FJAG
Army.ca Legend
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Ironically, it started out as an information management system for lawyers ...I'd love to see the SOR on those things.
That would explain why the cannons keep missing and the things move so ponderously slow.Ironically, it started out as an information management system for lawyers ...
Further to...
Canadian Context -
LAV 6.0 with turreted weapons - RCAC with Dragoons on board.
LAV 6.0 ACSC, or BvS10, or Senator, or ISV, or helicopter or boat - Infantry with back-packable weapons.
I think there are strong strong reasons to have crews be the same trade as their dismounts. The number one reason, beyond culture and mosid and PYs, is simply that your can reliable have back up crewmen across the Bn. In the end the important question is “is it effective” and the answer is yes. So why fuck with it to just change the window dressing of calling them infantry or dragoons?*In the Canadian context we are focused on grouping combat MOSIDs together. An Infantry Battalion will only have Infantry combat MOSIDs and Armoured Regiment only armoured.
It’s virtually impossible culturally to see the CA with a ABCT Bn with two infantry Coys and two armoured Coys, with both MOSIDs under one CO.
Nor would an armoured MOSID NCO shrug and say why not after he tells you that his Abrams driver is actually Infantry but since the guy was a Bradley driver in the same Bn why couldn’t he fill in since they were undermanned.
The CA view for many reasons some legitimate is that one cannot mix MOSIDs. That culture precludes to a degree the professionalism of the AFV crews in the Army overall.
A not insignificant reason for refusing to mix MOSIDs is the Infantry Corp would lose PYs even if the Bns would not lose strengths.
I think there are strong strong reasons to have crews be the same trade as their dismounts. The number one reason, beyond culture and mosid and PYs, is simply that your can reliable have back up crewmen across the Bn. In the end the important question is “is it effective” and the answer is yes. So why fuck with it to just change the window dressing of calling them infantry or dragoons?*
* Dragoons is a very silly term to bring up. Realistically the mounted rifleman task of Dragoons was dead by the mid 1700s. The only reason the British Army even has them is because they chose to designate most of their Cavalry regiments as Dragoons in the 1750s, because dragoons got paid less.
Which is precisely why I mentioned the 1750s, not the 1650s . From 1756 the British gradual reorganized their Cavalry to be nearly all “dragoons” with little to no distinction. That’s in Barthop by the way'Labourers on horseback'... I like that
In the context of the seventeenth century, there was extensive difference in equipment and costs between dragoons and cavalry. Now, this was also the period where most cavalry became the type known as harquebusiers, where the distinctions between cuirassiers, reitters, and other forms of cavalry disappeared or merged into an all purpose cavalryman.
If we take the British Civil Wars for an example of the differences between the mounted soldiers of the middle of the seventeenth century - cavalryman and dragoon.
The cavalryman of the period needed a steel helmet, usually with a three-bar or single-bar face guard, and either a 'corslet' (back and breastplate) or a strong 'buff' coat of leather armour. A well-equipped trooper might have armour over a buff coat, and strong leather boots and gloves.1 His weapons would include a good quality sword, as well as flintlock carbine, and usually two flintlock pistols (although older wheellocks might have been used in a shortage of the new flintlocks). The flintlock was more complex and more expensive than the matchlock firing mechanism carried by the infantry. A flintlock in 1643 would cost £1 2s, whereas a matchlock only 12s 6d.2 The dragoon on the other hand, would be equipped almost identically to a conscripted foot soldier - minimal uniform, shoes, a cheap short sword, and a light matchlock musket and associated equipment. As the wars continued, dragoons often re-equipped with flintlock muskets but otherwise remained equipped as Poor Bloody Infantry.
The dragoon's horse was only as a means of transport - less attention was given to quality of the horse, or requirement of speed, strength, and agility. In comparison the cavalryman's horse needed to be 'serviceable', of a certain size and strength to carry the cavalry man, at the charge, into battle and on his myriad other duties. It therefore needed to be around 15 hands high, strong, but nimble. The difference can be seen in the prices paid for the different mounts with the New Model Army paying £7 10s for a cavalry horse, and only £4 for a dragoon horse.3 Even cavalry saddles cost more, as the saddle of a trooper needed to be higher, reinforced, and more substantial because the cavalryman relied on it for much of his movements and strength when riding into battle, whereas dragoon saddles only needed to be riding saddles. According to Peter Edwards in his review of Civil War Equipment, dragoon saddles cost half of what a cavalry saddle cost.4
Dragoons were, for the initial century or more of their inception considered inferior as a mounted arm to cavalry. Even one of their earlier adopters, Gustav Adolphus of Sweden referred to them as "labourers on horseback."5 As the 18th century advanced, however, armies began turning the dragoon more toward a cavalryman that could also fight dismounted in addition to mounted rather than simply a mounted infantryman who only fought on foot. Their equipment became more in line with cavalry - longer sword, boots, better quality horses, etc.6 By the time of the Napoleonic wars, the dragoon of old, originally simply mounted infantry, had become a subset of the cavalry itself, the name applied to particular type of cavalry regiments as the cavalry arms diversified once more into various regiment/equipment-specific roles of Heavy Cavalry, Light Cavalry, Dragoons, and Lancers.7
- See descriptions in both Firth, C., Cromwell's Army: A History of the English Soldiers During the Civil Wars, the Commonwealth and the Protectorate (Methuen, 1902) and Young, P., & Holmes, R., The English Civil War (Wordsworth Editions, 2000)
- UK National Archives, State Papers, 28/11, i, f.9, receipts to the New Model Army 1645
- Edwards, P, 'Supply of Horses to the Parliamentarian and ROyalist Armies in the English Civil War', Historical Research, 68 (1995)
- Edwards, P., Dealing in Death: The Arms Trade and the British Civil Wars, 1638-1652 (Sutton, 2000), p. 12
- Brzezinski, R., The Army of Gustavus Adolphus (2): Cavalry: Pt. 2. Men-at-Arms (Osprey Publishing, 1993), p. 38
- Barthorp, M. British Cavalry Uniforms Since 1660 (Littlehampton Books, 1984)
- Rothenburg, G., The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon (Indiana University Press, 1978)
I think there are strong strong reasons to have crews be the same trade as their dismounts. The number one reason, beyond culture and mosid and PYs, is simply that your can reliable have back up crewmen across the Bn. In the end the important question is “is it effective” and the answer is yes. So why fuck with it to just change the window dressing of calling them infantry or dragoons?*
The Americans had that and decided to streamline the system to training one class of infantryman (and one of indirect fire infantryman) and leave the specialization of the turret (Bradley v Stryker v HMMWV) to the units. Both the MOS 11M (mechanized infantry) and MOS 11H (anti-armour infantry) merged into the general 11B (Infantryman) specialty.If those crews can’t be armoured we might need a sub occupation in the infantry for IFV crewmen, so those skills and expertise can be built on and developed.
And guess what we are discussing doing now?The Americans had that and decided to streamline the system to training one class of infantryman (and one of indirect fire infantryman) and leave the specialization of the turret (Bradley v Stryker v HMMWV) to the units. Both the MOS 11M (mechanized infantry) and MOS 11H (anti-armour infantry) merged into the general 11B (Infantryman) specialty.
Before one advocates creating a specialty one should look closely at why they decided the way that they did. Effectively it was to ensure standardization of NCO development across the force and to facilitate cross unit assignments. There are obviously different opinions. Here are some.
And guess what we are discussing doing now?
IMHO the 11M and 11B merger was a mistake, it was a GWOT’ism that got traction and didn’t get course corrected in time.
There is a major difference between Light and Mech Inf - and the training time to be good at both doesn’t exist.
One will suffer - and it’s a pretty brutal transition for one to the other.
Used to. Big difference in a FV432 and a M2A4 Bradley turret.The British Army's Infantry used to do the transition from 'tracks to boots and back' all the time, from Type A to Type B Infantry and back, as I recall.
If high school dropouts from inner city London can handle the complexity ...
Used to. Big difference in a FV432 and a M2A4 Bradley turret.
It’s all about available training time. Everything is more complex than 5 let alone 20 years ago.... adn about a million other things....
All things are possible with the right planning and leadership.
I mean, I even saw paratroopers effectively operate a troop of Scimitar
It’s all about available training time. Everything is more complex than 5 let alone 20 years ago.
It's an interesting issue for debate especially for an army as small as ours. When you think back to when we had the Arty 022 Air defender and related officer trade, we had over 500 RegF and 500 ResF folks in AD and it was just enough organization with enough leadership positions to have appropriate career paths for officers and NCOs. Right now the whole arty stands at around 2,000 RegF positions and you have some specialties with STA, gunline, OP/FSCC, and soon AD again and maybe rockets. Conceivably you can have a BSM of a gun battery whose entire career before that was STA. There's a risk that people won't be as proficient in a given job as they ought to be or not capable of being cross posted when required by the branch or their career progression. The risk mitigation for that is more or longer courses that try to teach everything to everyone at every stage of their career.And guess what we are discussing doing now?
IMHO the 11M and 11B merger was a mistake, it was a GWOT’ism that got traction and didn’t get course corrected in time.
There is a major difference between Light and Mech Inf - and the training time to be good at both doesn’t exist.
One will suffer - and it’s a pretty brutal transition for one to the other.