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Mobile Support Equipment Operator (MSE Op) [Merged]

supertitanfan1 said:
piper,

thanks for the info. now when you say they are changing how the army employ's mse op's, what do you mean?. is this going to be a dead trade? or are they just "streamlining things".

thanks again for whatever responces i get.

MSE Ops are 'low-hanging fruit' as far as the army is concerned. There are people pushing for other trades to take on driver taskings in their respective units (i.e. infanteers etc) to a greater extent than what happens now.

The army is cutting MSE Op positions from the Service battalions and are either moving these guys over to the brigades or getting rid of the positions all together.

It's not a dead trade by any means, but there are changes coming to the Army transportation world (for now, the AF is still holding on to whatever MSE Ops they can get).

This is what happens when you get cbt arms types in Ottawa (who populate most of the decision making jobs at the land staff) making decisions about CSS. Complete ignorance of how and why we do our jobs. Sigh.
 
My unit only relies on 935's to drive the bus and maybe the HL (since we don't have any qualified users). And in the Engineer world in general we drive all our equipment.......
 
Piper said:
There are people pushing for other trades to take on driver taskings in their respective units (i.e. infanteers etc) to a greater extent than what happens now.

Since I've been with my unit its only been Infantrymen in TN PL driving MLs, HLs, etc An they came on tour with us to do CLPs to resupply forward units so we didn't have to rely on NSE. Than for other driver taskings in the unit its Infantry, Sigs, EME an Supply Techs driving their PL/Coy vehs, etc


From my narrow point of view I don't see it as essential to have MSE Ops in certain units. But they are needed for Bde level jobs/NSE overseas, etc.  However having TN PL filled with MSE Ops would be freeing up Infantrymen for the Rifle Coys, etc
 
Piper said:
MSE Ops are 'low-hanging fruit' as far as the army is concerned. There are people pushing for other trades to take on driver taskings in their respective units (i.e. infanteers etc) to a greater extent than what happens now.

The army is cutting MSE Op positions from the Service battalions and are either moving these guys over to the brigades or getting rid of the positions all together.

It's not a dead trade by any means, but there are changes coming to the Army transportation world (for now, the AF is still holding on to whatever MSE Ops they can get).

This is what happens when you get cbt arms types in Ottawa (who populate most of the decision making jobs at the land staff) making decisions about CSS. Complete ignorance of how and why we do our jobs. Sigh.
There's a very good reason why armoured echelons have crewman driving their trucks, and one of the reasons is because the combat arms types know exactly how you do your jobs.
 
recceguy said:
There's a very good reason why armoured echelons have crewman driving their trucks, and one of the reasons is because the combat arms types know exactly how you do your jobs.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....

Wait, you were serious? Logistics is more then just mounting a convoy. Much more.

Cbt arms types have no appreciation or understanding of CSS beyond expecting us to be at their beck and call and, of course, to read their minds. You don't see a board of log officers designing a new structure for infantry battalions, so why should a board of infantry officers dictate the needs and structure of a service battalion. There is ZERO understanding of what service battalions do...especially at the CMBG level.

Quite frankly, I'm not too concerned. The army is, again, sacrificing 'the tail' to feed to pointy end. It's going to come back and bite them in the tush. If people think CSS in the army is stretched now....just wait until this 'Army 2011' concept gets implemented. It's sad really, the air force is very VERY good at their service and support concept and yet the army, where logistics is (in Afghanistan) quite literally a life or death deal deems itself fit to constantly cut, whittle down and sideline the CSS types.
 
Piper said:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....

Wait, you were serious? Logistics is more then just mounting a convoy. Much more.

Cbt arms types have no appreciation or understanding of CSS beyond expecting us to be at their beck and call and, of course, to read their minds. You don't see a board of log officers designing a new structure for infantry battalions, so why should a board of infantry officers dictate the needs and structure of a service battalion. There is ZERO understanding of what service battalions do...especially at the CMBG level.

Quite frankly, I'm not too concerned. The army is, again, sacrificing 'the tail' to feed to pointy end. It's going to come back and bite them in the tush. If people think CSS in the army is stretched now....just wait until this 'Army 2011' concept gets implemented. It's sad really, the air force is very VERY good at their service and support concept and yet the army, where logistics is (in Afghanistan) quite literally a life or death deal deems itself fit to constantly cut, whittle down and sideline the CSS types.

How did you leap from discussing MSE OPs (i.e., those who drive vehicles) to the entire Logistic Corps?
 
Piper said:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....

Wait, you were serious? Logistics is more then just mounting a convoy. Much more.

Cbt arms types have no appreciation or understanding of CSS beyond expecting us to be at their beck and call and, of course, to read their minds. You don't see a board of log officers designing a new structure for infantry battalions, so why should a board of infantry officers dictate the needs and structure of a service battalion. There is ZERO understanding of what service battalions do...especially at the CMBG level.

Quite frankly, I'm not too concerned. The army is, again, sacrificing 'the tail' to feed to pointy end. It's going to come back and bite them in the tush. If people think CSS in the army is stretched now....just wait until this 'Army 2011' concept gets implemented. It's sad really, the air force is very VERY good at their service and support concept and yet the army, where logistics is (in Afghanistan) quite literally a life or death deal deems itself fit to constantly cut, whittle down and sideline the CSS types.
I know in your very limited time in the military you think no one else is as smart as your are. Here's a flash for you though. The tail exists wholly and soley to support the pointy end. As far as being at 'our' beck and call, that is exactly why were running our own A echelons. I won't slam the hard working drivers who try so hard, but I will say that you wonders at the top don't have a clue what an A ech does, why it does it or why there is absolutely no way in hell, that without crewman truck drivers you can expect to do the job of the Armoured SSM and his echelon.

I really have to wonder how a new Lt straight out of school has the blinding insight to claim superiority over all the other arms though. Perhaps your diet? Tell us your secret.
 
Key - check
Truck - check
Fuel - check
I sure hope the maintainers fixed everything else.
Hey L.T. - you got the map?

"Mount up!"
 
recceguy said:
I know in your very limited time in the military you think no one else is as smart as your are. Here's a flash for you though. The tail exists wholly and soley to support the pointy end. As far as being at 'our' beck and call, that is exactly why were running our own A echelons. I won't slam the hard working drivers who try so hard, but I will say that you wonders at the top don't have a clue what an A ech does, why it does it or why there is absolutely no way in hell, that without crewman truck drivers you can expect to do the job of the Armoured SSM and his echelon.

I really have to wonder how a new Lt straight out of school has the blinding insight to claim superiority over all the other arms though. Perhaps your diet? Tell us your secret.

Riiiiiiiiiiight. I don't see myself superior to anyone at all. But (and I challenge someone to argue otherwise), cbt arms officers have no business telling CSS how to do their business (beyond demanding support and supplies) just as we have no business telling the cbt arms how to do their business. Thats what is happening with 'Army 2011', people with no concept of CSS telling us how we should be organised (and cut).

I do challenge you to prove me wrong...is cutting the tail to increase the size of the pointy end (when we're already short of everything CSS) going to help the Army? Try answering that instead of trying (key word there) to talk down to me.

You should try responding to posts with more then a snotty 'what do yooooooou know about the army' response.
 
Piper said:
You should try responding to posts with more then a snotty 'what do yooooooou know about the army' response.

I did. You said combat arms should stay out of the delivery business. You guys mucked up the echelon system when you tried to take it over and I was stating that we knew how to deliver the goods better than you, even though we're combat arms. Besides, given your limited time in, it's a valid question. i.e. - where are you drawing your expertise from?
 
Piper, have you ever experienced a rolling replen at night on a combat team trace?  It's a thing of organizational beauty.  Nobody is debating the requirement of CSS to push the beans and benzine forward, but hand it off to the pointy end guys for final disposition.
 
Piper said:
Thats what is happening with 'Army 2011', people with no concept of CSS telling us how we should be organised (and cut).

:highjack:

Piper, could you please post a reference or link for the "Army 2011" document and the names of these poorly informed drafters.  I get disappointed when some threads keep being derailed by nebulous info.  Perhaps you could try starting some of your own topics with concrete info rather than hijacking those started by others who post simple questions. :highjack:
 
recceguy said:
I did. You said combat arms should stay out of the delivery business.

No I didn't. I know how the echelon system works and why its there. It serves a purpose and does that job very, very well (as shown in Afghanistan). In fact, the armd corp has a very interesting (and highly effective) way of conducting first-line supprt that is quite unique.

What I was lamenting was the fact that cbt arms officers do not understand CSS (except for a select few). They understand that we exist and why, but not much else. Like I said, there's more to CSS then just CLP's (the 'sexy' part that cbt arms guys are mostly involved in). If I asked you to explain a dumping program, could you? If I asked you to explain to me how to properly manage, rotate and replace a base's SPV fleet, could you? If I asked you to give me a rundown of how far your units MSE has driven in a year, by vehicle and driver, would you know where to find that info?

Same goes for how we are organised. The Army expects CSS to appear by magic, and it doesn't. We need people to do it and we need enough of those people to meet our requirements (as a service battalion), to support other units (our raison d'etre) and to rotate people through their training. Spend a day, just one day, at a service battalion and you'll see what I'm getting at. There are nowhere near enough people to do the job....and the army is cutting more as they feel that 'other trades' can do the job of MSE Ops. Believe it or not, driving anything more complicated then an MLVW or cube van is a full time job. Unless you want civvies to do it (another dangerous misconception, there aren't a lot of civvies acting as infanteers or armd crewmen out there)...which is just bad.

Besides, given your limited time in, it's a valid question. i.e. - where are you drawing your expertise from?

What experience in CSS do you have that qualifies you to comment? Working in an armd sqn echelon is but one VERY tiny piece of CSS. There fact that you confused the echelon type of support with what service battalions do shows how much 'understanding' you have of logistics. Like I said, tell me I'm wrong when I worry about the constant cutting of CSS that happens alongside an increase in who we have to support.

I'm not trashing the cbt arms. You guys go off and do what you do best (fight) and leave us alone to do what we do best and define what we need and how much of it we need, or the next time you pick up the phone asking for X there won't be anyone there to do it.

Piper, have you ever experienced a rolling replen at night on a combat team trace?  It's a thing of organizational beauty.  Nobody is debating the requirement of CSS to push the beans and benzine forward, but hand it off to the pointy end guys for final disposition.

I don't deny that. You're confusing first-line support (what you guys do) with second-line support (what we mostly do). If I'm talking about the service battalion, we're talking second line support. Cbt Arms types have no business meddling around there, just like I have to business teaching battleschool or leading a platoon attack (unless things go horribly wrong).

Piper, could you please post a reference or link for the "Army 2011" document and the names of these poorly informed drafters.  I get disappointed when some threads keep being derailed by nebulous info. 

It's on the DIN.
 
Frostnipped Elf said:
Perhaps you could try starting some of your own topics with concrete info rather than hijacking those started by others who post simple questions.

The OP wanted to know what the chances were of going to a service battalion, I told him that they were good now but may change pending changes to the way MSE Ops are employed by the army (ya, with a little side comment added in). Recceguy was on that like Michael Jackson on a school bus so here we are.

More 'serious' debates have been started with less (check out the long winded thread stated by someone claiming 'a supply tech was mean to me').
 
Piper said:
The OP wanted to know what the chances were of going to a service battalion, I told him that they were good now but may change pending changes to the way MSE Ops are employed by the army (ya, with a little side comment added in). Recceguy was on that like Michael Jackson on a school bus so here we are.

More 'serious' debates have been started with less (check out the long winded thread stated by someone claiming 'a supply tech was mean to me').

We quite understand the system. We deal with it constantly. I also have an A2 ech that is composed of mostly crewmen. The B ech again. We are intimately familiar with the dumping concept. It's one of the ways we stay efficient. At least we know when to use it and don't dump ammo and fuel unsecured on some Afghan plain somewhere.

BTW, I don't work in an echelon, I own it ;)


If you don't want a comment challenged, don't make it. Maybe if you just answered the question and left out the extraneous portions you wouldn't be misunderstood. You really need a thicker skin and have to quit blaming others for things of your own making
mj.gif
 
Frostnipped Elf said:
Key - check
Truck - check
Fuel - check
I sure hope the maintainers fixed everything else.
Hey L.T. - you got the map?

"Mount up!"

They have keys now?! <joke>.
 
Piper said:
It's on the DIN...What I was lamenting was the fact that cbt arms officers do not understand CSS (except for a select few).

While I (and many others here) do not currently have access to the DWAN and this website is on the Internet (Unofficial site, not associated with DND), could you pretty please assist us less fortunates to understand something you brought up.

Perhaps once you complete AJOSQ, ATOC and CLFCSC, you will realize that most (and not a select few) combat arms officers learn the CSS concepts in great detail and get to listen to their course mates and DS harp on how CSS supports the pointy end.

Perhaps Army 2011 has something to with what the CDS stated in his June 2009 SITREP (with specific reference to the Canada First Defence Strategy) link http://www.cds-cemd.forces.gc.ca/fea-pro/10072009-eng.asp, "I would ask that you focus on the following areas over the next year:

- One Voice: ensure that we speak with one voice for the CF and the Department, nested in achieving CFDS and Government assigned tasks.
- Recruit, Retain, Care: recruit Canada's finest, retain our men and women; address the pressures on them and their families; care for the wounded and respect the fallen.
- Deliver CFDS: make a real push in the next six months to deliver on capital projects and secure the capabilities we need vice seeking the perfect solution.
- Restore agility: we must ensure we have the agility, capacity and self-reliance to provide government with the strategic effect of international leadership in the future.
- Control our demand for people: while we seek to be better, we must balance what we seek to achieve against our real capacities.
- Ops/Support Balance: we need to examine how we can achieve improvements in operational effectiveness while balancing efficiencies to prepare for the Strategic Review.
- Training Excellence: walk the talk on core competencies up to formation level training; seek opportunities for operational level integrated effects; train in the Arctic when and wherever possible.
- Connect: seize opportunities to connect with Canadians; encourage junior ranks and those with recent operational experience to do so as well.
 
I suppose with not even two decades of service as a Cbt arms NCM and now as a senior logistics officer I'm really not qualified to comment on this thread.  Add to that my five years of recent experience on the land staff and I'm sure that I'm RTFO.

However, I will say that in my experience, while combat arms officers and NCMs may not have detailed low level knowledge of the nit-noid details of support, nor do CSS officers and NCMs have that level of knowledge of the cbt arms.

In terms of the Army's plans, the Army is attempting to optimize its structure within constraints - the biggest constraint being Reg F PYs available.  Maintaining structures solely to protect one branch or trade because it's always been that way is no justification.

I have sat through LFDWGs (if you do not know what an LFDWG is then you're really not qualified to comment on current force development process or outcomes, in my opinion) and seen the proposals, discussions, loss of sacred cows, trade-offs, and seen final decision briefs crafted for the Army's senior leadership.

Were you aware that until this APS the officer running the Army on a day-to-day basis was a CSS BGen?  That the Army G4 staff have been engaged in these examinations of the future?  That G4 staff are also working on a comprehensive review of support to the Army, and examining what needs to be uniformed, what can be civilianized, and where changes can be made?

Borden is not the Army.  The biases of the log branch are clearly communicated by CFSAL, but CFSAL is farther from the real world than any other CF school - it's obsessed with the NDHQ aspects of the trade to the detriment of the real world (in my opinion).

Just my 2c.
 
dapaterson said:
...
Borden is not the Army.  The biases of the log branch are clearly communicated by CFSAL, but CFSAL is farther from the real world than any other CF school - it's obsessed with the NDHQ aspects of the trade to the detriment of the real world (in my opinion).
...

Thank you.  I said exactly that (in course critiques), whilst a Cpl after my 5's in '85 and again whilst a Sgt after my 6's in '90.  Later on in life, after gaining MUCH operational experience as a clerk - it became a passion of mine to attempt to "soldierize" my trade.  Unfortunately - my bleating was not much appreciated in the Branch - and amounted to not much more than the proverbial passage of gas in a hurricane.

I had hoped that the cumulative effects of sustained operations in Afghanistan would knock some sense into my former branch and trade - but apparently my hope was ill-founded.
 
Slight tangent but.....

Going along with what you said Roy, I think all the schools should somehow incorporate the Lessons Learned in Afghanistan (or insert what ever new hot spot we deploy to) into the current training cycle(s) and courses.
 
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