- Reaction score
- 5
- Points
- 430
This is an infantry sepcific follow-on to the "Ranger Course" thread under "Canadian Army" in which Fusaki requested information about Infantry Assault Pioneers:
Fusaki,
Firstly I should mention that the Infantry Corps has started to disband the Pioneer Platoons in the Regular Force battalions, this combat function has been retired from the Corps along with mortars.
Pioneers were the integral combat engineering component of the battalions. They were trained in such tasks as:
field defences and obstacles
timber shelters
mines - placement, detection removal
demolitions
booby traps
non-standard (wood) bridging
winter ice roads and crossings
ropes and anchorages (including suspension traverses, rope bridging, etc)
watermanship (motor assault boat operation, etc)
raod and bridging construction
The pioneer platoon provided small task and close support capabilities to the battalion/battle group which ensured immediacy of response and decreased the workload on the engineer squadrons. This ensured that the focus of engineer taskings were the Brigade‘s higher priority missions.
But this is no more, and the qualification courses as well will no longer be run (either basic pioneer or the advanced pioneer course).
It should be noted that attempts to create Reserve pioneer platoons usually failed because of the very high resource bill as well as the fact that the time required to conduct annual refresher training exceeded the allocated training days per soldier allocated to Reserve units.
Mike
Fusaki,
Firstly I should mention that the Infantry Corps has started to disband the Pioneer Platoons in the Regular Force battalions, this combat function has been retired from the Corps along with mortars.
Pioneers were the integral combat engineering component of the battalions. They were trained in such tasks as:
field defences and obstacles
timber shelters
mines - placement, detection removal
demolitions
booby traps
non-standard (wood) bridging
winter ice roads and crossings
ropes and anchorages (including suspension traverses, rope bridging, etc)
watermanship (motor assault boat operation, etc)
raod and bridging construction
The pioneer platoon provided small task and close support capabilities to the battalion/battle group which ensured immediacy of response and decreased the workload on the engineer squadrons. This ensured that the focus of engineer taskings were the Brigade‘s higher priority missions.
But this is no more, and the qualification courses as well will no longer be run (either basic pioneer or the advanced pioneer course).
It should be noted that attempts to create Reserve pioneer platoons usually failed because of the very high resource bill as well as the fact that the time required to conduct annual refresher training exceeded the allocated training days per soldier allocated to Reserve units.
Mike