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The Canadian Commando Course

Jungle, I like how you think. The concept of bringing our Army to a higher standard of physical fitness and combat readiness is brilliant, and something we should strive for.

cheers
John
 
Jungle, I think you have an excellent idea here.   The question is, have you forwarded it up through the chain so they could look at it?

I think you are onto something solid and sought out in the army, especially the Infantry and other trades where it feels like something is missing.

Dealing with some little points; I think the course would need to be a little longer than proposed since you are talking about a lot of intense and specialized training.   This just makes preparation and coordination that much more difficult for an effective course package.  

Secondly, on the point of cutting safety by 50% to increase realism, I have to say will probably not fly.   I understand the point, and on numerous occasions agree that some safety issues make training more of a burdone than effective.

On the issue of it not flying because of our "Peacekeeping" image.  Comparing the ideas and concepts of this course to those that already exist in the regular force such as:  Basic Para, Mil. Free Fall, Pathfinder, Recce Patrolman , Sniper, Urban Operations and Unarmed Combat
Those of us who have completed any combination of these courses know that peacekeeping is only one task in our job but one that does not offer a course to prepare for it.  Since we prepare for war and not peacekeeping, makes soldiers the ultimate peacekeeper, since it is war fighting skills that give the ability to make it possible.

Overall, it is a great idea and surely someone could take this idea of yours and review it.
 
This would be a great Idea but didn't the original post for this say that it was from Feb 2003 ? Its been two years did the course actually come about or is it still in the planing phase ?
 
I think it would be awesome for this course to be available my grandfather took the commando course in  Achnacarry, Scotland.For the assault on Juno beach he was 16 yrs old ( he's 90 now) so everybody should be able to pass the PT if you cant your weak.Go flip burgers lol.
 
MikeH said:
I think it would be awesome for this course to be available my grandfather took the commando course in   Achnacarry, Scotland.For the assault on Juno beach he was 16 yrs old ( he's 90 now) so everybody should be able to pass the PT if you cant your weak.Go flip burgers lol.

Can you please start using proper punctuation and spelling. makes it easier for everyone else to read.

Thanks

Slim
STAFF
 
Troops, I did not write the article... I just copied it here. It was written by a Capt who was serving in the Infantry School at the time (1999).
The course would be an excellent idea though; I did two CDO courses, and they are good trg. They are accessible to most Troops who are in reasonnably good physical condition, and who are motivated to go through a few tough weeks. We came out of it hardenned Soldiers, with new knowledge on small unit tactics, demolitions, amphibious ops etc...
 
I had heard also that the author (Maj. B) was trying to put together some sort of PDS unit for contract work overseas. What happened with that and how many folks did he get? I still have his advertisement around somewhere.

Noneck
 
noneck said:
I had heard also that the author (Maj. B) was trying to put together some sort of PDS unit for contract work overseas. What happened with that and how many folks did he get? I still have his advertisement around somewhere.

Ask "Michael Shannon", since they're one and the same....
 
Jungle said:
Troops, I did not write the article... I just copied it here. It was written by a Capt who was serving in the Infantry School at the time (1999).
The course would be an excellent idea though; I did two CDO courses, and they are good trg. They are accessible to most Troops who are in reasonnably good physical condition, and who are motivated to go through a few tough weeks. We came out of it hardenned Soldiers, with new knowledge on small unit tactics, demolitions, amphibious ops etc...

Were those French commando courses? Are you able to give more details? Thanks
 
Ghostwalk said:
II read somewhere that the CAR was originally going to be called the Airborne Commando Regt, but someone thought it was too "mean sounding".
The Canadian Airborne Regiment was made up of Commandos AND each Commando was approx Company strength...
1 CDO drawn from R22R
2 CDO drawn from PPCLI
3 CDO drawn from RCR
 
Ghostwalk is correct: Gen Allard's intention was to call the new unit the "Canadian Commando Regiment"; however the govt of the time thought the name was too agressive (so this is nothing new), so it was decided to call the Regt's sub-units "Commandos".
Baboon6, one was with the French Army, the other was with the FFL in South America. For details, try a search of this site with "French Commando". Contact me if you still have questions after.
 
Further to Ghostwalk and Jungle, in 1966 LGen Allard visited 4 CIBG where I was serving at the time. He made a point of mentioning that the forces were forming a paracommando regiment and gave some details of the original organization. Because of force reduction the originall 1500-man force became a regiment of roughly 800 with two commandos, an airborne battery and an airborne engineer squadron as well as a headquarters and signals commando and a service commando. If I recall correctly there also was supposed to be a field service support unit to look after the housekeeping details in garrision. This was not part of the regiment.

The three commando organization was introduced circa 1978 to address manning difficulties. The rationale was that by giving each of the infantry regiments a commando to man, this would ensure (?) that the best soldiers would be cycled through the regiment.
 
There actually was a "Commando course" run not too long ago in August of 1988, it was 3-4 (?) weeks long and began in Meaford and was  a Reserve Army course. I was on it and made it one week but out of the 40ish candidates only 5 succeeded and can actually say they are graduates of the "Commando Course". The course content was as you would expect it to be (ie) small unit training-recce, raids, foreign weapon training and lots of physical fitness and long ruck marches. Physically it was actually quite tough for the week I lasted until injury ended my go at it. I don't know ever what became of the course as it was never run again. there were some "problems" in running it but the concept was good.
 
It was the Commando Leaders Course -- they was a neat little dagger pin that went along with graduating.
  I dont think it last longer than the one serial -- IIRC it was open to regs and reserves - any officer or NCO M/CPL and above.

 
Thanks KevinB for refreshing my memory, its been a few years! It was only ran once and I don't remember any Reg Force soldiers on it but it was a mix of NCO and Officer ranks as candidates. I do remember the 35 km  cross country (and on road) navigation ex/ruck march that had to be done in less then 8 hours in serious August heat and then the 8-10km evening ruck march back to the barracks after the daytime trek was done!
 
Too bad we cant have the input of the few cdns who were in the rhodesian light infantry or selous scouts on here to what they did on "thier" commando course!
 
Is it me, or are there a number of grammatical errors in the article? For something printed in a journal and written by an officer, I would have expected better.
 
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