Government hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Halifax Tar]

There's huge unrealized potential in the Reserves

I witnessed that first hand. It was so refreshing to be around people who were keen and really excited to do the job.

We can get very crusty in the Regs and become unreasonably jaded about doing our jobs.

 

[PrairieFella]

Yes. Please.

Alot of self-interested BS takes place, under the guise of 'mission command', in the absence of clear direction from the top. Without that you'll continue to see yet another series of short term, laughably tactical, tasks being dumped on the ARes from the senior Good Idea Fairies.

What, you don't think the Arty should have a Light Urban Search and Rescue mission task?

There's huge unrealized potential in the Reserves but it's being squandered through bad leadership that now looks like it's going to further enshrine a 'one CAF, two army' approach.

Are you hearing things that gives you that opinion or just a gut feeling? I'm dreading what's going to come out of that reform study.

 

[Remius]

Would you say, as a whole, the ARes is happy with its position and role in the CAF ?

Happy is not how I would describe it.

And this is a great time of the year to ask that.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Happy is not how I would describe it.

And this is a great time of the year to ask that.

And OP LENTUS is coming

 

[dapaterson]

What is a success in your eyes ?

Bifurcated command structure isolating the Res F from the service is not in th interests of the Res F.

Nav Res is now divided between permaShads and class A. The HQ (and not unique to Nav Res) has become a plodding gatekeeper rather than an enabler.

 

[dapaterson]

Cool anecdote. Still doesn't change the fact that we will never be able to treat the ARes any other way than an individual augmentee pool if Big Army doesn't force the Regs to share kit to allow the reservists do the job. At the end of the day, the higher ups want a useless reserve force that sends some dudes to Latvia and Kuwait. If they wanted otherwise, it would have happened already.

I spent 30 years in the Army Reserve. As a member I briefed up to and including the Commander of the Army.

The Army Reserve hates two things: the way things are, and change.

The Army needs to focus on where and how to generate operational outputs. Units in the part time force need proximity to training areas and support for their assigned roles. This means revisiting and changing roles for units. Perhaps artillery is a bad for for Sault Ste Marie and they could be made an infantry platoon. Maybe the BCD should be a transportation company. And so on through the units to identify meaningful, realizable roles.

And certainly the C2 of the Army reserve needs a reset. 140+ command teams (LCol / CWO) is an unsustainable drain on the institution (which has about 20k total strength - of which conservatively 20% are pre OFP).

Big Army needs to grip what it needs and assign roles in consequence.

Big Army should not spend all its time afraid of offending units by telling them to change their role.

...and once again, every thread on Army dot CA is a Reserve Restructure thread; next we have to talk uniforms...

 

[Cloud Cover]

Then let them.

You also said at one point that the Director of army reserve had a seat at the table. Laughable.

Your post indicates quite the opposite tbh. Not really surprised as we’ve discussed all of this before. If that is what you think you are sorely misinformed.

Horseshit.

then actually let them.

Why do we have two Armies?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Why do we have two Armies?

One to deal with domestic crisis and the other to serve the Empire. This has been the way.

 

[Kirkhill]

The Army needs to focus on where and how to generate operational outputs. Units in the part time force need proximity to training areas and support for their assigned roles. This means revisiting and changing roles for units. Perhaps artillery is a bad for for Sault Ste Marie and they could be made an infantry platoon. Maybe the BCD should be a transportation company. And so on through the units to identify meaningful, realizable roles.

Assuage hurt feelings? SSM Arty becomes a DFS Platoon? BCDs become Armoured Transport specialists?

WRT to Transport in particular I think every reserve unit should have its own Transport Element, suitably sized for local emergencies. Those drivers could be brigaded operationally when and as.

 

[daftandbarmy]

One to deal with inflame domestic crisis and the other to serve the Empire. This has been the way.

There, FTFY

 

[Brad Sallows]

Your not describing a problem. What do we need to fix? What is broken that needs this solution?

If people with skills that are high-demand outside the CAF are short in the CAF, it suggests a recruitment and retention problem based on comparative pay rates. (There may be other factors, like location of employment.)

One solution is faster progression to more pay in a pay structure independent of the commissioned and non-commissioned streams (so that it can be adjusted - mostly upward - independently). Then, because some tech people do not care to advance to middle let alone higher management, the organization has its own decisions to make about retaining or releasing.

If I wanted to hire an above-average software engineer, I would have to offer more money up front and at intervals. If I needed to keep him - institutional knowledge and experience matter - and he liked where he was, I needed to be able to do that without forcing him to advance much beyond team leader. All this was possible. Can the CAF replicate it, if it needs to achieve it?

 

[dapaterson]

Personnel requirements for the defence of Canada are not inherently full time military personnel. There can be part time military, there can be public servants, there can be contracted services.

The CAF default of a uniform fetish needs to be stopped; there are plenty of CAF HQ functions and many more DND functions that do not need the significant costs (in time and money) that uniformed personnel incur.

That said, the systems view understanding where and when some "unnecessary" military positions need to be protected for sustainment, development and generation must also be understood.

Almost as if the strategic HR function is necessary.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Personnel requirements for the defence of Canada are not inherently full time military personnel. There can be part time military, there can be public servants, there can be contracted services.

The CAF default of a uniform fetish needs to be stopped; there are plenty of CAF HQ functions and many more DND functions that do not need the significant costs (in time and money) that uniformed personnel incur.

That said, the systems view understanding where and when some "unnecessary" military positions need to be protected for sustainment, development and generation must also be understood.

Almost as if the strategic HR function is necessary.

I think we need to be very specific and careful about that. Lots of HQ functions require experience gained on deck plates to make those HHQ decisions.

Not saying it can be done, I just think we need find the right positions. I'm thinking in the 8 shop perhaps ? But I'd still like a FinO to over see it.

 

[dapaterson]

I think we need to be very specific and careful about that. Lots of HQ functions require experience gained on deck plates to make those HHQ decisions.

Not saying it can be done, I just think we need find the right positions. I'm thinking in the 8 shop perhaps ? But I'd still like a FinO to over see it.

How many clerks need to be military? How much of the '2 function needs to be military? For static HQs, how much of the '6 needs to be military?

There's always a sweet spot to be found... But the default of all military is not necessarily what's needed.

 

[QV]

How many clerks need to be military? How much of the '2 function needs to be military? For static HQs, how much of the '6 needs to be military?

There's always a sweet spot to be found... But the default of all military is not necessarily what's needed.

There are positions where the constant rotation of posted in/out is detrimental to long term continuity and a PS position makes more sense.

 

[FJAG]

If the reserve forces want to be more than what they are now they need to spear the change. We've talk about this before. And I am big fan of the ARes. But they need to bring forward their own ideas for institutional change that will show the CAF that they want to be more than a private members bar that occasionally produces some augmenters.

Right now the ARes is being what it wants to be and the RegF Army is ok with that. IMHO The ARes needs to be its own catalyst for structural and institutional change.

The ARes is unable to spear change. Even the army can't because some of the big issues with the reserve force are CAF wide and need to be dealt with initially on that basis. If the ARes wants to change it first needs to convince the army who, in turn, needs to convince the CAF. Regardless if there are some ARes higher-ups who care more about their mess and band and their station in life, the fundamental problem is that the army (and the CAF as a whole) has no real plan for mobilization beyond Stage 2 - Force Enhancement. Anything further requires a level of equipment and training that is simply not given to the ARes.

Ultimately the role of a reserve force is to be the core around which Stage 3 mobilization - force expansion - and stage 4 mobilization - national mobilization is conducted. Those require not only a structure, but the necessary equipment and the necessary training. Those require high level top down actions and not a bottom up approach.

I've sat at the table of the ResF highest leadership. Meaningful change was not possible there because neither the authority or the responsibility for such change is vested there. Desire to change was the least of the problem.

Land Force Reserve Restructure, which did not restructure the land force reserve, left the A Res to its own devices.

The CAF needs to define the top level requirements; the Army need to translate those into full and part time capacity, and the structure needs to flow from that.

Not from seventy year old decisions that Crooked River SK should have an Artillery battery.

This is the heart of it. It's what some of us facetiously call: "the army needs to know what it wants to be when it grows up."

It's premature at the best of times to discuss what should be happening in Crooked River SK until we have a clear understanding of what full-time and part-time organizations the army needs and until there is a commitment to provide the funding for equipment and for training to make it happen. As long as the army limits its vision to battle group deployments generated out of the structures of four RegF brigades, individual augmentees will be fine. The issue is to get the army to think bigger so that it can reasonably convince the CAF as a whole and the government to initiate reform. In my view that starts with creating an optimum structure that can be achieved with current PY and ARes authorization levels based on the assumption that an equipping plan will be built around that once the CAF and government provide buy in.

Cool anecdote. Still doesn't change the fact that we will never be able to treat the ARes any other way than an individual augmentee pool if Big Army doesn't force the Regs to share kit to allow the reservists do the job. At the end of the day, the higher ups want a useless reserve force that sends some dudes to Latvia and Kuwait. If they wanted otherwise, it would have happened already.

I'm a big fan and, concurrently, an opponent of kit sharing. I'm an opponent not because of the fiction of the kit being abused - that's a leadership issue that can be easily fixed if the will is there - but because shared kit does not allow the force to reach Stage 3 of mobilization. Stage 3 requires the ARes to have kit to expand the force with.

I'm a fan of kit sharing because until the kit arrives, its the only way to fix the organizational structure of the force - i.e. hybrid units - and up the level of training of the reserves until their own kit arrives. It will take years for new kit to enter the system. Until such time sharing is the only option (I don't see us renting M1s from the US in the near future)

Beyond sharing equipment the army needs to share the intellectual capital of its RegF component. In order to be mobilizable ARes units need proper leadership. Ukraine has shown us as to what can be accomplished by reserve force leadership and what the practical limitations are. IMHO, one can probably generate over time the necessary officer and NCM ARes leadership to run a reasonably competent ARes sub-unit, but its highly doubtful that the ARes will be able to generate reasonably competent battalion leadership or staff. It's simply to complex for a Class A based system. Effectively that means the army needs to go beyond the RSS system and develop a proper system of hybrid units formed around a meaningful core of full-timers including battalion-level command and staff. I've mentioned before that in order to share both full-time pers and equipment in a useable way you need to establish something in the nature of 30/70 battalions.

Essentially the army needs a two phase plan. Phase one reorganizes as best it can by sharing its current equipment and personnel holdings and Phase 2 equips the force to a new mobilizable steady state.

 

[Halifax Tar]

If the ARes wants to change it first needs to convince the army who, in turn, needs to convince the CAF.

That nugget in all your lawyer speak is right on the money.

Which circles back to the heart of my position. Is the ARes happy with it's role in the Army and CAF?

If this is what the ARes wants to be and Big Army is ok with it, then so be it. And maybe that should be it, a FG organization, to provide individual augmentees for FE.

And perhaps that puts it in a position to FG civilians in time of mass mobilization. I think the days of us sending the 3rd Saskatchewan Rifle Regiment off to war are probably over, and they will instead be a BRT and DP1 depot to FG civilians into the FE deployed organizations.

 

[YZT580]

Personnel requirements for the defence of Canada are not inherently full time military personnel. There can be part time military, there can be public servants, there can be contracted services.

The CAF default of a uniform fetish needs to be stopped; there are plenty of CAF HQ functions and many more DND functions that do not need the significant costs (in time and money) that uniformed personnel incur.

That said, the systems view understanding where and when some "unnecessary" military positions need to be protected for sustainment, development and generation must also be understood.

Almost as if the strategic HR function is necessary.

And end up with a Steven Guuibeault at the helm making decisions on acquisition Be very careful what you wish for

 

[dapaterson]

And end up with a Steven Guuibeault at the helm making decisions on acquisition Be very careful what you wish for

Lots of CAF own goal procurement failures.

 

[FJAG]

That nugget in all your lawyer speak is right on the money.

Which circles back to the heart of my position. Is the ARes happy with it's role in the Army and CAF?

One needs to look at the leadership of the ARes. Effectively its a divide and conquer concept. Other than the CCA, there is no one commander of the ARes. (and in fact I think there shouldn't be - it should be total force). The most senior ARes guy is a BGen - Director General Army Reserve - who is a staff officer and not a commander. Most of the DGARs (and former DG Land Reserve) that I knew were good folks but had limited mandates which pointed primarily at improving force generation of individual augmentees for Afghanistan (which they accomplished) But, they were simply one voice - and a voice with little impact - at the table of army reform. ARes reform MUST be part of army reform or it will never work.

If the direction at the most senior level is to improve the implementation of stage 2 mobilization and ignore Stages 3 and 4 because the army as a whole is ignoring stages 3 and 4, where do you find the impetus for reform from the bottom up. Cross country ARes CO workshops are few and far between and have about as much impact on the CAF proper as our discussions in this forum.

I'm not sure if you have read Relentless Struggle. It's a biased account commissioned by Reserves 2000, but delivers a lot of insight as to how sausages are made in the factory that is NDHQ/CFHQ. It does point out fairly well that there are two solitudes: The Reserves 2000 view of a bigger stronger, well equipped ARes pointed at Stage 3 and 4 mobilization; and the RegF army view based on fiscal limitations, an ever challenging requirement to do more with less, and need to deal with day-to-day crises that suck up all the oxygen in the room.

In short, the CAF and the CA are not good at planning long range. The system makes that difficult and even the best commanders quickly get sucked into putting out the daily brushfires.

If this is what the ARes wants to be and Big Army is ok with it, then so be it. And maybe that should be it, a FG organization, to provide individual augmentees for FE.

So to get to this point. No one who matters gives a shit as to what the ARes wants and at the same time they have no idea what they want from the ARes beyond individual augmentation while sensing that there should be more.

And perhaps that puts it in a position to FG civilians in time of mass mobilization. I think the days of us sending the 3rd Saskatchewan Rifle Regiment off to war are probably over, and they will instead be a BRT and DP1 depot to FG civilians into the FE deployed organizations.

FGing civilians needs to be an assigned role and it should be part of a plan - but can you honestly see the 70 some odd folks that make up today's 3rd SRR capable of being the core to train a civilian battalion of civilians to DP1? We constantly deride Sam Hughes and his ad hoc manner of raising the Canadian Expeditionary Corps but for two decades now we have made ad hocing operational Frankensteinian battle groups an art form. Just watch out if we ever need to deploy a division. I suggest a structure and methodology to do that as part of Unsustainable at Any Price.

Your view that there will never be a need to send the 3rd SRR to war is shared by many in the RegF and is the root of why the CAF and the CA ignore Stage 3 mobilization or even buying equipment for the ARes. Personally I think that is a dangerous viewpoint for any national military to have. It coincides with reducing war stocks of ammunition to near zero and having no domestic defence industry that can expand to fill war time needs. As a national security insurance policy it sucks big time. The issue should be: How do we maintain a Stage 3 and 4 mobilization capability at a reasonable and sustainable cost? That may or may not include a method by which the 3rd SRR can be sent off to war.