Informing the Army’s Future Structure

[WLSC]

CAF Rank policies isn't a Force 2025 initiative. ARes unit structures are.

Absolutly, doesn't mean anybody that is a Capt for 24 hrs is suite to be an OC, what ever the type of unit in the CAF. Experience, competency and age comes in to play.

 

[Brad Sallows]

In the Res F, ranks above Lt are pretty much just for positions which are administrative. A trained Res F capt has all the formal training needed for doing the things a Res F unit needs an officer above Lt to do. A Res F sub-unit can function adequately with a Capt OC, Lt 2I/C, and Lt platoon commanders. Any Lt not grownup enough to respect the appointment differentials despite the flat rank hierarchy shouldn't be there.

 

[WLSC]

In the Res F, ranks above Lt are pretty much just for positions which are administrative. A trained Res F capt has all the formal training needed for doing the things a Res F unit needs an officer above Lt to do. A Res F sub-unit can function adequately with a Capt OC, Lt 2I/C, and Lt platoon commanders. Any Lt not grownup enough to respect the appointment differentials despite the flat rank hierarchy shouldn't be there.

I beg to differ. Automatic promotion base on time doesn't cut it for me, sorry. Cant they do it, yes. Can they manage, yes. Doesn't mean it's good for attrition and for the Capt (talking about a fresh one here) when it happen.

I have no issue with having Capt as OC however saying they don't need to be prepare because it's only PRes. We all know what bad planning can do

 

[Brad Sallows]

Did you read what I wrote? "A trained Res F capt".

 

[Underway]

Yes. We are the only NATO Army that maintains a 19-tank sub-unit as a doctrinal template.

Most armies use something between 12-15, and the Russians use 10.

Wonder what the reasoning is behind this? Or is it in all practicality just allowing us to split the formation into smaller components?

 

[Brad Sallows]

If "we" can and "we" almost always do split it, then maybe having the two distinct manoeuvre sub-units makes more sense. But then someone would be tempted to add a third troop to each to increase combat power above a measly two troops, and then someone would argue that it's hard to split three troops into two equal elements...

 

[Kirkhill]

But if you throw Combat Teams into the mix then you might get:

Captain i/c Coy/Sqn
Major i/c Combat Team (with a Captain and mulitple Atts under command)
Lt Col i/c Battalion Equivalent
Col i/c Battle Group
Brigadier i/c Brigade (Group)

Captain is a single corps leader
Major is the first Combined Arms leader

 

[Kirkhill]

Wonder what the reasoning is behind this? Or is it in all practicality just allowing us to split the formation into smaller components?

I think the reference might be to Train as you Fight.

If you are habitually going to split 19 tanks into 10 and 9 and apportion them that way then why not organize on those lines from the beginning?

And if that then 1+1+4+4 and 1+4+4 or would 2x (1+3+3+3) be better tactically in a greater variety of situations?

 

[markppcli]

But if you throw Combat Teams into the mix then you might get:

Captain i/c Coy/Sqn
Major i/c Combat Team (with a Captain and mulitple Atts under command)
Lt Col i/c Battalion Equivalent
Col i/c Battle Group
Brigadier i/c Brigade (Group)

Captain is a single corps leader
Major is the first Combined Arms leader

Combat Teams being adhoc are lead by the leading sub unit. So if it’s built on an Armoured Sqn it’s the Sqn OC, on a rifle company than it’s their OC. No need to insert an extra officer.

 

[markppcli]

I beg to differ. Automatic promotion base on time doesn't cut it for me, sorry. Cant they do it, yes. Can they manage, yes. Doesn't mean it's good for attrition and for the Capt (talking about a fresh one here) when it happen.

I have no issue with having Capt as OC however saying they don't need to be prepare because it's only PRes. We all know what bad planning can do

Not at all what was said. And frankly if moving up the ranks is what’s keeping you in the military I’d argue you should move to a full time career.

 

[Kirkhill]

Combat Teams being adhoc are lead by the leading sub unit. So if it’s built on an Armoured Sqn it’s the Sqn OC, on a rifle company than it’s their OC. No need to insert an extra officer.

I'm suggesting that the Major become a Lt Col in training vice a Senior Captain.

The Captain, with single corps responsibility gets to learn how to manage multiple Lts, but all within the corps with which the Captain is familiar.

Meanwhile the Captain gets to observe and assist the Major as the Major co-ordinates all the Ad Hoc atts and dets assigned by the Lt Col responsible for the Ad Hoc Combined Arms Battle Group.

 

[KevinB]

Combat Teams being adhoc are lead by the leading sub unit. So if it’s built on an Armoured Sqn it’s the Sqn OC, on a rifle company than it’s their OC. No need to insert an extra officer.

I don't think he was -- he was just making the point on the various ranks of the structures - and the fact that a Maj is the lowest level of combined arms command.

 

[WLSC]

Did you read what I wrote? "A trained Res F capt".

Yes. I interpreted that wrongly. My bad. If trained accordingly then yes.

 

[WLSC]

Not at all what was said. And frankly if moving up the ranks is what’s keeping you in the military I’d argue you should move to a full time career.

It's not about being a Maj vs a Capt. I'm fine with a trained Capt. When I said wrong for the member is throwing someone on a job to early in is career. One it's 1 of x, it's one thing, the OC will help. If it's 1 of 1, the help is not the same.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Wonder what the reasoning is behind this? Or is it in all practicality just allowing us to split the formation into smaller components?

Regarding the 19 tank squadron, I am no historian but I will give it a swing. Canadian armour in WW2 was organized along British lines. Cruiser tank squadrons had five Troops each with three tanks along with a Squadron Headquarters with four tanks. As the Normandy Campaign progressed some Canadian armoured regiments (and perhaps the UK folks as well) reorganized into four Troops of four tanks with three in the HQ. In the 1st Hussars, for example, this is reported to have occurred mid-July just before ATLANTIC. My read is that this continued through the war and the four squadron with four Troops each of four tanks was our establishment at the end of the war.

The post-war architects of our Armoured Corps would have all been veterans and most would have been in NWE. Perhaps they brought the idea with them. The 19 tank squadron has been around since before I joined in 1989.

What are the benefits? With a square organization of four Troops you are balanced which gives you flexibility. Advancing you can have two Troops stationary supporting two other Troops who are moving. You can then switch back to internal movement as required. I believe that the UK went with four Troops of three tanks each. The advantage of four tanks in the Troop is that if the Troop is on its own for a bit (perhaps due to canalizing terrain) you can have two tanks supporting while two move. You can also lose one tank and still have three. A Troop with only three tanks gets awful lonely awful quick: lose one to breakdown or fire and now you are just two tanks. So our 19 tank squadron was balanced and robust. Not surprising that it was the result of war.

In 2002/2003 I was a Tank Squadron BC with the B Sqn RCD. It was decided that we would have two Tank Squadrons for the BTE. So we gave a Troop of tanks to A Sqn who had a weird blend of vehicles anyway and we both reorganized as two Squadrons of three Troops. We borrowed tanks from other regiments as we did gateway training and borrowed Panzers from LdSH for the BTE to enable us to have two Squadrons of three Troops. Aaaaaand then left them all there. I preferred having four Troops, but I would rather have a Troop of four tanks than a Troop of three tanks to have more Troops. If that makes any sense to the reader. We had to adapt our tactics to only ever having three Troops for attacks (breaches were a challenge), but I was somewhat used to that having trained with the US Army.

Is the 19 tank Squadron a result of a small army making compromises everywhere but if it is going to have a tank regiment then by golly its tank squadrons are going to be as good as we can make them? Perhaps. One downside is the lamentable tendency for folks to break up the squadron. "Oooh - it comes in half-squadrons? I'll take two of those to help me not have to make a decision about where to place my tanks!"

 

[PuckChaser]

I hate how this renumbers your points when I split them, they're in the same order.

There are a few different ideas here, which I'm happy to go into so we can get away from 110 pages of how many LAVs can dance on the head of a pin:

1. A Bde, organized as a tactical formation, should not need a "strategic link" (which I am assuming we mean a reachback to Canada) because it either links into a parent formation or back to a NCE with a theatre level signal organization. Now, comms are sophisticated enough these days that any element has reachback to Canada - just give them an Sat Phone. Hell, every infanteer in a section has reachback with their mobile devices. What we are really discussing here is comms process and reporting, and not equipment. If a Bde is operating as a tactical formation, it can't be encumbered with national reporting. If it is operating as an NCE/Task Force HQ, like we saw in Afghanistan, then its role is different and it needs reachback for national level C2. But this isn't the default organization for a fighting formation HQ, nor should it be.

I think the problem lies in how we define strategic reachback or any sort of strat comms. Right now those assets get held at CFJSR, for use in a fictional Div HQ. I agree that we cannot plan a construct around an Afghan deployment, but to hoard sat dishes and deployable CSNI equipment is just absolutely silly and empire building.

1. The argument that a Sig Sqn CO needs to be a LCol because the other unit COs are LCols is silly. There is no logic to it, and its simply rank inflation for the sake of appearances.

Can you hand on heart say it's never been an issue? We rank inflate literally everything else, but the Sigs Sqn CO is a sacred cow that cannot be elevated to a proper LCol rank? Heck, it was only a decade or so ago the Sig Sqn SM was elevated to CWO RSM precisely for the reasons I stated, it made that member a peer at the RSM's table.

1. The notion that CMBG HQs are massive mod tent complexes isn't necessarily accurate. In the past, this was partly forced on the CMBGs by the self-divestment of the Bison CP fleet, and partially by Afghan hangover/silly post-Afghan concepts which see Brigades as static CPs managing every capability in the inventory. As we get back to the core business, this is going away; one of the CMBGs is using a mobile CP on a half-dozen MSVS and has no mod tentage. This is essential, as big CPs and the life support systems that go with them (heaters, generators, etc) just create the need for GDs, and the Sig Op trade has turned into a partial GD trade over the last decade due to point (3) above. We need to fix this.

I think each CMBG is doing things differently, and you may not have seen the bloat where you are. At 2CMBG under a recent previous Bde Comd, that thing was monstrous. I really do think your MSVS SMP concept coupled with the LAV6 CP (I knew I'd get a LAV reference in here somewhere) will certainly help reduce the size and increase capability while keeping us positioned to fight a peer force. An Afghan static Bde Main is easy, mobile is hard and what we should train to.

1. The CMBG Sig Sqn structure is under review in Force 2025. The CCSB is a force generator, and not a tactical formation HQ, so it does not require a tactical HQ and Sig Sqn.

It's good to hear CCSB won't be deployed on its own, that would honestly be the straw that broke RCCS' back. I'd be interested to see any docs you have on the Sig Sqn restructure, as is tradition the Signal Corps is terrible at passing messages to itself...

1. Force 2025 looks at positions. The real problem that the Sig Corps faces right now isn't organizational, its that 50% of the seats it has have no butts in them - there are a host of issues behind this, of which organization is only one.

Concur here, but I submit organizational issues are something we can fix right now as a tourniquet while we figure out how to get RCCS to the Role 3 for actual life saving repairs. Otherwise the forecasted bottom of the barrel (40% PML) in FY26/27 might come a lot sooner.

 

[Kirkhill]

@Tango2Bravo

Do you reckon this might have fitted into the history someplace? I remembered seeing something about the 17 Pdr Firefly being incorporated into each troop. The other tanks in the troops were still the 76mm versions.

Sherman Firefly - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Production of the Firefly started in January 1944 and, by 31 May, some 342 Sherman Fireflies had been delivered to the 21st Army Group for the D-Day landings.[8] As a result, British tank troops were composed of three standard Shermans and one Firefly. The same distribution occurred in Cromwell units, but this caused logistical problems, as each Cromwell troop then needed to be supplied with parts for two different tanks. The Firefly was also slower than the Cromwell. Churchill units received no Fireflies, and as a result often had to rely on any attached M10 or M10 Achilles units to provide increased firepower to deal with tanks their own guns could not eliminate.[3]

I remembered seeing this because I was wondering if it wasn't an alternate method of distributing the 2A6s among the 2A4s. They also are in a 1:3 ratio.

 

[KevinB]

@Tango2Bravo

Do you reckon this might have fitted into the history someplace? I remembered seeing something about the 17 Pdr Firefly being incorporated into each troop. The other tanks in the troops were still the 76mm versions.

Sherman Firefly - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I remembered seeing this because I was wondering if it wasn't an alternate method of distributing the 2A6s among the 2A4s. They also are in a 1:3 ratio.

Donate Leo's to Ukraine -- get screaming deal on M1A2BlockIV Abrams...

 

[Brad Sallows]

Keep in mind that for a long interval of the war, for many of the "types" of British armoured/tank regiments, 2 of the tanks in a squadron HQ were "close support" - armed with something that threw a heavier weight of HE. With modern battle tanks, that's not needed.

Firefly Shermans were in short supply, so 1 per troop was allocated. Sometimes used that way; sometimes consolidated into single troops. [Add: and the employment of brigades in divisions - Sherman, Cromwell - was different than the independents - Churchills - still influenced by early war "cruiser" / "infantry" bias.]

Looking at all the fudging around they did and poor results in many cases, if I were designing an armoured force I wouldn't start with the British as my template.

Done rationally, you'd start with a "literature survey" : pick some nations (eg. Germany, US, USSR, UK, France), and pay historians (one or two per country) to do a deep dive on the evolution of each nation's armoured forces (troop to division) from immediately pre-WWII until now, and report back in 6 months. Find all the points at which any kinds of organizational changes were introduced (from troop to division) and identify the reasons. Would include surveying all the published doctrine, SOPs, and AARs. Winnow out the ones decided by experience in battle and focus on those (ie. ignore budget cutbacks, equipment shortfalls, tradition, wild hair up the senior black hat's ass, etc ).

Then come up with some proposed designs, try them out with a hockey sock of map/estimate exercises, and proceed with the best candidates to force-on-force trials.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Keep in mind that for a long interval of the war, for many of the "types" of British armoured/tank regiments, 2 of the tanks in a squadron HQ were "close support" - armed with something that threw a heavier weight of HE. With modern battle tanks, that's not needed.

Firefly Shermans were in short supply, so 1 per troop was allocated. Sometimes used that way; sometimes consolidated into single troops. [Add: and the employment of brigades in divisions - Sherman, Cromwell - was different than the independents - Churchills - still influenced by early war "cruiser" / "infantry" bias.]

Looking at all the fudging around they did and poor results in many cases, if I were designing an armoured force I wouldn't start with the British as my template.

Done rationally, you'd start with a "literature survey" : pick some nations (eg. Germany, US, USSR, UK, France), and pay historians (one or two per country) to do a deep dive on the evolution of each nation's armoured forces (troop to division) from immediately pre-WWII until now, and report back in 6 months. Find all the points at which any kinds of organizational changes were introduced (from troop to division) and identify the reasons. Would include surveying all the published doctrine, SOPs, and AARs. Winnow out the ones decided by experience in battle and focus on those (ie. ignore budget cutbacks, equipment shortfalls, tradition, wild hair up the senior black hat's ass, etc ).

Then come up with some proposed designs, try them out with a hockey sock of map/estimate exercises, and proceed with the best candidates to force-on-force trials.

Perhaps the armour veterans of a major shooting war were actually quite well situated to come up with the organization for their forces post-war? Maybe they knew what they were on about?

Don't want to derail this into a historical tank discussion, as fun as it would be! Tracking the fun distinctions between various British armoured organizations through the war. Someone asked where 19 tanks came from. I have offered a possible explanation as well as why I actually quite like the 19 tank squadron in practice.