Defining Foreign and Defence Policy (and hence our Military Force)

[ArmyRick]

A couple of hard questions....

Time to re-think things maybe.

Do we make the Strats all tankers (new MOSID) and the other 2 regiments all recce? Make two MOSIDs?

As far as burning out people if rotating too often, what about having those 4 x squadrons of tanks manned (1 on rotation in X theater) and then have a 5th squadron which is without tanks for 6 months after deployment (leave, career courses, silly ass parades, reconstitution, etc), then when the squadron that finishes work up trg deploys, that 5th squadron would assume their tanks for the next couple of rotations back in Canada, so it would look like this

LdSH (From Dec 2017-July 2017)
-A Squadron (Trg and Dom Ops ready)
-B Squadron (Road to high readiness trg)
-C Squadron (On deployment in FANTASIA with tanks)
-D Squadron (No tanks, parades, chilling out, career courses)
-E Squadron (low level trg and getting used to tanks again)

Armoured guys, thoughts? Rotten tomatoes to throw at me? Or a HESH round fired at me and this good idea fairy? Not sure there are any Leo 1s left to fire them though...

 

[MilEME09]

Not sure there are any Leo 1s left to fire them though...

i know of atleast 2 in Borden that could >

 

[George Wallace]

This is why you need to rotate people through the unit, either by forming a composite unit or by having people switch cap badges.  The Armour Corps isn't opposed to switching cap badges either.  As an example,  The present CO of the Strathconas is a career 12 RBC guy who only rebadged to command the Strathconas.

This is again, the weakness of our Regimental System, especially when dealing with platforms.  The Air Force has tribes that revolve around fighting platforms which can create friction at higher levels but otherwise doesn't do much damage.  The Army has platforms which create friction between different Corps but then they also have pieces of felt on their berets which create not only inter-Corps friction but also intra-Corps friction.

Solving the manning issues with all tanks in one Regiment is actually quite easy, it involves either a cap badge change or a new composite unit.  Either way, the savings and efficiencies gained by putting the tanks all in one place are well worth the cost.

Edit: 

To add, with the amount of tanks we have, we will only ever be able to deploy, at most, a squadron.  Maintaining a full up Regiment shouldn't be a problem. 

If A unit like CSOR can do it, why can't the Armour Corps?

First flaw with your logic, in your first paragraph, is that you can rotate people into and out of a unit.  Sure the CO of the LdSH (RC) was a 12eme RBC; but that is not the problem.  All officers are being rotated in and out of positions on a regular basis, within the unit and off to ERE and School positions, usually every two years.  The majority, being the men, are not.  They remain in the unit, sometimes for the duration of their whole careers.  It has been over thirty years since the Canadian Government and DND have decided to cut costs and end the annual rotation of personnel through the units and around the country.  No longer will you see Ptes and Cpls being posted every four to six years between units, Bases and establishments. 

Even having all the tanks in one location does not pose the rosy picture that you seem to think.  An operation such as Afghanistan would have totally burnt out all the troops in that unit.

As for Journeyman's comments; they were (hopefully) in jest as LAV guys would not be going onto tanks every third or forth week.  Those tanks would be manned full-time.  As well, those other units would be running tank courses as well, tripling the number of pers being trained.  Having all the tanks in one location would cut the numbers of pers being trained by a third or more; as the Armour School would also be running tank courses along with all their other courses.

As C Sqn RCD is located in Gagetown, on tanks, they both fill the role or being a RCD tank Sqn and support to the Armour School and CTC for training.  If I were to follow your logic, then the LdSH (RC) would be better re-roled to Recce and all the tanks moved to Gagetown to provide a Regt of tanks there with a large training area to use and as a resource to support the Armour School and CTC to train Tankers and Combat Team Commanders.  That would take a lot of the weight off of C Sqn RCD current tasks to support CTC and the Armour School.

 

[Kirkhill]

.....
If I were to follow your logic, then the LdSH (RC) would be better re-roled to Recce and all the tanks moved to Gagetown to provide a Regt of tanks there with a large training area to use and as a resource to support the Armour School and CTC to train Tankers and Combat Team Commanders.  That would take a lot of the weight off of C Sqn RCD current tasks to support CTC and the Armour School.

Sounds like a good idea to me.  Back to the future.  Add in a properly resourced GS Regiment of Artillery, and one of Engineers and you have the strong, heavy back bone of an actual Division.  Stand Up the 8CH.

Leave the other little fiefdoms in place across the country.

 

[McG]

I see a flaw in that argument.  All the tanks in one unit may be a great idea on paper, but once you deploy tanks overseas, it will be only that unit that will be capable of rotating pers in and out of theatre to serve on them.  The base of trained pers will be small and that would cause pers to burn out quickly.

Is the FG pool from three squadrons of tanks really any different if those squadrons are in one place or spread around the country?

Do we need a giant CTCC when our allies have all moved equivalent courses to synthetic environments?

Deal of the century? Reverberate for decades?

Yes, it certainly seems over the top.  I wrote it off as the authors trying to cast an appeal to thier intended audience - Liberal insiders.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Is the FG pool from three squadrons of tanks really any different if those squadrons are in one place or spread around the country?

Do we need a giant CTCC when our allies have all moved equivalent courses to synthetic environments?
Yes, it certainly seems over the top.  I wrote it off as the authors trying to cast an appeal to thier intended audience - Liberal insiders.

:ditto:

First flaw with your logic, in your first paragraph, is that you can rotate people into and out of a unit.  Sure the CO of the LdSH (RC) was a 12eme RBC; but that is not the problem.  All officers are being rotated in and out of positions on a regular basis, within the unit and off to ERE and School positions, usually every two years.  The majority, being the men, are not.  They remain in the unit, sometimes for the duration of their whole careers.  It has been over thirty years since the Canadian Government and DND have decided to cut costs and end the annual rotation of personnel through the units and around the country.  No longer will you see Ptes and Cpls being posted every four to six years between units, Bases and establishments. 

Even having all the tanks in one location does not pose the rosy picture that you seem to think.  An operation such as Afghanistan would have totally burnt out all the troops in that unit.

As for Journeyman's comments; they were (hopefully) in jest as LAV guys would not be going onto tanks every third or forth week.  Those tanks would be manned full-time.  As well, those other units would be running tank courses as well, tripling the number of pers being trained.  Having all the tanks in one location would cut the numbers of pers being trained by a third or more; as the Armour School would also be running tank courses along with all their other courses.

As C Sqn RCD is located in Gagetown, on tanks, they both fill the role or being a RCD tank Sqn and support to the Armour School and CTC for training.  If I were to follow your logic, then the LdSH (RC) would be better re-roled to Recce and all the tanks moved to Gagetown to provide a Regt of tanks there with a large training area to use and as a resource to support the Armour School and CTC to train Tankers and Combat Team Commanders.  That would take a lot of the weight off of C Sqn RCD current tasks to support CTC and the Armour School.

You can rotate people in and out of a unit, we are only going to deploy a squadron.  If a single tank Regiment can't maintain one squadron in a high readiness posture, we have bigger problems. 

How is sprinkling tanks between three different Regiments a better solution than co-locating them?  That makes very little sense from a logistical, financial, training and also readiness perspective.

 

[George Wallace]

You can rotate people in and out of a unit, we are only going to deploy a squadron.  If a single tank Regiment can't maintain one squadron in a high readiness posture, we have bigger problems. 

How is sprinkling tanks between three different Regiments a better solution than co-locating them?  That makes very little sense from a logistical, financial, training and also readiness perspective.

I explained that already.  It has been over thirty years since the CAF and DND have stopped posting Ptes and Cpls every four to six years between units.  This cuts back in the numbers of pers being trained on particular types of equipment.

Again I will state that all the tanks in one location is only going to permit one third to one quarter the amount of tank training going on.  The other two Regiments run courses on tanks, just as does the LdSH (RC).  The LdSH (RC) will not run a course per Sqn, but one for the whole Regiment.  The other two Regiments are running courses to rotate pers through their tanks; as does the Armour School.  Moving all the tanks to one location cuts back on numbers of pers being qualified by a third to a quarter. 

What you are suggesting is that we move all the tanks to one location where we will train 30 to 60 pers per year, opposed to having over 120 trained annually.

 

[quadrapiper]

Setting aside the regimental who and where, what would the "ideal" fit for CA's armour be? 80 Leopards, and x other vehicles? Significantly more vehicles - enough to, as far as vehicles go, support deploying a regiment's worth? SP artillery?

 

[McG]

Setting aside the regimental who and where, what would the "ideal" fit for CA's armour be? 80 Leopards, and x other vehicles? Significantly more vehicles - enough to, as far as vehicles go, support deploying a regiment's worth? SP artillery?

We've gone down a rabbit hole when we are asking this in the thread on defence policy.  Maybe it is time for some discussion to pick-up over here:  http://army.ca/forums/index.php/board,3.0.html

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Naturally the LdSH will get all the tanks and this would rub all the RCDs and 12RBC folks the wrong way.  My response would be "Want to drive a tank?  Join the Stratchonas!"

I am not sure I agree, but I also don't know your thoughts/reasons for having this; hoping you can go thru the rationale in your mind and the benefits of it.

Disregard, I realized it was already done in the posts that followed!

I've never been in a tank Sqn, but I'd take the points of George and RecceGuy into consideration, who've lived and breathed tank life realities.  A driver who has done only Recce then going to tanks will have a huge learning curve.  A Mcpl who did only tanks, gets promoted and then goes on to a recce troop is going to live a different life.  I was a mud recce type and the only use I would have been in a tank would have been yabbering on a radio.

Good discussion so far  :2c:

 

[GR66]

Taking the cap badge politics out of it I think the real questions is this.  If you assume that the total number of tanks in the CF isn't going to change, is it more efficient to group them together in one location or to split them up into multiple locations.  If the total number of vehicles isn't changing then theoretically the number capable of being deployed and sustained in operations at any one time wouldn't change and the number of personnel posted to tank units and training for service in tanks wouldn't change.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Point to consider;  if I only have tanks in one geo location, say Edmonton [Wainwright] with the Strats, it is harder for the Corps to maintain skill sets as it would be limited to posting people geographically, and that costs money.

Having tanks in Edmonton, Pet and Gagetown, you can post people at will from position to position.  I add Gagetown because the Armour School is there and I assume that even if 'all tanks' went West, there would still be the need for a tank element in Gagetown for Officer/PCF training.

Based on that, I say move all tanks to Gagetown, not West.  Freddy is also closer to Halifax and Saint John ports.  C-17s should be able to go into Freddy airport (question)?

 

[MilEME09]

I would poss the option that perhaps we need to reshape our armoured forces entirely, let's put these tanks in the major hubs for training, and one squadron worth somewhere well maintained for deployment. Buy more simulators for the units to use in garrison.

Next I would suggest buy more Leopards, or designate one Regiment a Heavy armour Regiment with the Leopard's, and purchase something like the M8 AGS (BAE is trying to offer a modernized version of it to the US). Turning one or two regiments into light tank regiments operating light tanks combined with TUA LAV's, if only one becomes a light tank unit the other one should be a recce regiment.

 

[George Wallace]

OK.  Let's switch this up a bit.  How about we take all the 'Guns' and put them all in 1 RCHA.  Leave 5 RALC and 2 RCHA with only mortars.  How would that work? 

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

OK.  Let's switch this up a bit.  How about we take all the 'Guns' and put them all in 1 RCHA.  Leave 5 RALC and 2 RCHA with only mortars.  How would that work?

Just give me a bit.  I've got a very long answer for everyone that will take some time to hammer out.  I'll end it by bringing this rabbit hole back on topic.

In the meantime George don't get all bent out of shape with my targeting of the Armour Corps, they are but one of many targets.  We can talk about the Artillery later  :nod:

 

[Edward Campbell]

This is all fascinating militarytechno~trivia, about on par with monks debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but the problem, for Canada, is that we now have a government that (not unlike the last government) isn't sure why it even has armed forces.

No one, since Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, is actually contemplating disbanding the military, and even PET didn't hold that notion for very long ...

         

          Rumour had it that German Defence Minister and long
          time Trudeau friend Helmust Schmidt was recruited, by
          some of Trudeau's own ministers in a mini-coup of sorts,
          to explain the costs of pacifism to the Canadian PM,
          since he would listen to his own cabinet ministers or officials.

... but it seems fairly clear that the Butts~Telford~Trudeau~Wynne braintrust is very, very weak on a range of issues and foreign and defence policy ~ beyond just being seen in various conference halls ~ is just one of them.

The Laurentian Elites want (actually just hope) to return to this ...

             

... but it's pretty evident that even the most benign peacekeeping missions look more like this ...

                   

What those Laurentian Elites do not want are things like "US led coalition" or "combat mission," or, even, "peacemaking." We can joke about "sunny ways" and "unicorn farts" but the fact is that Stéphane Dion is the Foreign Global Affairs Minister and the few experienced and (relatively) conservative ministers are in economic portfolios: the Laurentian Elites are steering the foreign and defence policy ship of state and they will, actually, be aided and abetted by the ministers who would like a coherent, interests driven foreign policy but who are, perforce, trying to save money which can always be easily done by squeezing the military.

That's why I think that Minister Sajjan's defence review and anything that might fall out from it will be a return to the decades of darkness type wheel spinning.

   

                                                                                        The Decades of Darkness: 1967 to 2006

 

[Edward Campbell]

Deal of the century? Reverberate for decades?

I don't think Trudeau's defence review will be consequential at all ... wheel spinning is all it will be, in fairness just more wheel spinning, since that's all the Conservatives did after 2012.

There is no pressing threat ... period.

Absent a real, pressing, well understood threat, Canadians are disinterested and, more important, unwilling to see their hard earned dollars spent on the military ... "toys for the boys" is how, I am fairly certain, Butts, Telford and company in the PMO see it, and that's how a solid majority of Canadians see it, too.

Minister Sajjan will take a year to conduct his review .... a few trees will be killed to publish it, several academics and journalists and other assorted experts will fill a few hundred computer screens with critical commentary. Canadians, even the very few tens of thousands who care, at all, will yawn. The cabinet P&P (plans and priorities) Committee will defer consideration to the late fall of 2017 by which time, being less than two years away from the next election, it will punt it to the Liberal campaign team for a few words in the platform.

Of course that all can and would change if (when?) there were to be a real, understood threat.

And to illustrate that point I offer this:

   

It was from a Ipsos poll done for Global News done in Nov 15, but I doubt things have changed ... where is defence on that list? How about foreign policy? Security? Canadians don't care and until Canadians do care this government will not care, either.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Yes. I see that Defence, Foreign Policy and Security rate right up there with Electoral Reform to get rid of that discussing First-Past-Post system everybody hates.  ;D

 

[Journeyman]

How concerned are
Canadians about
climate change?

13% -- yet it's one of their platform cornerstones.  Not exactly "in touch with the Canadian people."

 

[cavalryman]

13% -- yet it's one of their platform cornerstones.  Not exactly "in touch with the Canadian people."

It's not about being in touch with the grotty, ill-informed electorate.  Our elites know better what the people need than the people themselves and they're going to give it to us hard.