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Lack of officers leaves army short of 'heart and soul'

the 48th regulator

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http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/Lack+officers+leaves+army+short+heart+soul/5780927/story.html

Lack of officers leaves army short of 'heart and soul'

Sergeants, captains and majors; Training mission in Afghanistan puts 'long-term health' at risk, report says

By LEE BERTHIAUME, Postmedia NewsNovember 29, 2011



Canada's new training mission in Afghanistan is putting the army's "longterm health" at risk because of the demands being placed on the force's small number of sergeants, captains and other mid-level leaders, a new defence department report indicates.

There are now 19,500 fulltime soldiers in the Canadian army, 3,000 more than in 2004.

The force shrank significantly through the 1990s and early 2000s because of deep budget cuts, but began expanding again with Canada's involvement in combat operations in Kandahar starting in 2005.

That growth, however, hasn't been without its own problems, says the departmental performance report, an annual, internally produced publication that looks back at the department's work over the past year.

"While Regular Force expansion has resulted in the Army having the right number of personnel, they are not distributed through the necessary ranks," the report reads.

It goes on to note that the army is "heavy" in lower ranks like privates, corporals and lieutenants, but "light" when it comes to senior noncommissioned officers such as sergeants as well as midlevel officers such as captains and majors.

Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk recently highlighted the importance of trained NCOs and mid-level officers.

"I cannot go onto the street and hire a sergeant, hire a major, hire a colonel," he told the Commons defence committee on Nov. 3. "If you want a sergeant with 10 years of experience, it takes 10 years."

According to the performance report, military officials had anticipated that the end of the combat mission in Kandahar this past July would free up much-needed sergeants, captains and majors for other tasks.

But the government has since committed Canada to helping train the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police to ensure those two institutions are ready to take responsibility for the country's security by 2014.

The performance report says the Canadian military personnel who will be responsible for this task "are the same ranks which are (in) short (supply) in the army and are required in the training establishments (in Canada) where they preserve the long-term health of the army."

Instead, "the army has been drawing heavily on the militia to fill these gaps."

The militia is the army's name for its 16,000-strong reserve force.

The role of the reserves has come under scrutiny in recent months after a senior general, Andrew Leslie, noted the number serving in the Canadian Forces has grown in recent years by 23 per cent, or more than 6,600, because regular force personnel were needed in Afghanistan.

This growth outpaced the regular force, with many of the so-called "weekend warriors" taking up full-time positions in headquarters and administrative positions.

Leslie recommended slashing the number of full-time reservists to 4,500 as part of an effort to find $1 billion in defence department savings.

The Conservatives blasted past Liberal governments for overcommitting Canada's military, but University of Calgary defence expert Rob Huebert said the Harper government is in danger of doing the same thing.

The sergeants, captains and majors are the "heart and soul" of the army, he said, and their heavy commitment to Afghanistan is worrying for the army's longterm viability.

"Because it's always full capacity in Afghanistan instead of coming back to Canada to do the training," he said, "ultimately you end up eating your own young, so to speak."
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
 
Same article in The National Post with an additional paragraph;

"Huebert said the report also highlights the dangers that are on the horizon as the defence department works to find billions in savings over the next few years."

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/28/canadian-armys-long-term-health-at-risk-due-to-shortage-in-mid-level-leadership/
 
the 48th regulator said:


It goes on to note that the army is "heavy" in lower ranks like privates, corporals and lieutenants, but "light" when it comes to senior noncommissioned officers such as sergeants as well as midlevel officers such as captains and majors.

I found this line particularly interesting because while getting a Captain with a sufficient amount of time in and experience takes relatively the same amount of time as it would a Sgt (10 years), having a "heavy" number of Lt's is a good sign if we're short Captains.  Since an Lt is supposed to remain in rank for 3 years and then be promoted to Captain (in some cases they are accelerated and promoted in only 2), we're at most only 3 years away from having more Captains available as long as attrition does not outpace intake/training.

We're still hurting from the FRP of the 90's though, and my fear is that with 2013 coming up fast with potential budget cutbacks galore, the government may not have learned from their mistakes.
 
A bit more from the "Land Readiness" section of the DPR to show you a bit more of what's written in the source document around the media-quoted bits:
Lessons Learned
A strategic reconstitution directive should be issued to ensure that activity is co ordinated across the Department. A clear and agreed understanding of expected readiness levels is essential for the development of plans for equipment fielding and repair, and collective training programmes. A joint and comprehensive approach to planning is necessary if reconstitution and reorientation planning is to be effective and efficient. Army commanders and staff continue to engage with the Air Force and Navy as new capabilities such as MHLH and C IED are institutionalised, and with OGDs such as NRCan as Arctic capabilities are further developed.

While Regular Force expansion has resulted in the Army having the right number of personnel, they are not distributed through the necessary ranks. The Army is heavy in Privates, Corporals and Lieutenants, but light in Senior Non Commissioned Officers (NCO), Captains and Majors. The Army has been drawing heavily on the Militia to fill these gaps. It was anticipated that the end of Op ATHENA would result in a lowered demand for Militia augmentation. This is not the case, due to the mid level leadership bill associated with Op ATTENTION. These are the same ranks which are short in the Army and are required in the training establishments where they preserve the long term health of the Army. Long range operational planning must be coupled to the Army's personnel plans in order to anticipate shortfalls in high demand ranks and trade qualifications and to mitigate such spikes in demand.
"Land Readiness" section attached in full - full DPR available here.
 
I find the below quote to be confusing:

According to the performance report, military officials had anticipated that the end of the combat mission in Kandahar this past July would free up much-needed sergeants, captains and majors for other tasks.

"Military officials" had figured that come this past July, that everyone would be pulled out?  It's been obvious for years that we'd be staying to train, not as a combat force.  However, that's me speaking as a current civvie, not an active member.  ;)
 
Personnel are a long lead-time item.  Want a new Sergeant?  It will be 10-15 years, minimum, so get your orders in today.

Unfortunately, military personnel management and force generation from civilian to trained soldier is not well understood, even within the military.  If you're late to define the requirement, the requirement will be late to be filled.  And if your "new" thing is a high priority, it means you'll be robbing people from lower priorities until the recruiting and trainng systems can catch up.  Worse still is new demands without new people - and a lack of will to divest functions to free up the positions for the people needed.
 
dapaterson said:
Worse still is new demands without new people - and a lack of will to divest functions to free up the positions for the people needed.
  :nod:

Known variously as "my personnel-intensive 'leading change' bright idea" and "my empire" are more important than your operation's pers requirement.
 
The other danger, not mentioned yet in this thread, is that to catch up to the numbers we need, the army will happily accept sub-par personnel into those ranks, based simply upon qualification, not merit. Something I am witnessing already.
 
Canadian.Trucker said:
I found this line particularly interesting because while getting a Captain with a sufficient amount of time in and experience takes relatively the same amount of time as it would a Sgt (10 years), having a "heavy" number of Lt's is a good sign if we're short Captains.  Since an Lt is supposed to remain in rank for 3 years and then be promoted to Captain (in some cases they are accelerated and promoted in only 2), we're at most only 3 years away from having more Captains available as long as attrition does not outpace intake/training.

We're still hurting from the FRP of the 90's though, and my fear is that with 2013 coming up fast with potential budget cutbacks galore, the government may not have learned from their mistakes.

Unfortunately, this isn't really true.  Newly promoted captains (even if not accelerated) do not solve this problem.  In the Canadian Forces especially, there is significant difference between a new captain and a senior captain (i.e. with a few years of experience under his belt), yet they are all lumped together when people start playing the statistics game.

The problem with promoting people too quickly based simply on them having all the ticks in the box is that these folks really only know how things are supposed to work.  They don't have the experience to be able to deal with things when they don't.

"Where's the kaboom?  There was supposed to be a great earth-shattering kaboom!" 
 
Canadian.Trucker said:
I found this line particularly interesting because while getting a Captain with a sufficient amount of time in and experience takes relatively the same amount of time as it would a Sgt (10 years), having a "heavy" number of Lt's is a good sign if we're short Captains.  Since an Lt is supposed to remain in rank for 3 years and then be promoted to Captain (in some cases they are accelerated and promoted in only 2), we're at most only 3 years away from having more Captains available as long as attrition does not outpace intake/training.

Sort of... There are Captains and then there are Captains. It's one thing to say that a position needs a Captain but when you have guys taking 2 years to get through the training system, like me, getting promoted after only spending one year at the Regiment does not mean that you are an experienced officer.  There is a big difference between the recently promoted Captain on his/her first Regimental employment and the AOC qualified Captain at the end of his/her first ERE. As a junior Captain (and I'm 2 months away from being one) you don't know very much about the Army outside of your trade and especially not outside of your element. Never mind AOC, most Lt's get promoted without ATOC.

There is a big bulge in the Artillery trade right now of Lt's and in 3-4 years the problem of a lack of Capt's will be solved. That being said, the experience that my generation is gaining is arguably not as good as those of previous generations. Because of the lack of experienced Capt's in the Regiment, we are probably not getting the same level of mentoring that we would have received in the past. This means that we are probably better as figuring out things on our own but I am sure that I have numerous "unknown, unknowns" right now that will only come to light in time.

My  :2c: on the situation right now.
 
If you guys re-read my post while I didn't go into huge detail detail I did say "...getting a Captain with a sufficient amount of time in and experience..."  So yes, there is a difference between a Captain and a Captain with experience and time in to a sufficient level to make them effective at many levels and positions.  I was just simply stating that if there is a bulge of Lt's right now it's a good sign because there is a light at the end of the tunnel to at least help to solve the lack of Captain's in the mid-term.  In this short term we are still left with the lack of personnel, nothing we can do at this point except continue to train, grow and take our lessons learned from the past in the hopes to not repeat them.
 
jeffb said:
Never mind AOC, most Lt's get promoted without ATOC.

ATOC, I think, is part of the current problem. ATOC, in my mind, was never meant for Lts to go on. It is for Capts that have a little bit of experience and they know, in general terms, how things work outside of their trade. Unfortunately, that is not how most Army trades seem to look at it.

Sending Lts 6 months out of Phase 4 on ATOC will not fix our problem of having too many Lts and not enough Capts. An Lt with ATOC is....still an Lt, not a Capt waiting to be promoted and still has that lack of experience and knowledge.

The only thing that can fix that, is time. A course qualification will not.

Wook
 
Wookilar,
Exactly, how many times over the years on this website have I read things from folks who couldn't do certain things because they weren't the right rank?  From an outsider the military seems to think that promoting rank also promotes experience and intelligence.

 
ATOC is an excellent course for Lieutenants.  It should be targetted towards Lieutenants and be a prerequisite for promotion to Captain (and not after 6 months from DP1 completion).

JeffB has raised an issue that I've harped before with the problem with 2nd Lieutenant being a training rank and Lieutenant being a speed bump to Captain.
 
Infanteer said:
ATOC is an excellent course for Lieutenants.  It should be targetted towards Lieutenants and be a prerequisite for promotion to Captain (and not after 6 months from DP1 completion).

JeffB has raised an issue that I've harped before with the problem with 2nd Lieutenant being a training rank and Lieutenant being a speed bump to Captain.

Can't we just make sure that they get the right experience in the units before being promoted? I've got a sneaking suspicion that we are layering on more formal courses in place of proper mentoring and hands on experience. I'd prefer the latter, especially for junior officers who've already spent over a year in one kind of training or another.
 
However, the CF has at last count over 114 General Officers and over 350 Colonel or equivalent officers! Talk about overkill, get rid of 1/2 and devote the $$$$ resources to the areas where they can be better used.
 
Grapeshot said:
However, the CF has at last count over 114 General Officers and over 350 Colonel or equivalent officers! Talk about overkill, get rid of 1/2 and devote the $$$$ resources to the areas where they can be better used.

Which half?

What areas where they can be better used?

How 'bout I take your question, delete "over 114 General Officers and over 350 Colonel or equivalent", and insert "X artillery"?
 
Grapeshot said:
However, the CF has at last count over 114 General Officers and over 350 Colonel or equivalent officers! Talk about overkill, get rid of 1/2 and devote the $$$$ resources to the areas where they can be better used.

Do you mean reduce the CF establishment by 232 personnel then ask Treasurey Board not to claw back the MILPAY $$$ from Vote 1 allocations, but rather let the CF keep the personnel-related money to use for capital acquistition and in-service support?  An honest question here...how familiar are you with the FAA and pers-related TB policies and guidelines? 

As an aside, I'm intrigued with your assessment of the need to elimiate "1/2" of the GO and Colonels.  With the effort that you potentially put into your assessment, perhaps you meant that the actual figure for deliberate reduction should be 5.0000x101% (accurate to five significant digits)


Regards
G2G
 
Sorry, never did a tour in NDHQ, unlike some who spend their entire careers there!  This was posted as food for thought, in particular since DND is undergoing Strategic review which usually translates into a 5% budget cut along with the potential 5% or 10% options that all federal departments must preset to TB this fiscal. Looking at the actual cost of the higher ranks as contained in the Cost Factors Manual, getting rid of 1/3 of the Senior Officers would provide sufficient funds to pay for a light battalion of soldiers! In the current climate, what is the better value? Better still, maybe we could purchase a tail fin for an F-35.

I also noticed from some of your other posts that you seem to have identified where the "bloat" is in all the extra HQ's that General Rick was attempting to cut! Perhaps you could be of help; send your resume in to work as a consultant! Genreal Andy left some $$$ to hire a few of them.
 
So you don't have much to offer except conjecture and cheapshots ?
 
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