Divining the right role, capabilities, structure, and Regimental System for Canada's Army Reserves

[blackberet17]

I agree, changes must be made in the Regular Force as well in regards to HQ, etc. IMO, we could probably do with less divisions as well, personally I would like to only see

1 Cdn Div - Western Canada
2 Cdn Div - Central/Atlantic Canada
3 Cdn Div - Quebec

I've also thought about having a 4th Cdn Div, but this one would have all Reserve Brigades fall under it, but I'm not sure it would work out well.

Ack, but couldn't the Association hosting social events and inviting members/organizations in the community accomplish the same? As well, isn't the HCol supposed to help with this as well(eg connections, etc)?

No thanks. We Easterners have already a great enough dislike for the Toronto Sports Network to lumped unceremoniously with "Central" Canada in such a reorg. 5 Cdn Div already regroups four provinces. Think we'd have much of a voice grouped in with The Centre of the Universe Ontario?

 

[Rick Goebel]

I recently came across some figures which, while not strictly apples to apples, may add some perspective to this discussion.  Recent figures show 372 regular LCols and 9,012 regular Cpl/Ptes in army-managed occupations.  Recent figures show 205 primary reserve LCols on Class A, B, and C service from Army HQ on down and 10,432 primary reserve  Cpl/Ptes on Class A, B, and C service from Army HQ on down.  That’s 1:24.2 for the regular army and 1:50.9 for the army reserve.

On a separate note, you need to be really careful when talking about unit amalgamations that you don’t take actions that would wind up costing more money.  As an example, if you create one unit out of three dispersed units, somebody might decide that you then need to have a full-time DCO or Ops O and a full-time RSM or QMSI to provide for more frequent travel and easier leadership presence in the remote locations.  This would wipe out a good deal of the saving in eliminating two part-time COs and two part-time RSMs, etc.

Consider, for example, the 10 Brigade Group HQs that replaced 20 and then 14 Militia District HQs.  I’m not certain, but I’ve seen enough to be willing to bet that the total payrolls of the 10 are actually higher than the total payrolls of the 20 were.  Can anyone support or correct this?

Now, it is conceivable that the 10 newer HQs do cost much more but are worth every penny due to markedly improved performance of reserve units.  It’s conceivable that putting full-time DCOs or Ops Os into more dispersed units would improve the performance of those units.  It’s also possible that there has been or would be no measurable improvement attributable to the cost increase.

 

[Brasidas]

I recently came across some figures which, while not strictly apples to apples, may add some perspective to this discussion.  Recent figures show 372 regular LCols and 9,012 regular Cpl/Ptes in army-managed occupations.  Recent figures show 205 primary reserve LCols on Class A, B, and C service from Army HQ on down and 10,432 primary reserve  Cpl/Ptes on Class A, B, and C service from Army HQ on down.  That’s 1:24.2 for the regular army and 1:50.9 for the army reserve.

On a separate note, you need to be really careful when talking about unit amalgamations that you don’t take actions that would wind up costing more money.  As an example, if you create one unit out of three dispersed units, somebody might decide that you then need to have a full-time DCO or Ops O and a full-time RSM or QMSI to provide for more frequent travel and easier leadership presence in the remote locations.  This would wipe out a good deal of the saving in eliminating two part-time COs and two part-time RSMs, etc.

Consider, for example, the 10 Brigade Group HQs that replaced 20 and then 14 Militia District HQs.  I’m not certain, but I’ve seen enough to be willing to bet that the total payrolls of the 10 are actually higher than the total payrolls of the 20 were.  Can anyone support or correct this?

Now, it is conceivable that the 10 newer HQs do cost much more but are worth every penny due to markedly improved performance of reserve units.  It’s conceivable that putting full-time DCOs or Ops Os into more dispersed units would improve the performance of those units.  It’s also possible that there has been or would be no measurable improvement attributable to the cost increase.

You posted that while I was opening a new one with "Does anyone else have an image of amalgamation potentially resulting in more HQ bloat?"

Make three or so geographically-dispersed units an amalgamated regiment. Take the RSS/class B positions, put them into a pile, these belong to the regimental HQ to do with as they please. Two full-time clerks? Lets make that one, augmented by class A. QM? Let's bring them over here, and hope we can get a class A to fill in over there. Beyond eliminating class A appointments like CO's and SM's, you can end up eliminating a unit's full-time cadre, shoving more time-sensitive planning and admin onto class A pers who don't have the time available to support the unit, and generally creating a mess.

Amalgamation can be a positive thing, but I'd be wary about rushing into it.

 

[Remius]

I recently came across some figures which, while not strictly apples to apples, may add some perspective to this discussion.  Recent figures show 372 regular LCols and 9,012 regular Cpl/Ptes in army-managed occupations.  Recent figures show 205 primary reserve LCols on Class A, B, and C service from Army HQ on down and 10,432 primary reserve  Cpl/Ptes on Class A, B, and C service from Army HQ on down.  That’s 1:24.2 for the regular army and 1:50.9 for the army reserve.

On a separate note, you need to be really careful when talking about unit amalgamations that you don’t take actions that would wind up costing more money.  As an example, if you create one unit out of three dispersed units, somebody might decide that you then need to have a full-time DCO or Ops O and a full-time RSM or QMSI to provide for more frequent travel and easier leadership presence in the remote locations.  This would wipe out a good deal of the saving in eliminating two part-time COs and two part-time RSMs, etc.

Consider, for example, the 10 Brigade Group HQs that replaced 20 and then 14 Militia District HQs.  I’m not certain, but I’ve seen enough to be willing to bet that the total payrolls of the 10 are actually higher than the total payrolls of the 20 were.  Can anyone support or correct this?

Now, it is conceivable that the 10 newer HQs do cost much more but are worth every penny due to markedly improved performance of reserve units.  It’s conceivable that putting full-time DCOs or Ops Os into more dispersed units would improve the performance of those units.  It’s also possible that there has been or would be no measurable improvement attributable to the cost increase.

And how many of the LCols are double hatted?  on class b with Reg force organisations?  But still parade with their units?

 

[Eaglelord17]

Increasing $$ to the Reserves when the Reg Force budgets are being slashed and Reg Force trg is being reduced isn't likely the smart thing to do and the thing that will happen.
Simply having a 25-30k strength Reserve doesn't mean jack shit if you don't have the $ to train them to do something useful and the kit they need to do it once trained to the useful level.  Otherwise, all  you have is a paper force with no teeth.
Now, if you did have that 25-30k force reserve army...just what are you doing with them that makes all this money worth spending to Joe and Jane Taxpayer?  The main purpose of the PRES is to augment the Regs.
(1) Define the need, role, whatever of the PRES.  (2) Define the realistic command and supply structures needed to support that role (3) fund that organization.
Its great to toss numbers around for troop strength.  Pease don't throw the token "domestic ops" lifeline out for what the PRES will do.

As I see it the goal of the Canadian Forces is to defend Canada, a task we cannot do at the moment with the current funding, structure, and manpower. At the moment both the Reg Force and Reserves both lack direction on how to do this, and I personally think that it is a great opportunity to change our structure back to the more traditional army look (I am not talking about the ribbons and bows), the type which is common in Europe, where you have a small Reg Force and a significantly larger Reserve Force. If you are going to argue about what the Reserves have to do you need to ask is the Reg Force doing what is required of itself in the first place? In my opinion if it wasn't for our friendly neighbour to the south we would have no chance of defending ourself.

The CF as a whole needs to look at ourselves and justify how we need 68,000 people and can't provide more than roughly 6 ships all of the same class (if you want to be generous include the MCDVs, subs, and ships in refit), 77 combat aircraft, 37 Arty pieces, 120 tanks, sub 11,000 combat arms for the Army (that number is pretty generous), no air defence (unless you include aircraft and ships in that), and no AORs. (these are all rough numbers)

Maybe we need to look into different models for our military, as our current one isn't working. Maybe a Reservist training model where we send them off to train for a year straight then stay in the Reserves for x amount of years is required (somewhat like Switzerland). Maybe we should look at doing things like completely paying for there education provided they stay in the Reserves for x amount of years after as sort of retention, as it might be cheaper to do that then to have them join for two years then leave and have to completely retrain someone from scratch and hope they last longer than two years.
Maybe if we looked into training Reservists in trades with equivalent civilian qualifications (i.e. making the qualifications equivalent), so they would have a job well being a Reservist (once finished trades training), and throw some sort of time frame commitment on there, you would end up with skilled workers who are working in there field civvy side and you can call them to arms in the event of war or have them work with the Reg Force as taskings. These are just ideas but they might be a solution to the biggest issue the Reserves have which is turnover.

 

[daftandbarmy]

For the army reserves we need to get out of provincial boundaries.

Put a Reg force BGen and CWO in charge of the Army Reserve Division and give them their own budget.

Three areas. 

Everything from Quebec city to the Atlantic would be the Eastern Reserve Brigade

Toronto to Mtl, central

West of Toronto would be western.

Each lead by a Colonel with several company commanders commanding elements of units that could be force generated to whatever.

Or something similar to that.

The Int already do that.

 

[dapaterson]

No thanks. We Easterners have already a great enough dislike for the Toronto Sports Network to lumped unceremoniously with "Central" Canada in such a reorg. 5 Cdn Div already regroups four provinces. Think we'd have much of a voice grouped in with The Centre of the Universe Ontario?

The total population of the four maritime provinces is less than that of Ontario or Quebec.  There is no valid reason for 5 Div to exist.

 

[dapaterson]

I recently came across some figures which, while not strictly apples to apples, may add some perspective to this discussion.  Recent figures show 372 regular LCols and 9,012 regular Cpl/Ptes in army-managed occupations.  Recent figures show 205 primary reserve LCols on Class A, B, and C service from Army HQ on down and 10,432 primary reserve  Cpl/Ptes on Class A, B, and C service from Army HQ on down.  That’s 1:24.2 for the regular army and 1:50.9 for the army reserve.

Apple to oranges.  There are institutional functions performed by the Reg F for the CAF writ large that the P Res does not do.

Not to say that we don't need to cull the Reg F as well (25% officers is excessive), but the problem space is different between the Regs and the Res.

On a separate note, you need to be really careful when talking about unit amalgamations that you don’t take actions that would wind up costing more money.  As an example, if you create one unit out of three dispersed units, somebody might decide that you then need to have a full-time DCO or Ops O and a full-time RSM or QMSI to provide for more frequent travel and easier leadership presence in the remote locations.  This would wipe out a good deal of the saving in eliminating two part-time COs and two part-time RSMs, etc.

Consider, for example, the 10 Brigade Group HQs that replaced 20 and then 14 Militia District HQs.  I’m not certain, but I’ve seen enough to be willing to bet that the total payrolls of the 10 are actually higher than the total payrolls of the 20 were.  Can anyone support or correct this?

Now, it is conceivable that the 10 newer HQs do cost much more but are worth every penny due to markedly improved performance of reserve units.  It’s conceivable that putting full-time DCOs or Ops Os into more dispersed units would improve the performance of those units.  It’s also possible that there has been or would be no measurable improvement attributable to the cost increase.

The Army Reserve has a target of about 20,000 paid strength.  If we assume 80% will be trained to the DP1 level (an optimistic assumption), then that is 16,000 paid trained strength.  If we want units of 500 trained soldiers each (4 companies of 110, and 60 in the HQ) then we can fit 32 such beasts into the 16,000 trained strength.  That's 32 LCols.  We have 6x that number (based on the figure above).

While the 32 LCol model is excessively restrictive, there is no valid reason for Canada's Army Reserve to have 200+ LCols on strength for a target strength of 20,000.  The target strength of the Reserve Force should be a foundational piece of the plan, not an inconvenient irritant to maintaining the status quo of under-experienced LCols being churned out on a three-year cycle.

 

[George Wallace]

The total population of the four maritime provinces is less than that of Ontario or Quebec.  There is no valid reason for 5 Div to exist.

I suppose you can say that for the Prairies as well.  Let's move all the Divs to Ontario, and have satellite Bdes in the other Provinces and Territories....... >

 

[dapaterson]

I suppose you can say that for the Prairies as well.  Let's move all the Divs to Ontario, and have satellite Bdes in the other Procinces and Territories....... >

No.  But we need to be realists in our force structure; why not have a single Res Bde for Atlantic Canada?  If we scale the P Res down to say 6 Bde Gps, then those Bde HQs can take on some functions currently done by the Divs - and then we can get rid of some Div HQs as well.

Right now, in Halifax, we have both Div & Bde HQs - so if there's an incident in Halifax, we lose MARLANT and two Army HQs all at once.  From a "force destruction" perspective, very effective; from a survivability perspective, much less so...

 

[Underway]

Instead of almagimation I really think that you need to eliminate reserve units entirely.  As an example Hamilton has two infantry reserve units.  Do we really need two of the same type of unit in the same place?  You could drop one (or merge them like the Scottish Regiment in the UK concept) entirely and have a proper full strength regiment instead.  There are other similar examples across the country (Queens Own and Winnipeg Rifles etc...).  Also why does a community like St. Catharines have two reserve units when they can barely keep one going.  Shouldn't they just have artillery or Linc and Welland not both?  It would massively reduce the promotion bloat of getting to be a LCol just because they need a CO and probably reduce the number of officers and NCO's.  It's not like many reserve units are at proper strength anyways, and many positions would be eliminated that aren't currently being filled.

 

[McG]

Instead of almagimation I really think that you need to eliminate reserve units entirely. 

The math is the same regardless of how you get there.  Amalgamation and elimination would both leave one unit where there were previously two or three.  Which option is going to be more paletable?

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Instead of almagimation I really think that you need to eliminate reserve units entirely.  As an example Hamilton has two infantry reserve units.  Do we really need two of the same type of unit in the same place?  You could drop one (or merge them like the Scottish Regiment in the UK concept) entirely and have a proper full strength regiment instead.  There are other similar examples across the country (Queens Own and Winnipeg Rifles etc...).  Also why does a community like St. Catharines have two reserve units when they can barely keep one going.  Shouldn't they just have artillery or Linc and Welland not both?  It would massively reduce the promotion bloat of getting to be a LCol just because they need a CO and probably reduce the number of officers and NCO's.  It's not like many reserve units are at proper strength anyways, and many positions would be eliminated that aren't currently being filled.

We could ask why there are armour reserves when they dont have armour too, nor the ability to train anyone in armour operations.....

 

[blackberet17]

We could ask why there are armour reserves when they dont have armour too, nor the ability to train anyone in armour operations.....

Ahh, because PRes serves to augment the REgF. LUVW may not have armour, but it is a means to an end, a platform on which tps can maintain skills required and transferable regardless of platform (except gunnery - TOC needed).

 

[Kirkhill]

The problem that the Canadian Army has is that approximately half their available PYs have no dedicated budget, the Chief of Reserves has inadequate authority.  The reserves are inadequately trained and there is no plan in place to remedy the situation.  Meanwhile the Army's personnel budget only has funds to employ the other half at full pay.

The Canadian Army is the largest element of the Canadian Armed Forces:

21,600 members serve as full-time soldiers in the Regular Force
24,000 are part-time, volunteer soldiers in the Reserve Force
including 5,000 Rangers who serve in sparsely settled northern, coastal and isolated areas of Canada
4,900 civilian employees who support the Army

http://www.army-armee.forces.gc.ca/en/index.page

The Canadian Army Reserves:

The world's largest, most poorly administered Replacement Company.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I suppose you can say that for the Prairies as well.  Let's move all the Divs to OntarioToronto, and have satellite Bdes in the other Provinces and Territories....... >

If we're getting the hate on anyway ....  >

 

[daftandbarmy]

Instead of almagimation I really think that you need to eliminate reserve units entirely.  As an example Hamilton has two infantry reserve units.  Do we really need two of the same type of unit in the same place?  You could drop one (or merge them like the Scottish Regiment in the UK concept) entirely and have a proper full strength regiment instead.  There are other similar examples across the country (Queens Own and Winnipeg Rifles etc...).  Also why does a community like St. Catharines have two reserve units when they can barely keep one going.  Shouldn't they just have artillery or Linc and Welland not both?  It would massively reduce the promotion bloat of getting to be a LCol just because they need a CO and probably reduce the number of officers and NCO's.  It's not like many reserve units are at proper strength anyways, and many positions would be eliminated that aren't currently being filled.

The lengths to which we currently go to avoid the 'poo storms' that would accompany any such efforts at amalgamation (e.g., Tactical Grouping, Colonel level Pl Comds etc) is an indication of the lack of ability, resources and influence in our senior leaders - political and military - to confront the obvious and lead us towards a compelling, shared and improving future vision.

We have, in effect, established a vast quasi-baronial system across the country, which (except for brief periods during world wars) has successfully resisted the 'evil forces' of centralization and common business sense for a couple of hundred years.

Maybe we could export this cultural defence mechanism to countries who would benefit from such cultural level defence in depth, you know, like the Ukraine?  ;D

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

Ahh, because PRes serves to augment the REgF. LUVW may not have armour, but it is a means to an end, a platform on which tps can maintain skills required and transferable regardless of platform (except gunnery - TOC needed).

What is it augmenting? Drivers who can't drive the regular force vehicles, NCOs/officers who can't crew command reg force vehicles, and no one with gunnery skills. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Funny Germany overan Europe with tankers trained in Plywood tanks. What they need to do is boil down the key skillsets each position needs and teach that. have a couple of training vehicles and crews, that travel to the different Reserve units and run short courses. Each member gets a little book they can check off those core competences on. One vehicle can train drivers while the other focus on gunnery, bring along electronic aids to assist. Choose your training teams well and you could get a lot out of it. You can do the same for artillery, medical, sigs, supply, engineer, MP's 

 

[blackberet17]

What is it augmenting? Drivers who can't drive the regular force vehicles, NCOs/officers who can't crew command reg force vehicles, and no one with gunnery skills.

BS. The CComd skills are easily transferable from platform to platform. True, dvrs, gnrs and CComds would require a conversion crs IOT operate the wpns system on, say a LAV. However, this is NO different than RegF pers being qual'd on multiple platforms as they progress through their careers and courses.