Informing the Army’s Future Structure

[MilEME09]

Agreed. I've never understood the posting turbulence at lower ranks and junior officers. Practically speaking a junior officer should be able to stay in one location until ready for appointment as a company commander. Non-commissioned ranks to CSM appointment. And even there, some could remain in their home unit.

I think the problem is that there are far too many staff positions that need to be filled across the force by Sgt and Captains and up. That usually forces moves when more regimental employment would be better for the individual and the corps. That's a guess.

As an example my friend is a Staff Sgt in the USMC, he has been in about 13 years, and only had two postings, first 8 years with 3 MEF in Okinawa, he resigned his contract and was posted to Ft Sill to teach. That kind of stability would go a long way in the CAF, and might actually force the CAF to improve quality of life in some remote postings.

 

[FJAG]

As an example my friend is a Staff Sgt in the USMC, he has been in about 13 years, and only had two postings, first 8 years with 3 MEF in Okinawa, he resigned his contract and was posted to Ft Sill to teach. That kind of stability would go a long way in the CAF, and might actually force the CAF to improve quality of life in some remote postings.

I've been pondering an issue regarding my idea of creating 30/70 battalions which are centred on res units in urban areas. Where do you put the Reg F staffed bn HQ and the one RegF company?

My two thoughts were:

1. acquire some condos in the city (or build them on federal land) and rent them out at reasonable prices as PMQs; and

2. create a term contract for people who come from the city and have family and housing available and make the contract so that they will not be posted away from the city during the duration of the contract. In time your reservists and regular force folks would all be residents of the city. Great opportunity for spouses to find long term employment in the city , too.

There are other ways of doing business than our current HR business model.

 

[IKnowNothing]

The issue though isn't whether they are already force generators, but are they capable of being force employers - in other words being able to form a brigade headquarters, deploy it into combat with various battalions, regiments under command. While SSE doesn't demand that, the brigades do train for that and are equipped and manned for that.

Sorry, I phrased that a little obliquely. What I was trying to get at was completely abandoning the idea of CMBG's as force employers (and indeed as functional HQ's) Leave the Divisions as the geographically based command domestic command org in peacetime, and stand up two new HQ's- 1st Canadian Expeditionary Brigade (Mechanized), 2nd Canadian Expeditionary Brigade (Light). Defeatist approach to get around symmetry, and equipment/ manpower budgetary constraints.

Assuming there's some budget for weapon system /turret changes:
Drop to one LAV battalion per Regiment (free up ~150 LAV's)

~40 to M-SHORAD (12 x 3 + 4 Spares)
~30 to NEMO ( 4 x 6 + 6 Spares)
~60 to RT60 ATGM (2x9+ 4x3 + 4x6 + 6 spares)
~15 to LAV UAV ( 2x6)

Use your reserve reform to stretch the Armoured Regiments into two hybrid battalions of 3 squadrons. 1st battalion is heavy with a 14 tank squadron and two 19 LAV Recce squadrons (mix of LRSS, UAV, and RT 60) + a mortar platoon. 2nd Battalion is light cavalry in TAPV's (ideally some of the flat tops with UAV, some of the RWS's upgraded to RS60 with Javelin).

LAV battalion augmented with a mortar platoon, AT platoon, and two ATGM turrets (with 30mm) per company.

Lean on the reserves to stand up the SHORAD batteries and the support required to mobilize two brigades at the same time

War time mobilization
1 CEB forms around the Armoured Battalion, LAV Battalion, and combat support elements one of the former CMBG's, selects (based on mission and readiness between the remaining 2x Armoured and 2X Lav battalions to round out.
2 CEB does the same with the Light CAV, 2x LIB's, and combat support elements of another, rounds out with either one of the 2 remaining light cav's or LIB's based on mission requirements.

 

[GR66]

I try to be weapon neutral in my thinking except in the way of obvious forces. As an example, I've thought for a while that our brigades need a more robust cavalry force which can do more than simply gather information; I think entity structures based on threes (platoons, companies, battalions) just make sense; I think both direct and indirect fire support is critical and that anyone who builds an army around riflemen without adequate ATGMs, mortars, tanks, artillery, air defence and a sustainable logistics system is a simpleton. Basically the combined arms brigade group structure is sound whether its in the light, medium or heavy category. It's not rocket science. Some day we'll have weapon systems that will have us go in a different direction but for the time being that's it.

The issue for us is to have a doctrine and equip the force in full. The flexibility comes from the RegF/ResF mix. You might need two full rifle companies in a battalion and no artillery for day to day needs but you'd better have trained reservists to fill out that third company and the artillery regiment when the time comes. It's too late when you see the Russians doing a three month exercise at the Latvian border.

I'm not questioning the structure of the Brigade (or the need for Brigades), I'm questioning if the traditional Brigade is a suitable/effective Canadian response to an enemy attack on an ally.

Unless we pre-position a Brigade in Europe (and there is zero indication that there is any political will to do so) then we're likely talking months to get a Brigade prepped, shipped to Europe and ready to fight as a formation (I believe you referenced a past commitment for Canada to provide Brigades in either 90 or 180 days...which you seemed to indicate was at a time when our Army was more prepared than we are currently).

We're now 50 days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine. At best we'd expect to be able to have one of our Brigades enter the conflict in another 40 days? What if the initial Russian assault hadn't been so incompetent? Would we even have that extra 40 days? I guess we could penny-packet individual Battalions/Battle Groups in more quickly, or rush over a Light Brigade by air which could possibly be in action more quickly (do we even have the airlift capacity for that?) but do we really want to put relatively immobile light troops up against a mechanized attack?

So, what I guess I'm wondering is that in the absence of forward deployment of a Brigade to Europe if then all the Infantry Brigades (Armoured, Medium or Light) should be Reserve formations rather than Reg Force formations. If Brigade mobilization is only going to happen in the most extreme circumstances (we haven't deployed a Brigade since Korea) and it will take months to deploy them anyway...too late to be any sort of immediate response to an enemy invasion...then just make them all Reserve mobilization formations. Make the Reg Force units something else then that CAN be rapidly deployed in case of a conflict.

There are some fairly obvious non-Army forces that could be of immediate use (and quickly deployable) in case of conflict. Fighters, Air Transport, Air-to-Air Refueling aircraft, ISR aircraft, warships, subs, etc. For immediately useful Army assets I'd think you'd want to focus on units that can be deployed by air (ideally small enough to deploy by C-130) and have the ability to try and blunt the enemy force's initial attack, giving time for local allies to deploy their forces in response. I'm thinking things like light SHORAD vehicles to counter enemy aircraft over the front, MRAD and C-RAM systems to protect vital points (logistics centers, mustering locations, transport infrastructure, etc.) from enemy air and missile attacks, EW/ISR/JTAC assets to provide targeting info for allied strike assets, long range precision strike assets (HIMARS?) to hit key enemy targets, etc.

All this just to say that if Force 2025 (or whatever is replacing it) is to really achieve a meaningful transformation of the Canadian Army I think it needs to do more than just move the existing chess pieces around the board to a different Brigade-based configuration and look at other ways that the Canadian Army can make a meaningful contribution in a future conflict.

 

[FJAG]

Sorry, I phrased that a little obliquely. What I was trying to get at was completely abandoning the idea of CMBG's as force employers (and indeed as functional HQ's) Leave the Divisions as the geographically based command domestic command org in peacetime, and stand up two new HQ's- 1st Canadian Expeditionary Brigade (Mechanized), 2nd Canadian Expeditionary Brigade (Light). Defeatist approach to get around symmetry, and equipment/ manpower budgetary constraints.

Sorry, but you won't get me on board for that. IMHO every headquarters between the Army HQ and the individual soldier that is incapable of deploying is a waste of human resources. Yes, we do need a training system and yeas there needs to be a logistics support system but for me that's it. We do not need more administrative elements.

Based on the number of people (both RegF and ResF) that the government authorizes the Army to have we should have enough for two deployable divisions. We have the equipment for one which means we could conceivably deploy one and have one unequipped one in reserve. Realistically we should be able to deploy a two brigade force in the event of a major emergency. To me that means we need deployable brigade headquarters and the ability to field one divisional HQ.

I tend to be more aggressive in what we should be able to do than others because I think we owe it to the people of Canada who pay all these salaries day-by-day.

Assuming there's some budget for weapon system /turret changes:
Drop to one LAV battalion per Regiment (free up ~150 LAV's)

~40 to M-SHORAD (12 x 3 + 4 Spares)
~30 to NEMO ( 4 x 6 + 6 Spares)
~60 to RT60 ATGM (2x9+ 4x3 + 4x6 + 6 spares)
~15 to LAV UAV ( 2x6)

I'm certainly agreeable to weapon systems like this. I'm not sure we need to sacrifice the LAVs for all of them. It strikes me if you can put an Avenger AD system on a HMVWW then you can put a SHORAD turret on a TAPV and have left over room for reloads. Probably the same with an ATGM turret whatever UCAV systems you might want. Maybe even a mortar system but I'd be more prepared to rebuild whatever Bisons we still have for that. I'm a great believer in making use of what one already has.

Use your reserve reform to stretch the Armoured Regiments into two hybrid battalions of 3 squadrons. 1st battalion is heavy with a 14 tank squadron and two 19 LAV Recce squadrons (mix of LRSS, UAV, and RT 60) + a mortar platoon. 2nd Battalion is light cavalry in TAPV's (ideally some of the flat tops with UAV, some of the RWS's upgraded to RS60 with Javelin).

I'm a believer in 14 tank squadrons. I know others insist that the 19 tank squadron is the only way to go but there are enough professional armies using 14 that it's obviously a viable concept and will stretch the resources. That should give us the ability to form 5-6 squadrons (depending on how many you want to set aside for pure training). I prefer organizing those into combined arms battalions. IMHO recce can get by with TAPVs with ATGMs and lots of UAVs and UCAVs supported by long range artillery guns and rockets.

LAV battalion augmented with a mortar platoon, AT platoon, and two ATGM turrets (with 30mm) per company.

I'll leave it to current grunts to define the rifle company for me. Mortars definitely and while I used to be a great believer in ATGM platoons, Ukraine is helping to persuade me towards ATGMs everywhere. My thinking right now is something NLAWie in the rifle platoons and something more long range in the cavalry regiment and infantry bn ATGM platoon.

Lean on the reserves to stand up the SHORAD batteries and the support required to mobilize two brigades at the same time

Yes, but SHORAD needs a a hybrid structure because some of the systems and processes require some full-timers to operate and maintain.

War time mobilization
1 CEB forms around the Armoured Battalion, LAV Battalion, and combat support elements one of the former CMBG's, selects (based on mission and readiness between the remaining 2x Armoured and 2X Lav battalions to round out.
2 CEB does the same with the Light CAV, 2x LIB's, and combat support elements of another, rounds out with either one of the 2 remaining light cav's or LIB's based on mission requirements.

Not a fan. You've seen my current thoughts already upthread.

The idea is to restructure existing people and equipment into the ability to deploy up to three asymmetric brigades with two brigades of people to round out or reinforce the organization and to build the potential, with extra equipment, to deploy two additional manoeuvre brigades and a solid CS/CSS support structure. I'm not saying that we need to be able to deploy them all at once but I think we need the ability to do so if we have to in an emergency while enhancing our ability to deploy small battlegroups during peacetime.. I'm solidly against any plan that would reduce that capability.

 

[Kirkhill]

rush over a Light Brigade by air which could possibly be in action more quickly (do we even have the airlift capacity for that?) but do we really want to put relatively immobile light troops up against a mechanized attack?

I don't know. These immobile light troops have been doing not bad for the last 8 years. And they seem to be repelling 7 or 8 assaults daily - and killing troops, tanks, IFVs, guns, MRLSs and UASs - even the occasional helicopter and fighter.



Just add MGs, Mortars, Javelins, NLAWs, Stingers and UAS's. And a good radio connection to Arty and a mobile QRF.

 

[FJAG]

I'm not questioning the structure of the Brigade (or the need for Brigades), I'm questioning if the traditional Brigade is a suitable/effective Canadian response to an enemy attack on an ally.

Unless we pre-position a Brigade in Europe (and there is zero indication that there is any political will to do so) then we're likely talking months to get a Brigade prepped, shipped to Europe and ready to fight as a formation (I believe you referenced a past commitment for Canada to provide Brigades in either 90 or 180 days...which you seemed to indicate was at a time when our Army was more prepared than we are currently).

After what happened in Ukraine I think there will be a point in time when Canada's government, even this thick one, will understand it will need to contribute more that a half of a battlegroup. A flyover brigade is the most economical and sensible. Even if we do not have one now, the Army should be developing that capability so that when asked it won't stand there with its d!ck hanging out saying "we can't do that".

The point is that an armoured brigade in country, exercised regularly, makes a tremendously more impressive political symbol of commitment than some airy-fairy promise of aircraft and ships which sit somewhere far away and out of view. I'm not questioning their usefulness, just their political impact. On top of that such a brigade makes a credible deterrent to the Orcs on the other side of the border.

With the right kind of planning (including an on-demand contract for civilian airliners) one could deploy a fly-over force in days not weeks or months.

We're now 50 days into the Russian invasion of Ukraine. At best we'd expect to be able to have one of our Brigades enter the conflict in another 40 days? What if the initial Russian assault hadn't been so incompetent? Would we even have that extra 40 days? I guess we could penny-packet individual Battalions/Battle Groups in more quickly, or rush over a Light Brigade by air which could possibly be in action more quickly (do we even have the airlift capacity for that?) but do we really want to put relatively immobile light troops up against a mechanized attack?

I don't think that committing a light brigade would be as useful as a heavy one, would probably still take too much time if its heavier equipment and ammunition wasn't prepositioned as well and would have a limited political impact or deterrence factor.

So, what I guess I'm wondering is that in the absence of forward deployment of a Brigade to Europe if then all the Infantry Brigades (Armoured, Medium or Light) should be Reserve formations rather than Reg Force formations. If Brigade mobilization is only going to happen in the most extreme circumstances (we haven't deployed a Brigade since Korea) and it will take months to deploy them anyway...too late to be any sort of immediate response to an enemy invasion...then just make them all Reserve mobilization formations. Make the Reg Force units something else then that CAN be rapidly deployed in case of a conflict.

I'm not against quick reaction light forces. We need them and to be "quick" they need to be full-time forces in being. But mostly for non NATO missions. I see very little value in light reserve forces under Canada's reality other than as a cheap manpower pool that can, with time, be trained for other roles. I think in what do we need day-to day or what is so complex that it needs to be trained day-to-day as the full-timers and reservists as those folks which you only need to call on when things go to hell. When things go to hell you need equipped reservists to call on.

There are some fairly obvious non-Army forces that could be of immediate use (and quickly deployable) in case of conflict. Fighters, Air Transport, Air-to-Air Refueling aircraft, ISR aircraft, warships, subs, etc. For immediately useful Army assets I'd think you'd want to focus on units that can be deployed by air (ideally small enough to deploy by C-130) and have the ability to try and blunt the enemy force's initial attack, giving time for local allies to deploy their forces in response. I'm thinking things like light SHORAD vehicles to counter enemy aircraft over the front, MRAD and C-RAM systems to protect vital points (logistics centers, mustering locations, transport infrastructure, etc.) from enemy air and missile attacks, EW/ISR/JTAC assets to provide targeting info for allied strike assets, long range precision strike assets (HIMARS?) to hit key enemy targets, etc.

No criticism there other than visible political impact and the fact that local forces will have been long deployed before we get there. Again, these are assets that should be predeployed and manned by a cadre heavily augmented by flyover troops.

All this just to say that if Force 2025 (or whatever is replacing it) is to really achieve a meaningful transformation of the Canadian Army I think it needs to do more than just move the existing chess pieces around the board to a different Brigade-based configuration and look at other ways that the Canadian Army can make a meaningful contribution in a future conflict.

I do agree in part but force structure should be somewhat disconnected from force use. If one concentrates too much on specific missions and roles one can end up with an unbalanced force. This is what I consider the primary problem with the Hillieresque Advancing with Purpose. It predetermined that Canada would be the sorter out of failed states. It was rebuilding itself for Bosnia type situations and threw everything else under the bus. Then came Afghanistan and the force structure morphed even more to light infantry. This is why today we have an Army largely incapable of being deployed into Europe unless first heavily rearmed. There are concepts (like UCAVs) that are mainstream in third world countries that we do not have. In short, in times of uncertainty, you need a balanced force capable of reacting immediately in any direction (and by that I do not mean solely light quick reaction forces) with trained people and equipment and materiel at hand plus the ability to sustain that force.

Balanced force properly manned by full-time and part-time members in the right roles and properly equipped is the hill I'll die on.

 

[GR66]

I don't know. These immobile light troops have been doing not bad for the last 8 years. And they seem to be repelling 7 or 8 assaults daily - and killing troops, tanks, IFVs, guns, MRLSs and UASs - even the occasional helicopter and fighter.

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Just add MGs, Mortars, Javelins, NLAWs, Stingers and UAS's. And a good radio connection to Arty and a mobile QRF.

No argument that well equipped light troops can be effective in defence, especially in close terrain. However, keep in mind that Ukraine while a relatively large country is still a fairly narrow front with defined left and right flanks and fairly clear objectives. It's easier to drop light forces in an environment like this and have them make a meaningful contribution.

Take instead a general Russian attack on NATO and you're looking at a frontage from the Black Sea to the Baltic. Dropping in a Light Brigade without operational mobility may leave them stuck in an area of the front where they are not required defensively and being light have extremely limited capability of operating offensively. They may be useful, but I'm suggesting that there are other types of capabilities with similar (or less) logistical requirements which could have a greater military impact.

 

[GK .Dundas]

Another 40 days to raise a brigade?
To be honest I'd be amazed if we're able the do it under a year.
May be I'm cynical but quite frankly I'd be amazed if the this government and for that matter the upper echelons of our military really understand the actual concept of a war.

 

[GR66]

After what happened in Ukraine I think there will be a point in time when Canada's government, even this thick one, will understand it will need to contribute more that a half of a battlegroup. A flyover brigade is the most economical and sensible. Even if we do not have one now, the Army should be developing that capability so that when asked it won't stand there with its d!ck hanging out saying "we can't do that".

I fear that there are two things that the Canadian Government might take away from the Ukraine conflict, and to be honest which one has the greater influence won't be known until the dust has settled.

1) As you rightly noted, the West has been put on notice that they can't be complacent and continue to believe that Russia can be "contained" strictly by economic and political pressure. Military deterrence will be required.

2) If Russia continues to show as much military incompetence as it has in it's campaign to date, then I fear that the take-away by those NATO states that don't live right on the doorstep of Russia will be that Russia is a paper tiger and will never dare to face NATO directly in a fight. If Ukraine can fight them to a standstill then they would have no hope against the combined might of NATO.

If this war ends roughly in some type of Russian strategic defeat then I fear #2 will be the dominant take away and in that case I see ZERO chance of a Canadian Government feeling the need to place a Canadian Brigade Group back in Europe (full-time or fly-over).

If Russia manages to turn things around then #1 might be the dominant take-away and a forward deployed Brigade may be possible.

 

[Kirkhill]

No argument that well equipped light troops can be effective in defence, especially in close terrain. However, keep in mind that Ukraine while a relatively large country is still a fairly narrow front with defined left and right flanks and fairly clear objectives. It's easier to drop light forces in an environment like this and have them make a meaningful contribution.

Not sure I can agree there. The current front, Kherson-Luhansk-Kharkiv , is over 800 km long and neither the Kharkiv nor the Kherson end have strong barriers to anchor the flanks.

Take instead a general Russian attack on NATO and you're looking at a frontage from the Black Sea to the Baltic. Dropping in a Light Brigade without operational mobility may leave them stuck in an area of the front where they are not required defensively and being light have extremely limited capability of operating offensively. They may be useful, but I'm suggesting that there are other types of capabilities with similar (or less) logistical requirements which could have a greater military impact.

I agree that operational mobility is good. However I would be looking towards heliborne/tactical airlift mobility. Now the Canadian Brigade Gp can be used to put a plug in the dyke anywhere along that Black Sea to Nordkapp line. Don't forget to order excavators that can be lifted by Chinook.

The helicopters can then be employed across the theater on logistics supplying other formations in the field.

And I don't think that the logistics for a medium or heavy or even a heliborne brigade are much different. And certainly not more onerous than a light brigade.

Final thought. I am just back from a drive in southern Alberta. High prairie. Dead grass. Empty fields. Patches of Snow. Flat horizon. Cut with coulees and hillocks and rivers. Wide river valleys with coulees and hills. Few highways. Fewer river crossings. Lots of Switchbacks coming out of the bottoms. Dirt and Gravel roads between the highways. In short, the same sense that I am getting from Southern Ukraine.

One thing I observed was how easy it was to see a vehicle on the flat lands above the coulees and valleys at 2 to 5 km.
Another thing was how much dead ground there was between here and there.
The final thing I noted was how small a person is when they are 2 km away.

I am not convinced that light infantry in that open terrain, if appropriately armed, is at a disadvantage to a mechanized force.

 

[FJAG]

I fear that there are two things that the Canadian Government might take away from the Ukraine conflict, and to be honest which one has the greater influence won't be known until the dust has settled.

1) As you rightly noted, the West has been put on notice that they can't be complacent and continue to believe that Russia can be "contained" strictly by economic and political pressure. Military deterrence will be required.

2) If Russia continues to show as much military incompetence as it has in it's campaign to date, then I fear that the take-away by those NATO states that don't live right on the doorstep of Russia will be that Russia is a paper tiger and will never dare to face NATO directly in a fight. If Ukraine can fight them to a standstill then they would have no hope against the combined might of NATO.

If this war ends roughly in some type of Russian strategic defeat then I fear #2 will be the dominant take away and in that case I see ZERO chance of a Canadian Government feeling the need to place a Canadian Brigade Group back in Europe (full-time or fly-over).

If Russia manages to turn things around then #1 might be the dominant take-away and a forward deployed Brigade may be possible.

I do not disagree with you that this is one of the options.

If I was to guess at outcome of this fight, I would guess that Russia throws a heavy effort into the eastern part of Ukraine for a few days until very early May, will get roughed up but makes advances. It will then call a victory followed by a big parade on May 9th for the Moscow public. It will fortify the land it has seized and dare anyone to attack this new part of Russia and will Russianize that territory through its usual depopulation/repopulation programs. As it stands, Russia has already achieved a strategic victory, just not on the scale that Putin had hoped for.

Regardless, there is clearly that element of western society (Canada included) that will conclude that Russia's tactically ineffectual war is proof that it is not a credible threat to NATO. I personally think that's wrong. People like Putin will always gamble to gather in the low hanging fruit through conventional means and then rattle his nuclear sabre against any retaliation against the Motherland. Every time he does that he's gotten away with it. My guess is that collective defence by itself won't be good enough because if he takes a large chunk of the Baltics in the first two days he basically stops and digs in - success. Any counteroffensive would be threatened with and possibly result in a nuke or two thrown out as a signal. Where do we go then?

Our level of deterrence needs to go to that gold standard where he clearly understands that any crossing of the border will instantly bring disaster and defeat to his conventional force right then and there without territorial gains. Any "exercise" buildup on a border will instantly be countered by a deployed defensive force. That requires prepositioned equipment and speedy flyover manning. If anything the current state of the Russian military tends to get me to believe that a more forward defence profile is feasible and we do not have to rely so much on defence in depth.

I can't argue with you that this Canadian government will probably not move to prepare such a force. I merely think the Army should be ready to implement such a plan quickly when the Canadian government (whoever it may be) finally is persuaded that it will gain a significant political benefit by prepositioning such a force.

I actually think it would be easier to do then anyone imagines. The US already has prepositioned equipment there and would probably be tickled pink by being able to "lend" Canada a prepositioned ABCT and the equipment in Canada to train for it. I would assume that the kicker would be that the equipment and organization stay "Americanized" so that if we were to balk at deploying they could send over a ARNG ABCT in our place.

Just guessing here.

 

[GR66]

Not sure I can agree there. The current front, Kherson-Luhansk-Kharkiv , is over 800 km long and neither the Kharkiv nor the Kherson end have strong barriers to anchor the flanks.

The reality is that the Donbas conflict was essentially static warfare along a defined front line in Donbas (approx. 300km long) with prepared defences and the further Russian attacks were coming from known locations in Russia, Crimea and Belarus (the force concentrations clearly identified by US intel). The current border region from Russian Occupied Kherson to the Russo-Norwegian border on the Barents sea is around 4,300km long by comparison.

I agree that operational mobility is good. However I would be looking towards heliborne/tactical airlift mobility. Now the Canadian Brigade Gp can be used to put a plug in the dyke anywhere along that Black Sea to Nordkapp line. Don't forget to order excavators that can be lifted by Chinook.

The helicopters can then be employed across the theater on logistics supplying other formations in the field.

And I don't think that the logistics for a medium or heavy or even a heliborne brigade are much different. And certainly not more onerous than a light brigade.

Where are you expecting to get this heliborne mobility from to move a Light Infantry Brigade? We simply don't have anywhere near the airlift capacity for even a fraction of that and yes...I'm fairly certain that making a heliborne Brigade would be logistically more onerous than a Light Brigade.

Final thought. I am just back from a drive in southern Alberta. High prairie. Dead grass. Empty fields. Patches of Snow. Flat horizon. Cut with coulees and hillocks and rivers. Wide river valleys with coulees and hills. Few highways. Fewer river crossings. Lots of Switchbacks coming out of the bottoms. Dirt and Gravel roads between the highways. In short, the same sense that I am getting from Southern Ukraine.

One thing I observed was how easy it was to see a vehicle on the flat lands above the coulees and valleys at 2 to 5 km.
Another thing was how much dead ground there was between here and there.
The final thing I noted was how small a person is when they are 2 km away.

I am not convinced that light infantry in that open terrain, if appropriately armed, is at a disadvantage to a mechanized force.

In open terrain how is that person (presumably with his ATGM) going to be able to hide from enemy ISR if there is no cover? If I'm not mistaken, someone mentioned in another post (EITS?) that they had tracked a sentry to their position from their IR footprints. It seems to me that the Light Infantry in such terrain would be very vulnerable to enemy indirect fire to suppress or destroy them.

[Edited for formatting]

 

[WLSC]

RMC is a small unit? I would expect their CClk to be a WO.

I believe the CClk in Saint-Jean is a WO! So I’m with you on that.

 

[GR66]

[snip]
I actually think it would be easier to do then anyone imagines. The US already has prepositioned equipment there and would probably be tickled pink by being able to "lend" Canada a prepositioned ABCT and the equipment in Canada to train for it. I would assume that the kicker would be that the equipment and organization stay "Americanized" so that if we were to balk at deploying they could send over a ARNG ABCT in our place.

Just guessing here.

I'm not sure where you get your confidence that the US would be happy to gift us an ABCT's worth of equipment for Europe and another for training in Canada.

From the Congressional Budget Office's US Military's Force Structure: A Primer, 2021 Update document you're talking about the US giving us for frree a total of 2,486 military vehicles (1,243 vehicles per ABCT). To a country that in the midst of an actual Russian invasion of a NATO partner country agreed to increase its defence budget from 1.37% of GDP to 1.445% of GDP when the agreed upon NATO commitment is to spend 2% of GDP on defence?

And what would the training and support impact of all of this be on the CAF? Do we divest completely in our existing vehicle fleets so that we only have to supply and maintain the US vehicles?

It's one thing to talk about replacing our Leopard 2s with Abrams or picking a particular US vehicle or piece of kit when we're doing a new procurement anyway, but adopting an entire vehicle set and gear of another military on top of our existing set would likely break the CAF as an organization.

 

[suffolkowner]

I'm not sure where you get your confidence that the US would be happy to gift us an ABCT's worth of equipment for Europe and another for training in Canada.

From the Congressional Budget Office's US Military's Force Structure: A Primer, 2021 Update document you're talking about the US giving us for frree a total of 2,486 military vehicles (1,243 vehicles per ABCT). To a country that in the midst of an actual Russian invasion of a NATO partner country agreed to increase its defence budget from 1.37% of GDP to 1.445% of GDP when the agreed upon NATO commitment is to spend 2% of GDP on defence?

And what would the training and support impact of all of this be on the CAF? Do we divest completely in our existing vehicle fleets so that we only have to supply and maintain the US vehicles?

It's one thing to talk about replacing our Leopard 2s with Abrams or picking a particular US vehicle or piece of kit when we're doing a new procurement anyway, but adopting an entire vehicle set and gear of another military on top of our existing set would likely break the CAF as an organization.

I'm not sure about FJAG about over the last few decades I've heard reliably from people I know and trust (take that for the paper its not written on) that the US has offered to extensively subsidize our army acquisitions. In point of fact they do so already for quite a few nations. I was told that we variously rejected offers of Abrams, Bradleys, and Humvees for a bunch of BS reasons including sustainability.

On the subject of force structure it seems obvious to me that we dont know what, how or why to structure the Army and so continue in a sort of half ass degraded way thats only that far along because of some decisions made due to Afghanistan. IMHO there is no likelihood of the Army getting and/or using the resouces correctly to assemble or sustain these BCT's concepts.

How many peoply can we actually deploy continuously?
That is what we have to work with and that is what we should structure the brigades and the nature of the brigade around again in my opinion

For example I dont see how 2486 vehicles is enough to sustain an ABCT of 1243. We are going to have two ABCT's and continuously rotate them?

 

[GR66]

I'm not sure about FJAG about over the last few decades I've heard reliably from people I know and trust (take that for the paper its not written on) that the US has offered to extensively subsidize our army acquisitions. In point of fact they do so already for quite a few nations. I was told that we variously rejected offers of Abrams, Bradleys, and Humvees for a bunch of BS reasons including sustainability.

On the subject of force structure it seems obvious to me that we dont know what, how or why to structure the Army and so continue in a sort of half ass degraded way thats only that far along because of some decisions made due to Afghanistan. IMHO there is no likelihood of the Army getting and/or using the resouces correctly to assemble or sustain these BCT's concepts.

How many peoply can we actually deploy continuously?
That is what we have to work with and that is what we should structure the brigades and the nature of the brigade around again in my opinion

For example I dont see how 2486 vehicles is enough to sustain an ABCT of 1243. We are going to have two ABCT's and continuously rotate them?

I'll take your word on possible previous offers, but I'm thinking that a) offers of subsidized fleet upgrades are a bit different than wholesale equipping of our Army, and b) with the ongoing shirking of our promised defence commitments combined with all the dollars the US is funneling into Ukraine currently (on top of the massive Covid deficits) that "gifting" equipment to a freeloader at this time is highly unlikely. Why would you give all this kit to Canada, a G7 nation when you can instead give it to more grateful nations that need it like Poland, the Baltic States, Czechia, etc.?

Edited to add: You're probably right that 2 ABCT's worth of kit likely isn't enough to sustain the unit in combat. I'm guessing that 3 would be the minimum? Even with Reserves could we do that? Probably why SSE only envisions Battle Group sized deployments...an uncommon lapse of reality in DND planning.

 

[KevinB]

I'll take your word on possible previous offers, but I'm thinking that a) offers of subsidized fleet upgrades are a bit different than wholesale equipping of our Army, and b) with the ongoing shirking of our promised defence commitments combined with all the dollars the US is funneling into Ukraine currently (on top of the massive Covid deficits) that "gifting" equipment to a freeloader at this time is highly unlikely. Why would you give all this kit to Canada, a G7 nation when you can instead give it to more grateful nations that need it like Poland, the Baltic States, Czechia, etc.?

Edited to add: You're probably right that 2 ABCT's worth of kit likely isn't enough to sustain the unit in combat. I'm guessing that 3 would be the minimum? Even with Reserves could we do that? Probably why SSE only envisions Battle Group sized deployments...an uncommon lapse of reality in DND planning.

The US Army is in process of scrapping 1.5 ABCT’s of personnel. They equipment however is being retained and more acquired.

I also think people are reading SSE incorrectly, by picking minimal manning numbers and not looking for the actual flexibility it actually allows DND to equip the CAF. I think that DND and the CAF aren’t attempting to rationalize acquisitions to SSE very well.

 

[McG]

SSE is almost a choose your own adventure book for the CAF. It says very little about what CAF must be able to do beyond the prescriptive personnel numbers for enduring and time limited missions. So we invest in a whole bunch of shallow, exquisite capabilities and prattle on about smart pledges. We then are not a reliable source of any capability because we will exhaust any commitment in 6 to 12 months.

 

[IKnowNothing]

I'll take your word on possible previous offers, but I'm thinking that a) offers of subsidized fleet upgrades are a bit different than wholesale equipping of our Army, and b) with the ongoing shirking of our promised defence commitments combined with all the dollars the US is funneling into Ukraine currently (on top of the massive Covid deficits) that "gifting" equipment to a freeloader at this time is highly unlikely.

I don't know about "gift", but (tieing into the Armoured Recce thread) if we came to them and said, we want to model the RCAC after your armoured cavalry squadrons swapping the scout troop Humvee's for LRSS and TAPV's providing sensors and UAV's, how much for 4 squadrons/regiments worth of M3 Brads, Javelins, and mortar carriers? By the way, the 4th will be added to eFP Latvia for 18 months then left pre-positioned" I don't think that the US would throw up many roadblocks.

Ditto replacing the M777's with Paladins, or adding 1129's and or 1134's to the LAV battalions.