TCBF: your mistrust of "good ideas" about Reserve restructure is fully understandable and well-founded. The history of inflicting "good ideas" on the Army Reserve has, unfortunately, often demonstrated that they were not good ideas at all but were actually poorly thought out and harmful. To a great extent, this was (IMHO) due to the imposition of these "good ideas" on the Res with very little understanding of, or input from, the Class A Reserve world. Too often they were dreamed up either solely by Regulars or by a few "token" Reservists who typically had spent years on Class B and C away from the armoury floor and knew not whereof they spoke. These measures were regarded with suspicion and fear by the Res and to a great exent I think were the fuel for groups such as Reserve 2000, etc.
I can see plainly that although we are not fully out of the woods yet, that environment has changed. The role, involvement and voice of Res leadership within the Army (as opposed to standing out on the institutional sidewalk carping) is far, far beyond where it was when I joined the Militia in 1974, or even when I left it in 1982. I believe that this provides certain checks and balances to help guard against excesses such as "Snakes and Ladders", "Op Tasking", "10/90", etc, etc.
Further, it is important that these initiatives be guided by the CLS Intent, but developed by Reservists. This is definitely the case for our two Tac Gp initiatives in 38 CBG. The only RegF person intimately involved in the process was me, in a staff capacity as "scribe" for the proposals. The development and implementation, and the conduct of the info operations to support the implementation, are wholly Reserve, supported by Honoraries. In fact, in a number of our locations there has been talk for some years of going beyonf tac gp to amalgamation: these Res do see the point of it, and certain advantages.
You are probably correct that in absolute terms, amalgamation would not save much money: only six or eight senior posns per Branch per CBG, which overall is not huge $$ in Class A terms. There is a very important advantage to tac gp and amalgamation: they reduce the pressure to source an inordinate number of COs and RSMs, which is a perennial problem, at least in our Bde. Only a small percentage of the soldiers in the unit have the drive, time and qualities to be good COs and RSMs (the same is largely true in the Reg Army...), but as things stand now we must constantly dip well below the quality line just to fill these slots. I have seen clearly what the results of this can be on a Res unit: disastrous. Reservists come to the unit after a day at work or in school because they are motivated to do so. One of the greatest single motivators is the quality of leadership that they receive that keeps them coming back. If you have filled your senior positions (assuming that you can even fill them...) with the "last men standing", you will probably not get this leadership.
Simply restrict each present regt to company size, and add a few extra to do 'Local' and away you go. The kit/accoutrements/tradition aspect of it is a minor administrative price to pay, and cheap dollar wise. The sub units can function as 'primary role is to provide a lt inf coy trained to level(?), as B Coy, Manitoba Inf Rdy Bn' or some such. Then, if we decide we need an NBCD Coy, that Regt could raise a second Coy. Need a CIMIC Coy? Another Regt gets to raise it. A building block approach.
This is almost exactly what exists now, across the Army, if we speak in absolute numbers (ie: a subunit should be 100-200 pers) vice apparent structural size: a "battalion" with one or more "mission elements". There is no institutional desire to make the Res smaller: quite the opposite. At the moment, and for the last few months, our recruiting limits have been lifted and we are doing very well in some locations, not so well in others, but overall we are showing progress.
Cheers.
