beenthere said:
There must be some kind of fetish for chunking things in the Tac Hel world. I've seen lots of references over the years where individual squadrons are earmarked or identified for various deployments. I've never seen the plan or heard anything about the logic but it would look like an awful lot of training and preparation goes on before individual units rotate into operational roles. Has anyone considered that deploying a composite unit with crews from all of the operational squadrons and associated components of the organization would fulfill the commitment with less impact on individual units in Canada.
It's not a fetish, but the best compromise and, yes, consideration has been given to pretty much every way imaginable.
There are reasons for and against both options.
Composite units will still take key personnel from other units, so somebody's left without a CO, somebody else with no DCO, etcetera, or else we haul them out of HQs and spend time and effort getting them recurrent/requalified. Wherever they come from, holes will be left somewhere unless we maintain a holding pool of plug-and-play bosses. Then there's the whole "team" thing - without having had the opportunity to work as one for an extended time pre-deployment, there should be no expectation that a bunch of people hastily thrown together will function adequately.
The Australians and New Zealanders provided a helicopter unit to the MFO in the Sinai prior to being replaced by us in the mid-eighties and our planners identified many organizational, currency/qualification, morale, (safety, and disciplinary problems within it as a result of that approach. A conscious decision was therefore made to deploy contingents based on established Squadrons with some augmentation as needed - less at first, but more with each subsequent roto. It worked.
That also made pre-deployment training simpler, as it was done locally. With composite units, all of the personnel would have to be grouped into one common location for it. We do not have the facilities and quarters etcetera to do that, and it would put a lot more strain on members and their families with extra time away.
During the Bosnia effort, Squadrons were given the task for one year and a lot of flexibility to deploy personnel within that time. Key people still had to do six months for obvious continuity reasons, but others could do month-long rotations. The latter was intended to increase reserve participation who could do one or more according to their circumstances, but was also an option offered to many regular members who would do six such month-long stints. It was also an attempt to avoid almost completely stripping each brigade of its helicopter support for extended periods.
Of course, we did not have the personnel shortages that we have now, and 1 Wing Squadrons are forced to be far more interoperable than they were back in the Good Old Days as we juggle crews and machines and groundcrew to support major exercises and operations. We do far more intermixing than we used to and some of the aforementioned problems would not be as significant as they would have been in earlier days.
We are using a semi-composite approach for TUAV ops. Flights are based upon a Squadron with varying augmentation (400, 438, and 444 Squadrons being much smaller than 408 and 430 Squadrons) and a sizeable contingent from 4 AD Regiment. Both the hel and AD personnel can do their individual training at home, but have to come together for the collective training (TUAV operations, maintenance, preparation), final exercise (Maple Guardian in Wainwright), and another two weeks in Pet. That represents four months away from home as it is, and considerable expense in flying groups back-and-forth and housing them. We just finished five weeks in the Ramada in Edmonton due to the lack of on-base accommodation. The remaining time (except for the two weeks in Pet) will be in Wainwright - oh, joy.
Our individual stuff (ranges, first aid, BFT, and other assorted activities) was done during a two-month period in Borden. Not bad for those of us living there, but it sucked for the out-of-towners who joined us - six months away preparing for a six-month deployment for them. Some personal inconvenience is unavoidable and is part of the job, but it needn't be made any worse for any more people than absolutely necessary.
Note that the Army does not routinely form composite units for operational deployment either.
A single Chinook Squadron in one location with a deployed element wherever would appear, to me, to be the best option to meet operational requirements.
