Midnight Rambler said:
Holy crap, can we please keep it simple? Unlike the Armoured Corps, which is organised along platforms, can we please not keep the infantry organised along people? EG: A platoon is required to do "x", and given hundreds of years of Western Military History, it requires "y" sections. To transport them in mechanised environment, they need "z" vehicles.
Also, forget not that sections are rarely, if ever, at full strength due to our top priorities: HLTA and medals parades. (I'm not just being sarcastic. It's reality)
Canadian soldiers, renowned for their "generalist" abilities, are becoming increasingly specialized. Gone are the days when QM, signaller, and intelligence functions within a battalion were all done by Infantrymen with rudimentary training. These are highly skilled jobs requiring some pretty intensive training. This, combined with the downward push of combined arms functions, means soldiers of many branches/trades working together at lower and lower levels. At the same time (and as contradictory as it sounds), these specialized soldiers are generalizing in a way. For the trucker and the mechanic, every sortie outside of the wire is a combat logistics patrol that demands the same detail to low-level tactics as the infantry put into a fighting patrol. Likewise, an infantryman on patrol is a beat cop, an intelligence specialist, and a rudimentary cultural/linguistic representative all in one. Gone are the days when "the 7 Section Battle Drills" would suffice as good training (Col Wayne Eyre's "Infantry against the Snakes" article in the CAJ is a good one on this);
Infanteer - above.
And a third bit of grist - concerns from the Int types that they can't find enough surplus Sgts to fill billets because nearl all their billets require Sgts or some such.
I hark back to earlier comments that I have made that the fundamental disconnect is between staffing an Army and staffing a Police Force.
You guys may be conducting "Army" operations but you are effectively functioning as a rigorous "Police Force".
An Army, IMO, is designed to conduct High Intensity Operations for a limited duration, just long enough to defeat the enemy in the field.
A Police Force is designed to supply an ongoing and continuous presence, with occasional increases in operational tempo.
The job in "Failed States" is one of Policing - holding the ring until the locals can get their act together and take over their own policing duties (or maybe not - there are ample historical precedents where "foreign" police have been preferred to locals because they are not tied up in feuds).
An Army has the luxury of picking and choosing its operations, setting its timings, deciding when to surge and when to sit back. It also relies on having uncommitted man-power that it can push to the Schwehrpunkt when the need /opportunity arises.
A Police Force has no such luxury. It has to be seen to be standing on the corner every day and every night.
The Army can be organized for operations. The Police have to organize for presence.
The Army organizes for piece-work. The Police organize on an hourly basis.
In a Police Force, you need 24/7 coverage. IE for every position to be filled you need 5 constables (40 hours x 50 weeks = 2000 hours per constable per year. There are 8760 hours in a 365 day year. Including sick leave, long vacations and training you need at least 5 people to maintain the position on a 24/7 basis).
At the same time not every constable requires his own Car or his own Radio. He/She can sign them out at the beginning of his shift.
The Army operates on an entirely different basis. It supplies everybody all the tools necessary to get the job done and anticipates that once the job is done, minus some wastage, everything goes back to the barracks to wait for the next call.
You are trying to fill a Policing role with an Army structure and coming up short.
If you want to continue doing what you are doing then perhaps you need something like a 5 section platoon so as to keep one section on the ground at all times. And maybe each section doesn't need its own vehicle - perhaps you can get by with "a pair and a spare"...... and no I am not proposing those solutions , I am just suggesting that you probably will have to do things differently as what you are doing doesn't seem to be working as well as you seem to want.
With respect to the Generalist/Specialist, Int Sgt issue.
I think here what you seem to be saying is that the modern Infanteer is having to pick up a rudimentary knowledge of a whole raft of skills that once were considered esoteric. Doesn't that play to the strengths of the old system where individuals that excelled technically but were poor leaders could be trained and promoted to optimize their skills and sent up the line to act in their area of technical competence?
Everybody comes in as an Infanteer, or a Trooper, picks up a smattering of everything, then grows into trades as their career advances?
