I was thinking much the same thing as Journeyman - I couldn't get the tune of "Here we go round the mulberry bush" out of my head.
In the proposals suggested I see elements of the 10:90 solution, the reserve Jump Coy solution, the Defense & Duties solution, the Mortar and Machine Gun Platoons solution....all of which were actually implemented in the last 30 years and all of which ultimately foundered. And they foundered on the same rock: the inability of the reserves to field more than 10% of their authorized strength. Given that units are authorized at sub-unit strength (~127 as RoyalDrew points out) than that means that, at best, the unit will be able to send a dozen motivated individuals for training, summer exercises or for operations.
It was ever thus. In 1812 Brock and Prevost got some good service out of Militia "Flank Coys" - basically those dozen soldiers brigaded into companies and attached to regular Brit battalions to thicken their lines. It was the same again in 1866 with the Fenians, again it was "Flank Coys" - not the run of the mill militiamen - that contributed to the effort.
The Papal Zouaves, the NW Rebellion, the Boer War, the Mac-Pap Battalion, Korea, Bosnia, Afghanistan ..... those efforts were small. Battalion/Brigade efforts - similar to what we managed all during the Cold War. And all supplied by "Volunteers" - both full time and part time.
World Wars 1 and 2 were aberrations and even those were essentially "Volunteer" shows. Yes conscription was introduced but late in the game and few of the conscripts made it to the front lines.
The underlying problem is that, unlike the Poles and Ukrainians and Russians, Canadians don't perceive any threat that would force them to pick up arms and kill the man in their front yard intent on slaughtering their family. That threat is a nightmare in Eastern Europe. It is a fantasy in Canada.
My solution:
Accept that you are never going to have the manpower. Leverage technology.
In the beginning there was only manpower. Men in lines with spears and shields. Then it was bayonets and muskets. Then it was bayonets and rifles.
World War 1 saw a move away from reliance on manpower with Quick Firing guns (75s and 18s) and of course the Machine Guns. Lines were held by men on OPs and those guns. The assault troops were husbanded in the reserve lines.
I suggest that technology makes possible, and politics demand, a continuation of that thought. If I were in your position I would be lobbying to create a ring of unmanned sensors, backed by a ring of crew served weapons (aircraft, helos, guns) containing a core (not corps) of assault troops. The sensors and the crew served weapons require money and time - not necessarily manpower. The assault troops are nothing but manpower - with elan - a vital commodity that the French identified but wasted.
Again, if it were me, Reg Force infantry battalions when, they were being cut down in manpower, I would have held on to all the specialist companies platoons before I would have maintained my full strength rifle coys. Equally I would have held onto my weapons dets, 4 per company, and reduced my rifle sections from 10 men to 6.
The role of the reserves would then be to thicken up the sections (12 men from one Reserve unit would bring a Regular Platoon back up to strength) in Roto 0 to 2. If the operation proceeded longer than that then they could be brought up to trained platoon and trained company status and deployed as required.
In the US the Army instructs its COs, when they are sent to their training exercises, that if they are short of manpower they are to man their crew served weapons and vehicles as a priority. The rifles suffer accordingly.
In 309(3) the advice used to be the same.
Rifles are not cannon fodder. They are too valuable for that. But the key elements of a good rifleman, a good assault trooper, are physical fitness and attitude. Add in small arms training and small unit tactics, which can be accomplished locally, and you can turn out useful platoons of rifles at relatively low cost.
With respect to the clerks in Ottawa: as I was taking a look at the role of the Adjutant (for discussion in the expanding HQ thread) I was surprised to discover that the Brits had created something call the Adjutant General's Corps into which the enrolled all the clerks from Transport, REME, Post, Catering .... you name it. It then dawned on me that Canada has done something of the same thing.
I get the idea of a common training syllabus for clerks but why do they have a separate command structure? A separate empire. Shouldn't they be creatures of the organizations and the commanders they serve? Does the clerical empire contribute to the ever expanding HQs?
op:
