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Lack of officers leaves army short of 'heart and soul'

Spectrum said:
See this is exactly it. It must be his fault, right? I think there is something wrong with simply jumping to that conclusion just because someone didn't deploy.

Anyways he's put it behind him, and thus I shall too. Just didn't feel recceguy's statement to be completely accurate.

I agree with recceguy, not because we're ancient but he is making sense. You are seeing and considering one point of view: his.

Have you thought - hmmm why didn't he deploy? There is a reason that we may not know or ever know - and its not a Reg vs Reserve issue.

 
Spectrum said:
See this is exactly it. It must be his fault, right? I think there is something wrong with simply jumping to that conclusion just because someone didn't deploy.

Anyways he's put it behind him, and thus I shall too. Just didn't feel recceguy's statement to be completely accurate.

Read what I said again
over 20% of the mission that the Reg force couldn't.

I didn't say 'why' they couldn't. I just said they couldn't.

Maybe those spots were destined for someone else.

Maybe the Regs couldn't fill every spot.

Maybe your buddies Unit said 'Not a friggin' chance'.

Maybe...maybe...maybe.

You can quit jumping to conclusions and quit the derail now.

Read a little slower next time and try tackle the nuances before you mount your steed and come charging out. ;)
 
Spectrum said:
See this is exactly it. It must be his fault, right? I think there is something wrong with simply jumping to that conclusion just because someone didn't deploy.

Anyways he's put it behind him, and thus I shall too. Just didn't feel recceguy's statement to be completely accurate.

I don't know, you tell me.

10 Years, and he could not get deployed because of reservists..... ::)

Yep, a super keen soldier, he is.

dileas

tess
 
I've worked both sides of the street - Reg and Reserve. We are on the same team.

Jim, believe me we are on the same team! You may still like it but I'm looking to get traded! I need as serious change of scenery!
 
tomahawk6 said:
I always thought the heart and soul was the NCO corps. :camo:

It used to be until they started making the Officers do NCO work more and more, with predictable results!  ;D
 
Tow Tripod said:
I've worked both sides of the street - Reg and Reserve. We are on the same team.

Jim, believe me we are on the same team! You may still like it but I'm looking to get traded! I need as serious change of scenery!

Not a problem. Waingwright isn't everyone's "cup of tea" although I personally like the place.

 
MCG said:
Somewhere I've posted that every rank should have both training and TI requirements for promotions, and promotion from Lt to Capt should be merit based.  Such a system would certainly clear-up the problem identified here where the only difference between some Lt and Capt is enrolment programme (and not even TI).
Actually, this should be a lieutenant course.  By the time someone is promoted to Captain, they should already be able to think broader than "this is my occupational lane."

I think your absolutely right and in my limited time at the bn (3 RCR Pl Comd for a year and a half) I have seen the problems of having pers be automatically promoted to Captain.  In fact I will have spent 3 years in the bn before I can be promoted to captain (not really a problem with this as it means more time on the floor) whereassome guys will show up having spent 2 1/2 years in the training system and be promoted to Captain 6 months after arriving. 

I know of one individual who spent 3 years as a Lt with a combat tour to Afghanistan and when he arrived home there were people who were captains with less experience then him, no tours, operating as coy 2IC`s.  Is that right?  I don't know; however, what you end up with sometimes is guys being out of their depth.
 
Im not in the army, but i can tell you that we have much the same problem in the navy. You see Slt's and LS getting promoted very quickly into positions that they don't always have a lot of experience for. For the Subbies, sometimes they are being sent on director level courses and have only qualified as Bridge watchkeepers in the last 6 months to a year. Then they go on career courses and are then given control of weapons systems. Don't get me wrong you get some very good officers sometimes, but the level of experience isn't the same as we would get say 15 years ago. FRP back in the 90's had a definite effect of the NCO corp in the navy as well.
As for the training system.  It will be many years befor the training system could possibly fill the gaps. With budgets cuts coming in the futur, attrition and just plain lack of patience for some people, they have to take in a large number of candidates and retain them through 4 or 5 levels of taining before they ever reach the ranks we are looking for. It is going to take time, time, time.

Marc :cdn:
 
Stymiest said:
I know of one individual who spent 3 years as a Lt with a combat tour to Afghanistan and when he arrived home there were people who were captains with less experience then him, no tours, operating as coy 2IC`s.  Is that right?  I don't know; however, what you end up with sometimes is guys being out of their depth.
In the past I've seen the opposite happen with the exception of "out of their depth" part.
Company 2IC's only be given the position due to being so long in the tooth that it's their turn and this will be their career summit posting before retirement.
IMO anyone getting a Company 2IC position should also be a person who has the prospects of advancing further.
That being said I don't mean to infer that "one individual who spent 3 years as a Lt with a combat tour to Afghanistan" was not an individual without advancement possibilities but my guess is timing & availability may have played a factor here.
 
Sounds like the policy of having an old experienced hand mentor/babysit the up and coming Major to keep him out of trouble on his run to CDS.
 
M Feetham said:
Im not in the army, but i can tell you that we have much the same problem in the navy. You see Slt's and LS getting promoted very quickly into positions that they don't always have a lot of experience for. For the Subbies, sometimes they are being sent on director level courses and have only qualified as Bridge watchkeepers in the last 6 months to a year. Then they go on career courses and are then given control of weapons systems. Don't get me wrong you get some very good officers sometimes, but the level of experience isn't the same as we would get say 15 years ago. FRP back in the 90's had a definite effect of the NCO corp in the navy as well.
As for the training system.  It will be many years befor the training system could possibly fill the gaps. With budgets cuts coming in the futur, attrition and just plain lack of patience for some people, they have to take in a large number of candidates and retain them through 4 or 5 levels of taining before they ever reach the ranks we are looking for. It is going to take time, time, time.

Marc :cdn:

This is not a new problem in the Navy.  More than 15 years ago (i.e. when I was a younger subbie) they/we were complaining that we were being rushed off on director courses after having just barely gotten our BWKs.
 
M Feetham said:
Im not in the army, but i can tell you that we have much the same problem in the navy. You see Slt's and LS getting promoted very quickly into positions that they don't always have a lot of experience for. For the Subbies, sometimes they are being sent on director level courses and have only qualified as Bridge watchkeepers in the last 6 months to a year. Then they go on career courses and are then given control of weapons systems. Don't get me wrong you get some very good officers sometimes, but the level of experience isn't the same as we would get say 15 years ago. FRP back in the 90's had a definite effect of the NCO corp in the navy as well.
As for the training system.  It will be many years befor the training system could possibly fill the gaps. With budgets cuts coming in the futur, attrition and just plain lack of patience for some people, they have to take in a large number of candidates and retain them through 4 or 5 levels of taining before they ever reach the ranks we are looking for. It is going to take time, time, time.

Marc :cdn:

I think the situation in the reg force Navy is different however.  I'm not sure how it works in the army but for reg force MARS officers, you don't get promoted to Lt(N) until you've been awarded your bridge-watchkeeping ticket from your Captain, and sat and passed your Naval Officer Professional Qualification (NOPQ) board which are two things that are not necessarily an easy thing to do.  If you do well, are fairly competent, and have your ducks all lined up in a row, you can get it done quickly even in the span of two years for some.  However, I've also known several SLt's who have been stuck at that rank for 4-5 years due to delays in getting one or both of the qualifications (either due to CO's constantly changing making bwk's difficult to obtain, not enough sea time, or just failing their boards).  However any person with their NOPQ qualification and therefore at the Lt(N) level can be assumed to have a fairly decent level of competency.

My point is that in the reg force Navy, promotion to the Lt(N)/Capt level is competency based whereas in the Army it appears to be based more on time-in so therefore they can't necessarily be compared as apples to apples.  In a competency based system (where the Navy loves making their officers sit boards), it may take little time or a very long time depending on the person.

Also on a side note for the NCM side of things in the Naval Reserve (not sure of the situation for the reg force), I know that it now takes longer to get promoted to the LS level as the goal posts have been moved further with sailors having more extensive packages to complete on board ship first before even reaching AB.

Just my  :2c:
 
Don't confuse competency with merit.  ALL promotions in the CF are competency based.  If you don't pass the course or board, you don't get promoted, period (or, you lose your acting promotion if you were A/L).  However, all you have to do is pass.  In this regard, the Army, Navy and Air Force are all the same.  All officers get promoted to captain/lieutenant(N) as soon as they meet the criteria (i.e. time and qualification).  To go beyond captain/lieutenant(N) is based on merit.  Simply passing courses/boards isn't good enough (although still required).  You also have to demonstrate that you are better than the majority of your peers.
 
X Royal said:
In the past I've seen the opposite happen with the exception of "out of their depth" part.
Company 2IC's only be given the position due to being so long in the tooth that it's their turn and this will be their career summit posting before retirement.
IMO anyone getting a Company 2IC position should also be a person who has the prospects of advancing further.
That being said I don't mean to infer that "one individual who spent 3 years as a Lt with a combat tour to Afghanistan" was not an individual without advancement possibilities but my guess is timing & availability may have played a factor here.

Agreed, this goes back to how I feel the system is a little bit screwy.  I understand that promoting DEO's ahead of ROTP serves the purpose of compensating DEO's for paying for university; however, why don't they just make two different Lt pay scales if this is the case.  Its problematic when you get Captains working HQ Posn's and looking after the Concept of Sustainment piece that in reality probably need a little bit more polishing on the floor before they are given that responsibility. 

It is what it is, but should it be that way? 
 
It's not just the Army. 

A 'few' years ago, I spent a couple of years on the Squadron's strength as a Lt.  My duties as relayed to me by my OC were (in priority): 1) fly and learn my machine and how to use it; 2) fly and learn my machine and how to use it; and if I could do neither 1) nor 2), then I was to do 3) fly and learn my machine and how to use it.  It pretty much worked out that I and other Lts upgraded operationally to aircraft captain at about the same time as we were promoted to Captain.  Odds were, if you saw a Captain in the squadron lines, he/she was an experienced aircraft captain.  These were usually the folks who were also assigned as ALOs to the brigade units.

Today, a flying Lt with hundreds of hours of operational flight time is quite rare as they seem to most often hit the "administrative" promotion window prior to getting much, if any operational time on the machine.  Due to significantly increased post-basic training wait times, Captains now pretty much run the gamut from "doing OJT" while waiting for their operational type conversion course to the classic "thousands of hours in the cockpit" long timers.

As Stymiest says, "it is what it is" and something that the CoC needs to keep an eye on (monitor) so that assumptions are not made regarding aptitude based solely on rank.


Regards
G2G
 
Good2Golf said:
....so that assumptions are not made regarding aptitude based solely on rank.
I've been posted to NDHQ; there's not a chance I'd blindly assume any direct rank/aptitude correlation.  ;)


Edit: typo, in a post mocking aptitude  :facepalm: 
 
Stymiest said:
.. why don't they just make two different Lt pay scales if this is the case. 
"They" have done that:  http://www.forces.ca/en/page/payscales-131#officersregular-1


 
Evening all - we are encountering a problem in the Reserve world - very few junior officers. Those that do sign up mostly turn out to be duds OR CT to the Regular world.

We have to look at some bright corporals, as we have invested time in developing MCpls to be Sgts etc....
 
Jim Seggie said:
Evening all - we are encountering a problem in the Reserve world - very few junior officers. Those that do sign up mostly turn out to be duds OR CT to the Regular world.

We have to look at some bright corporals, as we have invested time in developing MCpls to be Sgts etc....

And here's the origin of that phrase to which you are referring: 'robbing Peter to pay Paul'

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/rob-peter-to-pay-paul.html
 
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