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

[GR66]

Maybe we need a system which makes a clear distinction between Reservists and a Militia. 

"Reservists" might be defined as those forces which provide either direct support or augmentation for the Regular Forces.  Their organizational structure could be directly embedded in the existing Regular Force structure.  Battalions/Squadrons could have an additional"Reserve" Company/Troop in their organization to provide forces for augmentation.  Similarly Navy/AF Ships and Squadrons could have Reserve elements as part of their organization.  These units could have a mix of Reg Force and Reserve staff and the Reg Force elements of each unit could have a number of Class B positions for members of their Reserve unit.  Reservists would train to the identical standards as their Reg Force counterparts using the same equipment.  Reservists would augment their parent units both in deployment but also in training.  The size of the Reserve force would be smaller than the current Reserves since their role would be fairly specific and there would be no anticipation of using these troops as any form of force expansion base.

The "Militia" on the other hand would serve a different series of roles.  They could have their own historical units based on geographical location (within reason for organizational purposes) and would not be as directly linked to the Reg Force as the "Reservists".  They would provide a "face" of the CF to the general public.  They could be called out in times of emergency to provide disaster relief and support to civil authorities, etc.  They would not however need to be designed to directly augment the Reg Forces for overseas deployments or be used as a source of pre-existing units for force expansion in case of major conflict.  They could instead be used as a source of partially-trained personnel that could be fed into the Reg Force system in times of need instead of having to go directly to the public for completely untrained personnel. 

The training and equipment cost for this type of "Militia" would then be less than that of the existing Militia/Reserves.  They could focus more on skills/training such as rescue/first aid, communications, logistics and transport, leadership, etc rather than primarily on combat skills (not saying there wouldn't/couldn't be a combat training element to what they are taught of course).  A less stricly combat arms/military focus on the Militia might open up these units to more skilled civilians that might not necessarily be attracted to a more traditional part-time army unit. 

 

[Old Sweat]

That is an interesting approach which has some merit. The challenge with the militia role, as opposed to the reserve role, is that we tried it in the 1950s and, in my opinion at least, the militia/reserves never really recovered. Sixty years ago we were faced with the very real prospect of nuclear war and the Canadian government took the threat very, very seriously. The existing militia formations dropped traditional titles such as brigades and became National Survival Groups and Columns. The military hardware was returned to depots and training became focused on what was called "Reentry Operations." On receiving an alert, the local militia columns were to abandon their families, report to the armoury and deploy to a safe site upwind of the target city. After the strike, the columns then would advance into the devastation, rescuing as many survivors as they could until they reached an area where the radiation/flames/destruction was too high for anyone to have survived. The concept was a dismal failure, not in part because traditional military training was abandoned.

In later years there was some discussion of vital point guards, regional battalions and the rest, but these always seemed to go nowhere, usually because one of the financial crunches which recur with the regularity of black flies in the Spring would emerge.*

Still, can you expand on the concept?

In the interest of clarity, I borrowed the line about black flies from a letter Pte Anderson of the RCD Machine Gun Section wrote to his family back in St John, NB in 1900. He was referring to an action where the section had a close call. Anderson described the Boers as being as thick as black flies up the brook in the Spring. I always wanted to use it, but really have to credit a long dead Canadian soldier for the inspiration.

 

[Rifleman62]

Diefenbaker hired hordes of the unemployed, put militia flashes on their black overalls and trained them for several winters, 1959 -62. There is even a book written about it: Give Me Shelter: The Failure of Canada?s Cold War Civil Defence By Andrew Burtch.

We were still doing " V and pancake " building collapse rescues in Shilo, June 1963. There was a mock village at Shilo, as at all bases, called the Ponderosa, for this training.

The fun part for a bug out drill or if the real deal happened was for most of the militia waiting/traveling by streetcar to Minto or Mac Gregor, firing up the Dodge 3/4 ton in Dec/Jan/Feb and deploying to Portage La Prairie in under a couple of hours.

P.S. The Molitia never came up with all these grand schemes and plans.

I do not know how many times has it been said here that 38 CBG, years ago (probably close to ten now), starting with the Guns, then the Inf, followed by the Svc Bns, did exactly what  Journeyman and others are proposing.

 

[FJAG]

Dynamic inertia is a Canadian military organization principle and our reserve forces is still based on the 19th century model. Our Militia unit organization seems designed to perpetuate rather than generate.

Great term that. Couldn't agree more.

What I can't understand is why we still let it happen. There was a time of powerful vested political influence that kept a tight rein on any NDHQ attempts to revitalize interfere with militia organizations but those elements are mostly gone. Dynamic inertia however explains it in a very logical NDHQish sort of way.

Maybe we need a system which makes a clear distinction between Reservists and a Militia. 

Really?  What possible benefit would it have for DND as a whole to have yet one more part time group that is even less versatile than what we already have.

In the mid sixties we divided the militia into the military-centric "mobile striking" force and a force designed for nuclear / disaster search and rescue. A crappier organization never existed and we all cheered when this concept came to an end. While I would dearly love to be 18 years old again, please don't make me go back to this structure. 

 

[GK .Dundas]

And therein lies the problem.

I can remember thru age dimmed eyes when the army reserve was more of a menagerie then a  militia it had Lynxes and and Grizzlies and Cougars  and by and and large did pretty well  and then ....strangely enough the support went away.
 

 

[daftandbarmy]

While this debate has now reached almost 60-pages of circular argument, we're still no closer to the basic problem -- what is the role of the Reserve;  not the feel-good buzzwords, but what do we really want our Reserve to do?  [and I'm speaking only to the Army side]

Until our senior leadership honestly addresses the underlying rationale and what they're willing to pay for it, there will be no substantive changes.....even in another 60 pages.

And I thought that nobody really cared about us. Snif.... :'(

 

[daftandbarmy]

You're new here, aren't you...

So new I still have forcep marks on my temples  ;D

 

[GR66]

That is an interesting approach which has some merit. The challenge with the militia role, as opposed to the reserve role, is that we tried it in the 1950s and, in my opinion at least, the militia/reserves never really recovered. Sixty years ago we were faced with the very real prospect of nuclear war and the Canadian government took the threat very, very seriously. The existing militia formations dropped traditional titles such as brigades and became National Survival Groups and Columns. The military hardware was returned to depots and training became focused on what was called "Reentry Operations." On receiving an alert, the local militia columns were to abandon their families, report to the armoury and deploy to a safe site upwind of the target city. After the strike, the columns then would advance into the devastation, rescuing as many survivors as they could until they reached an area where the radiation/flames/destruction was too high for anyone to have survived. The concept was a dismal failure, not in part because traditional military training was abandoned.

In later years there was some discussion of vital point guards, regional battalions and the rest, but these always seemed to go nowhere, usually because one of the financial crunches which recur with the regularity of black flies in the Spring would emerge.

Still, can you expand on the concept?

To be honest it's more of an undeveloped gut feeling than a clearly defined concept.  My gut feeling though is that our current Militia system is designed to fill too many different roles to be effective or cost efficient at any of them.  By trying to have a Militia structure that is potentially asked to do everything from providing provide trained individual augmentees to the Reg Force units, to deploying formed units for domestic operations in the brigade group areas to being a base for large scale force expansion in time of war, do we really have the money available to allow them to do any of these tasks well?  The idea of making a distinction between the "Reserves" and the "Militia" is to allow each to focus more clearly on a specific subset of tasks. 

The "Reserves" would be much more closely linked to the idea of part time PROFESSIONAL soldiers (as opposed to "citizen soldiers").  My personal opinion is that the days of any significant force expansion of the military is gone.  The equipment we use is too expensive and takes too long to replace to realistically grow our forces in any significant way in time of serious conflict.  We'll likely have more than enough difficulty keeping our existing units adequately equipped and provided with replacement personnel.  The (new) Reserves would be a way to augment and maintain the personnel levels of Ref Force units during a conflict (or when budgetary constraints mean that they are not maintained at full strength).  Training standards and equipment used would be the same for both Reg Force and Reservists...in fact the "Reserve" units would actually be Reg Force units...just staffed primarily with part time soldiers.  Admin for the units would run down through the existing Reg Force CoC cutting out (some of) the extra overhead of having separate Militia units.

How exactly this is handled using existing Milita units would be up for debate...but essentially existing Militia units would become part of a parent Reg Force unit.  Don't really care if they maintain a separate Regimental identity for these sub-units that's not the important element.  Reservists would get Reg Force qualifications, have their staff train with the parent unit, use the same equipment, etc.  A certain number of positions within the Reg Force unit could be Class B/C positions allowing Reservists to serve full-time with their parent unit when possible in order to strengthen the ties between the elements.  The Reservists would then be available to be the source of augmentees for their parent unit when required.  Theoretically you wouldn't need as many "Reservists" as you have in the current system since their only role is to flesh out their parent unit in times of need.  Members releasing from the Reg Force may be more interested in staying in the Reserves if they can maintain their ties to their own unit as well as have training and tasks that are more relevant to their prior Reg Force service.

That leaves the question of how do you fulfill the other roles currently tasked to the Reserves?  Firstly I think we need to more clearly define what those roles are.  Are those roles REALLY primarily military roles or are they more support to civil powers roles?  Maybe there is a place for some type of "unit" (call it Militia or whatever you want) that is NOT strictly military in structure (or even part of the CF for that matter).  There could be volunteer/"Militia"-type units that are official and centrally organized by the federal government that are specifically trained for such tasks as Urban Rescue, C3, Fresh Water and mobile power provision, traffic control and civil defence, logistics, field hospitals/preventative medicine, etc.  These units could fall under a CF umbrella for sake of command and control, coordination and admin but might not look like strictly "military" units.  The level of training for these "Militia" (citizen soldiers/civil defence/volunteers) may not be as costly as training a current Militia member to existing CF standards.

I'm not suggesting scrapping the current Reserves and replacing them with a Canadian Peace Corps/Civil Defence Corps (like was tried in the past)....but rather maybe slim down (in size) and and improve the capability of the "Reserves" to fulfill the specific role of augmentation to the Reg Force.  The "other" Militia tasks could then maybe be provided by an organization better suited to dealing with just those tasks.

 

[dapaterson]

Sounds like the National GUard vs Army Reserve in the US.

GIven the resources we have, such division would make things less effective and operational.

Standing up a volunteer emergency response corps, on the other hand, might have some merit - better still to have federal funding and limited standards, and provincial management and implementation, since concerns are different in different regions - earthquake preparednes in BC, flooding in Manitoba...

 

[Infanteer]

Training standards and equipment used would be the same for both Reg Force and Reservists...in fact the "Reserve" units would actually be Reg Force units...just staffed primarily with part time soldiers.  Admin for the units would run down through the existing Reg Force CoC cutting out (some of) the extra overhead of having separate Militia units.

10/90 redux?

 

[Old Sweat]

10/90 redux?

And we know how well that worked, thanks in no small part to some very fuzzy thinking that assumed we could create an operational battalion in 30 days.

 

[quadrapiper]

The militia, more-or-less as is, provides a convenient and relatively flexible structure to hang various roles off of, even those not strictly related to a given unit's function. Don't see the value that'd be provided by another federal agency taking over the sandbag filling, etc., role, especially as that'd mean another line of bureaucrats from the useful bit to Ottawa - much better to plead for a few bodies for planning/liaison cells at some suitable level (brigade?), and a few more paid days a year for the units themselves to work on the subject. Realistically, if anything goes truly adrift, the Army will end up in the streets anyway - might as well keep awareness of domestic non-combat ops in-house.

 

[Kirkhill]

GR66's plan also reprises the Haldane, Cardswell era reforms in Britain that resulted in the Territorials. 

The Reserves were Regulars that had served out a portion of their engagement and were on the books to be called up at any time after they had commenced their civvy careers.  It replaced the earlier notion of releasing soldiers on half-pay.

The Territorials were Civvies that had volunteered to make themselves available to His/Her Majesty when the need arose and in the meantime undertook some basic military training.

I believe that the working basis for all three classes of soldiers is that all three (Regular - Trained and Available Immediately, Reserve - Trained and Available at notice, Territorial or Militia - a willing hand) were, first and foremost, Her Majesty's Odd Job Men.  In time of crisis the Army forms a pool of manpower on which the Government of the Day can rely.

Some crises involve killing and dying.  Some crises involve shoveling snow.  All crises require manpower but more importantly ORGANIZED manpower.

I would suggest that the Regs address Her Majesty's needs from one end of the spectrum and the Militia from the other.

That means that the Militia would be capable of a variety of tasks necessary to sustain local services in times of crises - up to and including armed support of the local constabulary.

It doesn't follow that the Militia would be able to assist foreign governments in supplying those same services.  They simply are not available.  They contribute to society by being society.  If everybody left their businesses to assist other countries our society would suffer.  Consequently the Government has to hire people full time to meet its international commitments - Regulars.

If the Government chooses to send and Armoured Battle Group or an Infantry Brigade Group overseas then it needs to be staffed with people on the Regular payroll.  If it chooses to send a Brigade of Snow Shovelers overseas the same applies. 

Which brings me around to the role of the Reserves as opposed to the Militia.

I understand that, as happened after the Boer War, WW1, WW2 and Korea, post-Afghanistan retention is a problem.  It was also a problem after Crimea, the War of 1812 and the unpleasantness with the Yanks in the 1770's. 

One of the earlier methods taken to address the problem was to release some of the troops part way through their engagements on half-pay and let them pursue a "normal" civvy life on the understanding they would return to the colours when they were required.  The Reserve system merely modified the terms of service for the Regulars.

And I can't help but wonder if their isn't a solution for some of the CF's woes in better management of their Regs/Reserves by separating them from the Militia.

Many young, fit, well-trained and well-seasoned troops that signed up for the excitement of Afghanistan are getting out because they are facing years of garrison.  The CF is struggling to find dollars to keep those troops engaged with interesting training.  But for many of those troops, no matter how interesting the training it still smacks of a make-work project.

How about laying off a portion of those troops a portion of the time?  If you don't need all of your troops all of the time why not release some for part of the year to pursue seasonal employment - subject to recall?  How about releasing some others to pursue full time employment - subject to recall?

The CF would then retain a brigade to 6 battle groups or 2 brigades at NTM, a third brigade at short notice and enough additional reserves to flesh out the battle groups and perhaps, even, field a full division.

The key element would be in organizing a continuing tie that would require the Reservists to come back on an ongoing basis for prolonged, meaningful, refresher training.  Not pushing brooms but 72 hr live-fire exercises that simulate the battles they are expected to fight.


The would be done without reference to the Militia.  The Militia would get their own training suitable for meeting their own expected employment requirements.

The Regular is a fully trained soldier on the payroll.
The Reservist is a fully trained soldier not on the payroll.
The Militiaman is a potential soldier.

 

[daftandbarmy]

The Regular is a fully trained soldier on the payroll.
The Reservist is a fully trained soldier not on the payroll.
The Militiaman is a potential soldier.

Oh man.. I am going to use that one with some senior egos I know and see what happens  :rofl:

 

[Kirkhill]

Oh man.. I am going to use that one with some senior egos I know and see what happens  :rofl:

>

 

[McG]

Is creating a Militia separate from the Reserve Force an answer looking for a question?  As pointed out, this is creating new bureaucracies and HQs as opposed to streamlining things, so any incremental savings from smaller individual pay scales is likely to be swallowed by the overhead costs of the beast.

Let's also keep in mind that there is the supplementary reserve fitting some of the nuanced differences being suggested for a differentiated Militia.

 

[GR66]

Is creating a Militia separate from the Reserve Force an answer looking for a question?  As pointed out, this is creating new bureaucracies and HQs as opposed to streamlining things, so any incremental savings from smaller individual pay scales is likely to be swallowed by the overhead costs of the beast.

Let's also keep in mind that there is the supplementary reserve fitting some of the nuanced differences being suggested for a differentiated Militia.

Actually rather than seeing it as creating a new organization, I see it more as shifting some personnel and units from the current Militia/Reserves system to "part time" Reg Force units (i.e. the new "Reserves") and simply re-tasking the remaining existing Militia/Reserve units to their new roles.  These redefined Militia/Civil Defence? units could then be re-structured in a way that is perhaps less costly than the existing system.

For example, since there wouldn't be the requirement for the members of these units to be equally trained or interchangable with their Reg Force/Reserve members then they may not have to use the CF Rank structure along with the training and wage overhead that goes along with it.  The management structure could be much "flatter".  The CF would still have to do operational planning, etc for their own domestic operations so much of the higher level command and control could still be handled by them. 

 

[Kirkhill]

Further to GR66:

On nomenclature - rather than describing the Militia units in Reg Force terms they could simply be defined as "Militias"  as in Militia 47 - Lakefield South.

The skill sets would include small arms training, comms and navigation and driving wheeled vehicles cross country.  Additional skills could include employment of engineering plant.

 

[Journeyman]

Perhaps consider shifting more capabilities to the Reserves that have less utility in a peacetime army. For example, most of the Air Defence and Influence Activities currently reside in the Reserve; why not establish things like ASICs there, where their part-time status would provide for financial savings while having little negative impact on operational readiness.

 

[Kirkhill]

Journeyman:

Are you talking about using GR66s "Part Time Regulars" that way or those earnest civilians currently employed by the Militia?

And I ask as an earnest civilian lately employed by the Militia.

I can see taking full time personnel that want to get out of the Regs and training them for those types of roles prior to their conditional release.  I can't see taking people like myself (or the younger, sleeker, fitter version) and training them up to the requisite standards, "half-days, two days a week or up to 12 days a year".