Mountie, there are a lot of reasons the current structure has evolved to what it has today in Artillery Regt. I don't see any particular benefit to the GS Bty idea you're suggesting, and I can't see the mortar idea working for various other reasons, but their may be benefit to looking at how the Australians are dealing with automation to facilitate more higher level control of indirect fire support in a COIN environment
Some factors to consider though:
- Cdn gun Bty's are meant to be CS, ie still commanded at highest level (usually Bde) but their fires will be controlled at lowest level (originating usually within a Combat Team) - your suggestion to turn the M777's into general support would put them one level back, Div level - I don't see any need for that if at most we're only going to deploy a Regt to support a Bde in non sustained Operation, and most likely only a Battery (+) to support a Battle Group for sustained expeditionary forces
- gun btys are now made up of 3 Troops -this came out of the experience of Afghanistan which began with deployment of 2 Tp gun bty's, and over time it became obvious that wasn't enough for dispersed ops.
- another reason for the 3 Tp BTY: from time to time one or both Tps were tasked away to other formations/other nations Battle Groups (which is normal for a Bde resource), but sometimes left the Canadian Battle Group with only their 60mm for indirect fire support. The third Tp was a means to ensure fire support to very dispersed Ops, as well as leave at least something within the Cdn BG; something which may well become the norm
The mortar thing - this has been discussed/debated/argued endlessly on the boards here. In 2003 the Artillery took them on as residual task. I would agree with you there is a capability deficiency within Infantry Bn's for sustained lethal and especially non lethal effects (see above), but splitting the mortars away into a hybrid CS Bty within an Artillery Regt is not very workable given current pers challenges. If we have the PYs to create that kind of capability, then I say put them in Inf Bn's
Another thing about mortars being with the M777 - dug in, the gun Tp is very vulnerable and limited when engaging targets short range, and is a reason why the mortars should continue to be co-located with the guns (besides the manpower limitation one)
Something else to consider about comparing Cdn and Aussie Artillery: the Australians are going to the American AFATDS for their fire control, which is very much a top down type method of control, and somewhat opposite to the Cdn approach. But I can see why the Australians might have steered towards this system, but don't think it has anything to do with creating GS Bty's; it has to do with the complexity of current Ops where the actual authority to use indirect fire for lethal effects is getting more and more restrictive, and being reserved (controlled) at a higher level.
This US method sees fire missions going into queue, and priority based on various discriminators and filters, many of which can be set to function automatically. The Cdn system remains one driven by priorities of fire being assigned depending on operation etc, but once priorities of fire are given it will be the BC that will pretty much drive who gets what when, to support the Cmdr's plan. This is close support artillery, and in the early stages of Afghanistan, it worked very well with very quick response times. Later, use of indirect fire became more restricted, and more STA assets became available, without an interconnected digital system to support this, response times became what can only be described as very sluggish.
So although the US system was developed with a different doctrine in mind, it could well be their method supports faster response times when the fires are very restricted, and to interconnect with other assets for better coordination/synchronization. Even so, I believe Canada will continue to try and develop one that is more flexible and responsive to CS tasks.
Canada is developing a digital fire support system, called IFCSS, to work within the Army's over arching digital command support system (LCSS), and work is also being done to establish gateways to connect IFCSS with other NATO automated systems like AFATDS. But where IFCSS falls out in the priorities for the Army, and when it might be mature enough to function well above Tp level I have no idea, but doubt we'll ever see it being developed to support anything above CS Btys