Politics and the Military

[hector]

I know this topic is probably beat to death but I beleive it is an important one and should be debated as often as possible. So here it is again. Why do we continually allow our armed forces to be overrun with waste, while our General Staff gets bigger every day! But yet we (members) and the general citizenry rollover and think this is fine.

Recently, in a discussion I had with a close freind, who is now in Moosejaw for pilot training, I was made privy to some interesting events. This freind by the way, had to wait for four years to get a slot after the the entire training structure of the Air Force was gutted on a CF policy Change that lasted less then a year.....was told in an open briefing, by the General in charge of training (the General in charge of open breifings must have been busy) that the pilot candidates were to behave as gentleman and officers while on course and not go running to the press (no one had at that point gone to any new agency) about the minor detalis of their careers and training policy in the CF‘s. This was in regards to the Bombardier managed training center now responsible for training our Air Force. The General then went on to say, to snikering and giggles by the way, that the cousres were now on track and that the CF‘s did not forget about them and they were now entering into one of themost effective forces in the world etc etc.....by the end of that month the course dates were yet again extended canceled or rescheduled....course candidtaes were yet again sent home or RTU‘ed to the various museums, crosswalks and canteens they were kept at while more bugs were "massaged" from the training system. The final comment on this is; The friend I am speaking of had celebrated his 21‘st birthday two weeks after completeing his basic officer training course.... two days ago he celebrated his 24th...still no wings on his uniform.....

 

[the patriot]

By the way, the General Staff has now been reduced considerably compared to what it was ten years ago. About your friend‘s situation, it comes down to an old saying called "hurry up and wait" which can get absolutely annoying at times. Something they probably won‘t tell you is that they‘re literally bleeding to death by losing pilots who leave the Canadian Armed Forces for cushier paying jobs with the commercial airlines. It‘s called the 5 year "Air Canada" program... Maybe it‘s just that they don‘t have instructors around to teach your friend.

-the patriot-

 

[rcrman]

The Patriot,


Hear! Hear! Fact: They DND are hurting...only now they finally have figured that out. Almost a little too late. These next few years will be interesting for sure. Like my old CSM said "I‘m on the 20/30 plan....I have my 20 someodd years for full pension and if anyone pisses me off, I‘m out in 30 days!!!!" I only think he was out faster than that....just like me. he he he whether a Private or a Master Warrent Officer....they don‘t give a ****!!! Oh yeah if your hurt, well kiss your career bye bye...hell there‘s always the kit shop, or RSS where they send people to finish off their years for pension.>>>>>>>>>>>FIRE IT UP<<<<<<<<<<<<<

 

[Yard Ape]

20/6 plan now. Only the 6 is in months.

Yard Ape

 

[the patriot]

Grubby,

AHA!!!!!! So RSS isn‘t really Total Force to make the Militia a better trained cadre of soldiers?! Sounds like it‘s a retirement home for those who don‘t have the heart to outright quit.

-the patriot-

 

[Jungle]

How about this to keep people in units: stop sending large numbers of people on summer tasks... they even do this weeks after members come back from a tour!!! Now, training is one thing, doing it right is another!!! We need to SPECIALIZE our units, we need a dedicated airborne unit and an amphibious unit (actually, by unit i mean battle-group) so we can keep up with the rest of the modern armies... and deploy rapidly... for real!!!

 

[the patriot]

I guess we already have that with the Para Companies in each of the Light Infantry Battalions of the RCR, PPCLI, and the Van Doos. As for amphibious ops, they try to address that with various exercises from what I‘ve seen at the Reserve level. The danger with over-specialization is that people then start to get slack with basic soldiering. At the end of the day, once you‘ve hit the ground running or landed on the beach..... everyday pepper-potting will save your rear end. If you can‘t even do that, you‘re pretty much dead.

-the patriot-

 

[Jungle]

Yes, the Para coys look good on paper, but they are virtually useless. I served in the Airborne Regt a few years, then a few more in a para coy, and there are a lot of differences: First, the jump coys are a way to maintain parachuting expertise in the army, but are not designed to carry out Airborne operations. The reason for this is that there is no combat support or combat service support deployable with these coys. Second, the CO‘s of the LIB‘s would rather have "heavy metal" units (ie: LAV-3) and don‘t care much for parachuting. The Airborne Regt was a rapid deployment unit, and it was equipped and trained as such. When i talk of amphibious ops, i am not talking about crossing a river with an assault boat, i am talking about assaulting a coast line from the sea... Amphibious ops are the most complex a force may have to carry out, and we are not ready or equipped for that kind of ops. Now, you will see the LIB‘s disappear in the next few years, and possibly the para capability as a whole at the same time...

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Being armour, I don‘t think of or know that much about paras. However, one question has always come to mind. With today‘s easy to come by black market arms, what‘s to stop a couple of creeps on the ground with say, a couple of old Redeyes or Stingers taking out a whole company of quick reaction\ deployable airborne troops in the air and what would be the backup plan for the mission? Not being smart here, it‘s a genuine question of interest. Does this scenario not go towards making large airborne drops obselete?

 

[towhey]

Recceguy: You‘re right.

Mass drops have been obsolete for decades. Perhaps since the end of WW2.

One of the big problems with the defunct Airborne Regiment was, in my opinion, that it was totally unusable. Like the horse-mounted cavalry of old, it was a hold-over from a bygone era.

That is not to say that Canada doesn‘t need a rapid reaction force that is airmobile -- nor that we don‘t need the ability to insert forces by parachute.

However, I would suggest that what Canada needs is an entire army that is airtransportable and rapidly deployable.

We also need an SAS-type special operations unit. I don‘t think that JTF-2 should fill this role -- although, if you followed the SAS model, they might be absorbed into a larger unit.

I see the need for specops troops for a number of tasks: strategic/operational level reconnaissance; strategic/operational level harrassment/demolitions missions; training of local insurgency forces in occupied territories; etc. All of these tasks are compatible with Defence of Canada needs. Peacetime taskings may include maintaining a company on standby for major air disasters in the high Arctic.

Should we ever re-establish the Airborne Regiment? Nope.

However, Canada should have a small (i.e. battalion-sized) special operations unit able to be inserted into an AO by any means, including parachute, submarine, what have you.

 

[Jungle]

I‘m afraid a lot of you have no idea what the Airborne Regt was about!!! Yes it was trained in mass drops (if you can call a Battalion mass...) because it is the best way to take troops anywhere, anytime (try deploying to the Baffin islands, or any other overseas location, in 3-4 days with LAV-3‘s); but mostly, it was trained in small unit tactics, such as fighting patrols behind enemy lines, being able to operate for days without resupply. It was also trained in mountain ops, desert and jungle warfare, and made regular trips to the arctic. But mostly, it was filled with volunteers who had the guts to go further, to do more with less, to do whatever was needed to get the job done. Not too many units in today‘s Army can claim this... cdn:

 

[King]

towhey,

I always hear people calling for Canada to have an SAS of our own, but doesn‘t the JTF2 fill this role already? It‘s not the size of a Btln. but hasn‘t the JTF2 expanded beyond the CT thing? Even if it hasn‘t, couldn‘t that expansion be done within the current unit instead of creating a new one?

You‘ve probably read that paper on Canada‘s NEO capability, I think the idea of increasing the size of the JTF2 and creating a unit more along the lines of the U.S. Army Rangers has some merit.

Jungle,

Are you saying that parachuting still has value as long as it‘s not used to drop troops directly into combat? To bring them near the battle but not on top of it? Would you say intense or dangerous training like parachuting, which has lost a lot of it‘s practicality is still useful?

 

[Yard Ape]

For all those questioning the validity of airborne/airmobile have a look at the 10 July post by ducimus in Resurrect the Airborne Regiment? .

As for the comment about making the JTF more like the US Rangers, I disagree with this idea. The JTF should be like the SAS (or if we need a US comparison then the SEALS or Green Berts). A resurected Airborne could be modeled after the Rangers.

Yard Ape

 

[the patriot]

Yard Ape,

I‘m in total agreement with what you‘re saying. Leave the JTF in its current form and expand its mandate for covert ops when needed. Furthermore, what‘s this that I‘m hearing that the Reg Force Infantry units are dropping their Assault Pioneer platoons?!

-the patriot-

 

[Jungle]

All right troops, i think we are moving in the right direction... King, yes i believe there is still use for parachuting, but in the low-to-medium intensity range of conflicts. Funny how some are comparing the Cdn Ab Regt to the US Ranger Regt; these 2 units were "twinned" in early ‘94 because of the almost identical nature of their methods and culture... As for JTF-2, i believe it should stick to CT. Remember the (British) SAS is a Regt, and one of it‘s squadrons is dedicated to CT; the rest are spec ops. Now the Australian SAS Regt has no CT capability, nor has the New-Zealand SAS Sqn. These units are "special forces". These countries have different units for CT, mostly coming from the police.
Yard Ape:
I just took a look at the "resurrect the Ab regt" discussion, and i see a lot of people are comparing Canada with the USA or the UK. Realistically, i think we should compare ourselves with countries like Australia or Belgium (smaller population and military). Even then, we are out to lunch when it comes to rapid reaction/special forces units...

 

[King]

Yard Ape,

You misunderstood me. I was saying the JTF2 be kept in it‘s current role while another unit, similar to the U.S. Army Rangers, be created to, among other things, comlement the JTF2. Like the Rangers work with Delta in America.

Jungle,

I always though that the CAR had more experience then the Rangers. Most Rangers are about 18 or 19 years old. I doubt the avg. age of the CAR was that low. However, while the cultures and even structure were different between the two units, didn‘t they train for similar missions?

The SAS is a regiment and yah part of that regiment deals with CT. But it‘s not exclusive within the unit. all members of the SAs are trained in CT and will do some time in that part of the regiment. Why can‘t the JTF2 expand to become like the SAS?

In Australia (don‘t know about NZ) the SAS has a CT unit within itself, called the TAG (Tactical Assault Group). They also have a unit within TAG called OAT (Offshore Assault Team) that does maritime CT. I agree we can‘t compare ourselves to the U.S., Australia is a much better example and maybe could model a Canadian SAS after theirs.

 

[Yard Ape]

Originally posted by Jungle:
[qb]I just took a look at the "resurrect the Ab regt" discussion, and i see a lot of people are comparing Canada with the USA or the UK. Realistically, i think we should compare ourselves with countries like Australia or Belgium (smaller population and military). Even then, we are out to lunch when it comes to rapid reaction/special forces units...[/qb]

The specific post that I refered to in that discusion was of Belgian Paratroops. And yes, we cannot hold a candle to them.

Yard Ape

 

[Jungle]

King, it depends what king of experience you are talking about... the Rangers were deployed in a number of combat ops, while Canada was not using the CAR to it‘s full potential. . If we modeled our military after the Aussie‘s, here is how it would look:
3 x special forces units: SAS Regt, 4 RAR (CDO ie:amphibious), 1 CDO Regt(partly reserves)
1 x quick reaction force: 3 RAR (para) battle group.
also, we would have bought real helicopters (blackhawks) not CH-146‘s. This is what i meant before when i talked about specializing our units: of course we need a couple of "heavy metal" brigades, where we should concentrate all our leopards and LAV-3‘s. But we also need units that can go where the heavy metal cannot, and deploy at a moment‘s notice to protect Canadian citizens and interests the world over. Finally, i also think that JTF-2 should be part of a larger unit, to be modeled somewhat like the Aussie SAS Regt.

 

[King]

Jungle,

You don‘t like the Griffons?

 

[Jungle]

Frankly King, no. They are a nice "taxi" to take VIP‘s around, but are not well suited for military ops. What happened is very simple: Bell helicopter took a military helo (the huey) and turned it into a machine usable by civilian buyers. Then, the CDN govt bought 100, painted them green, and told the Army to use them !!! They are in fact a good machine, for the civie user... but too fragile for mil ops: they had to add plywood on the floor (we were poking holes in it with C7 barrels), the doors handles are cheap plastic, the seats fall apart... but the avionics are top notch. I think we should have bought a real military machine...