Informing the Army’s Future Structure

[Brad Sallows]

Who was sharing when there were 4 units at Bay St?

 

[quadrapiper]

No.
CJOC does not need more force generation responsibilities to distract from its force employment reason to exist. This would create more new HQs but may not remove any existing HQs.

Sorry - might not have been clear. Meant standalone brigade HQs; no FG other than their own internal evolutions, to be bundled with whatever unit mix makes sense for a given deployment.

Separately, build the FG/DOMOPS part of the Army on the assumption that nothing above the battalion level will be deploying as a formed unit, but may have some command responsibility for operations within its own footprint in Canada. Would you need to maintain fourteen C(M)BG HQs and four division HQs to make that happen?

 

[quadrapiper]

AFAIK there are:

• 2 x Offrs Messes
• 2 x SNCOS Messes
• 2 x JRs Messes
• 2 x Association offices (unsure of the alcohol content but based on the results... )
• 1 x Band Room (a.k.a, the unofficial Shebeen)

Plus what ever the Cadet Officers have to drink to get them through a session of looking after kids like I was

And then there are:

• 2 x Museums
• 2 x BOR Offices
• 2 x Recruiting Offices
• 2 x RSS Adjt's Offices
• 2 x Coy/Bty Offices
• 2 x Adm Coy/ HQ Coy Offices
• 2 x CO's Offices
• 2 x Padre's Offices
• 2 x Ops Offices (where the RSS hang out talking about the Reg F 'back in my day' )
• 2 x Cadet Offices
• 1 x (broken) SAT range
• 1 x 12 person conference room with a screen capable of hosting video meetings when it's not broken (I've never seen it working)
• A half dozen Office spaces 'in the roof' that are unusable due to lack of DIN connections, and the fact that they were designed and built in 1915 before anyone cared about whether or not you had to egress successfully during a fire, so are usually filled with junk from the museums and BORs etc.

And then there is, all on its lonesome:

• 1 x 20/25 person lecture/training theatre with the latest high tech training addition: a whiteboard.

It's always been pretty clear to me, though, that based on what the two CO's can get into trouble for the space allocation is pretty much on target ...

And here I thought the messes were the worst imposition on the place.

Is there a practical need for each unit to have its own everything?

 

[daftandbarmy]

And here I thought the messes were the worst imposition on the place.

Is there a practical need for each unit to have its own everything?

No. Not at all.

Except for ego gratification purposes, of course

 

[CBH99]

I never minded borrowing; I took it for granted that each unit alone would not have enough of some things. What I took exception to was the culture.

Example: send trucks to support summer training camps (Vernon, Nanaimo), with reminder from the HQ transport to include full EIS; receive trucks back at end of summer stripped.

Example: send box amb to support an RV ex; receive damaged (not broken) unit back, VOR for a couple of months during high demand period (autumn) - not because of motor vehicle accident, but because of abuse and neglect.

Example: ordered to send fully stocked panniers to support summer training and cadet camps; receive panniers back pillaged.

Example: loan canvas in good condition; receive back different (and deficient) canvas (not due to the kind of shuffling which must happen during large collective exercises, but deliberate exchange by a single borrowing unit).

Best part: sanctimonious regimental officers of prominent units who would brook no criticism, while their corporals are openly bragging about stripping EIS, swapping eqpt, etc.

All resolvable (and not a bit of it unique - I'd be surprised to meet anyone who spent at least a year in a Res F unit's supply/transport section and encountered none of it) but the supply system takes time and is (or was) capable of occasionally being snotty about it. Meanwhile, Sep and Oct are good months for training, so borrow what you're waiting for from someone else...

I agree with you about the culture being a big problem. What I was trying to get at was, if each unit just had enough vehicles to support themselves, then most of those issues wouldn't even exist.

We are talking (back in my day anyway, so this may be a bit outdated) - 2 working ML's per unit, maybe more if the unit is larger. When I was in, the units in Red Deer, Medicine Hat, and Lethbridge could all do just fine with 2 working ML's, and a few working LS's. The units aren't that big, and they don't need that many vehicles. (Calgary Highlanders on the other hand, during the Afghan War days, were a pretty big unit and were quite busy training up & deploying sub-units, so their vehicle needs would be greater.)

If the reserve force had just the bare minimum in terms of working vehicles, we wouldn't have to borrow vehicles from each other, or lend vehicles to summer training camps. That crappy culture of pillaging parts off of loaned vehicles wouldn't be able to exist.



It just blows my mind that as a G7 country, and a NATO nation, we literally have to count on one hand whether we have enough vehicles to operate even domestically - despite DOMOPS being a very frequent & routine thing now. If anything, a unit should have 2 or 3 MSVS (or however many they require) - plus some extra vehicles in a pool somewhere that can be used as required. I don't even think Boko Haram has to pillage vehicles the way we do.

(The current plan, as far as I understand, is to acquire somewhere between 650 and 1,100 medium trucks for the Army. That's a pretty big gap. If we are only replacing these vehicles every 2 or 3 decades, shouldn't we be buying on the higher side, closer to the 1,100? For all of the reasons above, and then some.)


0.02

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Part of the problem is we see trucks as Capital Assets and not depreciating disposable items that they are. Our Milcots should be rotated out every 10 years. 15 years for tactical trucks. Literally we need a NSS for Milcot/tactical vehicles. Also if you buy a portion of your fleet every few years then you always have trucks coming in and ones being surplused. This means less maintenance as well.

 

[McG]

Sorry - might not have been clear. Meant standalone brigade HQs; no FG other than their own internal evolutions, to be bundled with whatever unit mix makes sense for a given deployment.

You were clear. You are proposing to take the job of force generating formation HQs away from the Army and make it a CJOC problem. The Army invests massive resources into generating those HQs, and dumping that work on CJOC is a distraction from the reason the command exists. You are also going to increase the number of formation HQs by creating separate deployable vs administrative Bde HQs. There is nothing good in the idea.

 

[MilEME09]

Part of the problem is we see trucks as Capital Assets and not depreciating disposable items that they are. Our Milcots should be rotated out every 10 years. 15 years for tactical trucks. Literally we need a NSS for Milcot/tactical vehicles. Also if you buy a portion of your fleet every few years then you always have trucks coming in and ones being surplused. This means less maintenance as well.

Would also mean slow upgrades too, a imagine a milcot built off a 2021 Silverado would be vastly different from the 2003 model.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Having to share makes more effective use of limited equipment. Provided there were a fleet rotation policy, having more vehicles sitting in Res F compounds would not bother me. Of course that introduces the problem of receiving worn out hangar queens in exchange for dependable vehicles.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Somebody asked a few pages back (before the topic of Reserve messes came up) about what it would take to field a Division. I've been part of such exercises in a European general war context as part of Div staff. Fielding the manoeuvre brigades is part of it, but that is just the beginning. You need the mobile and survivable communications architecture for all of that. You need Division-level sustainment units. You need Division-level fire support: Attack helicopters (and not Griffons with Dillon guns) and MLRS are required to give the Div Comd the ability to prosecute his battle and shape the fight for his brigades. The good news is that a Div does not normally have lots of bridging...

I was part of the execution of one of these as a Cdn Div with the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps in a CAX setting (although we fought a fictional foe...) It is good to think and train at that level, although I am not sure just how likely such a scenario would be. There are lots of policy off-ramps for an aggressor against NATO.

The EFPs are meant to deter someone being opportunistic leading to such a situation. They deter against a "little green men/coup de main" scenario where a fairly bloodless attack is presented as a fait accompli.

There is also a NATO Response Force (NRF), command of which passes between Joint Force Command Naples and Joint Force Command Brunssum. There are Canadians in both of those HQs, I believe weighted more heavily towards Naples. Canada contributes to the NRF, and the Trident Juncture (TFJE) series exercised that (and had CAX that confirmed the JFC). TRJE 18 saw the Canadian army deploy a Bde HQ, a light infantry battalion with support to Norway by ship. The NRF is an important frame within which to determine what capabilities we need to develop.

There are also entities called NFIUs (NATO Force Integration Units) in eight NATO countries (including all of the Baltics) that plan and enable the flow of NATO forces into those countries and subsequent sustainment. The NFIUs are a great innovation, and have "on the ground" ties with the host nation. Canadians have been part of those. Some NATO nations have "port opening units" which were in great demand as seven Brigades flowed into Norway by ship in 2018.

The Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) that is a roughly brigade-sized element (I think its up to five battalions). The HQ and forces for this come from the NATO Troop Contributing Nations (TCNs) on a rotational basis. In 2018 the Italians were the Bde HQ and one of the Bns: they did Ex Brilliant Jump as a prequel to Trident Juncture. I believe their remit was to be somewhere in NATO within days, enabled potentially by the NFIUs. I am sure that some here would like to jump on the VJTF, but I think the NRF with a Bde HQ and a BG makes the most sense for us.

I do believe that we should be able to surge a CMBG for something like the NRF. There is some capability development to be done if we intend to do this in a full-on European war context, perhaps less so if it was something like OIF. I posted all of this to highlight that Canada does not act in a vacuum in Europe. We are part of NATO, and a component of the trans-Atlantic bond.

 

[Kirkhill]

RCA A&B Batteries and Militia School - 1871
Infantry School Corps - 1883
Cavalry School Corps -1883

Security Forces Assistance Brigade - British Army
OMLTs and PRTs

Operationalize the CADTC
Shortage of Trainers.

10/90 Battalions - 1983
Battalion officers - S3 Major - Ops and Training
A Militia Battalion (with Militia LCol if available) with a Reg force Trg Cadre that can be withdrawn intact for operations.

Mountain & Arctic Warfare Cadre - RM
Operational role in recce
Training role in training.


Some disjointed thoughts.

 

[Kirkhill]

Subsequent thoughts

Infantry-centric and therefore not applicable to every other arm but

10 platoons per Reserve battalion
9 Reserve Rifle Platoons organised in 3 companies
1 Reg force Recce Platoon with Major and staff - S3 Trg and Ops - Local High Readiness and Training Cadre

Addresses anticipated high casualties among the infantry

Problems with deciding number of platoons per each of 51 reserve infantry units, collocation, local training and group training, number of Reg platoons tasked.

Does nothing to address crew served weapons requirements, tactical employment and does nothing at all for every other arm.


Back to John A MacDonald's observation - too much geography.

 

[medic5]

Subsequent thoughts

Infantry-centric and therefore not applicable to every other arm but

10 platoons per Reserve battalion
9 Reserve Rifle Platoons organised in 3 companies
1 Reg force Recce Platoon with Major and staff - S3 Trg and Ops - Local High Readiness and Training Cadre

Addresses anticipated high casualties among the infantry

Problems with deciding number of platoons per each of 51 reserve infantry units, collocation, local training and group training, number of Reg platoons tasked.

Does nothing to address crew served weapons requirements, tactical employment and does nothing at all for every other arm.


Back to John A MacDonald's observation - too much geography.

Would you ever deploy said platoons? If not, then this is another administrative formation, which is more or less the same as what we have right now.

You can't have half a platoon in one unit, a weapons section in another, then expect them to work well together unless they regularly participate in exercises together, which requires job protection at a federal level.

Reserve restructuring is impossible unless our political leaders actually make an effort for it. Geography is a challenge yes, but the US ARG has figured it out in some of their less densely populated states. If they can put together deployable BCTs, surely we can deploy at least battalion sized units right? There just needs to be the political will to do so.

 

[FJAG]

... Reserve restructuring is impossible unless our political leaders actually make an effort for it. Geography is a challenge yes, but the US ARG has figured it out in some of their less densely populated states. If they can put together deployable BCTs, surely we can deploy at least battalion sized units right? There just needs to be the political will to do so.

I'll go a step further and say that it needs the will of both our political leaders, our military ones and the defence bureaucracy.

For me the hallmark situation is the 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team from the Idaho ARNG but with battalion sized units also in Nevada, Montana and Oregon encompassing an area only slightly smaller than that covered by the lower portion of BC and the Prairies but also with a slightly smaller population then its Canadian western counterparts.

If they can field a heavy armored brigade combat team then so could western Canada. Ontario and Quebec could easily form three to four BCTs/brigades while the Maritimes would be hard pressed to form one half of a brigade group but could easily, when integrated with Reg F units there, form a smaller hybrid combat support brigade.

The materiel is there; the model exists south of us; the only thing missing is the will.

 

[GR66]

The materiel is there; the model exists south of us; the only thing missing is the will.

If by "materiel" you mean the troops in the Reserves then you're right, but the actual physical materiel is the problem.

We can't (i.e. "won't") equip our Reg Force with the absolutely vital military equipment they need to survive in a peer conflict. There is no way in a million years I can see the Canadian government (of any party) spending the money to equip the Reserves with several Brigades worth of modern military equipment....and the extra personnel training bill, and the expanded facilities and training areas to handle them, and the logistics, and the maintenance, etc.

Is it literally doable from a pure economic point of view? Sure. We're a wealthy G7 country. If the political will was there then we would find a way to do it. But that's the hitch. There is no political will to do it. And frankly just like prior to WWI and WWII I can't imagine the situation changing during peacetime. Sad but true.

 

[FJAG]

If by "materiel" you mean the troops in the Reserves then you're right, but the actual physical materiel is the problem.

We can't (i.e. "won't") equip our Reg Force with the absolutely vital military equipment they need to survive in a peer conflict. There is no way in a million years I can see the Canadian government (of any party) spending the money to equip the Reserves with several Brigades worth of modern military equipment....and the extra personnel training bill, and the expanded facilities and training areas to handle them, and the logistics, and the maintenance, etc.

Is it literally doable from a pure economic point of view? Sure. We're a wealthy G7 country. If the political will was there then we would find a way to do it. But that's the hitch. There is no political will to do it. And frankly just like prior to WWI and WWII I can't imagine the situation changing during peacetime. Sad but true.

I definitely meant the troops.

The equipment I've been calling mostly deficient ever since the '60s when it was still in many ways up to par with the Reg F though in smaller quantities.

You know it's not so much in spending a lot on new gear for the reserves. If we just stopped trashing our old but still viable gear it would be helpful for training (and yes, I know there are maintenance issues but that's not insurmountable) We could still have AVGPs, Leo 1s, ADATS and M109s and now could hold onto TLAVs, Cougars and other gear. Yes its not the best, yes it needs work but it would provide a training vehicle and even have some utility in certain situations. It's amazing how much work young kids will do to keep old clunkers on the road.

And I sometimes wonder how cheap a rate we could get from the Americans if we wanted to lease some of that gear sitting idle in the Nevada desert? My guess is pretty darn cheap. A few M1, M2 and Paladin battalions would really ramp up recruiting and retention.

More realistically, and having nothing whatsoever to do with the government, the simple fact is that reserves need gear for training mostly in the summer which is usually the time of year when the Reg F doesn't need it. If the Reg F gear was shared for training it would go a long way into having reserves more capable for augmentation roles. The trouble is that while there are some local initiatives of this type, there is no Army wide program to require this.

But the real underlying fundamental problem is the way the reserves are organized and their basic terms of service which could easily be fixed by some tweaking but which the leadership won't do. Unit consolidation, mandatory training, obligatory periods of service, employee protection legislation are all needed to fix the atrocious turnover rates and the reserves inability to advance to meaningful collective training.

The people are great and if we treated them better we could get so much more out of them.

 

[medic5]

And I sometimes wonder how cheap a rate we could get from the Americans if we wanted to lease some of that gear sitting idle in the Nevada desert? My guess is pretty darn cheap. A few M1, M2 and Paladin battalions would really ramp up recruiting and retention.

Most of my friends aren't aware that Canada even has a military, and nobody knows that you can join the reserves in high school. It's definitely an issue, when most students are considering summer/part time jobs, they don't even know its an option. Simple solution: send recruiters to schools. Perhaps bring a few plastic rifles, some CADPAT, and the ability to start your application on the spot. All your recruiting problems for the Reserves are gone. Retention? That's far more difficult. Contracts are probably a good place to start.

About equipment, what about Humvees? Super easy to maintain, they aren't that large, you could probably just park it next to the armoury. It's not particularly useful, but at least its a vehicle right?

 

[Brad Sallows]

No worse than using CJs to practice recce.

 

[daftandbarmy]

No worse than using CJs to practice recce.

I used one as a AVGP in a Combat Team Attack once.

There weren't enough APCs for everyone and I thought it better that a rifle section got the one meant for the Cbt Tm Comd. So I just commandeered a Jeep from the umpires, which already had a radio, and 'Tally Ho'!

It was kind of fun weaving in and out between the Leo 1s and the APCs in the assault.

For me and the driver

 

[Brad Sallows]

A man must live dangerously.