Reconstitution

[Edward Campbell]

Unification was never supposed to see this happen. Personnel Branches were an afterthought along with CF Greens and unified ranks.

The C&E Branch is slowly heaving it's final breaths and for good reason. Any common ground because "we all are communicators..." is no longer. The RCN hold onto their folks with fervor, the RCAF and the ATIS trade want back under Air Ops, the Sig Int folks want to run off with CFIOG, while the RCCS wants our heritage and traditions back entirely. There wasn't the pay off that was envisioned when this all kicked off.

Now factor the Log Branch and you'll see similar fault lines.

Sorry, but this was precisely what Group Captain (ret'd) Bill Lee, Defence Minister Paul Hellyer's chief of staff back in the mid 1960s, wanted: an "all-singing, all-dancing" military in which a person could join as <purple trade> and serve successive tours on a flying station, a warship and in an armoured regiment without any ( at least not much) further training. His "model" was, he said, the United States Marine Corps. He may well have not understood what he had seen and heard - he was, after all, a public relation officer (although he had been a RCAF navigator (serving with the RAF's Ferry Command) in WWII) - but that was his vision which, when coupled with Mr Hellyer's fairly obvious distaste for the RCN and the Canadian Army (both of which he saw as being far, far too British), and his fascination with Robert McNamara's "modern management" techniques, resulted in the CF we have today.

Not everything Paul Helllyer (and Bill Lee) did was wrong. A proper joint (unified) force was and remains a great idea. Integrated support agencies - like strategic communications (C²) networks and general hospitals work fine - but, I was told, back in the '60s by a mid-ranked officer who was "in the room," that the US told us (Hellyer, Lee and political and military staffs), formally, that what they called "purple suiting" (integration) was bound to fail. We went the integration route and called it unification.

We did unify some thing: Maritime Command and Mobile Command and Materiel Command were all unified. But we went a step - actually several steps farther: Training Command, for example, was both unified and integrated and my experience (admittedly limited by my own personal experience, but which included a tour at the school in the 1970s) indicated, to me, that while unification was a good idea integration was and remains a monumental failure.

Your former CO was right: a battalion or regimental Signal Officer needs to make the unit's C² system work. But I would argue that (s)he can only do that well enough if (s)he understands how the unit works, which means how and why its subunits and weapon systems work - in other words, only a trained soldier can be a good Army unit Signal Officer. Now, a Signal officer (or NCO) who is well enough trained to work, well, in an Army combat unit can also work, well enough, in a fixed (strategic) C² system but, I would suggest (s)he cannot go, without a lot off further training, and work well in an air defence warning and control system ... and vice versa. Bill Lee was wrong. Unification - joint commands and formations - was a good idea; integration - "purple suiting" and the "jolly green jumper" for everyone and so on - and everything that flowed from it has weakened us as a military force and those who continue to support it are happy with a second rate force.

(Parenthetically, a very few years ago - just pre-COVID - I listened as more than a couple of my retired RCN and RCAF friends (Joint Staff College classmates - a few being retired GOFOs) chatted about breaking up the "purple trades" - C&E and Log were high on their lists - and bringing them back into their single service environments for training and career management. I doubt they've stopped lobbying for that.)

 

[Halifax Tar]

Sorry, but this was precisely what Group Captain (ret'd) Bill Lee, Defence Minister Paul Hellyer's chief of staff back in the mid 1960s, wanted: an "all-singing, all-dancing" military in which a person could join as <purple trade> and serve successive tours on a flying station, a warship and in an armoured regiment without any ( at least not much) further training. His "model" was, he said, the United States Marine Corps. He may well have not understood what he had seen and heard - he was, after all, a public relation officer (although he had been a RCAF navigator (serving with the RAF's Ferry Command) in WWII) - but that was his vision which, when coupled with Mr Hellyer's fairly obvious distaste for the RCN and the Canadian Army (both of which he saw as being far, far too British), and his fascination with Robert McNamara's "modern management" techniques, resulted in the CF we have today.

Not everything Paul Helllyer (and Bill Lee) did was wrong. A proper joint (unified) force was and remains a great idea. Integrated support agencies - like strategic communications (C²) networks and general hospitals work fine - but, I was told, back in the '60s by a mid-ranked officer who was "in the room," that the US told us (Hellyer, Lee and political and military staffs), formally, that what they called "purple suiting" (integration) was bound to fail. We went the integration route and called it unification.

We did unify some thing: Maritime Command and Mobile Command and Materiel Command were all unified. But we went a step - actually several steps farther: Training Command, for example, was both unified and integrated and my experience (admittedly limited by my own personal experience, but which included a tour at the school in the 1970s) indicated, to me, that while unification was a good idea integration was and remains a monumental failure.

Your former CO was right: a battalion or regimental Signal Officer needs to make the unit's C² system work. But I would argue that (s)he can only do that well enough if (s)he understands how the unit works, which means how and why its subunits and weapon systems work - in other words, only a trained soldier can be a good Army unit Signal Officer. Now, a Signal officer (or NCO) who is well enough trained to work, well, in an Army combat unit can also work, well enough, in a fixed (strategic) C² system but, I would suggest (s)he cannot go, without a lot off further training, and work well in an air defence warning and control system ... and vice versa. Bill Lee was wrong. Unification - joint commands and formations - was a good idea; integration - "purple suiting" and the "jolly green jumper" for everyone and so on - and everything that flowed from it has weakened us as a military force and those who continue to support it are happy with a second rate force.

(Parenthetically, a very few years ago - just pre-COVID - I listened as more than a couple of my retired RCN and RCAF friends (Joint Staff College classmates - a few being retired GOFOs) chatted about breaking up the "purple trades" - C&E and Log were high on their lists - and bringing them back into their single service environments for training and career management. I doubt they've stopped lobbying for that.)

Please ask your friends to lobby harder.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I think it needs to go beyond Gate Guard, as anyone should be able to conduct (or be a useful contributor to) an effective defense. Most should be able also to conduct a limited attack with suppression, fire and movement.

That should be a week at most for any trade.
Then a few days of refresher annually.

If we can quantify a realistic plausible reason for for your expanding of SA competency i'd support it.

Otherwise that can be left to theatre specific work up training IMHO.

 

[dapaterson]

Empire builders gonna empire build.

Given that the RCN manages and is responsible for hard sea trades and has failed monumentally at that for (checks watch) 20+ years. why would we give them additional personnel training responsibilities?

The Army likewise owns RCEME and likewise has severe problems there...

Perhaps the problem is not "unification" and "common standards" but rather poor leadership.

 

[Kirkhill]

If we can quantify a realistic plausible reason for for your expanding of SA competency i'd support it.

Otherwise that can be left to theatre specific work up training IMHO.

Or, if it requires only a week or so of effort to turn out a security guard force - then hand the job off to the Militia.....

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Empire builders gonna empire build.

Given that the RCN manages and is responsible for hard sea trades and has failed monumentally at that for (checks watch) 20+ years. why would we give them additional personnel training responsibilities?

The Army likewise owns RCEME and likewise has severe problems there...

Perhaps the problem is not "unification" and "common standards" but rather poor leadership.

They've made a monumental cluster of it all

They can't even follow basic policies or read and understand simple instructions. It's actually hilarious to watch.

 

[Kirkhill]

Empire builders gonna empire build.

Given that the RCN manages and is responsible for hard sea trades and has failed monumentally at that for (checks watch) 20+ years. why would we give them additional personnel training responsibilities?

The Army likewise owns RCEME and likewise has severe problems there...

Perhaps the problem is not "unification" and "common standards" but rather poor leadership.

Or perhaps the 70% solution is the best anyone can hope for and should adjust their sights accordingly?

 

[Halifax Tar]

Empire builders gonna empire build.

Given that the RCN manages and is responsible for hard sea trades and has failed monumentally at that for (checks watch) 20+ years. why would we give them additional personnel training responsibilities?

The Army likewise owns RCEME and likewise has severe problems there...

Perhaps the problem is not "unification" and "common standards" but rather poor leadership.

Your point(s) is/are valid.

Looking at WENG and MARTECH world's. Alot of the time when we talk about those two "experiments" we forget there was big support for the change in the upper echelons of those branches and trades. I would argue in both instances the trades themselves have to carry the lion's share of the blame for the amalgamations. And it probably indicative of senior folks who are out of touch with the coal face.

In fact in talking to the WENG folks most are pretty ok with it. MARTECH, not so much.

Perhaps a compromise is generally uniform specific employment and career development ? But keeping ownership in the hands of CMP.

 

[FJAG]

It would be easier and quicker to change at that level, but also easier and quicker to reserve when the next CDS doesn’t like it. Change the legislation and that would be harder for future good idea technicians to reverse back to that meandering road we’re on now as a military.

That's a really good point. My first thought was "No need. You can do it all with regulations". But you are absolutely right. At some point in every transformation plan you need to have a "point of no return" so that the objectives of the transformation cannot be reversed, or easily reversed.

When unification and integration rolled through, eliminating the three services by legislation was that point. That said, even legislation is not final as proved by the fact that we're discussing legislative changes. It does move the process to a higher level where change becomes less likely and that, perhaps, is why a reversal will probably never happen but a regulatory change might.

 

[FJAG]

Given that the RCN manages and is responsible for hard sea trades and has failed monumentally at that for (checks watch) 20+ years. why would we give them additional personnel training responsibilities?

Because then they would have no one else to blame and you'd know exactly which GOFOs to fire.

Perhaps the problem is not "unification" and "common standards" but rather poor leadership.

It's not a choose one from Column A or one from Column B matter. It can be both and probably is.

 

[SupersonicMax]

Or, if it requires only a week or so of effort to turn out a security guard force - then hand the job off to the Militia.....

The RCAF its own dedicated force protection people for whom it is NOT a secondary duty that takes away from their primary duty. WASF/BASF doesn’t work when they are actually plan A in many cases. We need air-minded people to guard our technology 24/7 and this requirement is coming extremely fast. MPs have traditionally maintained the role of primary security force given their posture allow them to respond to security incidents but they are not the answer. We need a specific trade dedicated to airfield security guarding our installations with weapons, 24/7. If we don’t have that soon, we can forget all the new capabilities we plan on buying. And we’ll once again be left behind by our allies.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Your point(s) is/are valid.

Looking at WENG and MARTECH world's. Alot of the time when we talk about those two "experiments" we forget there was big support for the change in the upper echelons of those branches and trades. I would argue in both instances the trades themselves have to carry the lion's share of the blame for the amalgamations. And it probably indicative of senior folks who are out of touch with the coal face.

In fact in talking to the WENG folks most are pretty ok with it. MARTECH, not so much.

Perhaps a compromise is generally uniform specific employment and career development ? But keeping ownership in the hands of CMP.

The fact anyone thought MARTECH would work out is pure ignorance. The Brits tried that experiment before us and it failed horribly for obvious and predictable reasons. You can’t take 3-5 distinct and seperate trades (millwright, welder, electrician, plumber, limited machining, and a little bit of carpentry in there for good fun) throw them together and expect it to work, especially not with the training time we have as a organization.

I suspect it was more to do with, stokers are red, but E-techs and hull techs aren’t therefore by forcing those 3 jobs together somehow we won’t end up with stokers in the red anymore. Instead it just resulted in those two other trades in the red as well.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Your point(s) is/are valid.

Looking at WENG and MARTECH world's. Alot of the time when we talk about those two "experiments" we forget there was big support for the change in the upper echelons of those branches and trades. I would argue in both instances the trades themselves have to carry the lion's share of the blame for the amalgamations. And it probably indicative of senior folks who are out of touch with the coal face.

In fact in talking to the WENG folks most are pretty ok with it. MARTECH, not so much.

Perhaps a compromise is generally uniform specific employment and career development ? But keeping ownership in the hands of CMP.

For the record, the recommended MARTECH trade maintained the HTs as a specialization from QL5 (based on the RN trying not having one and saying it's an awful idea). That's going to take us another decade to get fixed.

 

[Halifax Tar]

The RCAF its own dedicated force protection people for whom it is NOT a secondary duty that takes away from their primary duty. WASF/BASF doesn’t work when they are actually plan A in many cases. We need air-minded people to guard our technology 24/7 and this requirement is coming extremely fast. MPs have traditionally maintained the role of primary security force given their posture allow them to respond to security incidents but they are not the answer. We need a specific trade dedicated to airfield security guarding our installations with weapons, 24/7. If we don’t have that soon, we can forget all the new capabilities we plan buying. And we’ll once again be left behind by our allies.

I thought the RCAF Operations trades were supposed to handle that ?

I know a few years back there was talk of a airfield security trade, like the RAF Regiment.

 

[Kirkhill]

The RCAF its own dedicated force protection people for whom it is NOT a secondary duty that takes away from their primary duty. WASF/BASF doesn’t work when they are actually plan A in many cases. We need air-minded people to guard our technology 24/7 and this requirement is coming extremely fast. MPs have traditionally maintained the role of primary security force given their posture allow them to respond to security incidents but they are not the answer. We need a specific trade dedicated to airfield security guarding our installations with weapons, 24/7. If we don’t have that soon, we can forget all the new capabilities we plan on buying. And we’ll once again be left behind by our allies.

The problem seems to be that nobody wants to supply that security force. And I agree that it is absolutely necessary. But everybody is to busy doing "important' stuff.

I guess you are down to the Commissionaires.

 

[QV]

The RCAF its own dedicated force protection people for whom it is NOT a secondary duty that takes away from their primary duty. WASF/BASF doesn’t work when they are actually plan A in many cases. We need air-minded people to guard our technology 24/7 and this requirement is coming extremely fast. MPs have traditionally maintained the role of primary security force given their posture allow them to respond to security incidents but they are not the answer. We need a specific trade dedicated to airfield security guarding our installations with weapons, 24/7. If we don’t have that soon, we can forget all the new capabilities we plan on buying. And we’ll once again be left behind by our allies.

You shouldn't have AVN techs standing around guarding a hangar.

The MP should be re-rolled entirely to a "force protection" unit where they are responsible for armed security of all defence installations. Roll this unit into DGDS. I envision they would provide all security guard functions 24/7, security systems monitoring, patrolling/dogs etc... including the specialty security functions like TASO and close protection and embassy security. Get rid of the commissionaires (you'd prob save 50 or $60M), hand over police functions to civilian police (who'd only come out for a call anyway), unit disciplinary matters handled by unit.

This would allow robust and real security domestically, a proper D&S force for deployed camp security, convoy security, airfield security, the whole gambit, PW handling. And everyone else can focus on their real job and not rotate through guarding a camp or wounded prisoners in a hospital for example. You'd need to take the word "police" completely out of the name... and that will be hard for some.

 

[dapaterson]

I thought the RCAF Operations trades were supposed to handle that ?

I know a few years back there was talk of a airfield security trade, like the RAF Regiment.

The RCAF Ops trades are essentially SLJO embodied in the military occupational structure. They lack the numbers, either in current or future models, to deliver the greatly enhanced security that's required for more modern platforms.

 

[CBH99]

While to a certain extent people complaining about being yelled at, being posted or working late hours make me wonder just what organization they thought they were joining, no one is saying we should double down on those things. The problem is that the military is an inherently shitty job. The bottom line for every military member is that you could be ordered into a situation that is almost certain death. Even if you are a chair warrior you could be ordered to keep working until a misslr hits your office space. We ask people to do things no other employer asks people to do, we have mechanisms to enforce that that aren't legal in any other area of employment.

There is no way we can make the military working experience as nice as a unioned job site or corporate office. I'm not saying don't change anything because all organizations need to grow or become stagnant. However, I am saying that banking on being a new friendly military isn't the way to make people join and or stay.

The military has always had 2 primary motivators, 2 motivators which we are sorely lacking. The first is adventure. People join the military to see the world, meet interesting people and shoot them or stop others from shooting them. The second is we would take damn near anyone and make something out of them. No one cared if you grew up in a shitty environment, no one really cared what your were before as long as you pulled your weight. If you stuck around, you learned skills or attitudes employers want and you could come out of the military a changed person and rewrite your future. We suck at both of those right now. We have no money, no equipment and no political will to be actively engaged around the world so people can go their entire BE and never see anything more exotic than Wainwright or Cold Lake. At my current job the wait list for the opportunity to deploy or travel is measured in years. As for the second aspect, people used to hire military members because they could get shit done in terrible conditions and we tend to keep the complaining to a minimum. Now we reward complaining and we are attempting to cover all the sharp corners of the military so people feel safe. I have to be honest, the ameof people I know who try to do as little as possible, while bitching about having to do that much grows every year. Soldiers have always bitched but we tended to do it at our rank level (or one higher) then head out to do the job anyway. We also are incredibly selective of our soldiers despite the fact that we are dying for people. We only want certain applicants partially for political reasons and partially because our training system can no long handle the kind of people who used to join and get the rough edge knocked off them in Basic and their trades training.


If we can get back to offering adventure or personal growth as the primary attraction of the CAF, you will see more recruits and less people leaving pissed off. You may see a few more 5 year and out types but I'm willing to bet we would see a lot less rage quits at 10-12 years or despair quits at 20+.

THIS!! THIS is what I’ve been trying to say ever since I released in 2011. Exactly this.

Making everyone come through a combat arms trade is a absolutely ridiculous idea.

Every time this comes up I roll my eyes. Just more examples of how the CAF needs to break away from this constant Army spin on things.

If the Army to wants to do that, fill yer boots. But the rest of CAF shouldnt have to do something because one element has an overwhelming inferiority complex.

I agree in that we should not make people come up through a combat arms trade.

In the USMC, every Marine is a rifleman (rifleperson?) first, regardless of trade. Everybody has some basic combat skills taught.

This also helps maintain that assertive posture the USMC prides itself on, as well as its members.


Coming up through a combat trade? I agree, ridiculous.

But being able to effectively operate in a combat scenario should be maintained.


EDIT - Nevermind, KevinB beat me to it

 

[quadrapiper]

(Parenthetically, a very few years ago - just pre-COVID - I listened as more than a couple of my retired RCN and RCAF friends (Joint Staff College classmates - a few being retired GOFOs) chatted about breaking up the "purple trades" - C&E and Log were high on their lists - and bringing them back into their single service environments for training and career management. I doubt they've stopped lobbying for that.)

Also parenthetically: would be great to add my branch and organization to the de-purpling list, somewhere down around the bottom. We're extraordinarily distant from the RCN, CA, and RCAF, and becoming more so.

 

[SupersonicMax]

The problem seems to be that nobody wants to supply that security force. And I agree that it is absolutely necessary. But everybody is to busy doing "important' stuff.

I guess you are down to the Commissionaires.

Except that we won’t get the technology if we stick to the current model.