Informing the Army’s Future Structure
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daftandbarmy
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Oldgateboatdriver
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It used to be for the Maritimers in the Black Watch. 
daftandbarmy
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It used to be for the Maritimers in the Black Watch.
I assume they had DNA tests to ensure the gene pool was deep enough to ensure that they were Darwin proof?
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And the Army?
I mean I get that the RCAF doesn't like the idea of the army having dangerous (to them) toys - but...
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I
I remember some of the discussions around the time of the birth of ADATS. To say that Air Command did not love the idea of a Sgt commanding a vehicle that could shoot down a fighter was an understatement….
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You know, just looking at that picture, and thinking about the AD AT discussion. I get that there is a cost to ammunition. I get that Air Defence is indeed a specialization that requires particular skills.
But here is where I find myself bumping up against a problem.
How do the navies of the world manage to deal with surface threats, subsurface threats, aerial threats, missiles, boats and smugglers with an array of multiple caliber guns, missiles, torpedoes and troops transported by jackstay, boat and helicopter from one single room surrounded by all the systems and accessed from comfy seats?
And yet the army needs separate capbadges and colonels to perform similar jobs.
Halifax Tar
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FJAG
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I thought it would probably be something like that. That's a doable method when you count cash but becomes somewhat strained when dealing with PYs where a given individual may straddle several programs (or could be interpreted amongst several programs).The DRF breaks down a lot further than that. What you're looking at is the programs, but within the programs it's broken down further.
So "Ready Forces" breaks down into "Land Ready Forces" (Army) which breaks down into
Collective Training
Individual Training
Land Service Support
Land Readiness Management
Canadian Ranger Programs
Land History, Heritage, COMREL (seems kinda dishonest to include this in Land Ready Forces)
Support to Operations (aka Force Gen costs for an Op)
And all of those breakdown further.... it's like that for every "program." Without seeing how it's broken down there's not much useful information to be gained.
Then there's also the execution problem that affects data integrity..... the Army has been funding and capturing all of our PCF courses which are clearly an IT cost, as Collective Training, for years now.
Also all the Base Maintenance, Transport, Supply, etc. functions fall under program 6, the sustainable bases one..... so that should probably be all captured under Land Ready Forces for a Base like Edmonton, Pet, Gagetown since all that money is actually going towards sustaining the Land Ready Forces stuff but hey.....
I'm not generally a great fan of performance measurement because unless well designed and scrupulously implemented (which most are not) they tend to provide fuzzy data and frequently aren't worth the effort. Industries that have a variety of cost inputs to measure against an incoming cash flow generally do much better with it than organizations that are just input consumers with no real measurable outputs.
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Thinking more on the naval analogy
One Lt Colonel (Commander)
225 Under Command (Small Battalion or Reinforced Company Combat Team)
Own Base
Responsible for
Base Maintenance
Base Engineering
Hotel (Room and Board)
Continuous Surveillance of Surface (Land), Air, and Subsurface (Underground)
Relocating Base constantly
Conducting constabulary and combat duties
Preparing for peer on peer high intensity warfare
Assets on hand, in addition to the vessel and its boats
I remember reading that the Absalom crew of 100 was divided in roughly 4 equal parts.
One to drive the ship
One to power the ship
One to supply room and board
One to fight the ship.
And there, again, we have that 3:1 ratio of Tail to Tooth.
But the tooth covers a large variety and number of targets in three dimensions over a very large area. And most of its day job is actually spent in surveillance, observation and reconnaissance. Delivering ordnance happens so infrequently as to be risible.
Now why can't a soldier be more like a sailor? Pace Henry Higgins.
One Lt Colonel (Commander)
225 Under Command (Small Battalion or Reinforced Company Combat Team)
Own Base
Responsible for
Base Maintenance
Base Engineering
Hotel (Room and Board)
Continuous Surveillance of Surface (Land), Air, and Subsurface (Underground)
Relocating Base constantly
Conducting constabulary and combat duties
Preparing for peer on peer high intensity warfare
Assets on hand, in addition to the vessel and its boats
| Armament |
|
| Aircraft carried | 1 × CH-148 Cyclone |
I remember reading that the Absalom crew of 100 was divided in roughly 4 equal parts.
One to drive the ship
One to power the ship
One to supply room and board
One to fight the ship.
And there, again, we have that 3:1 ratio of Tail to Tooth.
But the tooth covers a large variety and number of targets in three dimensions over a very large area. And most of its day job is actually spent in surveillance, observation and reconnaissance. Delivering ordnance happens so infrequently as to be risible.
Now why can't a soldier be more like a sailor? Pace Henry Higgins.
quadrapiper
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How would a deployed Army HQ handling similar responsibilities (say, loosely, a single site defended to an equivalent degree to a CSC's capabilities, with a similar degree of comms, log, etc. self-sufficiency, and a large patrol area) compare as far as rank/size?
Betting it's not a LCol and a handful of majors with captain watchkeepers.
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…perhaps one day the Army will stop with its incessant internal bickering and resolve the “AD/AT/LF/gloves” conundrum…
…perhaps…
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How many Lt Cdrs, Lt(N) and POs are there in the Halifax?
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And.....
What would it take to organize the army into 15 deployable "Stone Frigate" Combat Teams with exactly the same assets as a CSC but mounted on pallets deployable by truck, helos, planes .... and ships?
It strikes me that they would create great bases for stabilizing the unstabilized and providing sally ports for larger elements, or special and OGD elements.
And, in a peer on peer effort they could be grouped in Task Forces supplying mutual cover and defending a large operational area in which a mech brigade could manoeuvre, light or heavy.
15x 225 = 3,375
Or one small Brigade.
Edit - and the Brigade is getting smaller
Number under command being reduced from 225 to 204 for a Brigade reduction from 3,375 to 3,060 for a saving of 315, or another 1.5 commands.
While the assets under command are increasing
and we haven't talked about the 390 sailors in their 6 Arctic Patrol Bases (65 each), the 212 in their 4 Subsurface Patrol Bases (53 each) and the 402 reservists manning their Patrol Bases (37 each).
If you add the whole bunch together (3060 + 390 + 212 + 402) you get a total strength of 4064. Or one Brigade Gp of rations (including 10% part-timers).
What does the Army deliver for a comparable investment in manpower?
What would it take to organize the army into 15 deployable "Stone Frigate" Combat Teams with exactly the same assets as a CSC but mounted on pallets deployable by truck, helos, planes .... and ships?
It strikes me that they would create great bases for stabilizing the unstabilized and providing sally ports for larger elements, or special and OGD elements.
And, in a peer on peer effort they could be grouped in Task Forces supplying mutual cover and defending a large operational area in which a mech brigade could manoeuvre, light or heavy.
15x 225 = 3,375
Or one small Brigade.
Edit - and the Brigade is getting smaller
Number under command being reduced from 225 to 204 for a Brigade reduction from 3,375 to 3,060 for a saving of 315, or another 1.5 commands.
While the assets under command are increasing
| Sensors and processing systems |
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| Electronic warfare & decoys | Lockheed Martin Canada RAVEN electronic countermeasures[10] Ultra Electronics SEA SENTOR S21700 towed torpedo countermeasures |
| Armament |
|
| Aircraft carried |
|
| Aviation facilities |
|
| Notes |
|
and we haven't talked about the 390 sailors in their 6 Arctic Patrol Bases (65 each), the 212 in their 4 Subsurface Patrol Bases (53 each) and the 402 reservists manning their Patrol Bases (37 each).
If you add the whole bunch together (3060 + 390 + 212 + 402) you get a total strength of 4064. Or one Brigade Gp of rations (including 10% part-timers).
What does the Army deliver for a comparable investment in manpower?
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| Systems | Bases | Units/Base | Units/Fleet |
| Naval Strike Missile[2] | 15 | 8 | 120 |
| Sea Ceptor (CAMM) CIADS, quad-packed[6] | 15 | 24 | 360 |
| RIM-162 ESSM Block II[7] | 15 | 32 | 480 |
| RIM-66 SM-2 Block IIIC[8] | 15 | 16 | 240 |
| BGM-109 Tomahawk | 15 | 8 | 120 |
| Mk 54 MAKO torpedo | 15 | 24 | 360 |
| Leonardo OTO 127 mm (5 in)/64 LW Vulcano naval gun[9] | 15 | 1 | 15 |
| BAE 30 mm (1.2 in) autocannons | 15 | 2 | 30 |
| 12.7 mm (0.50 in) M2 machine guns | 15 | 6 | 90 |
| CH-148 Cyclone armed with: | 15 | 1 | 15 |
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It doesn't sink?
Oldgateboatdriver
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I see what you are driving at, Kirkhill, but it is unfair to compare manpower of the Navy vs what it delivers by looking only at the crewing of the ships. The very large and manpower intensive industrial bases that support those ships, particularly on the naval architecture/engineering/maintenance side of things must be included, and that just doubled your manpower requirement, without providing for training and staffing ashore. The Navy produces its effect with the totality of its manpower, not just the sea going personnel.
Moreover, at action station, everyone has a duty/secondary duty to perform and everybody is up for the duration, duties which no one performs "full time". In an Army/land situation, wouldn't all of the above things have to be manned at all times? That requires more personnel.
And being on land, with surface threats that can hide and crawl up to you undetected form multiple directions at once, unlike at sea where there is no hiding on the surface and approaches are more limited in numbers and watched over by sensors, wouldn't you need a much larger number of "basic" (read infanteer) personnel for force protection?
Moreover, at action station, everyone has a duty/secondary duty to perform and everybody is up for the duration, duties which no one performs "full time". In an Army/land situation, wouldn't all of the above things have to be manned at all times? That requires more personnel.
And being on land, with surface threats that can hide and crawl up to you undetected form multiple directions at once, unlike at sea where there is no hiding on the surface and approaches are more limited in numbers and watched over by sensors, wouldn't you need a much larger number of "basic" (read infanteer) personnel for force protection?
