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Informing the Army’s Future Structure

Funny that you should mention that as I thought there was another jump status ResF unit other than the QOR and was surprised to learn QOR was the only one these days. I'm perhaps overdoing the jump capability as I did add another one with the Voltigers to give 5 Bde a little depth and besides I think its a great draw to bring in keen young ResF soldiers if there's an opportunity for them.


That's exactly right.

The fact is that working with existing infrastructure and unit type distribution across the country makes it difficult to keep things grouped as tightly as one wants. It's not a big problem as long as you have independent 140 man battalions grouped under an administrative headquarters but the moment you convert those to a 140 man companies that report to an operational battalion headquarters then the exercise becomes difficult except in the biggest urban centres. As I mentioned above, that shouldn't be the big issue most of us here in Canada think as the Guard in the US exists mostly in company sized armouries spread all around urban and rural areas.

Here's a quick view of Florida NG and USAR units the vast majority of which are company or detachment sized entities.

View attachment 74717


View attachment 74716
You can see how widely they are distributed throughout the state in company sized armories. About half of these units belong to Florida's 53 IBCT out of Tampa but just as many belong to higher units and formations outside the state such as A Co of the 3 Bn of the 20th Special Forces Group in Ocala. The Bn is headquartered at Ft Blanding has another company in North Carolina and reports to its group headquarters in Birmingham Alabama.

If you discount BC, there's a pretty good dividing line for the Army based on the Ottawa valley and the Quebec Ont border north of that. The Reg F has a brigade on either side of that and one right on the border. Similarly numbers of ResF units balance out very roughly as between the east and the west with (based on some old figures) with roughly 2,400 on the Prairies, 5,200 in Ont, 4,200 in Que and 3,000 in the Maritimes. The question then is what do you do with BC's 1,500? It's very hard to put them into a mechanized force but they are quite well suited for light infantry and associated roles.

If you accept that the the west is the best place for mech training (Wainwrights and Shilo) then you are stuck with the fact that a 30/70 structure requires 1/3rd of 1 CMBG and all of the ResF in the Prairies to make one bde which pushes the other two bdes and their sustainment infrastructure into the population centres of Ont. Concurrently the weigh the light force towards a 70/30 or so establishment you need to add 2 Bde to the eastern divide (make the boundary Hwy 17 rather than the river) and you end up assigning much of 33 Bde to be the ResF roundout to 2 Bde. On top of that 33 Bde is the weakest of Ontario's three brigades and wouldn't be able to form the core of a good mech bde which slides you over to Montreal for the 3rd mech bde. It is well suited for it.

BC will always be a problem for RegF/ResF organizational structures. It's less of a problem where the demands on the ResF units isn't high and ResF leadership is left to their own devices on the other side of the mountains. BC will always be an outlier regardless of what criteria you use for the organization. A simple geographic grouping with the "Army of the West" might be seductive but is impractical once you add a functional break with a Europe-focused division. I prefer 39 Bde to have a coastal focus which functionally puts it into the "Light" Division.

Functional command trumps geographic in my books.

🍻
Don't forget all those National Guard Armories, with their HMMVWs and trucks are also emergency response centres. The Feds may value their warfighting capabilities but the States value them for their local Civil roles.
 
39 CBG's only real constraint is the availability of suitable training areas which, with a little good staff work, might be addressed through securing suitable Crown Land for both ranges and dry training areas. It's absurd that Force Design decisions should be artificially skewed by the lack of a few hectares of dirt to train on part time.

Trying to 'squeak by' with the current, very limited and barely adequate, training facilities and areas on a ginormous land base (bigger than the entire UK) is probably just acute laziness or inadequate staff expertise, on the part of Army HQ on down, or a combination of both.
Let me guess - no one kept any portion of Chilliwack's range facilities for 39 Bde.

I've been wracking my brains since I went through CFOCS Venture in Esquimalt for my BOTC - I'm sure we qualified on a range somewhere - William's Head, or Albert Head, or Royal Roads maybe?

I know when I was with 3 RCHA I went out to Yakima as a safety officer for 5 Fd Bty (as it then was and should be again) and 15 Fd Regt.

Sigh.

🍻
 
Volkes and Slesse were the two ranges around Chilliwack, as I recall.
 
Let me guess - no one kept any portion of Chilliwack's range facilities for 39 Bde.

I've been wracking my brains since I went through CFOCS Venture in Esquimalt for my BOTC - I'm sure we qualified on a range somewhere - William's Head, or Albert Head, or Royal Roads maybe?

I know when I was with 3 RCHA I went out to Yakima as a safety officer for 5 Fd Bty (as it then was and should be again) and 15 Fd Regt.

Sigh.

🍻
According to Wikipedia ASU Chilliwack is responsible for the following training areas:

Training Areas[edit]​

ASU Chilliwack has responsibility over several military training areas. These areas are often used by Regular Force units from 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, Reserve Force units from Mainland British Columbia, some units training for deployment to Afghanistan, and as well as Cadets.

ASU Chilliwack maintains ranges and training areas for use by it dependencies, as well as visiting units.

  • Vokes Range
  • Slesse Creek Demolition Training Areas
  • Columbia Valley Training Area
  • Trail Rifle Range
  • Stone Creek Training Area
  • Vernon Military Camp
  • OPSEE Training Area
  • Chilcotin Training Area
  • Vedder Mountain Training Area
  • Richmond – Armoury and transmitter site
 
Let me guess - no one kept any portion of Chilliwack's range facilities for 39 Bde.

I've been wracking my brains since I went through CFOCS Venture in Esquimalt for my BOTC - I'm sure we qualified on a range somewhere - William's Head, or Albert Head, or Royal Roads maybe?

I know when I was with 3 RCHA I went out to Yakima as a safety officer for 5 Fd Bty (as it then was and should be again) and 15 Fd Regt.

Sigh.

🍻

The Vokes Range has a restricted template now that they discovered it was laid out incorrectly from inception, infringing on FN land. I'm not sure if they can fire 7.62mm on it yet, and it was constrained to 5.56mm for quite awhile. There's Heals Range in Victoria, and the range in Nanaimo, but: Vancouver Island.

Regardless, there's no range facilities available in BC to do any type of field firing, from pairs F&M on up, and no dry training area with even a tiny portion of what's available at Joint Base Lewis-McChord/ Yakima in Washington State, or Wainwright.

Also, the US training facilities are pretty much impossible to access easily, for whatever reason, and are not a reliable option for training plans that need to have a high degree of certainty.

The Chilcotin is too far to be useful except in the summer months, when the militia don't need it, and is continually under pressure from FN land claims.
 
The Vokes Range has a restricted template now that they discovered it was laid out incorrectly from inception, infringing on FN land. I'm not sure if they can fire 7.62mm on it yet, and it was constrained to 5.56mm for quite awhile. There's Heals Range in Victoria, and the range in Nanaimo, but: Vancouver Island.

Regardless, there's no range facilities available in BC to do any type of field firing, from pairs F&M on up, and no dry training area with even a tiny portion of what's available at Joint Base Lewis-McChord/ Yakima in Washington State, or Wainwright.

Also, the US training facilities are pretty much impossible to access easily, for whatever reason, and are not a reliable option for training plans that need to have a high degree of certainty.

The Chilcotin is too far to be useful except in the summer months, when the militia don't need it, and is continually under pressure from FN land claims.
So just to be clear there is no area in BC where the PRes can safely live fire infantry weapons? Or indirect fire?
 
So just to be clear there is no area in BC where the PRes can safely live fire infantry weapons? Or indirect fire?

Nope. Just the Chilcotin, which is an 8 hour drive from Vancouver and not usable for much of the training year due to weather etc.

 
So just to be clear there is no area in BC where the PRes can safely live fire infantry weapons? Or indirect fire?
According to the CAF...

Volkes could be upgraded due to the terrain to allow for small arms fire fielding, they where on a restricted template in 2000, and it took me about 15min to figure out how to fix that one, it really isn't rocket science to push up some berms and reorient a range - or to put "jungle lane" type activities in a low area with ridges around it.
It has a Mountain as a back stop - so shifting the orientation of the range and the location of the firing points could give a lot more usable range - and you could have a 1400m UKD/Field firing range on the side of the reoriented KD (with a large enough berm you could run both without issue).
 
Chilcotin: Plus the occasional brush fire when the fire index is extremely high, but 39 CBG fires tracer regardless.
 
The Vokes Range has a restricted template now that they discovered it was laid out incorrectly from inception, infringing on FN land. I'm not sure if they can fire 7.62mm on it yet, and it was constrained to 5.56mm for quite awhile. There's Heals Range in Victoria, and the range in Nanaimo, but: Vancouver Island.

Regardless, there's no range facilities available in BC to do any type of field firing, from pairs F&M on up, and no dry training area with even a tiny portion of what's available at Joint Base Lewis-McChord/ Yakima in Washington State, or Wainwright.

Also, the US training facilities are pretty much impossible to access easily, for whatever reason, and are not a reliable option for training plans that need to have a high degree of certainty.

The Chilcotin is too far to be useful except in the summer months, when the militia don't need it, and is continually under pressure from FN land claims.
I’ve done a line fire woods clearing in Chilcotin, we also shit 84 and C6 SF there. Want to say it was February / March? Had a very motivated RSS team that made it happen. Will and a way.
 
I’ve done a line fire woods clearing in Chilcotin, we also shit 84 and C6 SF there. Want to say it was February / March? Had a very motivated RSS team that made it happen. Will and a way.

It's a wonderful thing when that happens.

However, Chilcotin's still not a viable option in the same way that Wainwright, for example, might be for nearby units.
 
It's a wonderful thing when that happens.

However, Chilcotin's still not a viable option in the same way that Wainwright, for example, might be for nearby units.
Maybe in absence of a viable local wilderness training area the lower mainland would be an ideal spot to develop an urban warfare centre?
 
Maybe in absence of a viable local wilderness training area the lower mainland would be an ideal spot to develop an urban warfare centre?
The fact that there is a slew of Crown land that could be used easily for non live (and live with a lot more prep) right there just shows me that a lot of Units are just lazy.

Urban sites take a ton of land and facilities to make worthwhile, as well as a slew of experience to design and operate safely.
*Not in the PRes lane at all.
 
The fact that there is a slew of Crown land that could be used easily for non live (and live with a lot more prep) right there just shows me that a lot of Units are just lazy.

Urban sites take a ton of land and facilities to make worthwhile, as well as a slew of experience to design and operate safely.
*Not in the PRes lane at all.
Of course you could probably achieve 90 percent of your fire and movement goals with simunition and massively reduce the template but that’s probably too outside the box for the CAF.

It's a wonderful thing when that happens.

However, Chilcotin's still not a viable option in the same way that Wainwright, for example, might be for nearby units.


Viable for a week long even, it’s a day long trip. For a weekend exercise I agree but you’re probably not going live on those anyways.
 
Chilcotin: Plus the occasional brush fire when the fire index is extremely high, but 39 CBG fires tracer regardless.

I once had the pleasure of working with a client, who knew I was in the Reserves, that pointed out we had 'made the Provincial wildfire report' one May when my unit's machine gun course burned down the Chilcotin.

We're Number One! ;)

Because of the increasing, perennial, fire danger in that neck of the woods, I'm sure the Chilcotin will become unusuable in the not too distant future.
 
I once had the pleasure of working with a client, who knew I was in the Reserves, that pointed out we had 'made the Provincial wildfire report' one May when my unit's machine gun course burned down the Chilcotin.

We're Number One! ;)

Because of the increasing, perennial, fire danger in that neck of the woods, I'm sure the Chilcotin will become unusuable in the not too distant future.
There is 7.62 (as well as 5.56mm and .50) belted available without tracer, you know for things like fire index issues.

It makes it a lot easier than having troops delink the tracer from the belts (though it does deprive you from linking up 100% tracer belts for ‘laser’ shows later.
 
The fact that there is a slew of Crown land that could be used easily for non live (and live with a lot more prep) right there just shows me that a lot of Units are just lazy.

Urban sites take a ton of land and facilities to make worthwhile, as well as a slew of experience to design and operate safely.
*Not in the PRes lane at all.
Not saying it has to be a PRes run thing...although the 40th ID of the California National Guard is taking the lead in creating the first Urban Warfare Planners course in the US.

We may have a long way to go to get there, but it shows what is possible.

And while it's still very important to learn and train for this:
MapleResolve.jpeg

I think there's a very great likelihood that we're going to be more likely to have to be prepared for this in the future:
Mariupol.jpg
 
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