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Lumber said:
I don't think it qualifies as a crisis until Oriole is the ready duty ship.
Canadian Surface Combatant RFQ
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I don't think it qualifies as a crisis until Oriole is the ready duty ship.
Dale Denton
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Off topic, but has anyone ever lobbied to have Haida sail again? You think it has more of a place in history than Oriole, would be a better trophy ship to do port visits in than a tallboat IMHO.
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Lumber said:
The navy doesn't have a neat box on force employment/generation like the army and airforce. Unless we are actively shooting, we're still doing force generation in theatre while on HR. To be honest, deploying was less busy than any of the TGEXs or various other 'force generation' sails I've ever done, and you always have the fun that goes along with things catching on fire or otherwise failing catastrophically in new and fun ways regardless of your posture, so the only real difference between force employment sails and force generation sails is you tend to leave the wall with more stuff working on HR.
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How does the Navy define Force Generation and Force Employment?
To me, if a warship is at sea with ammunition, it can be employed. Is there confirmation gateways ships must achieve before being considered "available for employment?"
To me, if a warship is at sea with ammunition, it can be employed. Is there confirmation gateways ships must achieve before being considered "available for employment?"
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Infanteer said:
You will find this interesting as I just found it out from being in Esquimalt the past few months and having a few old pals that explained things to me.
Unlike the Army, the Navy has this organization called Sea Training, who are responsible for Ship's Standing Orders(SSOs), which is the document that governs everything on a Royal Canadian Navy Vessel. Sea Training are like OCTs at CMTC except they work directly for the Fleet Commander and are there to ensure that Vessels are complying with SSOs which are essentially "Best practices" that are defined by Sea Training. They have actual power and are SMEs in their respective fields and blowing them off will get you in huge poopoo.
What this ensures is that every ship in the RCN functions the exact same way and that there is one standard and commonality across the RCN. You won't see three different brigades with three entirely different HQ Setups as that would go against SSOs.
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When a ship is just coming out of a docking work period, there are a number of trials that need to happen, plus training for the ship's company. That's when you are in a reduced readiness, and generally don't have the equipment required to do much (but would be able to respond to a SAR or something if you are in the area or similar).Infanteer said:
There is a set of training and equipment required to get to a standard readiness, some stuff required for an embarked helo, and the full suite to get up to a fully booted and spurred warship. It's tiered to what kind of ops you can do, so a bit of a spectrum for employment.
Force generation/force employment is a bit fuzzy, but generally most of the time if the ships are under coastal control they are doing force gen, and are chopped out to CJOC if you are doing force employment. But even on deployments, you still do 'force generation' (training serials while in theatre, task group exercises etc), and are always available while doing force generation sails to support real world stuff.
We always had an issue getting trainees in and out of theatre while dealing with CJOC as a result, as they expect us to keep the same crew the entire time, which isn't how we work.
FSTO
Army.ca Fixture
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Humphrey Bogart said:
I'm glad you explained how the RCN works from an Army perspective. I joined the Joint Battlespace Management Capability project last summer and was quickly exposed to the way the Army conducts its business through my interactions with JTFW, JTFC and FOIE. I'm still somewhat confused how the Army brigades talk to each other. Or do they even talk to each other?
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Fascinating, thanks guys. So, a ship doing some ASW training over off the UK is Force Generation and responds to its naval chain of command. It could, the next day, be chopped to CJOC and deployed to the Med for Force Employment.
Again, I'm assuming there is a spectrum of risk for operational employment based on how much of the "readiness training" a ship has done in Force Generation. Is there formal events where "Sea Training" comes down to "check ride" a ship?
Not really. They belong to different Divisions and rotate through different periods of readiness. Brigades don't really work together, they take over from each other. There has long been a valid argument to combine the Brigades under a single Division Commander who can rope the three Armies into one direction.
Again, I'm assuming there is a spectrum of risk for operational employment based on how much of the "readiness training" a ship has done in Force Generation. Is there formal events where "Sea Training" comes down to "check ride" a ship?
FSTO said:
Not really. They belong to different Divisions and rotate through different periods of readiness. Brigades don't really work together, they take over from each other. There has long been a valid argument to combine the Brigades under a single Division Commander who can rope the three Armies into one direction.
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Infanteer said:
You would benefit from wandering over to the Naval Staff and having a chat them on how they manage the FG/FE issue. Also, PM me if you need to be put in touch with Sea Training to see how they operate. It occurs to me that the Army could learn some lessons here.
Infanteer said:
Funny you word it that way, because it's so true.
It makes perfect sense for the RCN to have the exact same procedures & standards throughout the fleet, as people can "jetty jump" from one ship to another, and plug themselves right in. Excellent way of doing things, and makes perfect sense given the RCN's size & manning issues.
When I was in the Army, we would occasionally work with folks from the RCR - who had a very different way of doing things, even in garrison. And working, taking over, or having them take over - with the R22/French battalions - holy crap. Other than the same uniforms, you'd think we were 2 completely different armies.
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In the last few years they have updated our orders and issued a CFCD that outlines it all. There is a set of Ship Standing Orders (SSOs) that covers off the day to day stuff and how to respond to emergencies. If you go to the MARLANT website on the DWAN you can find them on the Sea Training (Atlantic) area. That includes the various readiness levels and the training needed. It starts at individual training and rolls up to collective training at the unit level, so is pretty comprehensive. There is an equipment component as well with a whole set of trials for the ship systems to pass.Infanteer said:
Aside from class specific requirements though, it is pretty critical for sailors to jump from ship to ship and be able to slide into the normal routine, as that happens all the time.
Getting off topic, but the same concept will apply to CSC. With the modern ships being intended to be more modular, capabilities theoretically roll on with a a system and crew component, and bolt on to the core crew. Will be interesting to see when they select the ship how far they take that concept.
Swampbuggy
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This thread is fascinating, but it certainly illustrates how thinly stretched the fleets must be. Looking ahead to the concept of Task Group, with potentially 4 surface warships and an AOR, it would seem to be a fairly lofty goal. My takeaway from all of this, is that 15 CSC, 5-6 AOPS and 4 SSK’s won’t be quite enough to fulfill deployments and coastal protection/emergency response. There will have to be another platform to stay closer home. Right now it’s the MCDV, but there needs to be a discussion soon about what comes next, I would think.
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The answer to that Swamp is the AOPS.
In terms of readiness levels, having taken MON from a hulk in the 'loving' hands of ISI, to a warship having attained Standard Readiness level Work Ups, I can speak with some detail about how that process went - I realize that for the sake of PER points, someone has 'led change' and we now have BSSRTs or something like that, but basically, there were 5 states of readiness for a ship:
1. Safe alongside
2. Safe at Sea
3. Reduced Readiness
4. Standard Readiness
5. High Readiness
A ship with "Safe at Sea" or higher could act as a deployer, but depending on the materiel, equipment, and personnel state, they would only be able to bring certain capabilities to the table.
As an example, a ship that has only attained "Safe at Sea" could be sent with a boat-load of humanitarian aid to a disaster zone, and respond effectively. Sending that same ship to the Persian Gulf would probably not be such a good plan.
The higher the readiness level, the more 'employable/deployable' the ship is.
I could go into more depth, but, suffice to say that in my career, I've taken multiple ships through the whole series of readiness states, at least 4 times. My last ship we went from having no power or even a functional PA system onboard all the way to integrated weapons system tracking and engagements.
NS
In terms of readiness levels, having taken MON from a hulk in the 'loving' hands of ISI, to a warship having attained Standard Readiness level Work Ups, I can speak with some detail about how that process went - I realize that for the sake of PER points, someone has 'led change' and we now have BSSRTs or something like that, but basically, there were 5 states of readiness for a ship:
1. Safe alongside
2. Safe at Sea
3. Reduced Readiness
4. Standard Readiness
5. High Readiness
A ship with "Safe at Sea" or higher could act as a deployer, but depending on the materiel, equipment, and personnel state, they would only be able to bring certain capabilities to the table.
As an example, a ship that has only attained "Safe at Sea" could be sent with a boat-load of humanitarian aid to a disaster zone, and respond effectively. Sending that same ship to the Persian Gulf would probably not be such a good plan.
The higher the readiness level, the more 'employable/deployable' the ship is.
I could go into more depth, but, suffice to say that in my career, I've taken multiple ships through the whole series of readiness states, at least 4 times. My last ship we went from having no power or even a functional PA system onboard all the way to integrated weapons system tracking and engagements.
NS
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Swampbuggy said:
That's not a loft goal, that's actually a complete reality.
Right now VDQ is on deployed in Europe, while Calgary and Asterix are deployed to SE Asia. Come October, HMC Ships Toronto, St. John's AND Halifax, as well as I believe 2 of the MCDVs (not sure which two, I want to say Summerside and Glace Bay) will all be deploying to Europe. So, by the end of October, we will have 5 frigates, 2 MCDVs and an AOR all at sea the same time (doing a mix of FG and FE).
That's 46% of our major combatants (counting Asterix as a major combatant) all forward deployed at the same time!
Actually, just checking the unclass sched right now, and it looks like for about a week in October, HMC Ships Regina, Vancouver, Edmonton and Whitehorse will all be at sea at the same time as the others I listed, so bump that number up to 60% of our heavies nad 33% of our small guys, all at sea at the same time.
How's them apples, eh Army? (and by apples I mean overall operational readiness of the RCN...)
Swampbuggy
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Lumber said:
That’s with the current fleet of 24 surface warships, but I’m looking to when the MCDV’s are rotated out.
So, for a scenario, I’ll use MARPAC, with the assumption that the CSC split will leave them with 7 out of the 15 vessels. And, as it looks right now, MARPAC will have 2 out of 5/6 AOPS.
If, as the MND states, the goal is to be able to deploy a task group of 4 CSC and an AOR from each fleet, what does that leave guarding the gates back home? Out of the remaining 3 CSC, isn’t the plan to have 1 in long term maintenance, 1 in short term/RAMP and 1 doing work ups? Seems thin, especially if 1 or both of your West Coast AOPS are sent North for the summer?
Right now, the 6 MCDV’s each coast has shoulder a heavy load, can they be replaced by only 5-6 AOPS across the board?
This isn’t a rhetorical question, from me. I’d really like to know how they can do what they state they want to do and still leave the appropriate amount of coverage back home.
If it’s all in scheduling, then it must really limit the options with even a 3-4 vessel reduction.
