wouldn't hear of it because it would make our numbers on paper drop.

 

[boredtoon]

I'm saying the CoC wants a large number of troops on paper. Whether they are TES seems to be a non-requirement due to numbers dropping. When I was DCO at my former Unit I tried to get a bunch of people on NES but the CO wouldn't hear of it because it would make our numbers on paper drop.

There's quite a few factors that go into this mentality. Having also dealt with similar issues at my own unit, I am well versed lol.

To start, the CAF ties budgets to on paper strength. If your unit has 250 soldiers, then it gets allocated class A pay for 250 soldiers to parade their 39(? I can't remember the number) days per year. But if out of that 250, 100 show up the bare minimum, once per 60 days, then you can use that class A pay for things like work parties, additional paid days for leadership to come in and do PACE on another evening, etc. More on paper soldiers means more money for exercises, which means if you have 250 on paper, but only get the same 50 on ex, you get the budget of 250 to play with.

To compound this, if a unit gets too small on paper, the CAF doesn't trust that unit to reliably generate senior command appointments. An infantry "battalion" of 80 just isn't large enough to generate a LCol and CWO every 3 years that have the experience and knowledge to be able to sit at a table of their peers and not fall behind. If a unit gets too small, the CAF starts parachuting in command teams.

Finally, get small enough and you will be tactically grouped, which to many is just amalgamation by another name (or if you are in 31 CBG, you all get tactically grouped, regardless of your size).

The CAF and the Army want trained troops, not a mile long BTL. But until the CAF implements a way to incentivize getting rid of stale DP1 soldiers and the borderline NES, Units will continue to take advantage of the benefits and safeties of having a large on paper strength with a large non-employable cohort.

 

[Kirkhill]

Amazing what part timers can get up to.

New York Guard’s Operation Sustain Thunder tests rapid mobilization exercise

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