Divining the right role, capabilities, structure, and Regimental System for Canada's Army Reserves

[Kirkhill]

Our PRes is most definitely in my opinion a motorized element, using trucks and other transport to move around. We also do a bad job of being a brigade too, at best we are battalion plus, just like everything else in the PRes, we are called what we are not.

Confusion to the Enemy!  [cheers]

 

[Eye In The Sky]

there are no CMBGs at the PRES level.  The M is for Mechanised.  The PRES is at best motorised.  With busses.

I know.  I was wondering if he meant CMBG because, when I was at a CBG HQ, we had a PRes BGen at the area level as, IIRC, either Deputy Comd or Comd (or both, at offset times).  Early 2000s, LFAA.  But, looking now, I forgot to add that part after the CBG HQ Comd Pres/CO HQ - COS Reg Force LCol part.  ;D

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Confusion to the Enemy!  [cheers]

Exactly!  How can they know what we are up to if we don't know ourselves!  ;D

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Our PRes is most definitely in my opinion a motorized element, using trucks and other transport to move around. We also do a bad job of being a brigade too, at best we are battalion plus, just like everything else in the PRes, we are called what we are not.

I suspect if you looked at a Syrian "Division" right know you find 4-500 men, a squadron of tanks and a battery of artillery.

 

[Kirkhill]

Lots of kids take a 'gap year' between high school and college.

Why don't we enlist them for a year, at age 17/18, train them up full time, then assign them to reserve units for Class A commitments at age 18/19 until they've graduated university? They could save a ton of money for their education in that first year, get all their military qualifications done, build up a great resume, as well as avail themselves of the various educational subsidies etc we now have available afterwards.

This could be a 'thing' across the country and would benefit both the reserves and the Reg F (as some would no doubt want to join the full timers after their year's stint).

Been thinking more about this re 12 months vs 3 months.

It strikes me that with a 3 month engagement then a single PY gets me 4 training periods or 4 trained soldiers.  If you engage them for a year you only have one trained soldier.

My aim is to create a trained pool of soldiers which can be assigned Reserve status and from which the Reg Force can recruit/draw.

Take 1000 PYs from the Reg Force Budget.

With that train 4000 Soldiers in 4 3-month periods.  Pay them at Regular recruit pay scale.

Upon successful completion of training assign them to the Reserves on Class A service for a period of 5 years.

You now have a pool of 20,000 trained privates from which to draw.  Privates that could fit into 2 to 4 weeks of annual training, and that could be maintained with Wednesday nights and once a month refreshers/updates/PD.

You also have the opportunity to demonstrate to those 20,000 bodies the wonders of service life and try to draw them into longer contracts.

You want more Privates?  Adjust intake, training period and engagement period to suit.

The draw for the kids, beyond the fun and excitement?  Education and guaranteed stipends for 5 years.

 

[runormal]

I've got a few problems with your plan...

Been thinking more about this re 12 months vs 3 months.

It strikes me that with a 3 month engagement then a single PY gets me 4 training periods or 4 trained soldiers.  If you engage them for a year you only have one trained soldier.

My aim is to create a trained pool of soldiers which can be assigned Reserve status and from which the Reg Force can recruit/draw.

Take 1000 PYs from the Reg Force Budget.

This is true that if you run more cycles, you will be able to train more people. However given your time frame, you'd only be able to pump out infantry and artillery soldiers and possibly some LOG support trades. ACISS, Engineers, Armd Recee would all take longer than 3 months to fully train. (Assuming a BMQ, BMQ-L and DP 1.0 standard) Additionally, what is their experience of the army? 3 straight months of course... Sounds awesome :rofl:!

With that train 4000 Soldiers in 4 3-month periods.  Pay them at Regular recruit pay scale.

The vast Majority of your intake is going to be available after the Summer Session of High School... So late June-ish. A smaller portion will be available every December. How do you expect to run 4 equally loaded courses, if 80% of your potential recruits are available at only one time? Anyone that we aren't recruiting directly out of school, is likely going to be wanting full time work. Even if we include University/College students, my point still stands that the bulk of your candidates are only going to be available in the summer.

Additionally who pays for all of the rations, foods and accommodations? Can our bases/Training Centres even support this increased volume of troops? What about weapons? Radios? Vehicles? Bullets? Can the recruiting system even process this many applications?

Upon successful completion of training assign them to the Reserves on Class A service for a period of 5 years.

Of the reservists that we recruit voluntarily, who "can leave at anytime", we loose about half of them before they hit 5 years of service. I'm not sure how telling someone that they need a 5 year commitment (for a part time job), is going to increase our numbers.. Part of the appeal to the reserves to me, was the whole "try, before you sign". Likewise to which unit(s)? What are we going to do with 16,000 Class A infanteers/arty soldiers? The whole reserve force itself is only ~25k...

You now have a pool of 20,000 trained privates from which to draw.  Privates that could fit into 2 to 4 weeks of annual training, and that could be maintained with Wednesday nights and once a month refreshers/updates/PD.

Who sticks around for a job to be called up for 2-4 weeks? This is what I don't understand, from anyone who proposes this sort of nonsense. I don't have guys telling me "I need work for 2-4 weeks during the summer". It is either, "I need the Whole Summer" or "I found a job and I do not need any work". The only ones who seem to be available for this amount of time, are the ones who got screwed over by the training system or are generally under-employed.

That being said, I would love a 2 week exercise or 2 guaranteed 1 week exercises (1 in summer and 1 in the winter reading week), throughout the training year.  However, the Army would need to plan these well in advance, so that people can actually get the time off work. We have people who could go, if they had the proper notice.

You also have the opportunity to demonstrate to those 20,000 bodies the wonders of service life and try to draw them into longer contracts.

Given the speed that we currently process CT-OT's, I do not think that this is realistic. Hell we tell people on this board, "Do not apply to the reserves if you are even thinking about going full time, go reg-f right away". I'd argue that we should be putting a greater push to recruiting the reserves first, and then once Pte Bloggins finds out that he loves the reserves, he can easily CT to the Reg-F.

You want more Privates?  Adjust intake, training period and engagement period to suit.

Preferably, I'd work on retention vice recruiting.

The draw for the kids, beyond the fun and excitement?  Education and guaranteed stipends for 5 years.

We already have the ILP program which is fairly easy to get the full $8,000k, if you stick around for 4-5 years.


That's not to say that I'm against this something like this, but I would prefer more of a hybrid approach.

Something like:

~500 PY's - 1 year gap year.
~500 PY's - 65% Summer intake, 20% (January Intake), 15% (Fall intake)

I think a structured 1 year gap year would be great, but we'd need make sure that our recruiting and training systems could actually handle it.

A compressed gap year/summer job program would also be great, but again we'd need make sure that our recruiting and training systems could actually handle it. Personally, I would of preferred to do all of my courses in 1 summer, vice two.

 

[Kirkhill]

Yep, you're right.  20,000 infanteers.  Volunteers who, if you can convince them to put up with the guff, might decide they want to hang around and become engineers, or mechanics, or radar techs, or who just want a full gig for a summer entertaining the tourists on Parliament Hill.

Cheers.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Yep, you're right.  20,000 infanteers.  Volunteers who, if you can convince them to put up with the guff, might decide they want to hang around and become engineers, or mechanics, or radar techs, or who just want a full gig for a summer entertaining the tourists on Parliament Hill.

Cheers.

Good idea.

It would be kind of like our Officer training: all arms and services lumped together to start with then, as you progress, you specialize into your various elements and stove pipes ...

 

[runormal]

Yep, you're right.  20,000 infanteers.  Volunteers who, if you can convince them to put up with the guff, might decide they want to hang around and become engineers, or mechanics, or radar techs, or who just want a full gig for a summer entertaining the tourists on Parliament Hill.

Cheers.

You know it isn't a, a bad idea. So you are basically saying that that would be the new minimun standard. If after all that I want to transfer to Sig's, CER, Armd Recce I can.

What do you propose, that we do with people who want to be trade Y or X but can't get the time off or aren't available for the Dp 1.0.  Though, I suppose that it'd be no different than if someone hung around a unit as a BMQ/L qualified troop.

I still think that your scaling and frequency of these courses is far too high.

Good idea.

It would be kind of like our Officer training: all arms and services lumped together to start with then, as you progress, you specialize into your various elements and stove pipes ...

We sort of had this when everyone in the Army P-Res did BMQ and the same BMQ-L.

Edit: We could even do this properly for Highschool students. Take the two months between Highschool and knock out BMQ and BMQ-L. Then when you show up for school in the fall, you'd actually be somewhat employable.

 

[Kirkhill]

People that want trades would have to sign longer contracts.  For training, for service and for reserve service.

 

[FJAG]

People that want trades would have to sign longer contracts.  For training, for service and for reserve service.

I don't want to get in the way of what is a good discussion but quite frankly the methodology of how you do different trades or even whether certain trades should be in the P Res is somewhat secondary to the key issue which is can you or should you restructure the overall force by subtracting funding from the RegF in order to create a larger, effective P Res that would, at any given time, provide you a total force with more numbers and more bang for the same buck.

The basic trade-off is subtracting a significant number of full-time PYs to create a higher multiple of part-time PYs.

So far all the comments which I have seen that argue against that (here and elsewhere) put forward the position that the current P Res isn't effective or dependable (or some derivative/tangent of that). That however isn't the issue. The issue is how do you change the overall system to make the P Res fully effective and dependable. All of that would require extensive and (here's the kicker) unbiased staff work. Like anything, a good estimate of the situation would go a long way to developing a coherent plan.

:cheers:

 

[daftandbarmy]

I don't want to get in the way of what is a good discussion but quite frankly the methodology of how you do different trades or even whether certain trades should be in the P Res is somewhat secondary to the key issue which is can you or should you restructure the overall force by subtracting funding from the RegF in order to create a larger, effective P Res that would, at any given time, provide you a total force with more numbers and more bang for the same buck.

The basic trade-off is subtracting a significant number of full-time PYs to create a higher multiple of part-time PYs.

So far all the comments which I have seen that argue against that (here and elsewhere) put forward the position that the current P Res isn't effective or dependable (or some derivative/tangent of that). That however isn't the issue. The issue is how do you change the overall system to make the P Res fully effective and dependable. All of that would require extensive and (here's the kicker) unbiased staff work. Like anything, a good estimate of the situation would go a long way to developing a coherent plan.

:cheers:

But... but... then what would pundits like me do?

 

[McG]

The basic trade-off is subtracting a significant number of full-time PYs to create a higher multiple of part-time PYs.

Why is this a required trade off?  Even if you accept the premise of the government (current and previous) that military commitment should be measured in output and not investment as a percent of GDP,  then surely the right answer can be that both components need reforms and more investment.

 

[Kirkhill]

Why is this a required trade off?  Even if you accept the premise of the government (current and previous) that military commitment should be measured in output and not investment as a percent of GDP,  then surely the right answer can be that both components need reforms and more investment.

I'd like to see both more money and more bodies.  My proposal is based on not getting either and having to rob Peter (the Regs) to pay Paul (the Res) so as to create a Reserve that offers more value to the Regs.  At least that's the thought.  ???

 

[FJAG]

I'd like to see both more money and more bodies.  My proposal is based on not getting either and having to rob Peter (the Regs) to pay Paul (the Res) so as to create a Reserve that offers more value to the Regs.  At least that's the thought.  ???

And I think that is the only realistic way to approach it. Any plan built on the premise that more money will be forthcoming is doomed to failure while a plan built on using existing funds will succeed and will have the bonus of providing even more capability in the unlikely event the government does kick in extra funding.

The one minor divergence I have is that rather than "create a Reserve that offers more value to the Regs" I would say create a reserve that provides an overall larger total force from existing resources."

:cheers:

 

[Kirkhill]

And I think that is the only realistic way to approach it. Any plan built on the premise that more money will be forthcoming is doomed to failure while a plan built on using existing funds will succeed and will have the bonus of providing even more capability in the unlikely event the government does kick in extra funding.

The one minor divergence I have is that rather than "create a Reserve that offers more value to the Regs" I would say create a reserve that provides an overall larger total force from existing resources."

:cheers:

Seen

 

[The Bread Guy]

Bumped with the latest promises from the Defence Review (PDF) -- more background attached.

... NEW INITIATIVES

To enhance the role and capabilities of the Reserve Force, the Canadian Armed Forces will:

74. Increase the size of the Primary Reserve Force to 30,000 (an increase of 1,500) and dramatically reduce the initial recruitment process from a number of months to a matter of weeks.

75. Assign Reserve Force units and formations new roles that provide full-time capability to the Canadian Armed Forces through part-time service, including:
• Light Urban Search and Rescue;
• Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defence;
• Combat capabilities such as direct fire, mortar and pioneer platoons;
• Cyber Operators;
• Intelligence Operators;
• Naval Security Teams; and
• Linguists.

76. Enhance existing roles assigned to Reserve Force units and formations, including:
• Information Operations (including Influence Activities);
• Combat Support and Combat Service Support; and
• Air Operations Support Technicians.

77. Employ the Reserve Force to deliver select expeditionary missions in a primary role such as Canadian Armed Forces capacity building.

78. Create an agile service model that supports transition between full- and part-time service and provides the flexibility to cater to differing Reserve career paths.

79. Align Primary Reserve Force remuneration and benefits with those of the Regular Force where the demands of service are similar.

80. Revise annuitant employment regulations to attract and retain more former Regular Force personnel to the Reserves.

81. Offer full-time summer employment to Reservists in their first four years with the Reserves commencing in 2018.

82. Work with partners in the federal government to align federal acts governing job protection legislation. Subsequently, we will work with provinces and territories to harmonize job protection for Reserves at that level. ...

 

[Kirkhill]

Civil Defence.

Ropes, ladders, buckets and radiation detectors.

Back to the future.

 

[McG]

Well, I see that filling the Ceremonial Guard is a reoccurring challenge & priority.  I propose the PLDG be brought back in Ottawa (and maybe with footprint in some surrounding areas) so that we can have another guards unit focused on this ... and they can also do some soldiering in the off seasons.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Civil Defence.

Ropes, ladders, buckets and radiation detectors.

Back to the future.

A military paid SAR team in Vancouver would be busy, but the pissing match between the volunteers, military and the emergency services could get nasty.