FJAG
Army.ca Legend
- Reaction score
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- Points
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One of my primary reference sources. CBO also has a good interactive page for "what iffing" the costs of adding, subtracting or changing BCTs.One rule of thumb I have found from looking at both US and UK force constructs for the Army in that there is generally a 35-36% of the force in Combat Units.
46-47% in Support Units - and the remaining ~2% in overhead (admin units)
No granted down here we do put more Support in the Reserve (not ARNG, but USAR)
Down here we are pretty transparent - so for your reading pleasure (has nice graphics too)...
CBO’s Interactive Force Structure Tool | Congressional Budget Office
This tool allows the user to see the effects on the Department of Defense’s total operation and support costs and on the size of the military of adding or subtracting tanks, ships, aircraft, and other units.www.cbo.gov
I think the important lesson here is that when the SBCT was initially conceptualized (roughly concurrently with our LAV based all singing and dancing force) the intent was to create a rapidly deployable force (96 hours worldwide) that could make and hold a bridgehead until heavy forces arrived. Studies done in 2003 found that the airlift for such a reaction time simply wasn't available.Plus this lovely little tidbit on P.29:
However, DoD currently describes scenarios involving Russia and China as its most challenging potential con- flicts, and the particular strengths of Stryker BCTs would not be especially useful in those scenarios. Armored BCTs would probably be preferred for responding to Russian aggression against the Baltic states, and infantry BCTs would probably be preferred for responding to Chinese military action against Taiwan or other states on the South China Sea.
When you now consider the heavier LAV 6.0 and the restricted Canadian airlift, the concept of a quick reaction mechanized force simply becomes impossible. Medium weight forces have always been a compromise right from the get go with the BTR 60s. A medium weight vehicle has its uses; a medium weight force, on the other hand, is a solution looking for a problem.
This is very critical for a force that routinely deploys in strength or has an objective to deploy at some time in massive strength and wants to have all the necessary enablers available at a low standby costs.Also what I found relevant to Canada is the "Special Topic" on P.38
Integration of the Army’s Active and Reserve Components
It's less of a requirement for an Army that deals in small scale missions day to day and has no plan for large scale missions. For those purposes a small full-time support structure is adequate and a reserve force can be mostly ignored.
The Army is a product of its own folly and limited vision.
Canada's army is solely expeditionary. Even defence of our own territories is primarily an expeditionary operation and in short, we are poorly established for the role. A massive rebalancing is necessary.In short given the size of the CA, I think the 4 Regular Bde (3 "CMBG" and 1 CSSB) is a little overly ambitious, without PRes integration - given the Support needs of an Expeditionary Army...
Numbers-wise you are absolutely correct. We have the people authorized to field two divisions as it stands - one for day-to day operations at small scale and one training for deployment on divisional scale. With current numbers (and assuming we cure our training deficiencies) we could not deploy and sustain more than the one division. Based on the equipment available to us we could not deploy and sustain more than one brigade. All of that assumes that we do not use a six month rotation scheme but go "all in" and that we rapidly overcome some critical capability deficiencies by UOR. To go beyond deploying more than one brigade requires a substantial procurement program.If the PRes can be effectively leveraged - then I think that the CA could actually field two functioning DIV.
BUT that would require massive capital investiture - something I strongly doubt that the GoC would support.