Search results

Here we went again!! Anybody old enough to remember total force where we tried to create a force made up of regulars and reserves that would be combat ready in 30 days from the order to mobilize. Don't get me going on it, but we did aim, or so we said, to make it fly during so many reserve...

There is more to it than that. In the late 50s we had signed on to nuclear roles in Europe - with 1 Air Division adopting strike/reconnaissance and 1 SSM Battery RCA as a land nuclear delivery unit - and at home with RCAF Air Defence Command. We trained and converted our forces, but well into...

Another burst of ancient deja vu; we went through something similar in the seventies, and not very efficiently. There was a perception that new entries did not need archaic army stuff like small arms, fieldcraft, and combat first aid. The length of the basic recruit course was pared back to...

FJAG, you are correct, but accumulation of leave came a bit later down the pike.

I would hesitate to cite Hong Kong without a lot of detailed research. Closer to home, our individual training system poise-unification was badly screwed up. At one stage small arms were not issued or taught, and with a viable internal security threat, the "land element" was tasked to protect...

I can't say that I am up to date on the current methodology and the rest of training new soldiers in what we used to call "primary combat functions" or PCFs. However, I graduated from the RCA Depot on 21 June 1958 trained as a basic gun number on the C1. That fall I attended a 12 week basic...

Hmmm, General Baril (I met him on basic para and we stayed buds) said he chopped them as too British. Their decisions seemed interchangeable. I don't think Bill Leach was prone to make waves.

I would like to offer a few comments. First, the Basic Load is an estimate of usage in static periods, and not of rounds to be fired in active operations. There was, in the Second World War, a pool of ammunition that was expended in active operations such as Totalize and Tractable. A long while...

This is an interesting, and intriguing, subject. We did experience a shortage of infantry reinforcements, however a study by the Canadian Army Historical Section, available on line, determined it was because of a miscalculation by British authorities of the percentage by corps. Based on...

Surely you jest! Nearly two decades ago we decided to reduce our fire power was the way to prepare for whatever was coming down the pike. Since then, we quite rightly worked on an integrated fire support establishment, albeit one without a meaningful amount of surface-to-surface and absolutely...

There was an old ploy in the Canadian Army of the 1960s. Basically, much of the field army spent much of the June-July period deployed in the field on Summer concentrations, in regional training areas such as Wainwright, Petawawa and Gagetown. After several weeks in the boondocks, troops were...

The 1950-1953 time frame must have been interesting. On one hand we had a population of veterans snd adolescents who grew up watching the war. We also had field army's worth of kit. But we were faced with two theaters emerge more or less simultaneously. Somehow we went from three infantry...

I echo Old Soldier's reservations? How does this move enhance operational effectiveness, aka the ability to fight and win?

This could get interesting. Hughes did get things moving, but he could not get out of the way. By the way, we had started to build large training centres, Petawawa for example. Hughes had organized the purchase of the land in smaller bit by agents who apparently had no attachment to the...

And for a throw away line I tend to overuse, this is another reason why God invented sergeants.

That is pretty well it, although there are variations in the way different artilleries carry out details. Our fire orders are, or used to be anyhow, more abbreviated; we would omit what we consider superfluous terms (like dropping call signs after comms is established in the initial call for...

Just sit down and have a deep breath or two. During my last years of service, I was the desk officer for some of this stuff. We started to develop airborne forces in our three regular battalions, 1 RCHA, and others, in the late 1940s. The first airborne exercise was Sweetbrian circa early 1950...

All the best to Patricias everywhere. For my contribution, as I sip my first beer around 1700, I'll silently sing a ditty I learned a million years ago, stationed in Fort Prince of Wales next to the First Patricias in Fort Mac. The first line goes something like this: "In Nineteen-Hundred-and...

After watching our ministers address the issue, I can only think of the old saw that talk is cheap and military rebuilding is not, and they will opt for the cheapest solution.

I suspect there may be an announcement of one, but then, as things cool off, it will be chipped away. I've seen this sort of thing before, and also well-meaning announcements like Allard'scirca 1969 claim that 4 CMBG was going to be converted to the finest air mobile force on earth, followed by...