France hands over command of SNMG2 to the Royal Canadian Navy

[Colin Parkinson]

The Canadian flagship might be a wee bit tight as a flagship for this taskforce.

 

[Fabius]

How many personnel come with a Task Group Commander?

 

[Halifax Tar]

How many personnel come with a Task Group Commander?

We're fine. Everyone has a bed.

 

[Lumber]

How many personnel come with a Task Group Commander?

Task Group Commander (Ie CTG/OTC/"The Commodore")
Chief of Staff
Staff OpsO
Staff AAWO/BWC
Staff ASuWO/BWC
Staff ASWO/BWC
Staff CommsO
Staff NavO
HEC
Ops Chief/BWA
Comms Chief/BWA
Third Chief (can't remember purpose)/BWA
Staff LogO*
Staff Technical Officer*
Staff Legad*
Staff Into*
Staff Chief Signaler*
Flag Lt*

The starred ones can often be members of the flag ship that get double hated to perform their normal duties as well as support the fleet staff.

 

[markppcli]

What does a Flag LT do?

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

What does a Flag LT do?

Aide de Camp style duties

 

[Fabius]

Task Group Commander (Ie CTG/OTC/"The Commodore")
Chief of Staff
Staff OpsO
Staff AAWO/BWC
Staff ASuWO/BWC
Staff ASWO/BWC
Staff CommsO
Staff NavO
HEC
Ops Chief/BWA
Comms Chief/BWA
Third Chief (can't remember purpose)/BWA
Staff LogO*
Staff Technical Officer*
Staff Legad*
Staff Into*
Staff Chief Signaler*
Flag Lt*

The starred ones can often be members of the flag ship that get double hated to perform their normal duties as well as support the fleet staff.

That’s interesting. Seemed more focused on task/purpose ie. ASuWO, than an equivalent Army element using the continental staff system.

Are current operations and future operations handled by the same staff or is there a separation?

 

[Lumber]

That’s interesting. Seemed more focused on task/purpose ie. ASuWO, than an equivalent Army element using the continental staff system.

Are current operations and future operations handled by the same staff or is there a separation?

So depends on what level of "operation" you are talking about. What the overall mission of the TG is (in this case SNMG2) will be decided by MARCOM. However, the SNMG2 staff will conduct its own operation planning process to determine how to best execute the over arching mission/orders from higher command. Then, once the specific tasks/activities are hashed out, they will be destributed between the staff and the ships appropriately. Something like the fleet conducting a visit to a country would be planned and organized by the staff, but for a two week long training exercise, they would come up with a schedule and then dish out the planing for the specific events to individual ships. They may give one ship responsibility for planning a gunnery exercise, another ship planning for a CASEX, another ship an ADEX, another ship a series of maneouvres, etc. Those ships would submit their plans back to fleet staff for review, but generally they aren't really "reviewed", just rubber stamped. That all being said, how exactly this works depends on the individual fleet staff, specifially the Commdore, the COS, and the OpsO. If they are micromanagers, they may take a more active role in planning or reviewing specific events. If your COS is Romanian and the ship planning a CASEX is Dutch, then the COS is absolutely not second guessing their planning.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

That’s interesting. Seemed more focused on task/purpose ie. ASuWO, than an equivalent Army element using the continental staff system.

Are current operations and future operations handled by the same staff or is there a separation?

Having been on both brigade and Fleet staffs, they are quite different beasts. Fleets staffs are actually quite lean (a function of bunking). As you note, the staff officers are focussed in areas of naval warfare. That said, they also stand watches as the “voice of the fleet staff” in the ops room of the flag ship. It is sometimes entertaining watching a ship’s officer sitting at one console, communicating over a secure voice radio to a fleet staff officer sitting at the adjacent console, a metre apart. Obviously, that is done so the other ships/aircraft in the task group know what is going on. There actually is a discipline piece for fleet staff to avoid sidebar conversations with flagship staff, as it muddies the waters fast.

 

[Lumber]

Having been on both brigade and Fleet staffs, they are quite different beasts. Fleets staffs are actually quite lean (a function of bunking). As you note, the staff officers are focussed in areas of naval warfare. That said, they also stand watches as the “voice of the fleet staff” in the ops room of the flag ship. It is sometimes entertaining watching a ship’s officer sitting at one console, communicating over a secure voice radio to a fleet staff officer sitting at the adjacent console, a metre apart. Obviously, that is done so the other ships/aircraft in the task group know what is going on. There actually is a discipline piece for fleet staff to avoid sidebar conversations with flagship staff, as it muddies the waters fast.

Yes, and when the Commodore is Canadian and the flag ship is Canadian, you get a lot of that "breaking of the 4th wall" in the form of targeted "mentorship" to the on watch ORO.

 

[Fabius]

I can imagine the amount of discipline needed to maintain the separation between the flagship staff and the fleet staff, when they are on the same ship. Especially when you add in some Canadian specific chain of command items that likely do need to be addressed between the two outside of fleet business.

I have seen similarish dynamics in Army formations between the Div staff and the HQ Bn.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I can imagine the amount of discipline needed to maintain the separation between the flagship staff and the fleet staff, when they are on the same ship. Especially when you add in some Canadian specific chain of command items that likely do need to be addressed between the two outside of fleet business.

I have seen similarish dynamics in Army formations between the Div staff and the HQ Bn.

You do business over meals in the wardroom, you have remember to formalize it afterwards.

 

[Lumber]

I can imagine the amount of discipline needed to maintain the separation between the flagship staff and the fleet staff, when they are on the same ship. Especially when you add in some Canadian specific chain of command items that likely do need to be addressed between the two outside of fleet business.

I have seen similarish dynamics in Army formations between the Div staff and the HQ Bn.

We had a Dutch Staff OpsO literally berate the flag ship ops team for not doing surface picture compilation properly. Now, he was 100% correct in what he was saying, but the Commodore had to have a talk with about how to better approach such situations. (when we got another Dutch officer later in the deployment, we discovered that that first one had a reputation)

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

That’s interesting. Seemed more focused on task/purpose ie. ASuWO, than an equivalent Army element using the continental staff system.

Are current operations and future operations handled by the same staff or is there a separation?

I am somewhat outside my lane here, but I did serve on an embarked Canadian Fleet Staff for about six weeks as part of a major NATO exercise. A Canadian Commodore and his staff was one of two TG commanders for the maritime side of the exercise (there were over 30 ships involved split into North and South. This was a force on force wargame as opposed to a six-month presence sail, so my experience will be coloured by that.

Fleet staff is very lean. Our ship did not have an air det embarked, so we could take advantage of some of their spaces both for berths and for workspaces. Still, space was at a premium and our own cabins were also our offices (I shared a cabin with the Cdr COS of the staff) and we shared a Thin Client terminal. With an air det it would be quite tight.

The Ops Room had both the folks who fought the ship (forward in the Ops Room) and a space aft in the Ops Room for the Fleet Staff. There were two "ORO" qualified Lt(N) in the Ops Room at all times when fighting or conducting TF operations. One was from the ship and they focused on fighting the ship. The other was from Fleet Staff and they coordinated the TG. For engagements the Captain would be fighting his ship from his chair while the Commodore was fighting the Task Group from his chair a few yards away.

Planning for the engagements was performed in one the spaces that we acquired and tended to have a LCdr in what we could call a G5 function supported by the CPO2s who had expertise (subsurface, surface, above surface and the electronic spectrum. The COS would provide guidance but the Commander was much more "hands-on" in the details compared to a Brigade or Division Commander. Having said that, due to how ships and TGs fight, orders to the TG were fairly light: sailing formations, target priorities etc. We had a pre-sail conference before entering the battle where the TG Commanders and their Captains could discuss how they would fight. As an Army LCol on board my role was to support the TG Commander in his other role as senior Canadian Commander for the entire Canadian contingent that included a (slim) CMBG ashore and a fairly large air component. I stayed out of the tactical planning of the TG, but I was able to sit into their planning and wargaming sessions and found it fascinating. The food was also very good. Very light Intelligence component (a single Lt(N)) compared to our rather massive Intelligence architectures we create in land formations. Different problem set.

The actual surface actions struck me as a knife fight in a phone booth. Or like a tank battle in an stadium. Or fighting in a basement? Big areas, but with MPAs on both sides and long-range missiles it was very deadly very quickly. LIke, everybody dead or burning very quickly. No hiding behind a hill...

Anyhoo. This is not the first time that the RCN has had command of SNMG2, and for all we like to bash Canada's contribution to NATO we have command of two important tactical multinational formations right now (SNMG 2 and the MN eFP Bde Latvia).

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I am somewhat outside my lane here, but I did serve on an embarked Canadian Fleet Staff for about six weeks as part of a major NATO exercise. A Canadian Commodore and his staff was one of two TG commanders for the maritime side of the exercise (there were over 30 ships involved split into North and South. This was a force on force wargame as opposed to a six-month presence sail, so my experience will be coloured by that.

Fleet staff is very lean. Our ship did not have an air det embarked, so we could take advantage of some of their spaces both for berths and for workspaces. Still, space was at a premium and our own cabins were also our offices (I shared a cabin with the Cdr COS of the staff) and we shared a Thin Client terminal. With an air det it would be quite tight.

The Ops Room had both the folks who fought the ship (forward in the Ops Room) and a space aft in the Ops Room for the Fleet Staff. There were two "ORO" qualified Lt(N) in the Ops Room at all times when fighting or conducting TF operations. One was from the ship and they focused on fighting the ship. The other was from Fleet Staff and they coordinated the TG. For engagements the Captain would be fighting his ship from his chair while the Commodore was fighting the Task Group from his chair a few yards away.

Planning for the engagements was performed in one the spaces that we acquired and tended to have a LCdr in what we could call a G5 function supported by the CPO2s who had expertise (subsurface, surface, above surface and the electronic spectrum. The COS would provide guidance but the Commander was much more "hands-on" in the details compared to a Brigade or Division Commander. Having said that, due to how ships and TGs fight, orders to the TG were fairly light: sailing formations, target priorities etc. We had a pre-sail conference before entering the battle where the TG Commanders and their Captains could discuss how they would fight. As an Army LCol on board my role was to support the TG Commander in his other role as senior Canadian Commander for the entire Canadian contingent that included a (slim) CMBG ashore and a fairly large air component. I stayed out of the tactical planning of the TG, but I was able to sit into their planning and wargaming sessions and found it fascinating. The food was also very good. Very light Intelligence component (a single Lt(N)) compared to our rather massive Intelligence architectures we create in land formations. Different problem set.

The actual surface actions struck me as a knife fight in a phone booth. Or like a tank battle in an stadium. Or fighting in a basement? Big areas, but with MPAs on both sides and long-range missiles it was very deadly very quickly. LIke, everybody dead or burning very quickly. No hiding behind a hill...

Anyhoo. This is not the first time that the RCN has had command of SNMG2, and for all we like to bash Canada's contribution to NATO we have command of two important tactical multinational formations right now (SNMG 2 and the MN eFP Bde Latvia).

Pretty accurate description of both staff action and naval warfare.

I have been on multiple exercises and my experience has been been that in surface engagements, the team that detects and shoots first, wins (I have been in a single Canadian frigate that absolutely rolled a USN Tico and an Arleigh Burke, using strict EMCON, a crazy deception plan that was so simply stupid that it actually worked and a helo based reporting and targetting scheme). In ASW, the trick is to detect and track enemy subs and avoid getting your surface fleet anywhere within missile range, let alone torpedo range.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

the team that detects and shoots first, wins

The eternal status of war at sea: Ask the Japanese about Midway.

 

[Fabius]

Looking at the SNMG 1 and 2, it seems relatively common that the TG Comd and staff are from a different nation than the flagship is.
I imagine that is an interesting opportunity assuming I am understanding that correctly in that the TF staff would then be on a foreign to them warship.

 

[Lumber]

Looking at the SNMG 1 and 2, it seems relatively common that the TG Comd and staff are from a different nation than the flagship is.
I imagine that is an interesting opportunity assuming I am understanding that correctly in that the TF staff would then be on a foreign to them warship.

It can also be a bit frustrating. All of our gear is CAN/US, and we get a lot of Five EYES intel coming through the ops room. When you have a bunch of non-Five Eyes NATO staff aboard, you end up with a ton of curtains in ops that make it like a haunted house maze, and you have to be very careful about what you talk about when the non-Canadian NATO staff is on watch.

 

[stoker dave]

double hated

hated is a bit strong. Found those guys a bit annoying at times, but not really hated.

 

[Lumber]

hated is a bit strong. Found those guys a bit annoying at times, but not really hated.

I mean, the LEGAD is probably justifiably double hated.