Naval Reserve restructuring

[FSTO]

The biggest issue for the ship is lack of bunks for extra people; this was a lot easier with 280s where you had almost another extra 100 bunks and could squeeze in almost 300 folks. The frigates top out around 250. The biggest issue overall is probably we have more commitments then ships to do them, so they'd have to cut tasks to do something like this with the heavies, plus the MCDVs are usually pretty busy as well, so everyone is spread pretty thin.  :dunno:

If you were to do it, depending on what the goal is, you could go without any kind of air det/boarding party.  If you don't want much of an ops room presence, that could get dropped to a skeleton crew. There are lots of reg force sailors that also need sea time, so you could do some focused cert 2/3 training, BWKs, small boat training etc. There are a few trades with that are only getting the minimum number of sea days required for their tickets, and that's never a good thing over the long term. From experience, it works a lot better too when you bring on extra staff to supervise the trainees, as everyone else is still busy doing their normal job.

I think we'll probably beat the heck out of a few frigates badly enough they'll be too broken to be deployable, but would still be able to do some coastal training activities, so it'd be good to use as a dedicated force generation platform to do stuff like this. Like the air force, the maintenance and operation of ships is pretty platform specific, so you can't just head out without the right mix of maintainers and operators that know that specific class of ship, but it'd be nice to have some reservists with cross training, as we've got a number of reg force with MCDV experience and qualifications to keep them going to sea.

Wrt to teaming up with a specific ship, the thing to keep in mind is that the ships go into the dry dock every five years so there is about an 18 month window to ramp down, dock and ramp up where there wouldn't really be a unit. Also, the sailors have a 'home coast' vice a regiment, so there is a lot of movement between ships. Stuff like that might be okay for a social connection, but might not be practical for a unit to unit operational relationship as there will be long periods where there aren't really ship operations at all during the normal cycle.

Normally the ships have a relationship with the hometown, and the 280s had them with the respective FN tribes (which was pretty neat, and the tribal crests and slogans were generally more appropriate for warships then the city class ones).

That sounds a lot like the old West Coast 4 Squadron!

 

[Navy_Pete]

Yeah; ATH was doing a tonne of helo training at the end of her life. Believe at one point they had two helos and a few dets doing normal air det, SWOAD and other team training off in the MARLOAS. It may have only been planned and scaled back; that time of my life is a bit blurry due to the workload.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Technically you don't need a warship do a lot of the shipboard helo training. The Navy could lease an offshore resupply ship, refit the after part to the configuration wanted and do the initial work ups on it, similar how Carrier pilots in WWII trained on old steamers on the Great Lakes fitted with flatops for the work. Crew could be mostly civilian and ship based in Pat Bay/Esquimalt staying purely coastal and helo squadron there growing to also becoming a training squadron. The ship could also double as training ship for Marine Institute Cadets, Naval Reservists and Sea Cadets.

 

[MilEME09]

Technically you don't need a warship do a lot of the shipboard helo training. The Navy could lease an offshore resupply ship, refit the after part to the configuration wanted and do the initial work ups on it, similar how Carrier pilots in WWII trained on old steamers on the Great Lakes fitted with flatops for the work. Crew could be mostly civilian and ship based in Pat Bay/Esquimalt staying purely coastal and helo squadron there growing to also becoming a training squadron. The ship could also double as training ship for Marine Institute Cadets, Naval Reservists and Sea Cadets.

Could that be a good role for federal fleet services? Operate auxiliary training vessels?

 

[daftandbarmy]

The deployment is a retention thing, they get a nice bit of tax free and a medal usually. When we first received the MCDV's on the EC we deployed around times the students would be out on a break, they got sea time and experience and we also did weekends sails. We also trained the Class A's during the summer periods.

Geez... it's almost like you actually valued the reservists' input enough to schedule your training around their availability, which actually helped boost your numbers and overall training value for everyone.  :nod:

 

[Lumber]

I think you guys are missing the core purpose of naval reserve units. I say this with all respect to the naval reserve, because I worked with them for 3 years and they have some amazing people, but the real purpose of the naval reserve is not to provide either a tactical or strategic reserve to Reg Force units, nor is it even to provide a unique capability to mainland JTFs (such as providing small boat units during Op Lentus).

No, the purpose of the naval reserve, its raison d'etre in this era, is purely PR.  It's the RCN's in-road to the interior of Canada where we have no other naval presence to inform people that we even exist.

They are a beacon shepherding the curious but ignorant into the waiting maw of the recruiting centres.

 

[FSTO]

I think you guys are missing the core purpose of naval reserve units. I say this with all respect to the naval reserve, because I worked with them for 3 years and they have some amazing people, but the real purpose of the naval reserve is not to provide either a tactical or strategic reserve to Reg Force units, nor is it even to provide a unique capability to mainland JTFs (such as providing small boat units during Op Lentus).

No, the purpose of the naval reserve, its raison d'etre in this era, is purely PR.  It's the RCN's in-road to the interior of Canada where we have no other naval presence to inform people that we even exist.

They are a beacon shepherding the curious but ignorant into the waiting maw of the recruiting centres.

As Walter Hose envisioned close to 100 years ago. The militia was attempting to take all funding away from the RCN at the time and this was basically a last ditch effort to keep the Navy afloat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Canadian_Naval_Volunteer_Reserve

 

[Stoker]

I think you guys are missing the core purpose of naval reserve units. I say this with all respect to the naval reserve, because I worked with them for 3 years and they have some amazing people, but the real purpose of the naval reserve is not to provide either a tactical or strategic reserve to Reg Force units, nor is it even to provide a unique capability to mainland JTFs (such as providing small boat units during Op Lentus).

No, the purpose of the naval reserve, its raison d'etre in this era, is purely PR.  It's the RCN's in-road to the interior of Canada where we have no other naval presence to inform people that we even exist.

They are a beacon shepherding the curious but ignorant into the waiting maw of the recruiting centres.

That's part of what they are. All the rather nice reserve units spread across Canada are strategic assets. So much so that units with 60 pers parading or less exist with a gigantic new building. They won't get closed down. They have also fed a lot of personnel the regular force through CT's especially when the regs took over the Kingston Class. In all honestly the naval reserves don't even know their purpose.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

This is good! This is good!

Thank you for the reminder, Lumber.

I have seen a lot of good stuff here. So let's start with a good starting point from FJAG, and Lumber's point: In 2020, why do we have a Naval Reserve? What is, or should be, its purpose.

Is it (1) a regular force support manning pool; (2) an emergency expansion force generator; (3) a PR machine to help justify the RCN and keep it in the public eye away from the coast; or, (4) something else altogether.

Let me throw possible alternative for my point number four: A Canadian citizenship development organization. Here is what I mean: Because the RCN is a "unified" service, i.e. the identity of seamen/naval officer is the actual service, not individual unit you may serve at a given time, Naval reservist intermix freely on the coasts (and we all hit both at one point or another). As a result, and contrary to the militia or Air Reserve, naval reservist get to interact and learn from other naval reservist from across the whole of Canada and develop an appreciation for all Canadian nuances in citizenry. (There is an old joke from my days in the Naval reserve that said that the fastest communication system from one end of Canada to the other was telling a naval reservist about something at HMCS CABOT or HMCS MALAHAT). Such mingling makes (I still have friends from Nanaimo to St. John's) mutual understanding and respect for regional issues much deeper than the one developed by most Canadian in their lifetime. That is not a bad accomplishment and well worth the cost of the Naval Reserve in my mind.

But lets go back to some of the other possibilities.

If we are dealing with number one, a regular force support manning pool, then we don't have to change anything, so long as the regular force finds the support level appropriate. Just keep on sailing!

If we are dealing with number two (FJAG expansion scenario), we need to make major changes to the operation of the RCN as a whole, and get the government onside. It means having a fleet with active units and ships laid in reserve. Some people who have followed my posts in the past know that I have favoured this scenario for a long time: build one (or slightly more) major warship every year, no mid-life refits, so that you operate about 12-14 actively  and then, move the older ones in reserve for about ten years, giving the flexibility of increasing the fleet quickly from 12-14 to 24 ships quickly by using reservists. In such scenario, the reservists would provide semi-trained personnel at the Sub-Lieutenant and less or Leading seamen and below level spread throughout the fleet, with regular force SLt/LT/LCdr's and LS/MS/PO2/PO1 etc. being promoted quickly to higher rank to provide the core of the reserve ships being activated with proper crew. The lessons of WWII must be remembered and crewing must not see ships sailing with less than 50% regulars and expansion kept under control.

In such scenario, it is important to remember that  the naval reserve can only provide semi-trained personnel at the lower levels of manning. Even then, I believe that for such objective, the NRD's should be discarded in favour of a system of five regional training centres operated by regular force instructors. Reservists, after basic at St. Jean, would simply be required to show up at one of five regional training centre (Atlantic/Quebec/Ontario/Prairies/Pacific) for trades/team training for ten week-ends a year and 2 weeks or more in the summer. This way, all their time would be spent training in preparation, and all administration and instructing would be done by the regular force.

If we accept number three or four, however, then we must go back to what existed before the MCDV's: That is a fleet of  ships/vessels that the local NRD's can man and operate through their training that are dedicated to the NRD's and otherwise parked alongside unmanned . This can be a combination of small patrol vessels (25 meters roughly) operated by actual NRD's at their local areas and larger barely armed patrol vessels ( say 50-60 meters) on both coasts, that can be operated with a crew of 30/35 with an extra 10/12 bunks for trainees during the summer, and just locked up when not used during the week in winter -then used for "NRD training during the week-end. Importantly, Reserve units would be encouraged to take local reporters to "sea" on their training week-end.

This last scenario should not be discarded as easily as one may think, BTW. During the Oka crisis, the availability of a small local patrol boat with local crew that knew the local waters was instrumental in closing the River access to the protesters group and providing ground force with intel.

I await discussion. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Exactly what I am thinking, you have NRD like Discovery with a dock, build a patrol boat that can accept a .50cal if needed and overnight if required, but not normally.
Like this:

Their job is to practice seamanship, Port Security, some SAR and work with the other agencies like the Ports, CCG, RCMP, RCMSAR. Equip with a sidescan sonar and ROV and they can inspect and practice minehunting in the harbour and nearby areas. Have the Orcas and MCDV's for the bigger exercises.

 

[quadrapiper]

Exactly what I am thinking, you have NRD like Discovery with a dock, build a patrol boat that can accept a .50cal if needed and overnight if required, but not normally.
Like this:

Their job is to practice seamanship, Port Security, some SAR and work with the other agencies like the Ports, CCG, RCMP, RCMSAR. Equip with a sidescan sonar and ROV and they can inspect and practice minehunting in the harbour and nearby areas. Have the Orcas and MCDV's for the bigger exercises.

IIRC the original Orca concept was much closer to that; in many ways, a steel YAG; than what's now decorating F Jetty.

 

[dimsum]

Let me throw possible alternative for my point number four: A Canadian citizenship development organization. Here is what I mean: Because the RCN is a "unified" service, i.e. the identity of seamen/naval officer is the actual service, not individual unit you may serve at a given time, Naval reservist intermix freely on the coasts (and we all hit both at one point or another). As a result, and contrary to the militia or Air Reserve, naval reservist get to interact and learn from other naval reservist from across the whole of Canada and develop an appreciation for all Canadian nuances in citizenry. (There is an old joke from my days in the Naval reserve that said that the fastest communication system from one end of Canada to the other was telling a naval reservist about something at HMCS CABOT or HMCS MALAHAT). Such mingling makes (I still have friends from Nanaimo to St. John's) mutual understanding and respect for regional issues much deeper than the one developed by most Canadian in their lifetime. That is not a bad accomplishment and well worth the cost of the Naval Reserve in my mind.

I agree and I haven't thought about the "national" aspect of it as opposed to the Army Reserve.  That is a very good point.

I've been out of NAVRES for a while (CT/OT'd like many others) but still use the SHADNET almost daily for work and non-work purposes. 

 

[Lumber]

I await discussion.

I think you can accomplish 1, 3 and 4 concurrently (although more 3 and 4 than 1).

I don't think #2 is a bad idea on principle, but I don't think it's realistic. Compared to the plethora of minesweepers, corvettes, and frigates we manned during world war 2, ships today are much more complicated, and sailors are trained to a much higher technical standard. I think it would be prohibitively expensive to keep any number of "effective" warships in mothball, and crews made up of 1 part advance-promoted reg force and 1 part virgin reservists I think is a recipe for an accident, or at minimum a recipe for poor operational effectiveness.

For the other goals, one thing a lot of people we're making noise about was how useful an ORCA class or 2 would be in the great lakes. STAR and YORK we're BY THEMSELVES able to man an entire ORCA each. PREVOST, HUNTER, and CATAR..."CAT", regularly contributed a lot of people to ORCA sails during he training year. If you parked an ORCA at STAR or YORK (or even one at each of them), I guarantee they would get a TON of use by those units, not to mention HMCS ONTARIO. They aren't even that expensive compared to other  major capital projects.

 

[dimsum]

If you parked an ORCA at STAR or YORK (or even one at each of them), I guarantee they would get a TON of use by those units, not to mention HMCS ONTARIO. They aren't even that expensive compared to other  major capital projects.

Agreed.

Also, at the risk of a tangent, the RCN Reserve had air squadrons up until the 1960s at YORK (VC-922) and MALAHAT (VC-920).

 

[FJAG]

I think you can accomplish 1, 3 and 4 concurrently (although more 3 and 4 than 1).

I don't think #2 is a bad idea on principle, but I don't think it's realistic. Compared to the plethora of minesweepers, corvettes, and frigates we manned during world war 2, ships today are much more complicated, and sailors are trained to a much higher technical standard. I think it would be prohibitively expensive to keep any number of "effective" warships in mothball, and crews made up of 1 part advance-promoted reg force and 1 part virgin reservists I think is a recipe for an accident, or at minimum a recipe for poor operational effectiveness.

For the other goals, one thing a lot of people we're making noise about was how useful an ORCA class or 2 would be in the great lakes. STAR and YORK we're BY THEMSELVES able to man an entire ORCA each. PREVOST, HUNTER, and CATAR..."CAT", regularly contributed a lot of people to ORCA sails during he training year. If you parked an ORCA at STAR or YORK (or even one at each of them), I guarantee they would get a TON of use by those units, not to mention HMCS ONTARIO. They aren't even that expensive compared to other  major capital projects.

What is prohibitively expensive is to have a large establishment for full-timers in peacetime that you do not need or alternatively, not have the ships and crews you need in an emergency. That's the whole idea behind reserve forces; reduce day-to-day costs when they aren't necessary but have them available at whatever state of readiness you consider appropriate. This requires doing the following:

1) estimating what equipment and personnel you need during peacetime to do the day-to-day security tasks that are necessary and/or who are needed to hone the skill level of the force;

2) estimate what equipment and personnel you need during your worst case scenario security task;

3) designate the difference in equipment and personnel between 1) and 2) your "reserve force"

4) acquire the equipment for the reserve force and hold it in whatever state of readiness/maintenance (not mothballs) your worst case security scenario envisions/requires;

5) organize your reserve force with whatever cadre of full-timers (not just advance promoted) and main force of part-timers is required to recruit, train and regularly exercise them for whatever state of readiness is required;

6) ensure that manufacturing industry and your sustainment system is capable of ramping up production and delivery of armaments to support the full force throughout your worst case security scenario.

That's the rough concept and its surprisingly simple. The details (like rotating usage of equipment between the standing force and the reserve and how it's to be maintained) depend on what you analyze the worst case security scenario to be. The details also depend on how much risk the government is prepared to assume if it plans/pays for a reserve force which is less than required for the worst case security scenario.

What is critical to defence spending in general is that we spend no more on a full-time force in peacetime than absolutely necessary but that at the same time that we have the ability to ramp up the reserve force to meet our national needs as they escalate.

We were good with that concept from 1867 right up to Korea and then we started to get into the "forces in being" spiral (not to mention our building of a large full-time administrative bureaucracy that adds unnecessary costs but, paradoxically, provides few force sustainment capabilities)

We've lost the bubble. We're in a ridiculous stand-off between our military leadership which insists that the only way to fix our defence capability deficiencies is to get more money; and a government that refuses to allocate that money (and IMHO quite rightly until DND/CAF cleans house) and demands that the military leadership do "more with less" but is incapable of giving the necessary political direction as to how to do that or even what the parameters of defence requirements are.

:worms:

 

[Lumber]

1) estimating what equipment and personnel you need during peacetime to do the day-to-day security tasks that are necessary and/or who are needed to hone the skill level of the force;

This is roughly what we have, although I would argue we actually have less than what we need. We're driving the ships HARD to the neglect of PM and non-critical CM.

2) estimate what equipment and personnel you need during your worst case scenario security task;

This is really hard to measure. Are you talking about defending Canada's coast line? We'd be better off investing in coastal defense cruise missile batteries and a stronger air force than trying to use war ships to defend the coast against a "real" threat.

Or are you talking about participating in another global conflict alongside or allies? With more than what we currently have by calling up the reserve? This is what I refer to as being prohibitively expensive, and I'm pretty sure we have in effect eliminated any possibility of this goal being supported. 

3) designate the difference in equipment and personnel between 1) and 2) your "reserve force"

As I mentioned before, and tying in with my response to point 2 above, our naval reserve force serves a different purpose.

4) acquire the equipment for the reserve force and hold it in whatever state of readiness/maintenance (not mothballs) your worst case security scenario envisions/requires;

Again, super expensive to have warships with working kit just sitting around. It would all end up getting removed and put on active duty ships until they were nothing more than just hulls. If they one day those ships were needed, they'd find all they had to equip them with is the broken parts that were in for repair from the active duty ships. You might be able to scrape together enough working kit to put some of them to sea, but not all, and if you intended to have enough working kit at all times for all the ships, including the reserve, well holy hell that's a lot of money.

5) organize your reserve force with whatever cadre of full-timers (not just advance promoted) and main force of part-timers is required to recruit, train and regularly exercise them for whatever state of readiness is required;

Unless you are putting those reserve warships to sea and conducting TG level exercises with them, you'll never really get the reserve force anywhere near the standard that a Normal or High readiness reg force ship is at.

6) ensure that manufacturing industry and your sustainment system is capable of ramping up production and delivery of armaments to support the full force throughout your worst case security scenario.

That's the rough concept and its surprisingly simple. The details (like rotating usage of equipment between the standing force and the reserve and how it's to be maintained) depend on what you analyze the worst case security scenario to be. The details also depend on how much risk the government is prepared to assume if it plans/pays for a reserve force which is less than required for the worst case security scenario.

Ha! I simple you say... My feeling is that we've looked at the worst case scenario and what we would have to do to be prepared for it, and said "Woa... ok that way to expensive. What about the next most worst case scenario? How much would that cost?... ok nope not that one either.... ok keep going... lower... ok stop, there, we can afford to be prepared for that."

What is critical to defence spending in general is that we spend no more on a full-time force in peacetime than absolutely necessary but that at the same time that we have the ability to ramp up the reserve force to meet our national needs as they escalate.

I don't think we're having nay problem spending less than what's absolutely necessary.

We've lost the bubble. We're in a ridiculous stand-off between our military leadership which insists that the only way to fix our defence capability deficiencies is to get more money; and a government that refuses to allocate that money (and IMHO quite rightly until DND/CAF cleans house) and demands that the military leadership do "more with less" but is incapable of giving the necessary political direction as to how to do that or even what the parameters of defence requirements are.

Let's play Doug Ford for a minute here. Go to town adn hack and slash. What units, organizations, programs, endeavors, etc. would you just cut right out of our military to bring down the red-tape and overhead? Would you get rid of the director of general safety? Remove the grievance authority? Get rid of the SJS? What about the Chief of Programme? CANSPOC? How about the entire ADM (Data, Innovation and Analytics)?

I'm not being snarky. Complaints about the bloat in the CAF are rampant, but I've yet to hear someone say what they would cut to fix it if they could just snap their fingers and make it happen. 

 

[FJAG]

This is roughly what we have, although I would argue we actually have less than what we need. We're driving the ships HARD to the neglect of PM and non-critical CM.

The current needs are debatable. I'm simply talking process.

This is really hard to measure. Are you talking about defending Canada's coast line? We'd be better off investing in coastal defense cruise missile batteries and a stronger air force than trying to use war ships to defend the coast against a "real" threat.

Or are you talking about participating in another global conflict alongside or allies? With more than what we currently have by calling up the reserve? This is what I refer to as being prohibitively expensive, and I'm pretty sure we have in effect eliminated any possibility of this goal being supported.

I personally do not see a wide threat to our coastline but only around our primary bases and ports the defence of which ought to be considered as a part of a reserve force tasking.

As I mentioned before, and tying in with my response to point 2 above, our naval reserve force serves a different purpose.

They can serve multiple purposes. The most critical is to form a large component of our defence capabilities as security demands escalate.

Again, super expensive to have warships with working kit just sitting around. It would all end up getting removed and put on active duty ships until they were nothing more than just hulls. If they one day those ships were needed, they'd find all they had to equip them with is the broken parts that were in for repair from the active duty ships. You might be able to scrape together enough working kit to put some of them to sea, but not all, and if you intended to have enough working kit at all times for all the ships, including the reserve, well holy hell that's a lot of money.

Cannibalisation has always been considered the worst possible way to maintain equipment fleets. We've been forced into this situation because full-time personnel expenditures exceed both equipment acquisition and O&M expenditures. We waste billions and billions of dollars on full-time civilian and military salaries. Holy hell, that could buy a lot of gear.

Unless you are putting those reserve warships to sea and conducting TG level exercises with them, you'll never really get the reserve force anywhere near the standard that a Normal or High readiness reg force ship is at.

Again a proper system should be developed to suit the circumstances but generally speaking IMHO, the Naval Reserve personnel TOGETHER WITH their full-time cadre should be required to undertake annual exercises on their ships which would build their readiness. In addition, reserve ships could be routinely swapped out with standing force ship to balance equipment wear and tear which would also facilitate maintenance cycles.

Ha! I simple you say... My feeling is that we've looked at the worst case scenario and what we would have to do to be prepared for it, and said "Woa... ok that way to expensive. What about the next most worst case scenario? How much would that cost?... ok nope not that one either.... ok keep going... lower... ok stop, there, we can afford to be prepared for that."

By worst case scenario I mean: what is the situation that would require the greatest number of personnel and equipment to be deployed. If you plan for the worst case then the lower levels are automatically included. And yes it's a political risk decision to say: "we won't pay for that level of force BUT we will pay for this."

I don't think we're having nay problem spending less than what's absolutely necessary.

It's my opinion that we are not receiving the defence outputs in trained and deployable forces that we should for the money that the government is already committing. Could we use more? Sure we could but lets maximize the outputs for what's being provided already.

Let's play Doug Ford for a minute here. Go to town adn hack and slash. What units, organizations, programs, endeavors, etc. would you just cut right out of our military to bring down the red-tape and overhead? Would you get rid of the director of general safety? Remove the grievance authority? Get rid of the SJS? What about the Chief of Programme? CANSPOC? How about the entire ADM (Data, Innovation and Analytics)?

Read my book for some general ideas. Unsustainable at Any Price: The Canadian Armed Forces in Crisis There are many different approaches one could use. For some specifics I would start with the Leslie Report and have it's team go further to look through DND HQ (he wasn't allowed to). It's not a cut and slash process. It's a top to bottom rethink of how we do things with the aim cutting those things we don't need and restructuring what we do to be more efficient at less cost. To put it politely, industries that depend on cutting cost to maximize profits are generally good at this or they die. DND/CAF, with no profit margin to maintain, has no incentive to maximize it's efficiency (Just to react to the odd funding issues from government with some fine tuning)

I'm not being snarky. Complaints about the bloat in the CAF are rampant, but I've yet to hear someone say what they would cut to fix it if they could just snap their fingers and make it happen.

Again, read the Leslie Report for some ideas. Report on Transformation The reason you don't hear people say what they would fix is actually addressed in the report at page x:

... some big ideas were developed to realize efficiencies and new ways of doing things. Some of these were presented at a large meeting in December 2010 involving the generals, admirals and senior DND civil servants, and it became apparent that the tendency was to argue for the preservation of the status quo within any one particular organization, which is perfectly natural.  Though grimly amusing, these interactions proved that consensus has not and will probably never be achieved on any significant change as we are large and complicated, and the different organizations that make up the whole do different things, each of which is believed to be very important by those who are in them.

Strong leadership is necessary to overcome this resistance. So far our senior leadership (both civilian and military) is content to "go along to get along" and fine tune what I consider a patently broken system rather than reform it. Leslie's transformation team was a modest attempt at that reform and it was firstly, undermined by the civilian side and secondly, mostly ignored by the military. We're our own worst enemy.

:cheers:

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I would hazard a guess that the RCN is fixated onto the Frigate (big ship) as the only path forward, the MCDV were seen as a stepping stone for the big ships, the AOP's were it seemed forced upon them grudgingly. I suspect they won't see any value in the small fast patrol craft that many of our Allies do. The good thing about having Reserves man patrol craft for your harbours, is that they become very familiar with the harbour and it's approaches and can tell if something is odd. Mine hunting in the harbour area and security patrols are tailor made for the Reserves. This gives several skill sets:

Navigation and boat handling
Engineering
Boarding party
Dive team
Mine hunting
ROV operator
Small arms qualifications.

They can also work with the local Militia units as well. Those skill slots can be fleshed out with Naval Reserve units that don't have water access and each NRD can have 2-3 other NRD's tasked to it, so they can plan exercises and prepare budgets.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I would hazard a guess that the RCN is fixated onto the Frigate (big ship) as the only path forward, the MCDV were seen as a stepping stone for the big ships, the AOP's were it seemed forced upon them grudgingly. I suspect they won't see any value in the small fast patrol craft that many of our Allies do. The good thing about having Reserves man patrol craft for your harbours, is that they become very familiar with the harbour and it's approaches and can tell if something is odd. Mine hunting in the harbour area and security patrols are tailor made for the Reserves. This gives several skill sets:

Navigation and boat handling
Engineering
Boarding party
Dive team
Mine hunting
ROV operator
Small arms qualifications.

They can also work with the local Militia units as well. Those skill slots can be fleshed out with Naval Reserve units that don't have water access and each NRD can have 2-3 other NRD's tasked to it, so they can plan exercises and prepare budgets.

We've had some excellent joint exercises with HMCS Malahat. Love those RHIB rides!

 

[Furniture]

I would hazard a guess that the RCN is fixated onto the Frigate (big ship) as the only path forward, the MCDV were seen as a stepping stone for the big ships, the AOP's were it seemed forced upon them grudgingly. I suspect they won't see any value in the small fast patrol craft that many of our Allies do. The good thing about having Reserves man patrol craft for your harbours, is that they become very familiar with the harbour and it's approaches and can tell if something is odd. Mine hunting in the harbour area and security patrols are tailor made for the Reserves. This gives several skill sets:

Navigation and boat handling
Engineering
Boarding party
Dive team
Mine hunting
ROV operator
Small arms qualifications.

They can also work with the local Militia units as well. Those skill slots can be fleshed out with Naval Reserve units that don't have water access and each NRD can have 2-3 other NRD's tasked to it, so they can plan exercises and prepare budgets.

The RCN is fixated on the heavies, because the heavies are the most consistent that way we as a nation project power.

Harbour defense is great for us, but it doesn't help out allies, and it definitely doesn't help ensure that trade routes remain open.

Reserves are a great tool to augment the regs, but we aren't a maritime nation as a whole. We are an urbanized nation, with a couple of ports.  Most of the population don't live near, or interact with the ports in any way beyond consumerism. Canada lacks the maritime tradition of many "smaller" navies like Norway, and the Netherlands.

As to FJAG's proposition that we cut regular force, but bolster the kit budget; who will man/maintain the kit? Learning how to maintain and use a CEROS, ESSM, and MK46 isn't as simple as it had been back in the dawn of industrialized warfare. Due to the complexity and expense of modern kit, professional troops are becoming more akin to the huscarls of old, than the fyrd(WWI-WWII mass mobilization).