Comm Res No More?

[Bangforbuck]

My thoughts on this topic is that the Comm Res joining the Army.....at least on the west Coast......would be a very good thing for both the Comm Res and the Bde.

From my experience it is not that the Bde units don't know that the Comm Res exists, actually the opposite is true. The big problem is getting authority for them to participate on Bde exercises from their HQ. Comms support, with the exception of the annual BTE, seem to be very low on the Comm Res priority list. In the past units have been turned down for comms support because unit trg, such as setting up modular tentage or conducting entire exercises devoted to radio checks, his higher on the priority list than supporting a unit exercise. After being turned down a number of times you kinda assume you are not going to get it and plan around the problem.  For the Sig Ops this is not a great situation as playing by yourselves doesn't give you realistic trg, nor do you get the opportunity to see how the Comms fits in in the big picture.

If the Comm Res does join the Army, and falls under the local Bde's, I'm willing to bet that the opportunities for realistic and meaningful trg will greatly increase. Another benefit for the Comm Res is the access to all the local Bde's comms eqpt. In our Bde we constantly lend out our comms eqpt to other units that require it. I've noticed that most Comm Res units have only three or four CPs. You could easily quadruple that number if you had access to Bde resources.

Doubt that you would see a reduction in pde trg days. Even if you went to parading Wednesday nights and one weekend a month there would still be a ton of exercises to support to make up for lost parade days. Besides, if you really think about it how many of those parade days involve valuable trg? How many times do you have to set up an antenna to make sure you know how to do it? I guess you have to ask yourself whether you'd rather be setting up an antenna for the umpteenth million time this year, or communicating on an exercise in a more realistic setting. All depends on what your priorities are I guess.

 

[kratz]

I appreciate Comm Res hesitation in joining Army Res. The job is easy to see and justify, but if swallowed up in the green machine, Comms is a small cog. To operate effective Comms, takes a large budget, the reserve is budget sensitive. If Comm Res is absoured into the Army Reserve, I think there would be a decrease in Comms training, as the extra money would be directed to the pointy end.

 

[muffin]

Definitely agree with your point about some of the kit, particularly on our QL5 courses. Now, just to clarify, when we used the LCTs and QRTs we were on an "NCCIS light" course, not an official course (It doesn't have a course number) something that was tacked on by Comm Res after a member's QL5A course.

NCCIS heavy and light courses are both official courses -

Heavy is 115719 (Nat Qual AIWH) and Light is 115720 (Nat Qual AIWG)

 

[Ex Ranger Instructor]

I understand that the NCCIS Light would teach Res Sig Ops how to use kit that's used at their units, but I'd rather see that as unit run OJT training

I missed this before.  I think you have a good idea on the face of things, but it's more complicated than you let on. First off, the NCCIS gear that is in place in reserve units isn't easy to use.  A lot of our guys think they know what's going on with it, but they're wrong. Asking the units to train their own guys is a bad idea if they don't have anyone who really knows what he's doing to run the trg. Centralized training will help to assure quality control over the teaching process. Then we would just have to track down the 10 or so guys in this organization that actually know what they're talking about regarding that stuff, get them to Kingston and go from there.  (Admittedly that in itself is going to be a bit tricky).

NCCIS heavy and light courses are both official courses -

Heavy is 115719 (Nat Qual AIWH) and Light is 115720 (Nat Qual AIWG)

As of last year, CFSCE F Sqn is not running NCCIS Lt, they're running (Res) NCCIS Lt, which has no crse code issued as yet.  The light crse run at the regiment is a different animal.  This info is a year old though, so if things have changed and someone knows better, pls correct me.

make Res Sig Ops available for NCCIS Heavy courses, especially with the number of Res Sig Ops going on deployments nowadays. Would make a much easier common ground when working with Regs.

That's a great idea. But who's going to pay for it?  JSR is the only show in town for that course, and their priority is to qualify their own guys. If they can fit the odd reservist in then great, if not, then it's no skin off their nose. They've now gotten rid of the QRT, so their NCCIS no longer resembles reserve NCCIS at all. Different courses are going to be required for the forseeable future.

My thoughts on this topic is that the Comm Res joining the Army.....at least on the west Coast......would be a very good thing for both the Comm Res and the Bde.

From my experience it is not that the Bde units don't know that the Comm Res exists, actually the opposite is true. The big problem is getting authority for them to participate on Bde exercises from their HQ. Comms support, with the exception of the annual BTE, seem to be very low on the Comm Res priority list.

I agree that the bun fighting between the two organizations has to stop, and hope that it will now that the new arrangement is in place. I've been trying to get better cooperation going for the past 2 years, and it's been a slow process.  I think both sides are to blame. For example: though it might be nice to commit to more joint trg and say that we will place support to your exercises high on the list of priorities, we both know that list is not mandated by individual units themselves- it comes from much higher and it ties our hands.  When the Brigade phones up on Monday and asks us to support an exercise that starts the coming Saturday, it's pretty unreasonable for them to get upset when we say no- sorry fellas, turns out we already have plans for that weekend. Likewise with asking us to run ATCIS courses with very short notice and so forth.  Better coordination and willingness to make compromises is required from both sides on this one.  It seems to be getting better, but we still need to work on it.

 

[PuckChaser]

As of last year, CFSCE F Sqn is not running NCCIS Lt, they're running (Res) NCCIS Lt, which has no crse code issued as yet.  The light crse run at the regiment is a different animal.  This info is a year old though, so if things have changed and someone knows better, pls correct me.

I taught a QL5 last summer, and all of my students received the NCCIS Lt qual, and the Journeyman qual, the same as the regular force members get. There was a drive by Standards before all the students arrived to get a final copy of the compressed training requirements and put them into a TP. I was pleasantly suprised when it happened, and I think it bodes well for us to train more competent operators.

As with anything in the Army, I think a "watch and shoot" approach would probably solve some problems from the get-go. People sliding into working with the Army Reserve with a chip on their shoulder about being the small cog that moves the pointy end will probably just fulfill all their own prophecies. Then again, it is a soldier's God-given right to complain, and I probably won't be quiet when some RadVans or Cl A training money goes missing.  ;D

 

[Ex Ranger Instructor]

If you mean that the Reg F students get an NCCIS Lt qual in conjunction with their 5's then that's not correct.  F Sqn is the only one that does that.

And the NCCIS Lt Qual we gave, last year, is not the same as the real NCCIS Lt crse.  It was a trg session, based on a draft CTP, for which no qual currently exists.  I was there too.

 

[PuckChaser]

I stand corrected, thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Ex Ranger Instructor]

There was a drive by Standards before all the students arrived to get a final copy of the compressed training requirements and put them into a TP.

Just to clarify one more point, there is/was no compressed trg requirement.  The QL5 that's done within F Sqn is the same as the one done in B Sqn, i.e. it's now a "Total Force" crse, same for Reg and Res.  That became the case last year.  You're probably thinking of the fact that the courses we ran were pilot courses in the sense that although the CTP had been in place for Reg F troops for a while, it had never been run for Reserve troops before, which is why Standards were involved the way they were.

Not trying to jump on you, just clarifying.

 

[Avro_Arrow_1976]

Is it true in Kingston 10 years ago someone molded a 10 foot long penis onto the Jimmy statue at CFB Kingston?

 

[Sig_Des]

I missed this before.  I think you have a good idea on the face of things, but it's more complicated than you let on. First off, the NCCIS gear that is in place in reserve units isn't easy to use.  A lot of our guys think they know what's going on with it, but they're wrong.

I can agree to that. a bit of a pipe dream, and sometimes is seems that operating an LCT/QRT is more art than science. But since the NCCIS Lt run by F Sqn is reserve specific, and only 3 weeks, could it possibly be broken down to a regional level? Maybe a Group run training session?

That's a great idea. But who's going to pay for it?  JSR is the only show in town for that course, and their priority is to qualify their own guys. If they can fit the odd reservist in then great, if not, then it's no skin off their nose. They've now gotten rid of the QRT, so their NCCIS no longer resembles reserve NCCIS at all. Different courses are going to be required for the forseeable future.

I can understand that. I haven't done the course, don't know how long it is. Would it be looked at to possibly run the NCCIS Heavy course during the summer at F Sqn as an addendum to Journeyman courses?

Is it true in Kingston 10 years ago someone molded a 10 foot long penis onto the Jimmy statue at CFB Kingston?

What does that have to do with anything in this topic?

 

[muffin]

I can understand that. I haven't done the course, don't know how long it is. Would it be looked at to possibly run the NCCIS Heavy course during the summer at F Sqn as an addendum to Journeyman courses?

I know the Reg NCCIS heavy and light courses (JSR's) were both over a month long... not sure if the Res version is the same or not. I also know that part of the training took place outside the Regt at the local IT training school (Micromarket here).

If I recall Light Det was 1 month, and Heavy was 2 months.

 

[Ex Ranger Instructor]

Maybe a Group run training session?

If there are enough legitimate SME's within a Gp to make that work then sure, but as I said, I know of less than 10 guys in our whole organization who I trust to really teach that stuff properly.  If there are more then I have yet to meet them.  I'd prefer to see those guys get identified as the SME's, and then sent to Kingston to conduct centralized, standardized trg for everyone.

I know the Reg NCCIS heavy and light courses (JSR's) were both over a month long... not sure if the Res version is the same or not. I also know that part of the training took place outside the Regt at the local IT training school (Micromarket here).

If I recall Light Det was 1 month, and Heavy was 2 months

That was true when I got my qual in 2003, but it may have changed considerably since then, I don't know.  The NCCIS CTP is constantly under revision to reflect the constantly changing nature of the kit used in those dets.  My course was the last one to include IMRCT, the Regiment has since gotten rid of their QRT, IS is always changing to reflect updates/changes, etc.

I think we're going to have to go with different courses for Reg and Reserve for the time being.  Kit differences, etc just make it too hard to do otherwise.

 

[smitty66]

I'd have to agree with Willy regarding the GP run training sessions. Perhaps the idea of establishing a small cadre of the SME (in Kingston) to pass on the "mojo" needed to make some of usually N/S kit work and have them teach that exclusively. Instead of having an instructor who is not very familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the QRT/LCT trying to teach it, allow the NCCIS Lt portion of the training to be taught by the gurus. It may be a bit of a scheduling headache, but that's what good Snr NCO's are for, eh Willy?  ;D
It may allow the establishment of a bit of corporate knowledge to be reestablished WRT some of this kit.
Overall I think the unfortunate fact is that due to the cost of the more current kit, most Comm Res personnel aren't going to see it unless they spend some time with the JSR. Nature of the beast I guess!
Cheers

 

[dapaterson]

Overall I think the unfortunate fact is that due to the cost of the more current kit, most Comm Res personnel aren't going to see it unless they spend some time with the JSR. Nature of the beast I guess!

That can be extended to the Comms world as a whole, and not just the Comm Res - unless you're in the JSR you won't see some of the kit.  It's the nature of the beast.

 

[Weekendsig]

I think moving sig units into the brigades will be a good thing. As I understand it with the money pit Com Res Shilo shut down CFSCE there will be more people filling the positiong in Kingston.

I could go into a rant on why Comm Res School Shilo should be shut down and a parking lot put in its place. I just have to say that most of the MCpls who came out of that School couldnt organize a coffee run, but they could yell and screem and jack up some poor troop who happened to roll mod the wrong way. I was lucky to do my JNCO with the Leadership school in Pet.

Damn it another rant. I came here to talk about the 521

 

[c_canuk]

I hope the future of comm res is as rosy as most of you see it.

I'm pretty pesimistic

Comm res from my experiance while isolated by a seperate coc actually supports the militia units better than they do themselves, I've supported Arty, Armd Recce, Svc Bn, and Inf. None of those exersizes included other militia units, it was one milita unit and a CP supplied by us.

once our budget gets gutted and re distributed to the milita units, which is what I see as the adgenda for the milita pushing for this, we are not going to be able to maintain the lack luster standard we have now let alone improve it... rumormil has it they want sig op 3s and 5s combined into a 2 month course which is not feasible imho if there is any truth to it.

I see the reserve training in Kingston becomming a tool for the militia to send designated sigs from their own units to be trained to fufill the jobs we do for them which will be more convienient for the militia units. Due to this shift in skill assets to the militia units I think that Comms units will fade away as skill sets disapear and the usefulness of individual units diminishes once the militia get their own cells.

As for militia units complaining that they don't get enough support... supporting the Reg force is the reason reserves exist in the first place and there is a war on, my unit is gutted right now with people tasked in backfill and operational roles, so no Svc Bn's exersize in the parking lot where they want to send sup reqs 10 feet isn't the top of our priority and if we don't train our remaing troops, whats the point? In the past my unit would send a fully kitted CP to any unit requesting one even when we were training because we had the budget to employ a large staff... the unit is threadbare now and the timing of a massive restructuring could not be worse.

I hope I'm wrong but I don't see the Comm units existing longer than 5 years due to gutted budgets, turmoil during the restructuring, the mass amount of budget restructuring will eat up, the confusion injected into the already faltering training program and the majority of skilled pers on tour or backfilling for the reg force.

Sure if we had 5 years to restructure and retrain the whole militia/comms relationship with a plan of action, abundant patience to carry it out, and avoid just letting everything evolve as each part grabs their share; things might turn out for the better.

I hope I'm horribly wrong and someone can fill me in on what I'm missing but thats what I predict.

Shilo is seen as a waste of resources but the militia is not willing to take on the additional pers that shilo churns out every year which is why it still exists, and even shilo last year could not provide enough seats while even the ATCs were accepting some of our overflow. Shilo's problems are due to the militia refusing to swap personnel (sigs to ATC to teach sigs on their courses for Cbt Arms from militia to teach at Shilo) and that was due to com res command being difficult to work with which is probably the second motivation for the restructuring. Though 2006 and 2007 showed those problems are not unique to comm res.

Group level exersizes at least in the atlantic area are a gross misuse of funds imo. flying 10 people from each unit to the instructors for a weekend is... odd. instead what should be done is the group assembles a cadre of skilled instructors and sends them to the units with the kit to teach and refresh whole units. Prefably for things like NCCIS the instructors could visit JSR and/or CFSCE for refresher and confirmation during the summer months then visit units on weekends to conduct the trg.The funds saved and extra trg time alotted to the units due to not having to tie up 2 days with traveling in a friday night-sunday night period would be enormous and the dollars per number of people trained and brought up to speed would go a lot further.

ARCON is useless as it is organized, it should be modeled against the confimation ex in Wainright for the Op workup trg and needs a more tightly integrated command structure. When the infantry are in a school doing an urban ex being supplied by Svc Bn 50 km away on 30km/hour MSRs doing a classic cold war ex, something has gone horribly wrong.

 

[Weekendsig]

outstanding rant.

 

[c_canuk]

it started out as a couple of lines then flowed out from my fingertips... perhaps it was a little wordy 

but like I said that's what I see, I'm hoping someone can show me some part of the picture I'm not seeing

 

[Weekendsig]

I agree with you that out budget would most likely be reallocated in order to fund other things. If anyone of any decision makeing power is reading this. DONT SLASH the SIG training budget. Please and Thank you. I like the idea of the JTFA,JTFN JTFetc Can Com org. Gen Hiller says soldiering skills first and us purple trades have to improve on out skills. In my mind COMM RES Shilo, though given a nice training area, did not have the expertise in house in order to run such courses.(SQ, MOD 6 PLQ) Why would a sig op teah another sig op about the sectioN ATTACKS and roles of such and such in the defensive when we our selves are not expertes or even conversant in the methodolgy. It would be like a infanteer trying to teah another infanteer how to operate the 138, when he only saw iut once on his Long Range Recce crse. He can probably do it. But it would be better for a sig op to teach the 138.

 

[AideMemoire]

I'm sorry, but I'll have to disagree. It would be nice if we could have aid to civil power exercises where we worked w/ civilian agencies but in reality that does not happen, at least not at my end.

As of right now our aid to civil power exercises involve, as I've said before, setting up a huge CP (not running it while working w/ other agencies or militia units, just setting it up and tearing down) and testing our RRB locations. Granted testing out RRB locations is very important but, when you have people in those dets who don't know how to use the equipment (our quad mount for example) how effective is the testing really? Skill fade is a huge problem.

I realize this post is over a year old, but...some things never change at that unit.  When I was there in 1996-1999 we did the same sort of things as mentioned by this poster as training in our Aid to Civil Powers role, and if we were really lucky and had some money left in the budget, we would actually deploy our out-dets to Chilliwack, Surrey, North Van etc. along with manning Base Radio at Jericho on a weekend ex to practice the sorts of VHF and HF comm problems we'd be experiencing in real-time in the event we'd need to step in as backup or parallel comms after an earthquake or other similar disaster.  If we were lucky. 

Frequently we weren't lucky.  "We don't have the budget" was the usual cry, but we had other problems too.  Morale was a large one, which resulted in poor showings, particularly on weekends.  One year I swear we practically did nothing MOS related at all but instead did tons of drill.  Drill for the sake of practice.  Drill as part of contingents sent here or there to march in various special occasions - drill to the point you had to stop and fix your eyes on an LS with an antenna mount in some corner just to remind yourself you were in a comms unit.  One night I actually asked one of the MCpl's what the deal was with so much drill when we could...I dunno....learn about The Erection of Field Expedient Antennas or something...and was told:

"Like it or not, people looking at this unit from the outside are going to be judging it by its drill..."

Straight up.  I can't fault the NCO because because that sounds exactly like the sort of thing our DCO would've heard in some seminar with hot and cold running donuts and a slick powerpoint presentation and passed all the way down the chain to the person giving us endless drill.  But those lying in two feet of mud post-earthquake with no food, electricity, clean water or way to contact anyone most certainly would not be judging us on our drill, and its those  people who mattered.  People joined our unit and showed up because they liked comms, liked thinking they'd be useful in the event anything happened, and liked learning.  They didn't show up to perfect the Right Wheel; didn't show up to burn off most of an afternoon playing soccer -- and didn't show up to relive highschool PT.  Pretty soon they just didn't show up. "Lack of numbers" was then used as an excuse not to do anything formal with regard to what what we were supposed to be doing comms wise which meant more drill, more PT and more soccer -- the proverbial snake eating its own tail.  People didn't show up because they weren't getting any training - training wouldn't happen because (ostensibly) not enough people were showing up. 

One notable ex - Jupiter Dogwood, I think (frequently referred to as "Stupider Dogf*ck") -  was again supposed to have us deploy our out-dets to those far-flung locations already mentioned, and indeed we'd inventoried all our kit, packed our rucks and dufflebags, arranged for pets to be fed and the whole bit -- only to be told on the Friday night that we wouldn't be deploying anywhere ("we don't have the budget") - but would instead just spread ourselves around the back forty of Jericho with our LSs and just imagine  forty-fifty-seventy intervening kilometers even though the Grouse Mtn. det and the Dogwood Trailer Park det and the Chilliwack det were physically close enough that you could yell "hey dawg - you got some extra remote batteries? Mine are all pooched" and borrow same after an unrealistically short walk which wouldn't be possible if you were deployed for real.  People who joined *wanted* to deploy and *wanted* to sleep in watertight recce tents (as opposed to waterproof    ) and *do* something rather than occupy the finest address on Silly Street for a weekend and sleep on cots in Base Radio when you weren't on duty. 

In the ACP role we were supposed to work - at least theoretically - with Emergency Preparedness Canada and PEP, but I don't remember doing anything with them at all save for hearing some stuff on the periphery once a year when PEP did their own, large, in-house ex.  We did have an ancient Magnavox Magnaphone INMARSAT-A terminal at the unit which was loaned by Emergency Preparedness Canada, but I think I only saw it set up one particular ex and even then I don't think it did anything but turn on and go through the BIT (and then return an error, I think!)

As to supporting 39 Bde militia units - we did that - or more specifically, you'd get the (very) odd callout and volunteers would be asked for to fill it.  From what I recall back then, it was mostly 12 Med doing the asking.  That was about it other than on things like Cougar Salvo where you'd loan rad ops etc. out to outfits like Svc Bn and some opportunities during the summer for those not on course.

Anyway, drifted a bit - but in this particular unit - and probably many other CommRes units - people join to feel useful, and know when they're not.  They also know when training days are just "keep them busy" days which don't further unit proficiency in any useful direction.  We had a lot of those.  We also needed a real role and an ongoing dialogue with PEP and Emergency Preparedness Canada in our ACP role so we could be like those hockey players who always know exactly where their teammates are going to be and what they're going to be doing at key moments when it comes time to pass - and I got the sense that wasn't happening either (and apparently still isn't.)  Oh well.

(There were some awesome people at that unit while I was there, though, who were great fun to work with!)