Informing the Army’s Future Structure

[daftandbarmy]

Light infantry yes, LAV-based infantry no. PRes, despite its bleating, will never have a reliable source of mobilization for current RegF tasks for mechanized or armour. They'd spend an entire year running just LAV Gunner on weekends, and half that time would be transiting to ranges. Even PRes Sigs has next to no common equipment with the RegF for the long term foreseeable future.

We need to stop pretending that the Army Reserve can be RegF equivalent in every trade. Heck, the RegF doesn't even have the time to be RegF equivalent in its training with the speed we're onboarding the sorely needed new vehicle fleets into the CA. Good luck 1 Bde converting everyone from Bison to ACSV next year, and potentially 2 Bde onboarding LVM-L and LVM-H "just in time" for Latvia in 2.5 years.

Memories of ARes units I have been a part of with 1) an AVGP tasking and 2) an Airborne tasking...

Put them together and you have 'A Bridge Too Far' in a dozen different areas

 

[PrairieFella]

Light infantry yes, LAV-based infantry no. PRes, despite its bleating, will never have a reliable source of mobilization for current RegF tasks for mechanized or armour. They'd spend an entire year running just LAV Gunner on weekends, and half that time would be transiting to ranges. Even PRes Sigs has next to no common equipment with the RegF for the long term foreseeable future.

We need to stop pretending that the Army Reserve can be RegF equivalent in every trade. Heck, the RegF doesn't even have the time to be RegF equivalent in its training with the speed we're onboarding the sorely needed new vehicle fleets into the CA. Good luck 1 Bde converting everyone from Bison to ACSV next year, and potentially 2 Bde onboarding LVM-L and LVM-H "just in time" for Latvia in 2.5 years.

Other countries seem to have figured it out. Reservists operated tanks and APCs in the past. With funding and kit, we have to the technology and know-how to make gun go shoot and engine go vroom.

 

[dapaterson]

Other countries seem to have figured it out. Reservists operated tanks and APCs in the past. With funding and kit, we have to the technology and know-how to make gun go shoot and engine go vroom.

The Army, Reg and Res, refuses to invest properly in the sustainment enterprise.

 

[PuckChaser]

Other countries seem to have figured it out. Reservists operated tanks and APCs in the past. With funding and kit, we have to the technology and know-how to make gun go shoot and engine go vroom.

Are those countries 5500km wide? Geography is important, putting a PRes tank squadron in downtown Toronto or Oshawa or Montreal doesn't make a lick of sense unless we order reservists to train during the summers and have training centers of vehicles for them to train on. Simulators only go so far.

If we want to put a single PRes companion to the Strats somewhere in and around Edmonton, thats a great idea. Throwing them all over hells half acre using GWagons and TAPVs to pretend they're real crewman, let's get real. Maybe after 10 years of steady funding and policy change we can make it happen but not now.

 

[PrairieFella]

The Army, Reg and Res, refuses to invest properly in the sustainment enterprise.

100% agree, and I agree with the above point that sustainment should be a mainly reg game, too many moving parts beyond first line sustainment for the reserves to handle it effectively.

 

[dapaterson]

100% agree, and I agree with the above point that sustainment should be a mainly reg game, too many moving parts beyond first line sustainment for the reserves to handle it effectively.

Sustainment builds readiness. The enterprise needs to be structured to train people, and acquire and maintain equipment and materiel.

Right now, it's configured to do the bare minimum and keep forces in being ready without considering the sustainment (and regeneration) of forces.

 

[PrairieFella]

Are those countries 5500km wide? Geography is important, putting a PRes tank squadron in downtown Toronto or Oshawa or Montreal doesn't make a lick of sense unless we order reservists to train during the summers and have training centers of vehicles for them to train on. Simulators only go so far.

History would tell us a country 5500km wide can do it, as we did it. Using tanks as an example since you bring it up, they were depoted at support bases with maybe a hull or two at the armoury for local training. This worked well from what I hear from the vets of the time.

If we want to put a single PRes companion to the Strats somewhere in and around Edmonton, thats a great idea. Throwing them all over hells half acre using GWagons and TAPVs to pretend they're real crewman, let's get real. Maybe after 10 years of steady funding and policy change we can make it happen but not now.

Those pretend crewmen seem to be doing just fine augmenting the strats, rcds and 12iemes heavily for the past few years. Give us the kit and a plan to sustain the kit and we will make it happen. There are some damned smart troopers in the armour reserves, often with better base soldier skills than some of their reg counterparts. Ive seen it before. Im seeing it now working with the Reg armour.

 

[PuckChaser]

Give you the kit and a plan? So, hand hold you? The kit isn't coming for years and the sustainment and training plan should be coming from the PRes if they want it.

 

[PrairieFella]

Give you the kit and a plan? So, hand hold you? The kit isn't coming for years and the sustainment and training plan should be coming from the PRes if they want it.

Well we cant exactly dig the kit out of the ground, just like the regs. Odd take.

I agree with several posters now that sustainment should be mainly reg. We cant exactly dig second and third line support facilities out of the ground either.

I never said training plan, youre the one bringing that up.

What did the reservists do to you to be such a negative nelly about thinking the reserves could actually be useful haha?

 

[Kilted]

Well we cant exactly dig the kit out of the ground, just like the regs. Odd take.

I agree with several posters now that sustainment should be mainly reg. We cant exactly dig second and third line support facilities out of the ground either.

I never said training plan, youre the one bringing that up.

What did the reservists do to you to be such a negative nelly about thinking the reserves could actually be useful haha?

People are throwing the word change around without actually telling us what it is going to be for us.

 

[PrairieFella]

People a

People are throwing the word change around without actually telling us what it is going to be for us.

Thats coming. Im allowing myself to be actually optimistic about potential change coming. We'll see if thats misplaced in a few months time.

 

[KevinB]

Are those countries 5500km wide?

The ARNG says yes.

Geography is important, putting a PRes tank squadron in downtown Toronto or Oshawa or Montreal doesn't make a lick of sense unless we order reservists to train during the summers and have training centers of vehicles for them to train on. Simulators only go so far.

Agreed. Any significant equipment for the PRes will need to be held at Training Centers.
With Reg Force Maintenance cells.

If we want to put a single PRes companion to the Strats somewhere in and around Edmonton, thats a great idea. Throwing them all over hells half acre using GWagons and TAPVs to pretend they're real crewman, let's get real. Maybe after 10 years of steady funding and policy change we can make it happen but not now.

The CA’s biggest issues are the Symmetrical Cap badge fights that everyone needs to have a piece of every pie.

Put Armour and Mech Inf units in areas near the training areas that can use them.
Then make other synergies for units in the area they are in. I mean BC and the Southwestern part of AB should have a Mountain Center and support Light Mountain folks.

JFC if the ARNG can manage to have ABCT’s and SFG’s I refuse to beleive it cannot be done in Canada.

 

[MilEME09]

Well unfortunately a Res Service BN can’t do a lot. So it’s more practical to switch Reg Combat Arms to CSS roles - and have more PRes Cbt Arms…

Reserve CSS cant do a lot because we arent enabled to do a lot. How can a reserve shop support the brigade without DRIMS access? Parts? Proper tooling? We arent given the budget for every qualified techs to have a tool box, nor the maintenance budget to maintain everything.

They want us to be self sufficient for training but like the reg force lack people, thats the easiest part to solve. The rest requires people to actually commit to fixing ARes CSS

 

[FJAG]

100% agree, and I agree with the above point that sustainment should be a mainly reg game, too many moving parts beyond first line sustainment for the reserves to handle it effectively.

That depends entirely on which end of sustainment you look at. Transport companies are a dead easy sell and would work in small rural armouries. Logistics can be done too. Maintenance is obviously harder because it has a full-time element to it but even here, in a hybrid organization, there is room for a mobilizable augmentation group of wrench benders to expand on a core of journeymen.

My problem with the nay-sayers of what the ARes can and can't do is that they keep looking at the ARes the way it is today. I keep shaking my head when all you have to do is glance across the border to see 430,000 US ARNG and 188,000 USAR troops doing everything from soup to nuts. Sure the US is 8.3 times as large as Canada but at that ratio we could comfortably generate 70,000 ARes. Generating 30,000 should be a cakewalk if Canada ever gets its head out of its ass and stops saying "we can't."

Do you ever wonder why they called Canadian's in Bosnia the "Can'tbat?" Here you go.

 

[FJAG]

Give you the kit and a plan? So, hand hold you? The kit isn't coming for years and the sustainment and training plan should be coming from the PRes if they want it.

That's counterproductive.

In a "total" army you need to work to some level of hybridization between full-timers and part-timers in reserve organizations. That's just the nature of the beast. Take a 600 man part-time battalion with 200 pieces of heavy equipment and tens of thousands of small items plus several buildings to look after (like almost all ARNG and USAR units) and you need probably sixty to seventy full-timers just to do pers admin and pay, stores management, vehicle maintenance, training cadre, recruiting, a small leadership staff and a bunch of other stuff.

In our system continuing, full-time staff is defined as trained RegF pers and not Class Bs. At best we currently give a 2-300 man ARes battalion 4 RSS and a couple of Class Bs.

If the ARes is currently a "non-serious" organization then its because the RegF who runs the whole joint is too busy playing with itself. You can rationalize the reasons for why things are the way they are but at the end of the day, blaming the ARes is like blaming a mugging victim for being robbed and beaten up. The ARes has continued to limp along for the last sixty years in spite the neglect its been under. In spite of everything it managed to put a continuing strength of 15-20% of the force Canada sent to war.

It is the job of the army to come up with a plan. That's what the full-timers in army HQs are paid to do. And it has to be a viable plan including the appropriate role, equipping, sustainment and training to create credible forces that can go to war. The days of no threat and no money seem to be over. The time for letting things skate is over. It's time for the RegF army to get it's head out of its ass and have a come to Jesus moment.

 

[daftandbarmy]

That's counterproductive.

In a "total" army you need to work to some level of hybridization between full-timers and part-timers in reserve organizations.

I can't think of another military where the Regs have been disconnected from the Reserves in the way we're proposing.

I guess you could call it 'innovative'

 

[Ostrozac]

there is a strong desire to keep the CBG Comds AOR within an 8 hour drive end to end, and to maintain ARes Col positions that actually command something.

I took a quick look at google maps, and an 8 hour drive is an unusual figure, as only one brigade group has a geographic size close to that number. The Quebec brigades and the 2 Southern Ontario brigades are much smaller (in the 3 to 5 hour range), and the western brigades are much larger (in the 10 to 19 hour range). The third Ontario brigade is also on the large side — it’s a 10 hour drive from The Soo to Cornwall. And of course, a drive from Edmundston to St John’s is something like 26 hours with an overnight ferry.

But 36 Brigade is just about right, at 7 hours 22 minutes from Yarmouth to Glace Bay. Was that 8 hour planning figure an assumption made by someone who has never left Nova Scotia? There are other provinces, with very different geographies and demographics. An eight hour drive is excessive for a brigade in the GTA, out west that same distance isn’t enough. I’d tie brigade boundaries to the population (especially the under 40 population) — and not some arbitrary measure of empty space. You can’t recruit rocks and trees.

 

[Halifax Tar]

We need to stop pretending that the Army Reserve can be RegF equivalent in every trade.

Bingo!

 

[KevinB]

Bingo!

The Reserves can if structured to support that.
Which could mean a lot of Class C for courses, as well as annual periods of mandatory training.

 

[Halifax Tar]

The Reserves can if structured to support that.
Which could mean a lot of Class C for courses, as well as annual periods of mandatory training.

Formal training/coursing is one thing; practical experience employing that skill set is where actual proficiency and ability emerge.

No sense in your class C training if its not going to be practiced afterword's.