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

[Halifax Tar]

Lol the 9 golden cows.

Your all also assuming that a civilian tradesperson wants to be in the military part time.

Most ticketed tradespeople have more than enough work (and depending on where you are too much work). The average age of a tradesperson in Canada is 45, that doesn’t fit well with being infantry or other cbt arms trades and doesn’t encourage climbing around in the field.

By time most are ticketed (most apprenticeships are starting much later than they historically did), most are at the point of getting married, having kids, and doing all that fun stuff. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to go play army, especially when they have to start at the bottom getting yelled at by some MCpl 5 years younger than them for a lot less money than they make civvy side.

Not saying you won’t pick up the odd person, but most of them have more on the go than your average office worker. Coupled with the generally crappy time off policies for most blue collar jobs, free time is valued.

Perhaps some occupations just aren't suited to the part time world of the reserves.

 

[mariomike]

I took two weeks of paid leave per year for reserve training as an MSE Op.

Benefits, service accumulation, vacation entitlements, seniority, pension credits etc. were unaffected .

Some may be Reserved Occupations,

Reserved occupation​

Reserved occupation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A reserved occupation (also known as essential services) is an occupation considered important enough to a country that those serving in such occupations are exempt or forbidden from military service. In a total war, such as the Second World War, where most fit men of military age were conscripted into the armed forces, exceptions were given to those who performed jobs vital to the country and the war effort which could not be abandoned or performed by others. Not only were such people exempt from being conscripted, they were often prohibited from enlisting on their own initiative, and were required to remain in their posts. Examples of reserved occupations include medical practitioners and police officers, but what is or is not a reserved occupation will depend on war needs and a country's particular circumstances.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Lol the 9 golden cows.



Perhaps some occupations just aren't suited to the part time world of the reserves.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Willie Coyote schemes will not help the PRes.

Why not?

Various hairbrained ideas come and go all the time in the Reserve world. They seem to be a core feature of the operating system

 

[Brad Sallows]

Perhaps some occupations just aren't suited to the part time world of the reserves.

I suppose there are a lot of administrative occupations that are well-suited to part-time education and rehearsal/training, once we vacate the combat lower formation space and start talking about Comm Z and mobilization training, movements, sustainment, etc, and having at least a skeleton of leaders and planners/administrators. The trouble is finding Canadians interested in doing something less glamorous than combat or combat support in a platoon/company context.

 

[mariomike]

Patriotism.

Just throwin' that out there

Sgt. McGee: How'd you get in the Army?
Tommy: Politics.
Sgt. McGee: Is that a reason?
Tommy: Look Sergeant, I got three reasons for bein' in the Army. First, I'm patriotic. Second, I love my country. And third, they nailed me.
Pvt. Twardofsky: And that goes for me too!

 

[MilEME09]

So more ISVs and modern Milverados? Stuff the local GM dealership can maintain, and still looks cool to the locals?

Whats the point of recruiting and training vehicle techs if they cant work on anything? I mean this for both Reg and Reserve. ISS contracts mean our techs barely do 1/4 of what they get trained to do.

 

[Eaglelord17]

100 percent, but we need them so the question is how do you appeal to them or adopt policies that make reserve service more appealing. We're short techs in the regular force as well, so sticking to what we are doing now is probably not ghe recipe for success. Similar to Sigs.

I would try to go down the path of a Reservist trade apprenticeship program where the Federal government finds partner civilian companies and helps pay for the Reservists wage in a apprenticeship (possibly making it part of the conditions for bidding on government contracts, or taking government bailouts).

As to how you convince the companies, that can be open to debate, maybe some sort of non-committal process which there is no obligation to retain them after their ticketed (this was how the UK was in the 50/60s).

Also make it so it ignores collective agreements, possibly by making it so the apprenticeship is retained by the gov not the company so there is no grievance on the employing side as they aren’t a direct employee. Exact wording on that is debatable but the intent is to get them into apprenticeships even in closed shops.

Most shops want young apprentices but collective agreements prevent them favouring seniority. This is why they all try to hire ticket guys because it works around training and the collective agreements. This could be a work around.

The way I see it is it is easier to train Reservists into tradespeople than get tradespeople into Reservists. It also solves the having to train tradespeople into soldiers part.

Reservists tend to be young and still sorting out the direction their life is taking (High School, College, University). By offering a solid apprenticeship pathway (possibly with a term of Reserve service commitment for ‘x’ years for having helped pay for the apprenticeship) you can help lead those troops into good paying civilian jobs, solve a national labour crisis, and have skilled techs for potential war.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Whats the point of recruiting and training vehicle techs if they cant work on anything? I mean this for both Reg and Reserve. ISS contracts mean our techs barely do 1/4 of what they get trained to do.

And then there are the reservists who are trades people in civilian life but don't want to pull a wrench during their militia time.

 

[markppcli]

And then there are the reservists who are trades people in civilian life but don't want to pull a wrench during their militia time.

Can you blame them?

 

[daftandbarmy]

Can you blame them?

Nope.

Kind of like the nuclear physicist I discovered working as #2 on the C6 who definitely was not interested in becoming an Officer.

 

[Furniture]

Whats the point of recruiting and training vehicle techs if they cant work on anything? I mean this for both Reg and Reserve. ISS contracts mean our techs barely do 1/4 of what they get trained to do.

I never said they need to be solely ISS. Simply highlighted that COTS parts can be bought off-the-shelf, and the local shops would also be able to work on them.

How many reserve units have Veh Techs sitting around bored vs. units with nowhere enough support to keep their fleets on the road?

 

[daftandbarmy]

I never said they need to be solely ISS. Simply highlighted that COTS parts can be bought off-the-shelf, and the local shops would also be able to work on them.

How many reserve units have Veh Techs sitting around bored vs. units with nowhere enough support to keep their fleets on the road?

Our issue, as an Infantry unit, was we had nowhere to work on vehicles apart from first parades etc. Everything is out in the open air.

Apparently they didn't think of that when they built the place in 1915,

We could have had a team of highly skilled tradespeople, but they'd have been all dressed up with nowhere to go.

 

[FJAG]

Perhaps some occupations just aren't suited to the part time world of the reserves.

The key question, though, is do we need that occupation in time of war but can't afford to have them all working as full-timers during peacetime. Technicians are perfect examples of a trade where you need a certain number as full-timers during peacetime to keep all the equipment serviceable but in time of war you need a whole lot more. So you have to have both full-time and part-timers. The issue is: how do you handle that trade so that both can be properly enticed to join and stay? It's not an option. You have to figure it out.

Whats the point of recruiting and training vehicle techs if they cant work on anything? I mean this for both Reg and Reserve. ISS contracts mean our techs barely do 1/4 of what they get trained to do.

The point is that you can do it. The first thing is that you need full-timers to do the mass of the work to keep the fleet serviceable. They shouldn't be civilian techs. They should be military so that you can develop a high level of expertise in-house and develop the very skilled senior leaders that you need. Civilian contractors don't give you that. All that they give you is a job of work.

The second thing is that for those destined for part-time service, you need to give them a proper DP1 education that teaches them their basic trade craft. After that you have to give them part-time service that that is enticing. Some of that is through tactical training including range work and also field exercises that teach them the tactical environment that they will need to practice their craft in. Part of that is to let them do some of their technical work in that tactical environment on repairable equipment set aside for that training scenario. It's just like training combat arms - you plan their training in detail with the view to providing them with interesting, challenging and achievable scenarios.

What you simply can't do is depend on your part-timers to keep your fleets serviceable. Similarly you can't put them on training that has them sitting around on their butts while others around them do "fun" stuff.

 

[MilEME09]

I never said they need to be solely ISS. Simply highlighted that COTS parts can be bought off-the-shelf, and the local shops would also be able to work on them.

How many reserve units have Veh Techs sitting around bored vs. units with nowhere enough support to keep their fleets on the road?

The problem is the way the ISS contracts are structured, right now we cant do anything beyond operator maintenance without violating the contract

 

[Furniture]

The problem is the way the ISS contracts are structured, right now we cant do anything beyond operator maintenance without violating the contract

That's a contract problem, not an equipment one. It also goes back to my point about the number of units with bored techs, vs. the number of units without enough techs to do the work.

Sacrificing the reserves fleets, to keep one trade more interested in a few locations, seems like a poor institutional choice. If it's a case of Veh Techs quitting in droves because they can't do their jobs, then it's a valid institutional concern.