Informing the Army’s Future Structure

[Kirkhill]

Quite honestly going through untold versions of a Napkin CAF, I don’t see the point in a Larger CA.
1 Bde Predeployed to Europe (70/30)
1 Lt Bde for QRF (90/10)
1 Med Bde for OOTW. (50/50)
1 Med Bde of 10/90
Div Enablers for Lt, Hvy (Pre Deployed), and Med.
Robust Svc Support Bde.
Training Infrastructure Bde.
That should easily done within the current PY (with several thousand to spare).

Shift around 5k Reg PY out of the CA.
1k to CANSOF (the Influence Activities, and related)
3k to the RCN
1k to the RCAF (and task some of the PRes Inf to Airfield Security)

We have fallen into the habit of using PYs (Person Years) as the metric of choice (@daftandbarmy ).
But the Treasury Board's preferred metric is FTEs or Full Time Equivalents.

Taking Kevin's proposal at face value because I like it and it looks like a useful and realistic starting point big question in my mind is: How many part-timers can I buy for each full-timer? 1 Class C? 2 to 5 Class Bs? 10 to 20 Class As?

For easy metrication I am going to use 5000 PYs per Brigade.

Predeployed 70/30 Bde = 3500 Reg PYs and FTEs
Light 90/10 Bde = 4500 Reg PYs and FTEs
Medium 50/50 Bde = 2500 Reg PYs and FTEs
Medium 10/90 Bde = 500 Reg PYs and FTEs

Spt 100/0 Bde = 5000 Reg PYs and FTEs
Training 100/0 Bde = 5000 Reg PYs and FTEs
Throw in another Bde for C4ISR with 5000 Reg PYs and FTEs

All told that equals 26,000 Reg PYs and FTEs.
Pretty close to establishment but maybe we have to trim those Brigades of 5000 to 4500 or maybe we have to convert more of the Reg PY/FTEs to Reserve PY/FTEs.

Now the Predeployed Bde's Reserves. Class C seems over kill. So Class B or even A. I am going to opt for A and decree that we can afford to spend 1/10th of a FTE on each Reservist ready to commit to support that mission. That means a month of salary per person per year to cover both continuing training and deployments and also a stipendiary salary to cover the inconvenience of being on call.

So the Predeployed Bde will consume 3500 Regular PYs and 1500 Reserve PYs but will only cost 3500 Regular FTEs and 150 Reserve FTEs for a total of 3650 FTEs and a savings of 1350 FTEs.

Light Brigade next

It seems to me that a Quick Reaction Force needs to be fully manned so the Reservists need to be Class C which effectively makes them Regulars.
That means 4500 Regular PYs and 500 Reserve PYs but both PYs will cost an FTE so the Bde will cost 5000 PYs. There are no savings to be had by employing Reservists. On the other hand there are no financial costs either and the opportunity to engage Reservists operationally and train them is valuable.

Medium Brigade the First (50/50)
2500 Reg PYs. 2500 Res PYs.
2500 Reg FTEs. 250 Res FTEs.
5000 PYs and 2750 FTEs for a savings of 2250 FTEs

Medium Brigade the Second (10/90)

500 Reg PYs. 4500 Res PYs.
500 Reg FTEs. 450 Res FTEs.
5000 PYs and 950 FTEs for a savings of 4050 FTEs

First Question: Why two different types of Medium Brigades? Why not a single type of Medium Brigade?

Call it 1500 Reg PYs and 3500 Res PYs per Bde and average the costs and savings across the two Brigades.

1500 Reg PYs and 3500 Res PYs
1500 Reg FTEs and 350 Res FTEs
5000 PYs and 1850 FTEs for a savings of 3150 FTEs in each of the two Brigades.

The result is the expenditure of the following FTEs

3650 Predeployed FTEs
5000 Light FTEs
2x 1850 Medium FTEs

For a total of 12,350 FTEs

With a savings of 1350 + 0 + 2250 + 4050 = 7650 FTEs

And the gain is a credible Predeployment Bde in Europe,
A credible Quick Reaction Force
2 General Purpose Brigades capable of rapidly raising a Regular Battle Group and, with notice, raising 4 Reserve Battle Groups or 2 full Brigades.

That leaves FTEs for the Support, Training and C4ISR which should properly be filled by Regulars in all events.

Things like domestic JTFs and GBAD and airfield defence should be largely filled by Class B and A reservists with a smattering of Class Cs/Regs who could also be considered parts of the Spt/Trg/C4ISR establishments.

.....

I expect the accountants to take my terminology to task and demonstrate that my numbers are wrong. I will still offer those numbers as demonstration of a direction of travel.

 

[GR66]

While that axe is swinging, is the 50/50 Med Bde really a necessity? Could that capability be delivered by either having a vehicle pool for the 90/10 light to beef up with MRAP's when needed, or by expanding the 10/90 Med to more to a 30/120 that is overstrength when mobilized?

During Cold War 1.0 much of the contest between the USSR and the West was in the form of Brush Wars and proxy fights. Medium forces were well suited for that kind of conflict (and as peacekeepers freezing those conflicts) just as they were for the GWOT.

Chances are that much of Cold War 2.0 with China will unfold the same way. The question is whether our experiences in the GWOT will make it politically impossible to have direct military involvement. Will it instead rely more on CSOR-type train and assist missions with allied forces and only the most extreme circumstances will see the potential for deployment of conventional, medium-weight military forces?

My gut feeling is that members like @KevinB and @Kirkhill are correct and that a Heavy/Light mix will be much more useful than a Medium-weight force (or even a Heavy/Medium/Light mix).

 

[Kirkhill]

While that axe is swinging, is the 50/50 Med Bde really a necessity? Could that capability be delivered by either having a vehicle pool for the 90/10 light to beef up with MRAP's when needed, or by expanding the 10/90 Med to more to a 30/120 that is overstrength when mobilized?

Agree.

I think that the difference between a Reserve LAV Battle Group and a Regular LAV Battle Group could be as simple as the degree of integration of the LAV crews and the GIBs. In the Regs the Crews and the GIBs live and work together. In the Reserves that Crews and the GIBs may be raised and trained separately and only come together for exercises and deployments. Their pre-deployment training delta is obviously going to be bit longer as a result but they are going to require a workup period regardless.

 

[IKnowNothing]

During Cold War 1.0 much of the contest between the USSR and the West was in the form of Brush Wars and proxy fights. Medium forces were well suited for that kind of conflict (and as peacekeepers freezing those conflicts) just as they were for the GWOT.

Chances are that much of Cold War 2.0 with China will unfold the same way. The question is whether our experiences in the GWOT will make it politically impossible to have direct military involvement. Will it instead rely more on CSOR-type train and assist missions with allied forces and only the most extreme circumstances will see the potential for deployment of conventional, medium-weight military forces?

My gut feeling is that members like @KevinB and @Kirkhill are correct and that a Heavy/Light mix will be much more useful than a Medium-weight force (or even a Heavy/Medium/Light mix).

Agreed with the bold, that's why I was questioning if 2 Bde's worth of Medium kit, 60% of a Bde of RegF PY's, 140% of ResF PY's was the best allocation of resources.

I may be completely off base, but to me it seems like there's some tunnel vision WRT to formation size

My thinking is that larger administrative Bde's with integrated PRes could

• either chop RegF units and sub units for rotational peacetime/OOTW deployments, with the Pres elements slotting in to round out the Bde to doctrinal strength
• if the former hasn't happened, deploy the RegF component in it's entirety, using the Pres for depth/sustainment

Ex. Take Kevin's
70/30 Heavy
90/10 Light
50/50 Med
10/90 Med

Move to
90/30 Heavy
90/30 Light
30/120 Light
Give the lights access to a garages with a Bn set of MRAP/ Wheeled APC's, and keep a couple squadrons of the non-Heavy RCAC Regiments in 30 tonne turreted fighting vehicles

 

[daftandbarmy]

We have fallen into the habit of using PYs (Person Years) as the metric of choice (@daftandbarmy ).
But the Treasury Board's preferred metric is FTEs or Full Time Equivalents.

Taking Kevin's proposal at face value because I like it and it looks like a useful and realistic starting point big question in my mind is: How many part-timers can I buy for each full-timer? 1 Class C? 2 to 5 Class Bs? 10 to 20 Class As?

For easy metrication I am going to use 5000 PYs per Brigade.

Predeployed 70/30 Bde = 3500 Reg PYs and FTEs
Light 90/10 Bde = 4500 Reg PYs and FTEs
Medium 50/50 Bde = 2500 Reg PYs and FTEs
Medium 10/90 Bde = 500 Reg PYs and FTEs

Spt 100/0 Bde = 5000 Reg PYs and FTEs
Training 100/0 Bde = 5000 Reg PYs and FTEs
Throw in another Bde for C4ISR with 5000 Reg PYs and FTEs

All told that equals 26,000 Reg PYs and FTEs.
Pretty close to establishment but maybe we have to trim those Brigades of 5000 to 4500 or maybe we have to convert more of the Reg PY/FTEs to Reserve PY/FTEs.

Now the Predeployed Bde's Reserves. Class C seems over kill. So Class B or even A. I am going to opt for A and decree that we can afford to spend 1/10th of a FTE on each Reservist ready to commit to support that mission. That means a month of salary per person per year to cover both continuing training and deployments and also a stipendiary salary to cover the inconvenience of being on call.

So the Predeployed Bde will consume 3500 Regular PYs and 1500 Reserve PYs but will only cost 3500 Regular FTEs and 150 Reserve FTEs for a total of 3650 FTEs and a savings of 1350 FTEs.

Light Brigade next

It seems to me that a Quick Reaction Force needs to be fully manned so the Reservists need to be Class C which effectively makes them Regulars.
That means 4500 Regular PYs and 500 Reserve PYs but both PYs will cost an FTE so the Bde will cost 5000 PYs. There are no savings to be had by employing Reservists. On the other hand there are no financial costs either and the opportunity to engage Reservists operationally and train them is valuable.

Medium Brigade the First (50/50)
2500 Reg PYs. 2500 Res PYs.
2500 Reg FTEs. 250 Res FTEs.
5000 PYs and 2750 FTEs for a savings of 2250 FTEs

Medium Brigade the Second (10/90)

500 Reg PYs. 4500 Res PYs.
500 Reg FTEs. 450 Res FTEs.
5000 PYs and 950 FTEs for a savings of 4050 FTEs

First Question: Why two different types of Medium Brigades? Why not a single type of Medium Brigade?

Call it 1500 Reg PYs and 3500 Res PYs per Bde and average the costs and savings across the two Brigades.

1500 Reg PYs and 3500 Res PYs
1500 Reg FTEs and 350 Res FTEs
5000 PYs and 1850 FTEs for a savings of 3150 FTEs in each of the two Brigades.

The result is the expenditure of the following FTEs

3650 Predeployed FTEs
5000 Light FTEs
2x 1850 Medium FTEs

For a total of 12,350 FTEs

With a savings of 1350 + 0 + 2250 + 4050 = 7650 FTEs

And the gain is a credible Predeployment Bde in Europe,
A credible Quick Reaction Force
2 General Purpose Brigades capable of rapidly raising a Regular Battle Group and, with notice, raising 4 Reserve Battle Groups or 2 full Brigades.

That leaves FTEs for the Support, Training and C4ISR which should properly be filled by Regulars in all events.

Things like domestic JTFs and GBAD and airfield defence should be largely filled by Class B and A reservists with a smattering of Class Cs/Regs who could also be considered parts of the Spt/Trg/C4ISR establishments.

.....

I expect the accountants to take my terminology to task and demonstrate that my numbers are wrong. I will still offer those numbers as demonstration of a direction of travel.

The problem with big bureaucracies, like the CAF, is rarely enough resources. It's usually the siloes that kill cross-collaboration, and the leadership skills to nimbly reallocate of people and stuff to address emerging needs.

I don't have enough fingers to count the number of projects where we were able to 'magically' reveal that (already existing internal) power to our clients, through actually accomplishing previously unheard of breakthroughs, by bringing cross-organizational teams together to solve previously intractable problems

 

[Brad Sallows]

What's the state of ground forces in general within NATO? With a few of the members up-arming, does the alliance need one more manoeuvre brigade, or would a couple of air formations be more useful? Corps-level combat and combat support such as artillery and aviation? Is blue water naval capability needed as much as it was in 1980?

 

[GR66]

What's the state of ground forces in general within NATO? With a few of the members up-arming, does the alliance need one more manoeuvre brigade, or would a couple of air formations be more useful? Corps-level combat and combat support such as artillery and aviation? Is blue water naval capability needed as much as it was in 1980?

Canadian troops on the ground at the front prepared to shed their blood beside their European allies fills a political role that other, less exposed capabilities simply can't.

 

[GR66]

This article from The Wavell Room suggests that our militaries may be missing key elements in our ORBATS in light of the scale of drone warfare in Ukraine:

Drones and the Close Battle

Recreational drones are changing the character of the close battle. How is this happening and how should the British Army respond?

wavellroom.com

Some interesting points:

This year the Ukrainian MOD intends to procure 200,000 drones.1 That statement should make defence ministries pause and reflect. It is not evident this is the case. At the end of last year, the UK MOD announced a £129 million deal to procure just over 250 drones (mini- and medium UAS), effectively replacing capability lost with the end-of-service life of drones procured to support operations in Afghanistan. The Ukrainian MOD is seeking to acquire such a large number of drones because around 10,000 are reportedly expended or lost every month.2 The recent UK procurement would last less than one day in Ukraine.

A number of Ukrainian companies began manufacturing drones at the turn of 2014-2015. Well-known brands include Athlon-Avia, Skyeton, DeViRo, Ukrspecssystems and UA Dynamics. The Dnipro-based DeViRo manufactures the RAM II kamikaze drone. UA Dynamics makes Karatel (‘Punisher’).

The war has vastly expanded the production base. There are now around 30 companies in Ukraine mass-producing drones. Several tens of thousands of FPV drones are produced every month. The production is responsive to unit demands, with drone operators telling the firms what frequencies they plan to work on, at what ranges, and with what munitions.

Training on drones in the Ukrainian armed forces is delivered at the ‘Black Raven’ school. The basic course is called ‘Dead Orc’ and lasts three weeks. Trainees complete a mandatory 30 hours in simulators before progressing to live flight training in environments reproducing battlefield conditions. The military school is now supported by as many as 26 commercial trainers that offer five-day courses in quadcopters and FPV drones.

Under the ‘Drone Army’ programme announced on 15 June (a joint project of the Ministry of Defence, the State Special Communications organisation, and the Ministry of Digital Transformation), an ambitious goal has been set to train 10,000 drone operators (7,600 quadcopter operators, 2,000 FPV drone pilots, and 400 fixed-wing drone operators).

New orders of battle needed?​

The Ukrainian MOD is creating ‘an army of drones’ with the intent that each unit be supported by ‘UAV strike companies’. Can we then give ourselves permission to speculate how a British Army infantry or armour/cavalry unit may be organised in a future of proliferating and cheap mini-drones?

• Why can a mortar platoon not be dual-roled as an attack quadcopters platoon? Ukrainian forces are using quadcopters to drop grenades. The difference, obviously, is area fire (a mortar salvo) versus precise fire (a grenade dropped precisely on a target). Both are valid dependent on the target and desired effect.
• Why can a sniper platoon not be dual-roled as a loitering munitions platoon? Sniper pairs spot targets at extended ranges. These can be too distant for a guaranteed hit with a sniper rifle but comfortably in range of a hand-held loitering munition. A loitering munition is just another form of sniping, but at longer ranges and with a ‘bigger bullet’.
• Why can an anti-tank platoon not also be dual-roled as a loitering munitions platoon? On Operation HERRICK, soldiers joked about how they were ‘throwing a Porsche’ at the Taliban when they engaged with a Javelin missile (each costing £76,000 at the time). Cheaper option loitering munitions today sell at $6,000. FPV drones cost a few hundred dollars.
• Why can infantry reconnaissance/ISTAR platoons and armoured/cavalry regiment reconnaissance/ISTAR troops not be armed with a mix of loitering munitions and quadcopters? These sub-units spot enemy at far ranges. Why not engage?
• Why can an infantry company – armoured, mechanised or light – not include a loitering munitions/quadcopters fire support section or platoon?
• Why can Reservist quadcopter and FPV drone detachments not be raised? The Ukrainian armed forces are being supported by a small army of civilian volunteers with a talent for employing hand-held drones for reconnaissance and attack purposes.
• Why can British firms not be challenged to produce cheap, disposable quadcopters and FPV drones for reconnaissance or attack purposes? (The recently published French ‘Loi de programmation militaire 2024-2030’ states an ambition to procure 3,000 drones).

Maybe we need to re-examine our proposed ORBATS and potential roles for our Reserves.

Was the above article written by @Kirkhill ?

 

[Brad Sallows]

Canadian troops on the ground at the front prepared to shed their blood beside their European allies fills a political role that other, less exposed capabilities simply can't.

Sure, but then I wonder if there are people in NATO thinking "Well, we have this under-strength, under-equipped brigade with its own NSE, where the f*ck do we put it?"

 

[Kirkhill]

The problem with big bureaucracies, like the CAF, is rarely enough resources. It's usually the siloes that kill cross-collaboration, and the leadership skills to nimbly reallocate of people and stuff to address emerging needs.

I don't have enough fingers to count the number of projects where we were able to 'magically' reveal that (already existing internal) power to our clients, through actually accomplishing previously unheard of breakthroughs, by bringing cross-organizational teams together to solve previously intractable problems

You mean you actually succeeded by teaching them how to read their own watches?

 

[Kirkhill]

What's the state of ground forces in general within NATO? With a few of the members up-arming, does the alliance need one more manoeuvre brigade, or would a couple of air formations be more useful? Corps-level combat and combat support such as artillery and aviation? Is blue water naval capability needed as much as it was in 1980?

The Aussies are asking the same questions. As are the Brits and the US Marines.

 

[Kirkhill]

Canadian troops on the ground at the front prepared to shed their blood beside their European allies fills a political role that other, less exposed capabilities simply can't.

I'm at the 80%, maybe 90%, agreement with that statement.
I can't accept the terminal "can't".

Sometimes money and lone guarantees are more useful than another few thousand boots at risk.

 

[FJAG]

We have fallen into the habit of using PYs (Person Years) as the metric of choice (@daftandbarmy ).
But the Treasury Board's preferred metric is FTEs or Full Time Equivalents.

Taking Kevin's proposal at face value because I like it and it looks like a useful and realistic starting point big question in my mind is: How many part-timers can I buy for each full-timer? 1 Class C? 2 to 5 Class Bs? 10 to 20 Class As?

I tend to think in FTEs all the time as in my mind is the little question about having "city" units rather than hiding them away in "rural" bases. With that would come a system of postings to a unit/formation in a city for long time (maybe a whole career). That bespeaks perhaps a form of reserve service with full-time employment (including deployments) but no liability for postings. More like the RCMP where one has some choice in whether to accept a promotion and posting or reject it and stay in place.

Anyway that has me looking at the FTE issue and I think that for a proper "break in case of glass" reserve force your FTE changes during the career. In the formative years when getting the basic primary occupational training we should look at full-bore training during summers - so two months for a high school student up to 4 months for a university/college student with a minimal 25 days during the rest of the year. That ends up with an FTE of 0.25 to 0.4 during the first 3 to 4 years. After that, once trained, the steady state demands on reservists should drop dramatically to allow ample time for family and civilian work with just enough continuation training to keep the skills fresh - say 25 days during the winter and 16 to 23 days in the summer. That creates an FTE of roughly 0.1.

To properly budget that you need to be able to factor in the retention/turnover rate but lets assume roughly 20% per year. Which could equate to one 3 year cycle in training at roughly 0.3 FTEs and two 3 year cycles of service at 0.1 FTEs. That puts 1/3 of your reservists in training and 2/3 of your reservists in service. Which puts the overall force at roughly 0.166 FTEs. In other words you can "buy" 6 reservists for every PY and of those 4 should be properly trained for their occupation and another 2 in training.

My thinking is that larger administrative Bde's with integrated PRes could

• either chop RegF units and sub units for rotational peacetime/OOTW deployments, with the Pres elements slotting in to round out the Bde to doctrinal strength
• if the former hasn't happened, deploy the RegF component in it's entirety, using the Pres for depth/sustainment

The idea of having a strength in excess of 100% is a good one. It applies equally to the RegF as the ResF as one constantly has folks who DAG red for various reasons or are gone on career courses.

There are two ways of doing this. Following on from the above where you have 1/3 of reservists in training and 2/3 in service you need to determine if the 1/3 in training is part of a unit or part of a Basic Training Establishment. There are arguments both ways but the bottom line is whether that untrained 33% be within the unit establishment or in a separate BTE so that they do not count against the unit.

I personally like a combination of the two. Basically a recruit is accounted against the BTE while undergoing training but allowed to "acclimatize and identify" with the unit. They will only be accounted against the unit's establishment once fully trained. The unit establishment is based purely on a war time doctrinal structure. On top of that I'd allow some "overstaffing" of the unit establishment to cater to the somewhat fluctuating vagaries of recruit/release cycles. (When you simply can't post people to another base you need some flex built into the system).

I dislike the term "administrative brigades." IMHO every brigade should be fully capable of operational deployment both in the equipment held and the trained strength. During peacetime operational deployments they can function on "ordering" the RegF elements to deploy and filling the blank spaces from volunteers amongst the brigade's and other brigades' ResF personnel. If, however, the balloon goes up, the entire trained strength of the brigade should be liable and capable of deployment as a brigade. I've never liked the "Militia District" concept of a pool of reservists. IMHO it's a waste of resources.

 

[Kirkhill]

This article from The Wavell Room suggests that our militaries may be missing key elements in our ORBATS in light of the scale of drone warfare in Ukraine:

Drones and the Close Battle

Recreational drones are changing the character of the close battle. How is this happening and how should the British Army respond?

wavellroom.com

Some interesting points:





Maybe we need to re-examine our proposed ORBATS and potential roles for our Reserves.

Was the above article written by @Kirkhill ?

This year the Ukrainian MOD intends to procure 200,000 drones.1 That statement should make defence ministries pause and reflect. It is not evident this is the case. At the end of last year, the UK MOD announced a £129 million deal to procure just over 250 drones (mini- and medium UAS), effectively replacing capability lost with the end-of-service life of drones procured to support operations in Afghanistan. The Ukrainian MOD is seeking to acquire such a large number of drones because around 10,000 are reportedly expended or lost every month.2 The recent UK procurement would last less than one day in Ukraine.

200,000 Drones for

The Ukrainian MOD ... has allocated 20 billion hryvnias, or roughly £400 million.3

2000 UKP per "drone".
Patently there are "drones" and there are "drones" as @dimsum is at pains to inform us.

10,000 "drones" per month.
7,000 artillery shells per day.

The cost of a Ukrainian "drone" is broadly similar to the cost of 3 or 4 dumb artillery shells. They are cheaper than Javelins, Excaliburs and even Course Correcting Fuses. They are cheaper than NLAWs and roughly the same price as an AT4.

....

MRZR A4 - 35,000 USD
2x "Drones" - 5000 USD
4x AT4s - 5000 USD
2x NLAWs - 70,000 USD

Total - 115,000 USD

A mobile fire team with self-defense capabilities and sense and communicate capabilities. What price a tablet and a rifle?

1x Javelin CLU - 250,000 USD
2x Javelin Missiles - 500,000 USD

Javelin Total - 750,000 USD.

Call it a million bucks for a 2 man Javelin team with 3 missiles.

New orders of battle needed?​

The Ukrainian MOD is creating ‘an army of drones’ with the intent that each unit be supported by ‘UAV strike companies’. Can we then give ourselves permission to speculate how a British Army infantry or armour/cavalry unit may be organised in a future of proliferating and cheap mini-drones?

• Why can a mortar platoon not be dual-roled as an attack quadcopters platoon? Ukrainian forces are using quadcopters to drop grenades. The difference, obviously, is area fire (a mortar salvo) versus precise fire (a grenade dropped precisely on a target). Both are valid dependent on the target and desired effect.
• Why can a sniper platoon not be dual-roled as a loitering munitions platoon? Sniper pairs spot targets at extended ranges. These can be too distant for a guaranteed hit with a sniper rifle but comfortably in range of a hand-held loitering munition. A loitering munition is just another form of sniping, but at longer ranges and with a ‘bigger bullet’.
• Why can an anti-tank platoon not also be dual-roled as a loitering munitions platoon? On Operation HERRICK, soldiers joked about how they were ‘throwing a Porsche’ at the Taliban when they engaged with a Javelin missile (each costing £76,000 at the time). Cheaper option loitering munitions today sell at $6,000. FPV drones cost a few hundred dollars.
• Why can infantry reconnaissance/ISTAR platoons and armoured/cavalry regiment reconnaissance/ISTAR troops not be armed with a mix of loitering munitions and quadcopters? These sub-units spot enemy at far ranges. Why not engage?
• Why can an infantry company – armoured, mechanised or light – not include a loitering munitions/quadcopters fire support section or platoon?
• Why can Reservist quadcopter and FPV drone detachments not be raised? The Ukrainian armed forces are being supported by a small army of civilian volunteers with a talent for employing hand-held drones for reconnaissance and attack purposes.
• Why can British firms not be challenged to produce cheap, disposable quadcopters and FPV drones for reconnaissance or attack purposes? (The recently published French ‘Loi de programmation militaire 2024-2030’ states an ambition to procure 3,000 drones).

Why nots indeed?

But the key element here is that what the Ukrainians seem to be aiming at is intelligent M72s that can be re-used if the opportunity presents itself. They are looking at a disposable weapon that is an adjunct to the existing structure and increases the capabilities of the existing organizations.

For example, wrt the mortar det: The 60 mm det with a couple of "drones" in their back packs. Launch one drone off-axis to spot the target and call the shots. Keep one drone in hand to drop a 60 mm bomb precisely if precision, not volume, is required.

Was the above article written by @Kirkhill ?

 

[KevinB]

@Kirkhill my point of the two different readiness Medium Bde’s was that one can deploy a BG fairly timely, and if needed to be expanded, expand by moving PRes to Class C.
The 10/90 would then be activated partially or in whole depending upon the nature and duration of the operation.

 

[IKnowNothing]

@Kirkhill my point of the two different readiness Medium Bde’s was that one can deploy a BG fairly timely, and if needed to be expanded, expand by moving PRes to Class C.
The 10/90 would then be activated partially or in whole depending upon the nature and duration of the operation.

But why 2 Bde's and 2 HQ's for that vs a single 5 bn 70/90 (Reg HQ, 2x Reg Bn, 3x Res Bn)?

 

[Kirkhill]

But why 2 Bde's and 2 HQ's for that vs a single 5 bn 70/90 (Reg HQ, 2x Reg Bn, 3x Res Bn)?

Valid question but in my mind the answer is the same as when Kevin suggested a single Division.
If the Div/Bde doesn't completely deploy who handles what is left?

Now, I suppose that the issue can be handled with the OiC having a Deputy AND a Vice. One to handle Admin and Trg/Tng and one to take the field on Ops. But then why not two equals?

 

[IKnowNothing]

Valid question but in my mind the answer is the same as when Kevin suggested a single Division.
If the Div/Bde doesn't completely deploy who handles what is left?

Now, I suppose that the issue can be handled with the OiC having a Deputy AND a Vice. One to handle Admin and Trg/Tng and one to take the field on Ops. But then why not two equals?

That, or having something akin to the current divisional structure remain in place.

 

[Kirkhill]

You know it's funny.

After more than 10 years of debating the issue at least some of us are coming close to saying that the end state isn't a million miles away from the current state. That the Army we have, with its numbers, its kit and its command structure is likely to be able to produce a useful force for the current times.

Whodathunkit?

 

[FJAG]

But why 2 Bde's and 2 HQ's for that vs a single 5 bn 70/90 (Reg HQ, 2x Reg Bn, 3x Res Bn)?

Because you need headquarters as well. They also deploy either in whole or in part. We can't just concentrate on the rifle companies. particularly if you hope to have any force expansion and in having enough people trained in the skills needed to run a brigade and higher.

I'm one of the great fans of reducing the size of the "administrative" headquarters that we have but I also believe that we simply do not have enough deployable operational headquarters - either battalion or brigade.