Divining the right role, capabilities, structure, and Regimental System for Canada's Army Reserves

[1feral1]

Save the Camerons!

 

[Kat Stevens]

I guess it's pretty easy to call it silly, until it happens to you.

 

[dapaterson]

I'm looking forward to seeing the CDS reply to this letter... I suspect it may touch on the strength of the unit over the past several years, point out that it's been done successfully with other units (one CO and RSM for more than one unit), and will probably conclude by thanking groups like the St Andrew's Society for their interest in the CF.

But then, what do I know?

 

[Old Sweat]

dataperson,

Is there anything in the NDA or regulations that prohibits an individual being appointed to command more than one unit at the same time? Taking it to an insane level, I supose the super star could also be the brigade commander and recommend himself (for his performance commanding more than one battalion) for accelerated promotion, the order of military merit  and even appointment as CDS.

 

[Michael OLeary]

I believe that part of the problem is that there hasn't been a serious reexamination of unit distributions in decades.  Up to about the 1950s, it seems that there were rounds of amalgamations, reductions to nil strength, relocations and renamings of units every decade or so.  Many have forgotten that an evolving Army organization matching demographic capabilities to man units, with reconfirmation of requirements for types and numbers of units, and changes to units roles, names and numbers used to be the status quo.  The last five decades or so of stagnation has been a failure to evolve, not a confirmation of a continually workable plan. 

 

[aesop081]

I guess it's pretty easy to call it silly, until it happens to you.

Its happened to me. I think its silly.

 

[Mountie]

I think all reserve brigade groups should be reorganized as battle groups.  They are closer to battle group size anyway.  Therefore, each sub-unit could maintain their regimental history and traditions.  This would not only allow most reserve regiments to be maintained as well as bringing a few back from the supplementary order of battle. 

38 Canadian Battle Group
Battle Group Headquarters
Royal Winnipeg Rifles (Rifle Company)
Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada (Rifle Company)
Winnipeg Grenadiers (Rifle Company)
Fort Gary Horse (Reconnaissance Squadron)
26th Field Artillery Regiment (Artillery Battery)
38 Combat Engineer Squadron
17 Service Company
17 Field Ambulance Platoon

Likewise the South Saskatchewan Regiment could be stood up to give a third rifle company to form a Saskatchewan Battle Group.  Similar consolidations could be made of all the brigade groups. 

 

[rifleman]

Ullamh

 

[Kat Stevens]

The Regimental system, while "nice" is a throwback to our past, an anachronism and the seagull around our necks.  "Train as you Fight"?  Not as long as we keep slavishly following an organization directly descended from "form hollow square, fix bayonets, beat back the fuzzy-wuzzies".

Get rid of it altogether?  Absolutely.  Tomorrow, please.

I guess I just find it hard to understand how the Regimental System is an albatross.  Call yourself the 504th bicycle grenadiers if you want, what's wrong with a sense of history and continuity?  Forming hollow square is antiquated, remembering those who did it and perpetuating that memory is not, IMHO.  Whatever, every time I get into one of these, it ends up somehow being about not being British at all costs,and forgetting that we ever were, so I'll just leave you guys to it.

 

[rifleman]

A regimental system is much more than form square, and if it is so old and antiquated, try refering to a Regiments' Colours as just a flag and see how casual they are about it.

 

[Michael OLeary]

Let's not confuse the regimental system with any particular system of regiments.  The strengths of the regimental system are not dependent on the perpetual existence of specific cap badges.

The Regimental System

To enter the fray with the sole objective to save one’s own Regiment through an era of Army reorganization, perhaps at the expense of a stronger Army, is to set aside the soldier’s higher moral obligations.

The continuance of the regimental system, in and of itself, is not sufficient justification to defend the continued existence of any particular regiment. Disbandment, amalgamation, or re-roling of one or more regiments does not threaten the existence of the regimental system. The regimental system and regiments themselves are not, nor should they be, considered synonymous entities. Regiments are an organizational entity. The regimental system is a mutually supportive personnel management structure that emphasizes a sense of belonging (in our collective military experience, to a military unit structure). Though symbiotic in nature as we have become accustomed to them, regiments or a variation of the regimental system can each exist without the other.

 

[rifleman]

No lesson intended. I'm just saying that every time, they talk about removing a unit, the argument comes out about how the regimental system is antiquated and gets in the way. There is a lot more re-org needed in the Army reserve than just looking at one unit.

As for not taking colours, standards, silverware and stuff overseas, I don't see the relevance? btw I respect the colours, etc of units that have one, just never had to deal with it.

 

[Michael OLeary]

I would suggest that it is the argument (that restructure attacks the regimental system) that gets in the way of evolution and modernization.  Defending any unit on the premise that since it has existed for "X" years and carries "X" battle honours that it should therefore exist forever is a weak argument against Army restructuring for greater efficiency (don't we usually attack anything perceived as inefficiency here?).

 

[rifleman]

I can agree on not keeping a unit for the sake of keeping them, however the arguement that a regimental system is antiquated and serves no purpose in modern militaries is crap

 

[Michael OLeary]

I can agree on not keeping a unit for the sake of keeping them, however the arguement that a regimental system is antiquated and serves no purpose in modern militaries is crap

I agree, but that also doesn't mean that the regimental system shouldn't be critically examined and evolve as well as the organizational structures it supports.

The Regimental System

It’s time to define and establish a common understanding of the concept and role of the Regimental System in the Canadian Army of 2000 and beyond. We must be prepared to completely and honestly divest ourselves of any historically perceived aspects of the Regimental System which do not support current Army missions. Some things will remain, some may go, to many observers, the outward signs of our Regiments may never change. But it is time – it was once unthinkable not to carry Colours in combat, for they were the embodiment of the Regiment’s history and honour. The Regimental System got over that too.

 

[cavalryman]

The Gods of the Regimental Senates are going to frack me for this but:

If the mother of the Canadian Army, the British Army, to whom we owe pretty much all of our traditions, especially the Regimental system, can reorganize its regular regiments the way they have, for greater efficiency all the while being engaged in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention more traditional stations), there is no reason the Canadian Army reserve cannot override the politics of the "cap badge" for greater efficiency.  Where is it written in stone that Canada cannot allow the four armoured units in LFQA, each of them able to field a squadron at best, to be amalgamated as the 5e Régiment Canadien de Cavallerie Blindé (or 5th Armoured Cavalry Regiment for you anglos) with squadrons in Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, Montréal and Hull?  Or do the same in Ontario by creating the 2nd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, with squadrons in Oshawa, Toronto, London, Aurora and Windsor.....  I could go on in this vein, but the idea is there.  If the British Army can do it, we have no justification to maintaining hollow (and sometimes hollow-rotten)  facsimiles of Regiments when amalgamation is the correct idea.

*bows to the Honorary Colonel*  Please sir, make the beheading swift and painless 

 

[a_majoor]

Let's see, the Grey and Simcoe Foresters have been Infantry, Armoured and Artillery before becoming Infantry again. 31 CER used to be the Elgin Regiment (RCAC).

As pointed out, there is nothing inherently right or wrong with the regimental system, it is an organizational tool which can be used as well or poorly as you can imagine. I could conceive of a future where composite units have many of the attributes of today's armoured, infantry and artillery units, there would be no functional difference between 1 RCR and the LdSH(RC), but they would still be distinct units with "personalities" and histories.

Units exist to provide capabilities for the commander to plan and execute his mission, so units which are no longer able to provide a required capability need to be "adjusted" until they do provide the capabilities or eliminated to free up resources. If the Camerons are no longer a viable regiment, then LFWA must make a decision to either provide resources to bring them back to viability, amalgamate them with a viable unit to preserve existing capabilities or use the regimental placeholder to create a new capability (The Queen's Own Cameron Webmasters of Canada, fabled Cyberwarriors of LFWA?)

The pain will be short lived; the normal rate of turnover suggests that five years after the cutover, there will be all new personnel manning the unit anyway, who have no memories of the time before.

 

[Michael OLeary]

No, its been discuss before, you either support it, or you don't I find

Since there is no "unified theory of the regimental system", I think it is very problematic to simply expect people to declare themselves "for" or "against" it.  Unless some attempt is made to actually define the beast and establish what is (and therefore what is not) the regimental system, most debates on it circle emotive rather than practical descriptions and solutions.

 

[Kat Stevens]

The Gods of the Regimental Senates are going to frack me for this but:

If the mother of the Canadian Army, the British Army, to whom we owe pretty much all of our traditions, especially the Regimental system, can reorganize its regular regiments the way they have, for greater efficiency all the while being engaged in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan (not to mention more traditional stations), there is no reason the Canadian Army reserve cannot override the politics of the "cap badge" for greater efficiency.  Where is it written in stone that Canada cannot allow the four armoured units in LFQA, each of them able to field a squadron at best, to be amalgamated as the 5e Régiment Canadien de Cavallerie Blindé (or 5th Armoured Cavalry Regiment for you anglos) with squadrons in Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, Montréal and Hull?  Or do the same in Ontario by creating the 2nd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, with squadrons in Oshawa, Toronto, London, Aurora and Windsor.....  I could go on in this vein, but the idea is there.  If the British Army can do it, we have no justification to maintaining hollow (and sometimes hollow-rotten)  facsimiles of Regiments when amalgamation is the correct idea.

*bows to the Honorary Colonel*  Please sir, make the beheading swift and painless 

Yes, but in the UK regional regiments were amalgamated, sharing a common theme, ie Highland Regiments, Welsh Regiments, Rifle Regiments, Guards Regiments, et al.  We're not really talking the same thing here.  Put them all under one admin and command umbrella, by all means, officers is officers.  Bust the COs down to a Major's position and call him the OC of the Highland Company then.  As an aside, if dismantling regiments is just part of army growth, why is there such resentment here for the demise of the Airborne Regiment?  Nothing personal, just business.  After all, the last mass drop of paras was some time around '45 wasn't it?  Now, that's an antiquated concept too then, isn't it?

 

[TCBF]

- Anytime there is talk of tinkering with the regimental system, one should understand that it is not about cost.  A CF-18 on afterburner for two minutes burns the money that could keep the Camerons afloat for a weekend exercise.  I jest, but you get my meaning.  We spent $750,000 changing flights for a Maple Guardian exercise awhile back, after someone realized a year into the planning that their troops would miss Easter with there families.  Any money saved buying one less pattern of kilt would be squandered elsewhere.

- That's right: No amount of tinkering will save any money that won't be pissed away somewhere else by someone else.  Re-organizing is not done for efficiency, it is done to pad PERs and build careers.  Any organization is as efficient or inefficient as one allows it to be and changing the structure while keeping the policy makers who hobbled the structure to cause it to fail in the first place is lunacy.  Keep the Regiment - fire the idiots who won't let it bloom.

- Keep the Regiments - we may need them someday (we sure could use that Regular Armoured Regiment that we cut in the nineties right about now).  Failure to recruit is not a regimental failure, it is a systemic failure.  Trying to save money on kilts, hackles and balmorals is a joke.  We flew back rotten tentage from Kandahar at a shipping cost of $5 a pound in 2002.  Still want to save money by hanging a set of colours up to rot?

- Need money for the Militia?  Stop buying bottled water for the CF.  Send all Class Bs back to the Armoury floor - if you want a full-time job, you know where the recruiting center is.  Give the man days back to the units.    

- Then, look at where the population is NOW: bring back long disbanded units or create new ones and put them in new population centers.  Get a proper recruiting program with educational incentives. At the same time, clean out the deadwood: START AT THE RECRUITING CENTERS.  Impose ceilings on rank numbers, then brutally enforce it: stop creating positions just to "look after" people.  Stop rank-inflating jobs, promote when a vacancy exists, not by time or qualification.

- Want a Major in your unit?  Better have 100 people first.  Want a LCol? Better have 500.  Open up recruiting for the reserves.  If a regiment can recruit over a thousand, they get a second bn.  Incentive.