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All Things Combat Diver (merged)

If you want to get really picky, deep water diving starts after 150'!  >:D

just hackin on you killers, keep your heads down.
 
Salute divers.
  My name is Michal and I´m from Slovakia. We want to go to the International combat diver exercise.
Could you advise me, where can I get the information about it?
Thanks.

"No bubbles na troubles"

My private address: aigir@centrum.sk
 
aigir said:
Salute divers.
  My name is Michal and I´m from Slovakia. We want to go to the International combat diver exercise.
Could you advise me, where can I get the information about it?
Thanks.

"No bubbles na troubles"

My private address: aigir@centrum.sk

Hello Michal,

I can put you in contact with the organiser.  It will take a couple of days.  Be prepared, it may be too late for this year.  Will let you know.

Sapper6
 
G-Day all,
Just finished RB 06 up in eastern shore area based out of Shearwater. The exercise was well thought out good hands of applause to ADC in putting it together, different change of pace front the gagetown playground. Troops enjoyed the Halifax scene and especially the foreign divers. One thing the troops won't miss the AAR's.

I read  all the passed discussions, it seem to me that there is bit of bitterness on cbt diving. Yes it true we are looking for Id within the CF but that as not stop us in the pass. Then again all trade are justifying there trade with Ottawa. We are not any different.
The Army must give us a role and in the mean time we will work on the sneak & peak stuff, close support and gen support stuff. Yes we can change our role on dime if needed.

Here a topic that I would like to open, what are Pathfinders doing in drysuits ??? Resent Shearwater paper had them all over there pages, This is Combat diver territory, if we let any cbt sub spec trade in. Who controls there authority to do this, is it the Army, maybe they should get some direction on who is better suited to do this. Again the Army must stop and give the engr divers a role. 

Cheers bubble up

Dive Army



 
Part of the pathfinder course is Beachhead recces and security. If the Combat engineers put a combat diver on the course, then the Combat diver becomes the Sme. If there are no Combat divers on course, they do it anyway. The lessons were quite thourough, and the techniques taught were the same. It sucked wading in the water up to your waist with no suit at all, so I'm glad there are proper suits being used now. Also Pathfinders are taught to infiltrate from the Sea, using small boats, and even swimmers. Believe me, the infanteers would just as soon have Engineers swimming, but for the sake of exercise, Engineers are seldom tasked.
 
cbtdiver129 said:
Here a topic that I would like to open, what are Pathfinders doing in drysuits ??? Resent Shearwater paper had them all over there pages, This is Combat diver territory, if we let any cbt sub spec trade in. Who controls there authority to do this, is it the Army, maybe they should get some direction on who is better suited to do this. Again the Army must stop and give the engr divers a role. 

Cheers bubble up

Dive Army

If you are referring to all those photos of the patrol pathfinders doing the sub trg in March I think it is safe to say that they were wearing dry suits as a safety item.  Ocean tends to be a bit cold that time of year as I am sure I don’t have to tell you.

As for the guys calling themselves special forces and saving that they all need to be divers to be PPF.......I think that’s a thread on its own.  There is no doubt in my mind as a non-engr that there is a bit more to being a Cbt Diver than blowing bubbles.  If the guys at CPC want to be all that maybe they should think about joining an Ottawa based unit or the SAR tech bit....


 
So, another ROGUISH BUOY in the books. From my point of view all went well. Everyone went home alive, no MPs banging on the door in the middle of the night, the Halifax casino is quite a few bucks lighter, and, as painful as they might have seemed, the AARs drew out lots of useful info. I'm sure everyone who went through them got a lot out of them, info/lessons learned that you will use from now more than if you had simply done the task and walked away like we did "back when."

I wouldn't be too hard on the PPF types. Until the CF started looking at amphib ops, we hadn't been doing beach recces and I don't believe the Navy spent much time at it. The PPFs have been including this trg in their course package for a number years and kudos to them, they finally got a few bucks to buy some drysuits.

The division or allocation of responsibilities for this type of support to amphib ops is still being determined (actually going to spend the next week helping to do that in Kingston). None of us is doing something anyone else can't do with a bit of trg. Thing is, no one can do it all and do it right. It seems the will is now there to clearly identify who will be fully responsible to do what and the resources should follow. Don't think "us," think "team." The right types for the right job. After Ex RB those who were there can say the scope of the tasks to support amphib ops are wide enough for everyone to be involved.
 
sorry, but I'm gunna stir the pot here a bit... Got an e-mail from a NAVY diver (Clearance Diver) that is taking his jump course and Pathfinder course, presumably to do Beachhead security/ Beach obstacle clearance in advance of an Amphibious landing. any one in here privy to any more info? I guess is this is part of SCTF, or CSOR or some new thing I don't really know much about.
 
kj_gully said:
sorry, but I'm gunna stir the pot here a bit... Got an e-mail from a NAVY diver (Clearance Diver) that is taking his jump course and Pathfinder course, presumably to do Beachhead security/ Beach obstacle clearance in advance of an Amphibious landing. any one in here privy to any more info? I guess is this is part of SCTF, or CSOR or some new thing I don't really know much about.

Gully,

I'm thinking this guy might be part of the SCTF crew.  Let me check my sources and I will post back here.

S6.

ARMY DIVING!
 
Gully,

Yup, I checked my sources and you are correct.  This fella is a Clr Dvr Offr who is "trying" to load himself on some high speed Army courses in order to better "prepare" himself for duties with SCTF.  Word on the street is that the Navy Brass are not too supportive.  However, stranger things have happened...like PPCLI dudes getting themselves loaded on Ship's Diver courses.  :eek:

S6

 
Ladies,

In an effort to keep the discussion going (and of course because I have a vested interest), I ask what you would do if you had a blank slate and could re-design combat diving from scratch? What organization(s) would you create, what size, where located, what role and tasks would you expect them to do, why? What equipment would they then need? Keep in mind how busy the units are these days and how difficult it seems to be for a number of divers to simply maintain their currency, let alone proficiency.
 
Hmmmm, not much of a response. Surely there's gotta be some ideas out there. Full time teams in the CERs? A dive Tp in the ESR? An expanded Army Dive Centre? Scrub the whole thing? Or narrow the number of tasks? Become "Engineering" divers a la the US Army divers diving hardhat and repairing infrastructure or go the sneak and peek route with rebreathers and nifty weapons? S6, 409, Gully, et al, let's have some feedback.
 
Sir, I think the first thing would be to get the Regiments to put as much time and effort into their dive capability as they do everything else. Until the units start taking the dive teams seriously on a full-time basis (and not just when a fast-ball rescue/recovery task comes up), no amount of re-tooling will be of benefit.

A couple ideas that have been tossed around the shop here in Pet in the last little bit:

- have a full-time, manned section-sized or greater (not two or three pers) capability in the Regiments a la Recce Pl. i.e. once a soldier becomes dive qualified, they spend a year or two (or more depending on manning availability) in a hard-dive position much the same way as Pathfinders/Snipers do. No sense spending all that time and money on a diver, only to have them whither away in the breezeway attached to a broom when they are motivated and ready to dive;

- maybe fully investigate/employ the older model of the CER's specializing in CS diving and the ESR in GS diving, with a small amount of cross training between the CS/GS world to satisfy local requirements;

- run more than one Basic / Sup course a year. Now before the wolves pounce, let me elaborate. It's not breaking news that all the teams are short divers and sups. The current Op tempo is working against us in a big way with the current time of year the tours deploy. Perhaps turn Ex RB into a every-second-year type thing, with the in-between years running 2 courses. This way, we can get the teams up to strength with both new divers, and enough Sups to cover off the deployment cycle so we don't end up with all of our Sups either being deployed, posted out, or out of date and requiring recerts. As of right now, 2 CER has one Sup who is current, and right now he is involved with the BOI for the young lad from 3RCR who was involved in that diving accident back in April. The other 3 sups who are not deploying or posted are all either Rescinded or waiting Recert in Sept. Not to mention that CFSME seems to run their career courses in the same time-frame as the basic/sup's courses, so potential new divers/sups cannot get trained. I think an extra course a year (every second year) would help prevent this in the future;

- if we are going to rebreather (if the powers-that-be allow it), then let's get on with it already. I'm familiar with the currency / proficiency argument, and I agree with it - but if we are going to rebreather full-time, then all the more ammo to change the books WRT how many dives per cycle are required and the hard positions required to be maintained in the unit. Easier said than done....

- have more than 5 positions in the ADC. IMO, there is way too much work for 5 pers to handle. I honestly believe that we can advance in our cause much quicker if we had more troops down there to deal with kit, training, etc. Geez, almost sounds like I've already lived it ;)

- WRT new SOP's, instead of waiting a year for RB to roll around to try out new TTP's, why not put the word out to the units to try out different ideas for this and that, get together throughout the year to evaluate what works best, and then iron out the problems BEFORE Roguish so we can just practise the TTP's without trying to throw 8 million different things into the mix and looking like bags of hammers to our guests. Speaking of guests, I think while we are in a period of transition, maybe it might be a good idea to shitcan the invites and make it a Canadian-only ex until things have settled.

- perhaps go back to the recent days of ADC purchasing and distributing the new/shiny items vice a unit having to buy it. That way there is standardization among the teams, and we can concentrate our budgets on diver training;

- weapons. We need water compatible weapons, not C8's that will detonate with the smallest amount of water being ingested into the chamber. I still hear about Dave C.'s thumb.....I know Paul M. did some research a couple years back through HK ref MP5's, and it was shot down by some pers who were at ADC at the time. I'm sure there's specific reasons our SF/SOF diver brethren use them, and I would hazard to guess the reasoning falls in line with the findings Paul made back then with HK.

- Like I alluded to above, I think the CER's should focus in CS diving ops. No offense to the ESR fellas, but you cats don't belong to a CMBG, and by virtue of being part of 4ESR, your whole unit is more aligned for GS work. With the CS diving, obviously sneak and peek would be a large portion of the tasks, but let's get proficient with it. There's that "P" word again :D . How about some PD training with the guys who do it for a living? Get some good ideas, see what works, and start getting good at it.

A lot of these points are old ones that keep popping up in the Cbt Diver community, and there's a lot more that have been thrown around lately, but my mind is starting to draw a blank. I'll post more later as I think of them.

If you guys are able to revamp the entire specialty from the ground-up, I know quite a few guys would be more than willing to do some TD down your way to help out and contribute in a meaningful way  ;D
 
Joe, will the Army venture into salt water? If not, go GS diver. The Commander will probably want to take his beachead security inland when he comes ashore. As I mentioned, and you probably know more than I do, there will be a force, comprised of different elements which will be tasked in littoral ops to support the Canadian marine expiditionary force, or whatever it will be called. I guess Standing Contingency Task Force is the name of the moment. There is a Navy CPO working on the makeup of this force as we speak, and if youall aren't on the e-mail list, then you may find a niche elsewhere. Clearance Divers on pathfinder? Give me a break.You guys know which side the rucksack goes on, and how to strip a ration.
 
Sapper6 said:
However, stranger things have happened...like PPCLI dudes getting themselves loaded on Ship's Diver courses.  :eek:

Ah, where's the love here?  You calling me strange?
 
Joe,

392 took the words out of my mouth!  By the way, good effort 392 for taking the time (once again) to put your thoughts down on paper (electrons perhaps) and succinctly summarize all that is ailing the Combat Divers in 2006. I think you speak for the silent majority.  Joe take note.

I will add that it would be all to easy to sh%# can the combat diving capability in the CF.  However, the world remains unpredictable (Israel-Lebanon conflict being a recent example) and one never knows when a capability may be required.  I go back to my earlier comment that over 90% of the world's population lives near large bodies of water, mostly saltwater.  As Gully has mentioned - what is our doctrine with respect to salt water (shallow) operations?  Do we go there, or is our job to remain with inland waterways (ie. freshwater)?

Finally, kudos to those few in ADC, the Regiments and elsewhere who continue to hold the torch.  Keep up the good work.

S6 out.
 
little jim said:
Ah, where's the love here?  You calling me strange?

Little jim,

Oh there is love there.  Especially, special love for my 3VP friends who I got to share a lovely 6 months in Afghanistan on Op APOLLO!  So, strange is not the word.  Special is closer to the mark.  ;)

S6
 
Gully, S6 - appreciate the comments. 392 - very good post, thanks for the view at the coalface.

Ref your comments, I like the "out of the box" thought of doubling up on dive serials by holding Ex RB bi-annually. That never crossed my mind. Will consider, but will need buy-in by the units. Ref fulltime divers and more personnel in the ADC, I'm all for that. These days whatever capability you have better come to the table ready and able to do what it says, and, truthfully, I think we need much more time trg/doing various dive tasks--other than search and recovery--to be asking for a seat at that table.

Ref the TTPs done by units prior to Ex RB, back in the day, we used to make teams OPIs for various drills. That was when dive teams had a bit more time to work on things like that and were not simply at the point of conducting currency dives to keep the team operational. I would like to go that route once more, but, again, will need unit buy-in as the ADC doesn't task unit teams.

I've heard others mentioning not doing TTPs/doctrine development in front of Allied teams as some of us seem to think we come across as inept in front of our guests. I think it is important that they see the process of how we come up with our drills (actually in the water, post task discussion/evaluation, and submission of official documentation vice "we do things the way the most senior guy wants to do things"). They also see right away the value of their participation since we are completely open to suggestions and have on numerous occasions utilized Allied drills during the same ex wherein they were introduced to us. As well, all have to remember the focus of last two RBs were somewhat different from others as we were looking for the documentation to be firmly developed. Next RB should be without TTPN development. That's not to say we'll do away with AARs and refinements to drills. That's one of the main reasons for the ex.

The news these days is the diving situation has been reviewed by D Engr and he has given direction that Branch-wide feedback is to be provided at the next DERTWG (Sep 06) of the CAPABILITIES the Army expects of Army diving within the current and potential future operating environments. Once CAPABILITIES are listed, then the necessary skill sets, eqpt, trg, and organization(s) will quite easily fall out of those. Eg. Army diving needs to be capable of providing domestic/humanitarian assistance in the rehabilitation of ports post-natural disaster. Well then, the skill sets that may fall out of that include: diving in contaminated waters, inspection/maint of ports/facilities/piers etc, use of u/w hydraulic tools incl welding/cutting, concrete work, use of sonars, lifting, salvage etc. The eqpt that falls out of that is easy to see and includes hardhat diving, contaminated water drysuits, and much heavier duty welding/cutting eqpt. The trg that would fall out of that would possibly indicate that to actually be capable of doing this job-not paying lip service-requires fulltimers keeping proficient and developing procedures. The organization necessary to be deployable would then fall out of that.

Should the DERTWG, and then the follow-on D Engr Conf (End-Sep), determine a few more CAPABILITY requirements such as covert info gathering or obs breaching/emplacement ops, you can see how quickly skill sets, trg time, and eqpt can grow. I can't help but think if the Army truly wants any diving capability worth mentioning, fulltime divers are going to happen.

Once the Army gets its requirements sorted out, then we can look to getting Navy/SOF/SAR into the same room and breaking down CF-wide diving responsibilities. Once done, that effort would go to Chief Force Development for a CF diving plan. This would include CF support for all diving skills development, eqpt procurement and organizations. Yes, it does sound like it may be a long road. Who knows? I'm hoping the Army will have its part determined by Oct 06. The Navy already has its Occupational Concept of Employment for its divers and SAR role is pretty straight forward. It's our SOF partners that need to focus and divvy up who does what effectively.

So, steps are being taken. If by Oct we can get an idea of what the Army/Branch expects us to be capable of, we can certainly begin to move forward, within our arcs, to address some skill/eqpt/trg/org deficiencies in the nearer term. I had pretty well written off sp to SCTF as most indications I had been receiving was that the planned clearance diver organization was going to do it all; from blue water MCM right to back of the beach and possibly guiding Landing Force elements onto the objective...(insert your comment here). I had voiced my opinions on that, but my comments weren't accepted. Now it seems we're gathering support from some unexpected quarters for an Army diving role within the SCTF but we'll see, and it'll be secondary to provision of support to the Army.

If any of you contributors expect to participate in the DERTWG, sharpen your pencils now and make suggestions for CAPABILITIES.
 
Hi everyone

There`s a few new dive pics from RB 06 and a story on 5 RGC Divers in Trenton at the Combat Diver Site

www.donlowconcrete.com/CDAC

Enjoy!
 
Hey guys, I don't know about you, but  we are having a hell of a time getting divers out for dives. Since our "dive teams" are not permanent, all the boys are always busy with inter-squadron stuff and can rarely attend planned dives, although unrealistic due to numbers, wouldn't it be cool if we were part of the dive teams full-time? If this were the case, we would be ready for a move to the rebreather as all the divers would be available for maintenace and training. As discussed at RB 06, we really have to try and define what our role is, and we have to assure the powers that be that combat Divers are not only a necessity, but also a priority for budget and training.
Even simple things like weekly Dive-PT do not exist anymore, as we seem to be in a perpetual state of high priority training/deploying with the squadrons, we have to try and work on this boys! It is our survival!!
The other thing I want to ask is if anyone is looking into a new comms system for us? A few months ago a buddy of mine and I got together in Dive stores and made a bunch of local purchases....but we can not touch comms as it must be approved by D dive S, any news on this?
BUBBLES UP!
CHIMO!
Diverchick >:D
 
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