I'm not sure how new this is or whether its just some fine tuning of their "Division 2027 - Corps 2031" plan that's been around for a few years.
Here's a 2019 article on the subject. I'll pore over the recent stuff to see if there is a significant change. (Not to worry - despite the title, the article is in English)
I'm not sure what it means but one should note that the plan was for the divisional structured VJTF2022 to pass command from France to Germany as VJTF2023 as of 1 Jan of this year which it did.
Managed Readiness makes sense for an army that has rotating operational remits - which ours does. While the MRP can also impose some discipline to focus resources, the point is to generate operational outputs. The peacetime army of the 60s to 80s did not need an MRP. The CMBG in Germany was really not on operations. It went through the annual posting churn and went on with training. Bdes in Canada did the same. The operations of the 90s and then 2000s with actual risks meant that we had to prepare units, deploy them and then recover/reconstitute them.Let me start by saying that I'm an opponent to the MRP process as it ensures that at any given time 2/3 of your army is managed into being "unready". But I'll leave that aside for the point of argument.
I think your analysis is that there are two options: 1) symmetrical medium weight brigades that once every three years generates a brigade or 2) asymmetrical brigades each of which every year generates a battle group (one each of light, medium or heavy across the army).
I'll also leave aside the comment that the symmetrical brigade generates "world class cavalry regiments, wheeled SP guns and AD" as we have none of those.
My thought is that we aren't generating brigades at all and haven't for almost thirty years. We are training brigade headquarters and battlegroups and associated support arms but not generating brigades. We are, at best, generating battle groups and task force headquarters that are spin-offs of brigade headquarters. That is not dependant on whether we are organized as symmetrical or asymmetrical brigades.
What the MRP does is train one brigade a year in one big brigade exercise. We used to do that as part of our annual training cycle. Every brigade would train through an annual training cycle from platoon level training to a brigade exercise by early summer. Then during the decade of darkness we stopped doing any brigade training or exercising at all. Early this century we went to the MRP and the rotational brigade training event every third year.
IMHO the MRP has little to do with an output-by-symmetry/asymmetry option but everything to do with resource availability. We need to a brigade training event but can only afford to do it for one big brigade event per year.
In my opinion we would be better served by three asymmetrical brigades: one with 3 light battalions; one heavy with 3 combined arms battalions; and one mech with 3 mech battalions. This has little do to with readiness but everything to do with having brigades that hold a particular equipment set specific to their role and can train together in the particular requirements of such a brigade and can concentrate on one predominant mission set.
Each would conduct an annual training cycle ending in a small bde exercise at their home base - we give CMTC a pink slip and reduce it to a roving standards and evaluation team.
Each brigade assigns one battalion as the core of the designated ready force for the year. Effectively that is the battlegroup that will deploy or be designated to deploy.
We rarely deploy a standard ORBAT battlegroup. Even during Afghanistan task forces and battle groups were ad hoc'd. In large part this is because we usually needed to gather resources from multiple units within the brigade. As an example TF 3-07 had one rifle company from each of the three R22eR battalions. Currently our only standing deployment is a partial battle group assigned to Latvia. We have other deployments as well, but again, these are ad hoc'd organizations.
Remember too that brigades have no command role over a deployed force. CJOC has that responsibility. A brigade headquarters may be tasked to form a task force headquarters but that operates separately from the brigade that stays at home as a force generator. SSE has no tasks for a full-up brigade. The largest force it contemplates are task forces of 1,500 - essentially a battle group plus a command and support element.
We need to rethink CMTC, the MRP and whether our symmetric brigade structure is optimal. After that we really need to address those ambitious and audacious issues that the Army has ignored for seventy years.
Honestly a MRP in its own isn’t awful.
Thanks @TangoTwoBravo. We both see readiness as an end goal but clearly have different approaches as to how that is achieved.
Even with more resources we would still have needed managed readiness to get through the 90s. The nature of those missions was different. than what had gone before Our missions since our mission ended in Afghanistan are certainly different than the peak of the wear, but we have also adapted our MRP and training accordingly.Thanks @TangoTwoBravo. We both see readiness as an end goal but clearly have different approaches as to how that is achieved.
Let me just point out the issue with respect to the peacetime army of the 60s to 80s. It, in fact, isn't that different from today's peacetime army. In those days we constantly had one battalion rotating through Cyprus while also maintaining 4 CMBG and numerous other, smaller, peacekeeping missions. Certainly we had more soldiers but 4 CMBG swallowed up that difference without contributing anything to those other commitments.
Our problem started in the resource starved army that had to support rotations in Bosnia which was quickly followed by a very heavy war-time commitment in Afghanistan. MRP was the right solution for those times. Turning over a fighting force of roughly 2,300+ every six months required a Herculean effort from our small army and couldn't have been done without some such programme. As it was, and with a healthy effort by reservists, we were still challenged with many troops needing to do multiple rotations.
My argument simply is that we are back to a peacetime army. Op Reassurance is a quarter the size of what the army's commitment to Afghanistan was and is essentially a peacetime mission not dissimilar from 4 CMBGs albeit it's rotational. While there are other missions, they generally do not exceed the nature and number faced in the 60s to 80s. The need that existed in the 00s for a war-time situation is no longer there and IMHO the MRP has become a comfortable rut rather than being put to a critical examination of whether it is still fit for purpose.
Thanks @TangoTwoBravo. We both see readiness as an end goal but clearly have different approaches as to how that is achieved.
Let me just point out the issue with respect to the peacetime army of the 60s to 80s. It, in fact, isn't that different from today's peacetime army. In those days we constantly had one battalion rotating through Cyprus while also maintaining 4 CMBG and numerous other, smaller, peacekeeping missions. Certainly we had more soldiers but 4 CMBG swallowed up that difference without contributing anything to those other commitments.
Our problem started in the resource starved army that had to support rotations in Bosnia which was quickly followed by a very heavy war-time commitment in Afghanistan. MRP was the right solution for those times. Turning over a fighting force of roughly 2,300+ every six months required a Herculean effort
My argument simply is that we are back to a peacetime army. Op Reassurance is a quarter the size of what the army's commitment to Afghanistan was and is essentially a peacetime mission not dissimilar from 4 CMBGs albeit it's rotational. While there are other missions, they generally do not exceed the nature and number faced in the 60s to 80s. The need that existed in the 00s for a war-time situation is no longer there and IMHO the MRP has become a comfortable rut rather than being put to a critical examination of whether it is still fit for purpose.
That's exactly my point. The whole thing is somewhat arbitrary. I don't keep track of what armoured regiments or infantry battalions do every year but I try to stay on top of artillery regiments and, quite frankly I see no difference between what the three regiments do with the exception that one gets involved in Maple Resolve and a few things and is certified at high readiness through the CMTC process. I'm of the view that CMTC is a waste of resources for what it does.
I'm not opposed to what you suggest at all. I think elements should be slated for deployment and ought to be warned for missions and organized, equipped and trained for them. But we're not currently deploying brigades. We're deploying less than battlegroup sized units and their training can be left to themselves and their brigade headquarters without any need for an annual MRP-based training cycle. Let each brigade train progressively every year culminating in a brigade level 7 FTX. Concurrently lets identify elements that need specialized preparation for a given mission and train them either as part of the annual cycle or separately as appropriate in each circumstance.
Not Army so feel free to just completely ignore my comment, but from a purely managerial standpoint, it makes sense to me, having three brigades, that you'd go through a 3-year cycle, so that your financial, human, and material resources are (roughly) equally employed year after year.That's exactly my point. The whole thing is somewhat arbitrary. I don't keep track of what armoured regiments or infantry battalions do every year but I try to stay on top of artillery regiments and, quite frankly I see no difference between what the three regiments do with the exception that one gets involved in Maple Resolve and a few things and is certified at high readiness through the CMTC process. I'm of the view that CMTC is a waste of resources for what it does.
@TangoTwoBravo pointed out that the MRP was changed recently and I do note that in addition to the Build, Contingency, Committed cycle it changed to the DATE Europe scenarios which is a useful change, but in effect we send two battalion headquarters and two rifle companies and some other elements to Latvia annually. Why did we move 3,200 people from 2 CMBG and their gear to Wainwright for that? That size element could train quite adequately at their home base.
I'll leave it to you to tell me, did a shift to Build, Contingency, Committed really result in any practical changes or just notionally improve our readiness status to 66% with some slight of hand? Did we ever really need a two-year reconstitution and road to high readiness cycle before reaching a year of high readiness after 2011? Or is the whole thing just based on the fact that we happen to have three brigades which dictate three cycles?
I'm not opposed to what you suggest at all. I think elements should be slated for deployment and ought to be warned for missions and organized, equipped and trained for them. But we're not currently deploying brigades. We're deploying less than battlegroup sized units and their training can be left to themselves and their brigade headquarters without any need for an annual MRP-based training cycle. Let each brigade train progressively every year culminating in a brigade level 7 FTX. Concurrently lets identify elements that need specialized preparation for a given mission and train them either as part of the annual cycle or separately as appropriate in each circumstance.
I've been following the US Army's abandonment of the three-year "Reset, Train and Ready, Deploy" cycle in favour of the Regionally aligned Readiness and Modernization Model which essentially identifies an element for deployment and puts that element through an eight month equip and train cycle prior to deployment. It has merit and can be scaled downward. IMHO, eight months is a maximum. Many missions can be prepared for in even less time.
If I understand the foundation of the MRP system at the turn of the century it involved two problems to solve: the fact that the Army had not done brigade exercises for nearly a decade and the fact that the army had significant resource limitations in both equipment and funds. It created the Brigade Training Event to ensure that every three years each brigade would get one proper exercise. That occurred at just the point in time where our commitments to Afghanistan heated up and the MRP proved a useful tool in meeting the heavy commitments imposed by the six-month wartime rotation cycles.
IMHO, CMTC and Maple Resolve are resources that we can no longer afford in the same way we couldn't afford to have a plethora of Dot Coms. My suggestion is simply that we allow each brigade to go back to its annual training cycles including a Level 7 formation exercise. Concurrently we designate mission elements for deployment and put them through targeted training on a 2-6 month 'equip and train' cycle depending on the scale of effort required for the mission and then deploy them. By all means have a traveling road show team out of Army headquarters formulate training and monitor and certify the element's readiness if you don't trust the brigade to do that. (Yes I am cynical when it comes to the need to have an "independent" agency certify readiness) And yes, one can also designate a stand-by high readiness force which is not detailed for a specific deployment but just possible contingencies.
While we're on the subject, I'm also a great fan of asymmetrical brigades. IMHO the symmetrical brigade is a large factor in what's keeping the MRP alive. We consider brigades as Swiss Army knives that should be able to do everything. That just makes me think of the Jack of all trades ... analogy. If, on the other hand, brigades were organized and equipped and routinely trained as part of their annual cycle on specific regional/capability-based operations and if deploying elements for a given mission were selected from a related regionally/capability focused brigade, it would accelerate deployment training and equipping dramatically and therefore enhance overall force readiness.
Let me throw in one final thought. @TangoTwoBravo pointed out quite rightly that the Russell paper is dated but it does still have some validity in that we are lacking strategic readiness in that we are not structured to meet the government's commitments. Just as an example, if the government is frequently looking for small mission elements to deploy internationally would we be better off strategically to create two 300-man battalions with two small command team rather than one 600-man battalion that needs to be fragmented. If we're constantly sending out NCEs requiring a Colonel and some staff, wouldn't we be better off with some additional light scale brigade headquarters that could deploy in that role as an entity. I'm as much of a fan of full-sized battalions and regiments as the next man when it comes to full-scale combat operations but we've already organized ourselves into force generation model built around sub-units aggregated into a mission specific battle-group. Frankly, based on the size of deployed task forces, we could us more unit and minor formation command nodes for rotational work to meet the government's strategic objectives.
I'd be interested in all of your thoughts on those last two points?
New iPad for 2Lts.
As a replacement for the Fuchs surely? The Boxers are basically new, and there isn’t a gap in their carrier fleet - ie no one is walking or taking trucks.Germany's Third Line Vehicle? (Kirkhill designations).
Line 1 - Puma - 43 Tonnes AUW Tracked
Line 2 - Boxer - 41 Tonnes AUW Wheeled
Line 3 - Patria - 24 Tonnes AUW Wheeled
Line 4 - Dingo - 12 Tonnes AUW Wheeled
Line 4 - Wiesel - 5 Tonnes AUW Tracked
Patria 6x6 being considered by Germany, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Finland (already in service)
A 15.5 tonne STANAG level 2 truck with an 8.5 tonne payload that permits raising the armour level to STANAG level 4
Apparently it drives like a truck and so it is very easy to train on.
Technical specifications
Dimensions
Length 7,5m
Height over hull 2,5m
Width 2,9m
Max. payload 8 500 kg
Max. combat weight 24000 kg
Performance
Max. speed >100 km/h
Climbing capacity 60%
Side slope 30%
Obstacle 0,6m
Trench crossing 1,2 m
Swimming (optional)
Fording 1,5m
Operating distance >700 km
Protection
Modular ballistic and mine protection according to customers' requirements. STANAG level 2,
optional level 4. Readiness for future protection technologies as well as future soldier equipment.
LED-light technology
High performance, maintenance free LED light technology.
Engine
Power output 294kW
Torque output 1870 Nm
Engine type 5 inline
Transmission
Automatic 7 + 2 gears
Driveline
Driven axles All wheel drive
Brakes Pneumatically controlled hydraulic disc brakes with ABS.
CTIS Optional
Suspension
Suspension type Fully independent suspension
with double wishbones on every axle.
Spring type Coil springs with hydraulic shock absorbers.
Optional hydropneumatic spring elements.
Steering
Steering type Hydraulically assisted steering with mechanical linkage for 1st and 2nd axle.
