South Alberta Light Horse Regiment to amalgamate with larger reserve force

[IKnowNothing]

Personally I’m of the opinion that it makes no sense to acquire “training” equipment, and that any equipment should be operational items.

Which I one reason I believe in cascading equipment. If you expect an item has a service life of X years, then it goes to a ‘Category A’ unit for 1/2X then to a ‘Category B’ unit for the remained of the service life.
*ideally it would go for 1/3rd then 1/3rd and then go to WarStock, as well as an overage of 25% equipment acquired for OpStock as well.

I think we can all agree that the LAV 6.0 isn’t the ideal IFV for European fighting.

So you would create a Program for a Heavy Infantry Combat Vehicle -Tracked
600 or so. 400 for a Heavy Bde tasked to Europe, and 200 for OpStock.
*~70/BN plus FOO, Engineer, AD/C-UAS etc vehicles.

.

My thoughts are in the "walk before you can run" realm and focusing on getting some realistic quick wins to so that the bigger changes have something to work from.

LUVW replacement is a necessary and funded program that could be/have been used thread the needle with a vehicle that can be operational (albeit not as a frontline AFV) but is also something that the reserves can handle now- high reliability, low maintenance, low training delta- and available now at a low enough cost that we can still afford all the other things needed.

Start your Heavy Infantry Combat Vehicle - Tracked program now, and in the years it takes to decide and start delivery you've had years of formed, equipped, and tasked reserve platoons/troops doing jobs in total force CMBGs

 

[FJAG]

lol Whoa I am not suggesting it be replicated. Merely suggesting that perhaps a common headquarters for the ARes would allow them some advocacy.

There actually is someone like that. There is a brigadier-general position on the army commander's staff called the Director General Army Reserve who is responsible for advising the commander on reserve matters. He does not command the Army Reserve because all of the units come under the command of the divisional commanders who command both the RegF and ResF brigades in his region.

Each major component/element - army, navy, air force, health services, legal branch etc have such an advisor. They sit together as an advisory council under the Chief of Reserves that meets regularly - approximately monthly or so - to be briefed on, discuss and advise on pan-reserves issues.

While command isn't there, advocacy is, however, as I mentioned above: there is a difference between advocating and having your advice heard and acted on. (or for that matter reaching a consensus as a group)

 

[dapaterson]

In the early 2000s the Army had a team of full time Reserve pers on the Army HQ to reform / restructure the Army Res (LFRR). It was, to be polite, a catastrophic failure. They viewed themselves as "ideas people" who made little to no effort to implement anything - despite millions of dollars being held by the VCDS to deliver.

Until the structural failings of the Army Reserve are addressed you can't resource the structure. And the Army Reserve is more interested in preserving unnecessary unit and Bde HQs than in becoming a relevant force.

 

[daftandbarmy]

In the early 2000s the Army had a team of full time Reserve pers on the Army HQ to reform / restructure the Army Res (LFRR). It was, to be polite, a catastrophic failure. They viewed themselves as "ideas people" who made little to no effort to implement anything - despite millions of dollars being held by the VCDS to deliver.

Until the structural failings of the Army Reserve are addressed you can't resource the structure. And the Army Reserve is more interested in preserving unnecessary unit and Bde HQs than in becoming a relevant force.

Speak of the Devil...

[Progress report I - Land Force Reserve Restructure] : D3-14/2002E-PDF - Government of Canada Publications - Canada.ca

Publication information / bibliographic Record.

publications.gc.ca

I recall attending some talks by some in this group and came away with the impression that they were going to, somehow, destroy the organization they were supposed to reinforce by installing themselves as some kind of Junta/Strata Council.

Stayed well away from it after that....

Is this the same group? I can't tell.

Home

Expand Canada's Army Reserve / Élargissez la réserve de l'armée canadienne

reserves2000.ca

 

[dapaterson]

Speak of the Devil...

[Progress report I - Land Force Reserve Restructure] : D3-14/2002E-PDF - Government of Canada Publications - Canada.ca

Publication information / bibliographic Record.

publications.gc.ca

I recall attending some talks by some in this group and came away with the impression that they were going to, somehow, destroy the organization they were supposed to reinforce by installing themselves as some kind of Junta/Strata Council.

Stayed well away from it after that....

Is this the same group? I can't tell.

Home

Expand Canada's Army Reserve / Élargissez la réserve de l'armée canadienne

reserves2000.ca

LFRR was internal. R2K was external pressure to maintain the status quo.

 

[FJAG]

and leather vests for day to day field work. Of course Coveralls with webbing could be the standard training uniform and that would be part of our heritage

I was really thinking about service and garrison dress issues. I have a whole different and much more practical approach to field wear.

That said, I tend to think that the army should parade much more often in fighting order than service dress. In those circumstances there should also be a "uniform" look regardless of how much customization you allow in the field.

In the early 2000s the Army had a team of full time Reserve pers on the Army HQ to reform / restructure the Army Res (LFRR). It was, to be polite, a catastrophic failure. They viewed themselves as "ideas people" who made little to no effort to implement anything - despite millions of dollars being held by the VCDS to deliver.

Until the structural failings of the Army Reserve are addressed you can't resource the structure. And the Army Reserve is more interested in preserving unnecessary unit and Bde HQs than in becoming a relevant force.

Oh Lord. Why are you dredging up these terrible memories for me? Those were my years on CRes&C Council.

LFRR was a shining vision of reform that quickly destroyed the last bit of optimism that I had. If it wasn't for the pan-services Reserve Force Employment Project (RFEP) which was going on at around the same time then I would have considered LFRR the worst program ever.

Even the reserve pension program became a big dissatisfier, IMHO. First that it took seven years to come into effect. They also refused to consider my favorite bugbear in that while there are credits for every day paraded (what I call the "what are you doing for me today?" benefit - designed to favour Class Bs ) there was none for years of service in general (or designed to reward long term Class A service).

In my contribution for "With A Few Guns Vol2" I'm looking at artillery (army) transformation during Afghanistan and I'm about to embark on researching all things army (including reserve reform). If you can point me to some open source documentation covering that, I'd appreciate it.

 

[dapaterson]

I was really thinking about service and garrison dress issues. I have a whole different and much more practical approach to field wear.

That said, I tend to think that the army should parade much more often in fighting order than service dress. In those circumstances there should also be a "uniform" look regardless of how much customization you allow in the field.



Oh Lord. Why are you dredging up these terrible memories for me? Those were my years on CRes&C Council.

LFRR was a shining vision of reform that quickly destroyed the last bit of optimism that I had. If it wasn't for the pan-services Reserve Force Employment Project (RFEP) which was going on at around the same time then I would have considered LFRR the worst program ever.

Even the reserve pension program became a big dissatisfier, IMHO. First that it took seven years to come into effect. They also refused to consider my favorite bugbear in that while there are credits for every day paraded (what I call the "what are you doing for me today?" benefit - designed to favour Class Bs ) there was none for years of service in general (or designed to reward long term Class A service).

In my contribution for "With A Few Guns Vol2" I'm looking at artillery (army) transformation during Afghanistan and I'm about to embark on researching all things army (including reserve reform). If you can point me to some open source documentation covering that, I'd appreciate it.

I know of little to no outputs from LFRR, open or closed sourc e. I do recall Fitch and Tabbernor abandoning planning and announcing "recruit until your eyes bleed", with no plan to train those recruits.

 

[FJAG]

Speak of the Devil...

[Progress report I - Land Force Reserve Restructure] : D3-14/2002E-PDF - Government of Canada Publications - Canada.ca

Publication information / bibliographic Record.

publications.gc.ca

I recall attending some talks by some in this group and came away with the impression that they were going to, somehow, destroy the organization they were supposed to reinforce by installing themselves as some kind of Junta/Strata Council.

Stayed well away from it after that....

Is this the same group? I can't tell.

Home

Expand Canada's Army Reserve / Élargissez la réserve de l'armée canadienne

reserves2000.ca

Oh Lord, NO!!!

Reserves 2000 was an advocacy group started by a bunch of retired ResF types in Toronto that went national when there were signs of amalgamation being raised within LFCA. If you ever care enough about it, get the book by Champion called "Relentless Struggle: Saving the Army Reserve 1995-2019". It was commissioned by Reserves 2000 and, besides being an attempt to tell the story from their viewpoint is also a fairly good narrative of events over those years.

LFRR turned out to be an army self-inflicted wound - a flesh wound at the end of the day.

I know of little to no outputs from LFRR, open or closed sourc e. I do recall Fitch and Tabbernor abandoning planning and announcing "recruit until your eyes bleed", with no plan to train those recruits.

Yeah, I have a little bit of stuff and am wondering whether there is enough there to bother with an Access application. I have some material on the follow-up Army Reserve Establishments project but have yet to review, collate and parse them.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I, for one, am just glad that this thread has now morphed into yet another Reserve Restructuring thread

 

[Kirkhill]

My thoughts are in the "walk before you can run" realm and focusing on getting some realistic quick wins to so that the bigger changes have something to work from.

LUVW replacement is a necessary and funded program that could be/have been used thread the needle with a vehicle that can be operational (albeit not as a frontline AFV) but is also something that the reserves can handle now- high reliability, low maintenance, low training delta- and available now at a low enough cost that we can still afford all the other things needed.

Start your Heavy Infantry Combat Vehicle - Tracked program now, and in the years it takes to decide and start delivery you've had years of formed, equipped, and tasked reserve platoons/troops doing jobs in total force CMBGs

Re the LUVW -

An LUVW doesn't need to be armoured to be useful in Canada but it does need to protect the contents from the weather. A Van with the back laid out like the Roshel Senator would make for a useful utility TCV that was economical to run, easy to maintain, cheap to replace and could still be used for useful training in a blank/WES environment. It would also suffice for a lot of DomOps taskings where LAVs would be over kill (as in responding to floods and fires).

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Bit of a chicken and the egg situation innit? ResF needs to get more serious - agreed. But how do they get more serious if the RegF doesn't want serious reserve? That'd tap into their ammo, budgetary and equipment pools. I know multiple units that try to get serious, do some good workup all year just for overtraining requests to get denied. Everytime Armd Res units want to do troop live they need to submit overtraining requests. Isnt that fucking dumb? Anything more than one vehicle on a range is considered overtraining policy-wise. The system itself is designed to keep the MO unserious.

I will try to provide some background to this as someone who was recently very much involved in Collective Training (CT) policy, planning and resourcing. The concept of Foundation Training (FT) applies to both Reg and Res. The aim is to ensure a solid CT base is retained regardless of Managed Readiness Plan cycle. There can be a tendency for units to rush early training levels to achieve higher levels. This results in a shaky foundation. The effect can be pronounced in the Reserves where training days are limited. So we hold Reserve units to lower CT levels. This does not mean that we cannot go past those levels, but it is done deliberately.

There are grey areas where we do need to apply judgement. A Troop of TAPV or LUVW on a static range firing machine guns or 40mm under the control of a Troop Leader within a tactical context might look like Level 3 Live, and therefore be considered overtraining. If it is truly static, though, and they are not spending tons of time in battle procedure then its not really a problem. I would not have blinked an eye at a Reserve "gun camp" that culminated in static Troop-level shoots from a firing pad. I would absolutely consider a live "advance to contact" at Troop level as overtraining. This would be something best done at an annual concentration when there are available training days.

Some thirty years ago I was part of an exchange with a USMC Reserve Battalion. They only training one weekend a month - no wasted time on Thursday evenings. Those weekend drills were usually live fire, and kept at a fairly low level. The focus was on individual proficiency and building to the two-week Annual Training (AT) event. This AT was part of a cycle and was planned by folks outside the Battalion. On the AT we did platoon, company and even battalion level evolutions. Where that stuff belongs.

Not a bad model, and it would also be within our means. Imagine, one weekend a month with a known two-week AT cycle. And the AT for all the units in the ARes would not be at the same time.

 

[markppcli]

I, for one, am just glad that this thread has now morphed into yet another Reserve Restructuring thread

And @FJAG managed to bring up dress. It’s a perfect Army.ca thread.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

And @FJAG managed to bring up dress. It’s a perfect Army.ca thread.

And I said “TAPV” - a trifecta.

 

[PrairieFella]

Re the LUVW -

An LUVW doesn't need to be armoured to be useful in Canada but it does need to protect the contents from the weather. A Van with the back laid out like the Roshel Senator would make for a useful utility TCV that was economical to run, easy to maintain, cheap to replace and could still be used for useful training in a blank/WES environment. It would also suffice for a lot of DomOps taskings where LAVs would be over kill (as in responding to floods and fires).

Gotta remember the LUVW will be the only kit the reserve armour units get in any useful concentration. At very minimum armed, ideally armoured would be important.

 

[Kirkhill]

Gotta remember the LUVW will be the only kit the reserve armour units get in any useful concentration. At very minimum armed, ideally armoured would be important.

A squadron with LUVWs on the floor but armoured variants at the training area?

 

[markppcli]

Gotta remember the LUVW will be the only kit the reserve armour units get in any useful concentration. At very minimum armed, ideally armoured would be important.

This and anything needs to be as all terrain as possible. A ford econo van isn’t making it very far down the trace.

 

[FJAG]

I, for one, am just glad that this thread has now morphed into yet another Reserve Restructuring thread

I think this thread actually started as a reserve restructuring one.

Some thirty years ago I was part of an exchange with a USMC Reserve Battalion. They only training one weekend a month - no wasted time on Thursday evenings. Those weekend drills were usually live fire, and kept at a fairly low level. The focus was on individual proficiency and building to the two-week Annual Training (AT) event. This AT was part of a cycle and was planned by folks outside the Battalion. On the AT we did platoon, company and even battalion level evolutions. Where that stuff belongs.

Not a bad model, and it would also be within our means. Imagine, one weekend a month with a known two-week AT cycle. And the AT for all the units in the ARes would not be at the same time.

That is exactly the system I would go back to as mandatory training for all people in the unit. It is one that easily fits into the civilian jobs or school attendance that most reservists have. The two weeks summer can be challenging for reservists with families unless some legislative provision ensures that it is given as unpaid time off over and above statutory vacation times - that's still a bit of a challenge for universal application AFAIK.

I'm not against additional voluntary DP 2 training for courses but these weekday "admin" nights simply have to go. They are not only a waste of money but a waste of time for most reservists.

 

[dapaterson]

I'm not against additional voluntary DP 2 training for courses but these weekday "admin" nights simply have to go. They are not only a waste of money but a waste of time for most reservists.

They are wasted by most Reserve leadership. They can be effectively employed assuming the CoC plans ahead.

Falling in on equipment, shooting, going home and leaving maintenance and cleanup to others is the antithesis of a professional military.

A cycle of one administrative training night (mandatory training); refresher training on tactics and equipment the next night; stores and equipment preparation and validation the following; weekend field exercise; then equipment cleaning and maintenance on a training night is easy to plan and implement, trains the importance of stables / mission prep; and drives regular engagement.

That too many units fail to plan training speaks to the poor leadership of units always rushing to create the next LCol and next CWO - and who'd rather plan monthly dining ins for former COs than prepare soldiers.

 

[childs56]

This and anything needs to be as all terrain as possible. A ford econo van isn’t making it very far down the trace.

Timberline Supply

4x4 Van Conversion Kits, Parts, and Components for DIY 4WD Van Builders

timberlinesupply.com

 

[KevinB]

Clearly you need the A-Team van, or BA Barracus to mod the fleets.