Petard said:
The problem with equipping the reserves was not stymied by any kind of political mindset against them, but in the growing complexity of the systems themselves. The availability of reservists to become trained on these systems is limited, except for those deploying with Reg F units, who can get it during work up training to high readiness. Even then there are limits. Nevertheless, in the past decade, the CF has relied actually more and more on the Reserves for sustaining deployed forces. ... All of which resulted in the Artillery in particular leaning on its Reserve units. This pattern was certainly seen during recent Ops when reservists were making up to 30% of any Artillery unit deploying. The pattern is one based on FG individuals (and the CF does need this depth) and not unit mobilization.
Sorry Petard but don't your observations prove my point?
Since Korea, we have stood up a large and expensive regular army/artillery which never went to war until Afghanistan. Even during the first Gulf war we did not send artillery to participate. Our will to commit conventional combat forces was and remains low yet we, as taxpayers, we pay a significant amount to still maintain an arguably large branch which sees, and is predicted to see, only minor operational commitment.
In Afghanistan many branches had large reserve components and they all had long work up sessions before deployment. In my mind that is very much part of the new model of operational deployment and it leaves room to take reservists with fundamental skills to the level needed for operations.
I don't believe in reserve
unit mobilization. That's capability hasn't existed since the early 1960s.
I'll go further. In my mind there should be no reserve 'units'. Units are regiments and while we use the term for our reserve organizations they are in fact frequently undermanned and over ranked batteries.
What I see are reserve battery gun lines headed by a regular force captain and a cadre of regular force personnel for maintenance and key leadership positions. (No BC, no FOOS, no FSCC - leave those with the reg f) These batteries would come under the command of the existing regular force regiments and are to be administered and trained by them and plug into their overall establishment and operational role.
Why keep Reserve LCols and Majs many of the Capts, CWOs and MWOs in reserve units that rarely exceed a hundred all ranks. How many of them went to Afghanistan? Not enough to justify a career structure. Not to denigrate them but they are frequently in civilian employment that makes deployment difficult and their skill levels aren't up to the tasks they would need to do in combat. Get rid of these ranks and you can fund another twenty or thirty gunners per battery.
My reg v res model has always been to identify those jobs that you don't need day-to-day and build a viable reserve system around them. Reservists should have only a very minor career path. They should be doers. If they want a 'career' in the military they should component transfer. Young reserve gunners do not join with the aim of being the RSM. They join to fire the guns and get their hands on cool gear. Give them that and give them good leadership and their skill levels will blossom.
I don't for a minute believe there is any equipment we have which is too complex for reservists as a group to use. Its all a matter of the right training and exercise model. If comms systems are really that complex now then leave those as a reg f job.
My approach is one based on redoing the model from scratch based on what so far is an operational deployment model that rarely exceeds a battle group and that always has time for work-up training. If we do need a true quick reaction force as part of our defence mandate then that can be pure regular force. My guess is that it will never exceed a BG either so the one battery gun line per ref f regiment is more than adequate for that need - in fact with that model you could QRF a whole three gun regiment if needed.
As for the M109s, I didn't advocate those for the reserves per se. I think we should have kept them in storage as a strategic resource or leave one Brigade (and its reservists) fully equipped with them so that we do not loose a heavy capability. I know at the time we were getting rid of tanks and Chinooks as well and look what happened there. We've also gotten much better with heavy strategic airlift since then. Quite frankly if the operational environment becomes less permissive, and the armoured and infantry have tanks and LAVs or whatever the CCV may be, do you really want to have towed 155s? Personally I'd rather have them take a few weeks to get them out of storage than go to PWGSC to go rent us a bunch.
I know 155 ammo is not cheap. With that in mind we need better and more realistic simulation at the gun end. Why don't we have training ammunition that lets the gun line do all their drills but without a projectile actually leaving the barrel. Live firing is very important but much basic and refresher training can be done without it.
My point isn't that there is a political mindset against the reserves. (Although there is. The whole Limited Liability v Unlimited Liability fiasco is evidence of that) My point is that there is a mindset that can't see beyond the
existing reg/res structure because that's what they've been used to their entire careers and they don't want to lose their existing reg f PYs.
The time for tweaking a poor system has expired. Governments have to deal with massive deficits and are having a hard time seeing why it costs us billions and billions of dollars every year to be able to keep one battle group in the field. We need to come up with innovative ideas that will reduce costs and yet still allow us to field a credible force when required.
If I can be honest, this whole business with 155s v 105s v mortars, old v new strikes me as almost unseemly for what has always been the King of Battle.
We have artillery with guns so that we can quickly mass fire across a large front of the battlefield while infantry battalions had mortars for fast guaranteed fire within their immediate areas. Guns and mortars in their specific place have been proven by battle over and over again for over a half century. They are complimentary weapons systems.
Moving mortars out of battalions and giving them to the artillery is, IMHO, PY counting/bean counting at its worst. I only pray that there aren't going to be a whole bunch of grunts that will pay the ultimate price at some time because the fire support they needed wasn't there. (Take a look at Op ANACONDA for an example of what happens when grunts go in without guns and mortars)
The argument as to which weapon delivery system we should use should never be primarily predicated on how easy is it to use, do we have ranges to use it on, will it fit in the armoury etc. It should be based on what will the supported arms be needing in the way of fire support and what terminal weapon's effects do we have to put in the target area to fulfill that need. Once we determine that, everything else will logically fall into place.
Haven't got this worked up over artillery issues for almost three decades.
Nice to be chatting again with people that actually know the difference between a gun and a mortar. The legal branch has been a bit boring.