Progress in the Army

[GO!!!]

You will notice that I only applied the "up or out" policy (hypothetically) to the officer corps. As has been well documented in other threads, we have plenty of officers and a shortage of troops.

My principal problems with the current state of affairs are:
1) Why is my Pl Comd only around for 18 mos before being promoted and replaced?
2) Ditto for the OC?
3) When someone is recycled back to a unit 3-4 times at the same rank, and fu(ks it up every time, why is he still there?
4) How are we in the units constantly burdened with Captains (primarily) but other ranks too, who bemoan their time there, and dance when they are posted back to Kingston/Ottawa/Toronto?

These things tell me we have too many officers, with a dearth of placements for them.

Would it not be more beneficial to keep the management around for 4-6 yrs, in order to properly train (and train with) their unit for war?

And before you launch on how overworked the officers are - when was the last time you saw a unit with a shortage of officers? Was it proportionate to the shortage of men?

 

[GOMERPYLE]

  We don't "silence" people in a democratic country.   We leave that to the Communists, Fascists and assorted tin-pot dictators.

  As for the article, it is a mixture of valid points, distortion and nonsense.   If he feels so badly for the CF, send the government back the money for his university education and ask them to dedicate to the CF.

Nice Wo,

very nice, from gromerpyle

 

[Teddy Ruxpin]

You will notice that I only applied the "up or out" policy (hypothetically) to the officer corps. As has been well documented in other threads, we have plenty of officers and a shortage of troops.

My principal problems with the current state of affairs are:
1) Why is my Pl Comd only around for 18 mos before being promoted and replaced?
2) Ditto for the OC?
3) When someone is recycled back to a unit 3-4 times at the same rank, and fu(ks it up every time, why is he still there?
4) How are we in the units constantly burdened with Captains (primarily) but other ranks too, who bemoan their time there, and dance when they are posted back to Kingston/Ottawa/Toronto?

These things tell me we have too many officers, with a dearth of placements for them.
Would it not be more beneficial to keep the management around for 4-6 yrs, in order to properly train (and train with) their unit for war?

And before you launch on how overworked the officers are - when was the last time you saw a unit with a shortage of officers? Was it proportionate to the shortage of men?

Once again, you're launching without anything to back you up.  "Dance when they are posted back to Kingston/Ottawa/Toronto"?  Have you lost it?  I have never once, in over 16 years of service, heard an officer prefer a staff job to being with a unit.

Who do you think does all the s**ty staff jobs, who plans all the operations and deployments, who sorts out your training, your exercises, fights for more money and does a million other things - all so you can stay in the battalion and rant and rave about something you obviously have little experience with?

Yes, you've succeeded (again) in pushing one of my buttons.  There are reasons why officers have a more rapid turn over - they are required to.  99% would give their left n*t to be in a unit...count yourself lucky that you'll likely never have to leave it.

End of rant....

TR

 

[Infanteer]

Although the wires are crossed and I think an "Up or Out" system would lead to negative effects on the personnel system, I think GO!!! gives us a very sound rational for reducing the size of our Officer Corps.

Less Officers could mean fewer accessions and longer commands, which would be an all-around benefit; giving the Officer substantial time to get even more proficiency in his posting, allowing the Officer and the Troops to build deeper cohesion and more familiarity, and generally gives our Officers more time their boots in the mud.  I'm sure no one can find any cause to disagree with this.

Would the Army be able to handle this though?  Would Staff and Planning suffer if we reduced the amount of Officers?  I'm curious to know the ratio of Officers in Command positions:Officers in Staff, Planning, or Training appointments and whether there are ways of reducing this ratio (which would support the above concept) - certainly, much of the literature seems to indicate that this is the path an Information Age force should move to in an effort to get away from slow and clunky heirarchies.

One solution, which was mentioned in the Force Employment Concept, was that SNCO's and WO's will begin to take up more of the burden of Staff work as their Corps evolves.  This may be impossible to do with the current requirements for training required of our Sergeants and our Warrant Officers, but I definitely think that their unique and vital position within an Army can offer this function alot which it may not of benefited from before.

 

[KevinB]

I actually have seen some of the officer GO! refers to.

Some seem quite content to hide out away from the BN - doing staff job's getting noticed and doing MIN time in BN.  I do undertand the need for Staff (as opposed to Command) officers - but I do think the system is flawed - for it seems to me as the objective NCO  ;D That officer that do well and are respected by the troops don't do as well as the ones who skip off to some Jammy go and do good staff work - coming back and are out of place/out of touch with the BN.

Can I see a fix - NO.  BUT I dont think that an officer that has 12 months BN duty has learned how to command troops - and despite his PER as a Staff weenie is not going to make a good coy 2I/C (or he might do a good job and be hated) - the he makes a poor OC.  Troops have to know and have faith in their officer corp (from pers experience not how well he did on his Cbt Tm Commanders course).

 

[elscotto937]

Quote,
and will only ever be a good Sgt...

..I know, extra heavy on the nitpicking Scott, but this is the kind of wording that drives me banana's.
...how about "and is quite content being a good Sgt"? I can't buy any rank being an "only".

Ack.... but you sifted out what I meant

 

[Edward Campbell]

I do not think we are exceptionally officer/rank heavy.  Others have posted data elsewhere on army.ca which shows that we are fairly middle of the road.

What we do suffer from is small scale which means that, too often, we have cells of two or three officers and maybe one or two NCOs in a HQ where a reasonably sized force would have a unit â “ four or five officers and dozens, perhaps even hundreds of NCOs and soldiers.

The senior staff works hard to protect the small cells â “ and there were a lot of them when I served â “ so that the Canadian Forces can, at least, keep monitoring some important military functions or, better, 'keep the skill alive.'  The end effect is that many soldiers see an apparent surplus of officers â “ usually long in the tooth captains and majors â “ in HQ billets.

In some other cases staff functions â “ and the officers and senior NCOs who do them â “ which should exist in almost every HQ were centralized in one, usually Ottawa, to save on people â “ economies of scale.  This, yet again, creates the appearance of a too large national HQ.  The people doing those jobs would rather be dispersed but that would mean even more staff officers.

Finally, officers have to be trained too and, very often, OJT is the only way to do it.  There is, quite simply, no other way to train company, battalion and brigade commanders â “ they have to learn on the job as platoon, company and battalion commanders.  In order to have an adequate 'pool' of candidates for battalion, brigade, area and national command they (Hillier and his minions) have to push likely officers through command positions in the field more quickly than anyone, especially the officers concerned, would like.

I think I can speak for the overwhelming majority of army officers when I say I still cherish every hour of every day on regimental duty.  That's where I learned my craft â “ the rest (degrees, special courses, staff college and so on) was icing on the cake.  I would, day after day, year after year, have given almost anything â “ including giving up promotion â “ if it had meant going back to regimental duty.  There was important, valuable, but often deadly dull, demanding, frustrating and tiring work to be done in headquarters and we all had to do (or should have done) our share.  Some of us were rather better at staff work than others, perhaps we were better staff officers than regimental officers â “ in any event some of us got 'stuck' in HQ and, at a certain age (about 45, I guess) realized that we were unlikely to become CDS or even an area commander so we buckled down and did the best we could to serve the guys who were doing the jobs for which we could only wish.

I can, personally, confirm that a few warrant officers and chief petty officers said similar things to me over the years.  They didn't really like or enjoy HQ duties but they knew they had to be done by someone with the right mix of skill, knowledge, experience and judgement.

That's my take â “ prejudiced, I admit.

 

[mover1]

I read it and I thought wow. But then I realized that it was nearly a decade old. I was in Aviano at the time and we knew our shortcomings. A word to the wise "If you are ever approached by a senior officer and if he asks how is your equipment. DO NOT GIVE HIM THE ANSWER HE WANTS. TELL THE TRUTH AS YOU SEE IT. but only in your own area of responsability. IE if you don't work in ops but are only a lowly forklift driver, do nottalk about ops doing a bad job.

As well remember WE ARE NOT AMERICA. Just because we are neighbours to a country that at times seems like the annoying Canadian Tire guy. "hey look what I got thats better than yours" Does not mean we have to be a carbon copy of them. A lot of our equipment although in fair lesser numbers than theirs is quite superior.
The US is very different in foreign policy and population. Don't believe everything you read. If we all took responsibility for being the best at what WE do from 9-5 and not worry about what someone else is doing 500 miles away we as an organisation would be thought of as relevant again.

 

[Teddy Ruxpin]

Edward:

Very, very well said. 

Your post is what I should have said last night, but I was too tired and grumpy.

Cheers,

TR

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

GO,

You do ask some good questions.   I do not hope to answer all of them but I will try to give some background on officer career progression.   I will describe a typical RCD officer's progression.   Each MOC is a little different, and indeed each Regiment can approach it with variations but I believe that the basics are the same.

An officer will arrive at the Regt for his first tour normally having just completed Ph IV/DP 1.   Depending on his entry program he can range from 2Lt to Capt.   The Capt bit is new and the subject of some debate.   He will spend between two and three years at the Regt during this tour.   He will most likely be a Recce Troop Leader for two years and perhaps serve a third year as a Tpt Officer or Sqn LO.   There are variations.   Again, his promotion to Capt will depend on his entry plan but he will normally get promoted after three years.

He will then get posted on an ERE (Extra Regimentally Employed).   Roughly half go to the School at Gagetown (to be staff) and the other half go RSS at reserve units.   ERE exists for a variety of reasons.   First, the School and the Reserves need young Captains with fresh Regimental experience (more so for the School).   Hopefully, the ERE will also broaden the experience of the officer.

After this three year ERE the Captain may now get posted back to the Regt.   Not all officers get posted back.   A typical "second tour" for an Armoured officer might involve something like Trg O, Sqn Battle Captain (BC), Sqn 2IC and then Adjt/Ops O, 2IC HQ Sqn over a four year period.

The officer will now get posted again, probably to a Bde HQ or some national level organization.  The lucky ones get promoted and some of those get posted back to be  Recce Sqn Comd.  After Sqn Comd (2 years), the Major will get posted again and may well come back after a few years as the CO.

Why all the postings?  In theory we could have an officer stay at the Regt for ten years non-stop and go from Tp Ldr to CO.  One problem would be that that officer would have a very narrow perspective.  Another would be that the rest of the CF (schools, HQs etc) would not benefit from having officers with recent operational experience coming through.  This is debateable, of course, but my point is that it is not the choice of the individual officer on when and where he gets posted.

In my own case I had a short (two year) tour as an Lt at the Regt.  I wasn't happy about this, but there were people coming in behind me and there was a job that needed to be filled.  I had four years as a Tp Ldr in the reserves so perhaps this played a factor.  From the day I left I was campaigning to come back.After coming back for three years I'm about to leave again (for Kingston).  I'd love to stay but you can't be 2IC HQ Sqn forever.  There are "years" of officers who move through together and it is time for me to leave.  Believe me when I say that I want to come back!  I joined to do the things I do at the Regt and I am at my happiest here.

I hope that this gives some perspective on this.

Cheers,

2B

 

[GO!!!]

While we may be middle of the road in terms of being top heavy, we are falling by the wayside in terms of capabilities - but anyway.

The problem to me seems to be that we are training too many officers in the first place. Several posters have made statements to the effect that "there are other people coming in" and "my time was up". Not their fault, but why were we recruiting people in the first place if they were not required?

Can I have an example of a skill that has been kept alive by staff officers? I'm at a loss - I thought most of these skills resided in the NCO corps (indirect MG fire, pathfinder ops etc.)

In conclusion, our officer training and retention system seems to rely on the assumption that the rest of the army can be "fleshed out" in the event of war, as long as we keep a large and capable officer corps. Knowing that it takes yrs to train TOW section cdrs and LAV crew cdrs, how has this not been addressed? If anything, it takes longer to train from PteR to Cbt support Cpl, than University grad to 2Lt.

Is anything being done to address this?

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

GO,

It does indeed take time to train and develop all soldiers in a professional army.  The year or so of army specific training that a new officer gets is just the start.  A Tp Ldr or Pl Comd is just starting his professional development.  To get a staff qualified Captain takes longer.

Staff officers (let's say Captains with the Kingston qualification) do not really keep a specific skill alive for the army such as indirect machinegun fire.  Hopefully what we do keep resident (along with others of varying ranks) is the first level of the operational art.  This includes the various bits of knowledge, training and experience required to have Battalions and Brigades operate (The Operational Planning Process).  You can't just take a university student off the street and make him an Ops O or Bde G3 after a couple of months of training.  There are other organizational skills besides that staff officers acquire through training and experience.  The Army does not function well without a bunch of "staff" keeping things running.  Of course you can have too many staff officers, but I'm not sure that we are there.

I don't want to get into a circular debate about who is more important or the merits and detractors of the various ranks.  I think that our Army has a good division of labour and there are bigger fish to fry right now.

If you cut back on recruitment for officers you may well end up with "bubbles" later on in the demographics.  This can result in people getting pushed up too quickly to fill the void. 

2B

 

[paracowboy]

never mind. I am a dumbass.  :-[

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I think we did it pretty good here,
http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/23230.0.html

 

[paracowboy]

I think we did it pretty good here,
http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/23230.0.html

uhh, yeah. That'll work.  :-[

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Actually, its a good topic and shouldn't be languishing 6 pages back.

 

[30 for 30]

Hi 2Bravo,

Just to clarify, a new subaltern will normally reach the rank of captain after about three years?

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

RNW,

The plans are all a little different, but for the typical ROTP officer he will be promoted to 2Lt upon graduation from univserity in May (usually before completing MOC training and before he gets to his unit).  Promotion to Lt comes after one year and having completed MOC training.  The standard RMC grad will come to the unit as a 2Lt in August and get promoted to Lt in May of the following year.  Promotion to Capt comes two years after having been a Lt.  So to answer your question, most officers these days get promoted to Capt roughly three years after arriving at their unit.

A DEO officer will be promoted to 2Lt upon completion of BOTC (they already have degree).  Lt won't come until the completion of one year from the date of seniorty (generally enrollment for DEO less LWOP etc) and the completion of MOC training.  Since it can take up to two years to come through the training system he will stay as a 2Lt through training.  Once he finishes Ph IV/DP 1, however, his promotion to Lt should pretty much come automatically (he will have been a 2Lt for at least one year).  As a result, DEO officers tend to get promoted to Capt sooner after arriving at the unit, and it is not uncommon now for some Troop Leaders to be Captains.  Each case is a little different.

I have no idea about specialist officers!

Sorry if this was a little confusing!

2B

 

[Infanteer]

Ahh...Captain - the gimme (like "Corporal") of the Officer Corps.

Whatever happened to Officer Examinations for Rank?

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Promotion exams are sometimes suggested as a cure-all for the CF's ills, but personally I think that they would just lead to a small business in promotion exam study books and would end up being somewhat of a panacea.  What would the exam consist of that is not already covered on OPME, ATOC or AOC? 

Cheers,

2B