General Hillier's Legacy (split from:Top general fights to cut the fat in the Forces)

[aesop081]

We can live with the not so good decisions that occurred on his watch.

I would rather we did not "live with" those decisions. I would much rather we take steps to correct the mess we now have on our hands.

We can still have the public image we enjoy now and correct our organizational failings. Those 2 things are not mutualy exclusive.

 

[Jed]

I agree that we do not want to live with the results of 'imperfect decisions'. But we don't have to take the previous leader's down to make course corrections. Just determine what needs to change and get on with it.

 

[aesop081]

But we don't have to take the previous leader's down to make course corrections. Just determine what needs to change and get on with it.

I'm not putting Hillier down and i don't think anyone else is but If we are to make changes, we have to acknowledge how we got in this mess in the first place.

 

[Bass ackwards]

I've noticed a number of comments that suggest an over-recruiting of infantrymen.

I've been out for a long time. My reading over the years suggests that our infantry battalions have been chronically understrength (hence the use of reservists to round out deployed forces -the Medak Pocket comes to mind as one example of that).

My question is (opsec permitting): how are those battalions doing now ? Are they overmanned ? Still understrength ? Right where they should be ?

Please folks, I'm not arguing any point here. I've got no dog in this hunt. I'm just very surprised to see Gen. Hillier go from being a rock star to being the guy who screwed things up.

Or am I just reading this whole thing wrong to begin with ?     

 

[Infanteer]

Although I haven't checked the PSR and what not lately, the Infantry is overmanned by 1200-1400 positions.  However, this overmanning is deceptive:

1.  The overmanning is almost exclusively at the Pte/Cpl level.  The trade is around even for MCpl and Sgt (due to an increase in promotions over the last few years) but short Warrant Officers.

2.  The overmanning is a bit deceptive due to structural reasons - the table of organization built into every Infantry battalion's Unit Establishment Report is flawed and does not represent doctrinal (if such a thing can be said to exist) or de facto employment of the infantry.  I've crunched the figures, and over half of this surplus is actually being used in positions we've always taken for granted (ie: 10 man rifle sections) which we're not actually manned for according to the Preferred Manning Level - by the (financial/administrative) books, each Rifle Section gets 8 guys.

 

[dapaterson]

Although I haven't checked the PSR and what not lately, the Infantry is overmanned by 1200-1400 positions.  However, this overmanning is deceptive:

1.  The overmanning is almost exclusively at the Pte/Cpl level.  The trade is around even for MCpl and Sgt (due to an increase in promotions over the last few years) but short Warrant Officers.

2.  The overmanning is a bit deceptive due to structural reasons - the table of organization built into every Infantry battalion's Unit Establishment Report is flawed and does not represent doctrinal (if such a thing can be said to exist) or de facto employment of the infantry.  I've crunched the figures, and over half of this surplus is actually being used in positions we've always taken for granted (ie: 10 man rifle sections) which we're not actually manned for according to the Preferred Manning Level - by the (financial/administrative) books, each Rifle Section gets 8 guys.

By the book, each section gets 8 infantrymen, and in the event of operations, is filled out with two Reserve infantrymen.  That preserves a large enough section to conduct peacetime training, but also keeps PYs available for other things the Army wants to do.  In a perfect world we'd fully resource everything we want; as we ahve finite resources, the Army has to pick and choose what it does and how it does it.  Having the rifle sections established at 80% of wartime strength saves 2 PYs per section, 6 per platoon, 18 per company... and so on, meaning those PYs are available for other things instead.

The real problem with infantryman having in excess of 1000 over PML is the impact on other occupations - they are unable to recruit because the CF is at or above its target strength.  So while the Inf Bns are overmanned (in numbers, if not by rank) other trades are short without near-term relief in sight.


Gen Hillier did many good things for the CF during his tenure.  But other decisions were made that caused and continued to cause damage to the CF such as inadequate planning of the stand-up of the dot COMs, pushing out allowances and benefits without authority to do so and over-recruiting of Infantrymen.  It's not a simple black/white, bad/good assessment; it's trying to acknowledge the areas where mistakes were made, to learn and improve.

The CF (and particularly the Army) is notoriously bad at introspection, self examination and self assessment.  Saying "I made a mistake and will improve by doing this different" is in fact a great sign of leadership.  Unfortunately, too often it's mistaken for a sign of weakness, not strength.

 

[Bass ackwards]

So if I'm reading you right (dapaterson), every infantryman over quota equals another tradesman (ie: Navy signaller or Airforce weapons tech or even an Army whatever) who cannot be hired ?

This makes more sense now.

 

[Infanteer]

By the book, each section gets 8 infantrymen, and in the event of operations, is filled out with two Reserve infantrymen.  That preserves a large enough section to conduct peacetime training, but also keeps PYs available for other things the Army wants to do.  In a perfect world we'd fully resource everything we want; as we ahve finite resources, the Army has to pick and choose what it does and how it does it.  Having the rifle sections established at 80% of wartime strength saves 2 PYs per section, 6 per platoon, 18 per company... and so on, meaning those PYs are available for other things instead.

Although I don't doubt that this policy exists somewhere, the doctrine and the de facto SOP on the Battalion floors certainly don't work by this idea.  If 8+2 reservists is the policy, than it should be worked into doctrine and everything else.  Policy and reality are clearly at conflict, and the real result is that other supporting functions within the Rifle Battalion take the hit.

There is an aspect of train as one would fight here - you don't man tanks with 3 out of 4 crew.  After 8 men cuts 3 away for crew, you're down to 5 if you have a full section.  While the Infantry, more than most other trades, works with fluctuating manpower as a rule, doesn't mean purposely undermanning the "raison d'etre" is right.

In this day in age why we can't budget to ensure crews, teams and sections would recieve priority for manning at the Pte/Cpl level is beyond me.

Gen Hillier did many good things for the CF during his tenure.  But other decisions were made that caused and continued to cause damage to the CF such as inadequate planning of the stand-up of the dot COMs, pushing out allowances and benefits without authority to do so and over-recruiting of Infantrymen.  It's not a simple black/white, bad/good assessment; it's trying to acknowledge the areas where mistakes were made, to learn and improve.

The CF (and particularly the Army) is notoriously bad at introspection, self examination and self assessment.  Saying "I made a mistake and will improve by doing this different" is in fact a great sign of leadership.  Unfortunately, too often it's mistaken for a sign of weakness, not strength.

Agreed.

 

[Infanteer]

So if I'm reading you right (dapaterson), every infantryman over quota equals another tradesman (ie: Navy signaller or Airforce weapons tech or even an Army whatever) who cannot be hired ?

Yes - and that's the perfect example of how a half-a** solution only means headaches in the future.

 

[dapaterson]

Although I don't doubt that this policy exists somewhere, the doctrine and the de facto SOP on the Battalion floors certainly don't work by this idea.  If 8+2 reservists is the policy, than it should be worked into doctrine and everything else.  Policy and reality are clearly at conflict, and the real result is that other supporting functions within the Rifle Battalion take the hit.

The Army's inability to coherently communicate internally rears its ugly head again.  All I know is that D Inf and senior representatives from the three Reg F regiments and four Land Force Areas were all present when this was briefed, discussed and decided. 

If only the Army had a body tasked with maintaining doctrine and promulgating it.  Or, if only the body tasked with doing such things actually did them...

 

[ArmyRick]

The doctrine side for infantry? Between Inf School, CTC and LFDTS, somebody should be able to punch up the doctrine (or two, one for the properly equipped enemy aka conventional warfare and one for COIN?).

How many of those overbourne in the infantry trades are guys waiting to be put on PCAT or sent to a JPSU from severe injuries in Afghanistan? Does anybody have a statistic for that?

Also, NEVER mind cutting infantry. If we do what General leslie suggest, cut the "fat" from NDHQ then we would be able to recruit for other trades, yes? If infantry being overbourne hurts others trades, then so does HQ being overbourne. If dontrinally we are suppossed to have 735.5 soldiers in a battalion (example) then thats what we should strive for. Not leave XX positions open for reserves to man in the event of ops. That also doesn't work when say a domestic snap operation comes up (Ice storms, earth quakes, forest fires and floods as examples). Manning should be done properly.

Personally, I find it funny that we are complaining of having too many combat troops (Not too often in history of the CF did you hear that).

Now, the .coms, not every thing is perfect when it first comes out and tweakings are neccessary as a result of lessons learned. So I am guessing, a single CAN OP COM would be ideal to replace CEFCOM, CAN COM and CANOSCOM? I do think CANSOFCOM should remain its own entity, thats a tiny organization and it seems that no one is complaining about that .com, agreed?

Maybe we need to ask parliament about an "margin" for service members in the CF that would acount for PCAT, soon to be CRA, etc, etc. I don't like the idea of throwing people out the door (I am actually agaisnt just tossing someone right away because they are too hurt to continue) but the reality is being released on a PCAT medical (usually 3B) takes years. Those numbers also hinder recruiting.

So I think Hillier did alright, not perfect, but heck, no of us are. We just need to further refine the changes he began. All in all, I think winning the public over was a huge step, we had to win the psy ops at home first.

 

[vonGarvin]

The doctrine side for infantry? Between Inf School, CTC and LFDTS, somebody should be able to punch up the doctrine (or two, one for the properly equipped enemy aka conventional warfare and one for COIN?).

Last point first: though COIN has been elevated to the realm of the religious, it is but one 'facet' of war, and how the infantry is organised is the same for COIN as for conventional, aid to civil power, humanitarian, UN Peacekeeping, nuclear war, etc.

Having said that, the doctrine from the School is based upon employment, not generation of forces.  For doctrinal purposes, a rifle section has ten soldiers.  If they are reg, reserve or whatever is up to the force generation folks to man.  The doctrine for the Force 2013 model is going to be "on the street" soon, and it addresses not only employment (eg: doctrinal) issues, but generation (eg: peacetime, in garrison, in Canada issues).


I have my own views on things, but meh, I'm just a commissioned corporal.

 

[McG]

Although I haven't checked the PSR and what not lately, the Infantry is overmanned by 1200-1400 positions. 

Pedantic point here but – the infantry is overmanned by 1200-1400 soldiers.  The number of positions is relatively fixed and “extra” positions do not exist.

If we do what General leslie suggest, cut the "fat" from NDHQ then we would be able to recruit for other trades, yes? If infantry being overbourne hurts others trades, then so does HQ being overbourne.

Yes and no.  The infantry have extra people.  The “fat” in HQs that is being considered for targeting is positions.  Certainly, we could “balance” the force by ejecting 1200-1400 service personnel and converting their positions to Inf Cpl/Pte, but I don’t think that would be a necessarily intelligent or healthy move for the CF.

The overmanning is a bit deceptive due to structural reasons - the table of organization built into every Infantry battalion's Unit Establishment Report is flawed and does not represent doctrinal (if such a thing can be said to exist) or de facto employment of the infantry.  I've crunched the figures, and over half of this surplus is actually being used in positions we've always taken for granted (ie: 10 man rifle sections) which we're not actually manned for according to the Preferred Manning Level - by the (financial/administrative) books, each Rifle Section get 8 guys.

If dontrinally we are suppossed to have 735.5 soldiers in a battalion (example) then thats what we should strive for. Not leave XX positions open for reserves to man in the event of ops. That also doesn't work when say a domestic snap operation comes up (Ice storms, earth quakes, forest fires and floods as examples). Manning should be done properly.

Perhaps part of the problem is also that we allow ourselves to develop & train doctrine that is not constrained by realities.  For as long as I can think, we have been using doctrinal training models (10, 20, 30 & 4 CMBG, Corps 86) that employ human and materiel resources which do not (and never will) exist in the CF.  Perhaps it is also time to ensure our doctrine is also in-line with sustainable and possible resource levels.

At the same time, the establishment of the Army’s field force has been reviewed/revised/revisited/etc at the national level many many times over the last few years.  We have failed to give due attention to our institutional organizational structures to repeatedly answer the strategic question of “how many riflemen belong in a battalion?”.  We have finally reached a point were the establishment of every infantry battalion (with one exception) is the same across the country.  There are policies and concepts that link our FG structure with the FE structure we want to deploy.  These are articulated at various levels and for all branches.  If we want full doctrinal brigades fully manned, then I suspect we will have to start converting infantry to other occupations just to achieve two brigades.  Significantly growing the field force has already been ruled-out as a feasable CoA at the stratigic level.

Having said that, the doctrine from the School is based upon employment, not generation of forces.  For doctrinal purposes, a rifle section has ten soldiers.  If they are reg, reserve or whatever is up to the force generation folks to man. 

An important fact in this discussion. 

If only the Army had a body tasked with maintaining doctrine and promulgating it.  Or, if only the body tasked with doing such things actually did them...

I think I've recently seen a proposal that was aimed at getting said body better focused on its actual task  .... http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/99602/post-1022040.html#msg1022040

Although, if we did publish a “Force Generation Doctrine” would it be DAD or another entity that should be the author?

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

In the eighties, we had a saying about CDS' selection: "If you want good leadership, get an Army general, good administration, an Admiral and good politics, an Air Force general".

When Gen. Hillier took over, we were in serious need of leadership in the CF and the good general certainly provided that. He certainly reminded the officer corps (all three elements) that good leadership was our primary duty. Does this mean all his decision were correct? No. But the overall effect was certainly positive. Now we should just correct what went amiss without dismissing the man.

Also, though I do not know much about the Army doctrine, I read a lot of military history: It seems to me one of the constant in Canadian military history is that in all major wars we participated in, we were chronically short on infantry. Considering we were in Afghanistan for the long run when the General was CDS, his decision to fill all the infantry regiment to strength while he could seems reasonable, even if it caused some hardship in other trades.

 

[Old Sweat]

The discussion re the results of a decision to over recruit infantry is fascinating. It also is more than a little sad.

I would like to raise another issue, one about which I really know squat other than what I learned from the media and on this site. That issue is the resurrection of the tank. It seems to me that when Gen Hillier was CLS he announced that heavy armour was being phased out and "replaced" by the MGS. Operations in Afghanistan in 2006 showed that we needed something to knock big holes in compound walls and grape huts, and that the best solution was the tank. In my opinion, it was to his credit as CDS that he accepted that he erred, or at least could be accused of the same, and was able to convince the government not only to bring back our Leopard fleet, but to also buy the Leo 2. According to what I have seen, there were some mistakes made in the programme, but I am not sure we can blame him for every thing that goes wrong.

I have kicked around the army and the CF for quite a while and have seen some colossal egos that would not have countenanced ever admitting anything short of near-papal infallibility. He at least had the balls to do so, and to do so quickly and effectively. Or what have I missed?

 

[jollyjacktar]

Hear, Hear Old Sweat!  I can just imagine Gen Baril or Prince John de C. admitting they were wrong... not bloody likely.  Oh wait, Baril said it was his subordinates who were in the wrong.  General Rick, being human may have made some mistakes along the road.  But Goddam, I am glad that he was driving the bus back in the day.  We would  be one sorry collection of crap nowadays if some of the inmates of Ottawa got their hands on the tiller back then. 

If we have more Cbt Arms than we need at present, so what.  It will adjust itself in the not to distant future, perhaps the focus should be on raising the bar for numbers of boots on the ground then.

 

[dapaterson]

How many of those overbourne in the infantry trades are guys waiting to be put on PCAT or sent to a JPSU from severe injuries in Afghanistan? Does anybody have a statistic for that?

Unless one in six infrantrymen are in that situation, there is still a problem.

Also, NEVER mind cutting infantry. If we do what General leslie suggest, cut the "fat" from NDHQ then we would be able to recruit for other trades, yes? If infantry being overbourne hurts others trades, then so does HQ being overbourne.

There are two different issues at play:

The infantryman occupation has more bums than chairs - hence describing it as overborne.  (MSE Op is in a similar situation, but is a much smaller trade, so we don't talk about them as much)

HQs are not overborne.  That is, they don't have a mismatch between bums and chairs.  The problem as posited by LGen Leslie (among others) say that there are too many chairs; reducing the number of chairs in HQs means those chairs can be asssigned to other places.

If dontrinally we are suppossed to have 735.5 soldiers in a battalion (example) then thats what we should strive for. Not leave XX positions open for reserves to man in the event of ops. That also doesn't work when say a domestic snap operation comes up (Ice storms, earth quakes, forest fires and floods as examples). Manning should be done properly.

But we also have a finite number of chairs (PYs) assigned to the Army, so choices have to be made.  To provide those extra chairs to the Inf Bns, what is the Army willing to sacrifice?  Folks much higher on the food chain than you or I decided that this was the best option to ensure the capabilities needed would be available.

Personally, I find it funny that we are complaining of having too many combat troops (Not too often in history of the CF did you hear that).

Now, the .coms, not every thing is perfect when it first comes out and tweakings are neccessary as a result of lessons learned. So I am guessing, a single CAN OP COM would be ideal to replace CEFCOM, CAN COM and CANOSCOM? I do think CANSOFCOM should remain its own entity, thats a tiny organization and it seems that no one is complaining about that .com, agreed?

Keeping CANSOF its own command makes some sense.  Streamlining the bloat and inefficiency that marks the rest of the dot COMs should free up chairs (PYs) for other important things.  Investing nearly 10% of the Regular Force expansion chairs (PYs) into more NDHQ, a choice made by Gen Hillier, was in my opinion a suboptimal use of resources.

Maybe we need to ask parliament about an "margin" for service members in the CF that would acount for PCAT, soon to be CRA, etc, etc. I don't like the idea of throwing people out the door (I am actually agaisnt just tossing someone right away because they are too hurt to continue) but the reality is being released on a PCAT medical (usually 3B) takes years. Those numbers also hinder recruiting.

Parliament gives us a great deal of latitude in determining how we run things; the fault lies not with our stars but with ourselves.  We could structure ourselves to permit those things without our current structure, but choose not to do so.  Adding more money and chairs to do so would elad to some bright MBA somewhere, eventually, to redirect those chairs and funding to other bright ideas, and we'd end up back where we started.

So I think Hillier did alright, not perfect, but heck, no of us are. We just need to further refine the changes he began.

Refine and in some places replace, but I agree.

All in all, I think winning the public over was a huge step, we had to win the psy ops at home first.

PsyOps, doctrinally, is an asset we use only against enemies and third parties, and do not employ in domestic scenarios at all. 

 

[Jed]

I have kicked around the army and the CF for quite a while and have seen some colossal egos that would not have countenanced ever admitting anything short of near-papal infallibility. He at least had the balls to do so, and to do so quickly and effectively. Or what have I missed?

I with you on this one Old Sweat

 

[dapaterson]

Hear, Hear Old Sweat!  I can just imagine Gen Baril or Prince John de C. admitting they were wrong... not bloody likely.  Oh wait, Baril said it was his subordinates who were in the wrong.

That was Boyle, not Baril.

General Rick, being human may have made some mistakes along the road.  But Goddam, I am glad that he was driving the bus back in the day.  We would  be one sorry collection of crap nowadays if some of the inmates of Ottawa got their hands on the tiller back then. 

If we have more Cbt Arms than we need at present, so what.  It will adjust itself in the not to distant future, perhaps the focus should be on raising the bar for numbers of boots on the ground then.

The excess of Infantrymen will not "adjust itself" in the near future.  It impacts every trade that is short right now and will continue to do so for the next decade - since reduced recruiting today for those trades due to the infantry overage means the training pipeline won't meet their requirements for years beyond. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

That was Boyle, not Baril.
...

It was Baril, too ... he was caught in a big lie when he supported Chretien when the latter said the CF told him it could not get him from Whistler to Amman (Jordan) in time for King Hussein's funeral. Turns out that the trip, which protocol rather demanded a high level Canadian delegation, was well within the CF's capabilities but Chretien didn't want to interrupt his ski vacation with his family. Baril was, in my personal opinion a far worse CDS (and officer and, indeed, human being) than Boyle. Compared to Baril Hillier was both saint and organizational genius.