Saving Money in the PRes (From: The Defence Budget)

[George Wallace]

Yeah...... I know.  :brickwall:  But at least I got that off my chest.

But you are still left with :brickwall:

 

[RADOPSIGOPACCISOP]

Radop+13

Here is where your suggestions are a failure.

During Y2K planning, reserve members, their civilian job expectations and
their families were considered as part of the planning process.

While the exercise did not pan out as anticipated, it did demonstate the varied
mix that makes an effective volunteer reserve force.

Seriously? Op Abacus was probably the biggest example of what a waste the reserves can be. All I seen was people hanging out doing HF radio checks.

 

[PuckChaser]

Seriously? Op Abacus was probably the biggest example of what a waste the reserves can be. All I seen was people hanging out doing HF radio checks.

Were you on OP CADENCE?

3 weeks of IBTS for a 3 day summit.

 

[RADOPSIGOPACCISOP]

But you are still left with :brickwall:

Perhaps it's because I no longer have a horse in that race that I can speak honestly without unfeathering my nest.

I understand why many people on this forum are made uneasy when someone comments on the problems in the organization.

 

[Nfld Sapper]

Wasn't it a while back they sent 4 ESR to Newfoundland after a hurricane? This was Newfoundland too, perhaps the furthest point from a superbase, and still it went to a Gagetown unit to take the lead.

BTW 4 ESR is the IRU for the whole of Atlantic Canada.....5 RGC has Quebec, 2 CER all of Central Canada and, 1 CER Western Canada IIRC in addition to all the other bits and pieces through out the Areas.

They did mainly because the PRes CER's do not have all the odds and ends needed for major disaster relief....

BTW I was there and we integrated with 4 ESR seamlessly and it was a Joint Task force and was headed up by a PRes BGen too...

 

[George Wallace]

Were you on OP CADENCE?

3 weeks of IBTS for a 3 day summit.

I was there for 3 months.....but no IBTS... ;D

 

[Jarnhamar]

Lots of reserves who CT to the regs bring with them a healthy amount of life experience and post secondary education which, for NCMs in the regular force, can be tricky to obtain. Then again I heard the reserves had their money reimbursement for schooling cut.

 

[dapaterson]

It was quoted by someone before that reserve pay is approximately $1.3B. That's a lot of money to pay for staffing parades and raising DND profile.

No.  The total cost of the Reserve Fore is reported to be $1.3B.  Just over half of that is pay.  The balance is O&M costs (food & fuel); national procurement (ammo, spares & IMPs); capital (new equipment and buildings).  Certain other national costs are also attributed to the Reserves - for example, service desks that aren't available during the hours Reservists work have a portion of their costs attributed to the Reserve Force.

Many of the costs are assigned on an attributional basis, and not on actual expenditures.  Thus, they are best estimates, and need to be reviewed in that light.

Of the pay, a considerable portion (unreported by DND corporate systems of record) is used within Reg F units and formations to backfill their vacant positions or to address short-term requirements.  There's no departmental way of tracking those expenditures, but they are annually reported as "Reserve Force" expenditures just the same.

 

[RADOPSIGOPACCISOP]

BTW 4 ESR is the IRU for the whole of Atlantic Canada.....5 RGC has Quebec, 2 CER all of Central Canada and, 1 CER Western Canada IIRC in addition to all the other bits and pieces through out the Areas.

The arguement Reindeer Meatloaf made was that the super base were too far put to support in disasters, but like you said, the IRUs seemed to all be located at these bases, regardless of the proximity of the reserve units.

I have no doubt that the troops gelled well with their reg force counterparts, but no doubt did lack the bridging equipment to do some of the bigger tasks.

My view is that the reserve, for it to be more effective, ought to be integrated closer with the reg force, leveraging the equipment they have that sits idle nights and weekends. When I was in the commres it would have been so much better to have more direct access to the equipment that the HQ&Sigs had.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Seriously? Op Abacus was probably the biggest example of what a waste the reserves can be. All I seen was people hanging out doing HF radio checks.

"Operation Abacus was a Canadian military operation formed in 1999 in response to anticipated disruption due to the year 2000 problem. Operation Abacus had troops standing by to restore order and vital services if the year 2000 and the turn of the millennium caused disruption to computer systems, and to conduct patrols to for looters and to prevent or stop rioting."

It wasn't a Reserve operation. Any 'waste' was spread across the entire CF. As well, the Reserves only did what higher command, the Regs, dictated. If that was radio checks, so be it.

You are not in a position to judge that.

Of course had something happened in, say, Toronto they could have let the place burn while they waited for Reg Force Jimmies to show up from Ottawa to stand on corners doing radio checks to restore order. After all, in your eyes, the Reserves are clueless, incompetent boobs.

For a Reg Force Sgt, you show an amazing amount of ignorance about the CF and its goings on.

Careful, that axe your grinding should be near to the handle and pretty well useless by now.

Just my  :2c:

Oh well, back to ignore :boring:

 

[Haggis]

The arguement Reindeer Meatloaf made was that the super base were too far put to support in disasters, but like you said, the IRUs seemed to all be located at these bases, regardless of the proximity of the reserve units.

Yet, during the Ice Storm it took two full days for units of 2 CMBG to make it to the affected areas of eastern Ontario.  Reservists were deployed on day one and acted as liaison officers between LFCAHQ and the county and township EMOs, while assisting their own friends an neighbours until augmented - not relieved - by Regular Force units.

My view is that the reserve, for it to be more effective, ought to be integrated closer with the reg force, leveraging the equipment they have that sits idle nights and weekends. When I was in the commres it would have been so much better to have more direct access to the equipment that the HQ&Sigs had.

Now you're proposing solutions.

However, for this to work, the Regular Force has to be mandated (directed) to support the Reserve Force. Maybe then that equipment sitting idle on evenings and weekends can be used by the Reserve Force instead of being protected for exclusive use of the Regular Force.  Because if Reservists use it, it may be broken and unavailable for Monday morning.
[/quote]

 

[RADOPSIGOPACCISOP]

Yet, during the Ice Storm it took two full days for units of 2 CMBG to make it to the affected areas of eastern Ontario.  Reservists were deployed on day one and acted as liaison officers between LFCAHQ and the county and township EMOs, while assisting their own friends an neighbours until augmented - not relieved - by Regular Force units.

Now you're proposing solutions.

However, for this to work, the Regular Force has to be mandated (directed) to support the Reserve Force. Maybe then that equipment sitting idle on evenings and weekends can be used by the Reserve Force instead of being protected for exclusive use of the Regular Force.  Because if Reservists use it, it may be broken and unavailable for Monday morning.

I'm sure everyone would rather be augmented by people that have experience with the kit than to risk having something break. Normally, something that mission critical is not going to be messed around with anyway, unless there is adequate spares.

 

[chrisf]

BTW 4 ESR is the IRU for the whole of Atlantic Canada.....5 RGC has Quebec, 2 CER all of Central Canada and, 1 CER Western Canada IIRC in addition to all the other bits and pieces through out the Areas.

They did mainly because the PRes CER's do not have all the odds and ends needed for major disaster relief....

BTW I was there and we integrated with 4 ESR seamlessly and it was a Joint Task force and was headed up by a PRes BGen too...

In fairness, bridging was a very small part of the whole operation (Even if it was the most visible part, there was a huge logistics tail behind it), and the whole thing was roughly on par to killing a mosquito with a sledge hammer. Under the conditions, a private contractor could have accomplished the same much more quickly and cheaply (Though every available private contractor was quite busy, and the weather immediately following the hurricane was quite favorable)

The "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" sketch on the operation is not unrealistic, and as a whole, residents of the affected area should/would be able to withstand isolation/loss of services for the reasonable 72 hour period quite well, even if it means sitting in front of the wood stove, eating patridge berry jam, and drinking home brew for that period.

What it did demonstrate was the ability of 37 Brigade (and in particular, the CFS St. John's lodger units) to standup a response to a natural disaster, and conveniently, the whole thing was over a period where a large collective dom ops exercise was planned anyway (The ex of course being cancelled).

Without going into details, there were very important lessons learned on all levels, which will hopefully be brought forward into future responses. Reserve elements were also very well integrated into the response (And were also quite necessary as the operation progressed). The effects of the loss of ARCON for the local reserves units were also quite visible, at least at the individual level, but the hopefully the experience gained will carry on for the next few years at least.

As an added bonus to lessons learned, the ford depth of a chevy impala is directly proportional to the wake of the GMC Sierra in front of it.

 

[pbi]

Perhaps it's because I no longer have a horse in that race that I can speak honestly without unfeathering my nest.

I understand why many people on this forum are made uneasy when someone comments on the problems in the organization.

Your comments need some broader perspective. Being realistic about the Res is not the same as trashing them, nor is it the same as mindlessly glorifying them.

I was the G3 for LFCA during Y2K and during the Toronto Snowstorm.  Our staff team developed, wrote and coordinated the LFCA ABACUS plan and we were the LMA HQ for the Snowstorm (Tac HQ was 32 CBG, a Res HQ, not 2 CMBG). Res played a big role in both ops.

The Reserve in LFCA in Y2K had a much, much bigger role than "doing radio checks". Including, by the way, the CommRes, which makes me surprised to read your comments. We made a particular approach to the Signals world, early in the planning process, to get OPCON of all the CommRes units in LFCA. Since there was no alternative mil comms system available to us if CSN went out (and Canada had no Emergency Broadcasting System at that time), our Sigs plan was going to depend on HF, which meant CommRes. Maybe you didn't think it was very important, but we sure as hell did.

Our ABACUS plan (and the later CONPLAN TRILLIUM which was LFCA's DomOps contingency) was very solidly based on the Res CBGs. We realized very quickly that 2 CMBG was too small and too isolated to be of much use across a province as big and populated as Ontario, not to mention that JTFHQ ABACUS had a national string on them anyway. We kept them as our "fire brigade" but didn't base our plan on them.

After ABACUS, when we re-wrote TRILLIUM, we applied the same logic. We realized that in most of Ontario, Res units can mobilize and respond in their local areas long before the first vehicles are leaving Pet for a long, slow road move. And air moves may not happen in bad weather.

In 38 CBG (as part of LFWA) the Res became an integral part of the Dom Ops response plan (at least in 2002-2005, anyway). Our Brigade mobilized two company groups for the BC fire emergency, with very little RegF assistance. Our CBG HQ in Winnipeg practiced converting to a Dom Ops CC if it were ever needed.

Domestic emergency response is something the Res does quite well: I think the Army realized this a while ago. In most emergencies, what is needed is typically not more highly skilled technicians (the civil agencies have hundreds if not thousands of these, trained far beyond any level we could reasonably achieve for soldiers). High voltage power lines, gas systems, municipal water systems, commercial digital circuits and systems, etc are not really our bread and butter. The civvies have way more capacity and more current training.

For example, during the Toronto Snowstorm, 2 CER was able to bring only a handful of pieces of hy eqpt that were at all useful in snow clearing. The City had over 800 pieces of machinery, the Province had hundreds more, and contractors hundreds beyond that. What we had was a bunch of other skills and capabilities. That's what the military does, and IMHO should do. If you want to revive the Civil Defense of the 1950's, or mimic the Germany TNHW service, go for it.

What are usually needed most, and what the Army Res brings to the fight, are a good basic C2 capability, good organization, mobility and pretty fair self sufficiency (within limits). Mission focus and the ability to do what you're told are also important in an emergency.

 

[Remius]

From what I remember when we deployed for the ice storm, we didn't have an effin clue what we were doing.  Dom Ops wasn't something we had trained for (Manitoba floods excepted but this was a whole other ball of wax).  It was a rapid deployment for the reserves and we were able to get out to the communities and assess what was happening and provide some limited assistance until the big boys arrived.  It took a bit longer for them to arrive (Block leave at that time and the fact that their own area was also affected by the disaster).  What the reserves were able to provide was coordination, leadership, ready manpower and a comfort to the community as well as gathering info about the affected areas and how they were coping.  It made things a lot easier when 2 CER showed up with the big machinery and linesmen showed up doing their thing. 

Telephone fan outs (something we were good at back then) and the fact that we were all local (and mostly on location) helped a lot. 

 

[mariomike]

For example, during the Toronto Snowstorm, 2 CER was able to bring only a handful of pieces of hy eqpt that were at all useful in snow clearing. The City had over 800 pieces of machinery, the Province had hundreds more, and contractors hundreds beyond that. What we had was a bunch of other skills and capabilities. That's what the military does, and IMHO should do.

A local news report from the time, pbi.
http://cdn.thegridto.com/wp-content/uploads/ts-99-01-17-snow-facts-lastman.jpg

( Click to enlarge. )

"PREAMBLE was the military operation in which Canadian Forces personnel helped the city of Toronto deal with the worst winter storm * to have hit the area in 117 years. The following is a look at this four-day operation that involved almost 2,000 Reservists and Regular Force personnel."
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Toronto's+battle+against+mother+nature.-a0113140272

* I believe the worst winter storm ( at least in terms of fatalities ) in the city's history was in 1944 in which at least twenty-one people died.

 

[pbi]

Thanks Mariomike.

Bruce Poulin's article contains several mistakes. I'm not sure wher he was working in PA at the time-I don't recall him being there.

To begin with, I am not aware that any "military reconnaissance team" ever flew into Toronto from anywhere. If they did, they never talked to us in LFCA HQ. I was the G3: my shop stood up and ran the operation, and I was meeting constantly with the Comd, the COS and talking regularly to 2 CMBG and to 32 CBG. I don't know who this team would have been, or what they were supposed to have been "recce-ing".

Second, prior to the IRU fiasco, LFCA had already responded to a request from the City to provide a troop of Bison ambulances, and to employ several hundred 32 CBG soldiers who were already in their armouries for a cancelled 32 CBG exercise. 32 CBG was not "called up" for the Snowstorm (in Canada we don't actually have a mechanism to "call up" Reservists short of an Act by the Governor in Council).

The Bisons were deployed in four downtown fire halls to provide mobility support to the TFD and EMS, since the snow clearance problem was mainly a downtown issue at that point.  The Reservists were used for snow shovelling around key infrastructure, as Poulin correctly points out. This was all before the IRU panic happened.

The CDS didn't tell us to send snow clearing equipment to TO. He told us to send the IRU, which the Comd tried to explain to him was not needed. The CDS (under obvious political pressure) insisted. The decision to attach a Hy Eqpt  TF from 2 CER to the RCD was one taken between ourselves and 2 CMBG.

2 CER did not "stay behind to help with any emergencies". We were forced to keep them in T.O. long after there was any imaginable need for them. We tried to get the entire IRU TF released to go back to Pet as there was nothing for them to do (the snow was melting) but the COS advised me that at NDHQ level there was a concern of the "optics" of "abandoning" the City. This was of course quite typical, and not the last time we dealt with NDHQ pressure to deploy troops on an unnecessary DomOp because of "optics" (Walkerton was another)

Finally, it is a moot point as to whether or not a largely unnecessary, politically-driven and wasteful deployment of soldiers and equipment is a "success".

 

[MilEME09]

2 CER did not "stay behind to help with any emergencies". We were forced to keep them in T.O. long after there was any imaginable need for them. We tried to get the entire IRU TF released to go back to Pet as there was nothing for them to do (the snow was melting) but the COS advised me that at NDHQ level there was a concern of the "optics" of "abandoning" the City. This was of course quite typical, and not the last time we dealt with NDHQ pressure to deploy troops on an unnecessary DomOp because of "optics" (Walkerton was another)

Finally, it is a moot point as to whether or not a largely unnecessary, politically-driven and wasteful deployment of soldiers and equipment is a "success".

Politics is always involved, During the floods in calgary we had over 500 reservists sitting on their hands cause the only tasks we would get were the left overs the city gave us. In the end maybe 20-30 people actually headed out and the rest stayed behind to play cards when trucks didn't need fixing or anything else needed to be done. All simply because the city wanted to seem like it was in control.

 

[Journeyman]

The Reservists were used for snow shovelling around key infrastructure.....

...and bus stops (even though busses weren't running).  I was RSS in TO at the time, and the troops got to spend quality snow shovel time at bus shelters.  ;D

 

[mariomike]

Finally, it is a moot point as to whether or not a largely unnecessary, politically-driven and wasteful deployment of soldiers and equipment is a "success".

Politics aside, from an operational point of view, it went better than the snow storm of Christmas 2010 did in NYC:
https://twitter.com/1PolicePlaza/status/19444239410659328

Edit to add and clarify.

Second, prior to the IRU fiasco, LFCA had already responded to a request from the City to provide a troop of Bison ambulances, and to employ several hundred 32 CBG soldiers who were already in their armouries for a cancelled 32 CBG exercise. 32 CBG was not "called up" for the Snowstorm (in Canada we don't actually have a mechanism to "call up" Reservists short of an Act by the Governor in Council).

The Bisons were deployed in four downtown fire halls to provide mobility support to the TFD and EMS, since the snow clearance problem was mainly a downtown issue at that point. 

That ( official ) message from NYPD shows what Emergency Services may find themselves up against during a winter storm.