I don't see that either which is why I consider CBGs to be a wasted effort. I do see more brigades coming out of a true total force and adopting of 30/70 concept. In general (subject to adjustment) I see a force of 5 Div HQs, 3 CMBGs, 1 CCSB and 10 CBGs reduced to roughly 2 Div HQs, 6 Bdes, 2 CS bdes and 2 CSS bdes i.e 3 Div HQs and 4 Bdes HQs less than now.
Agreed that any type of fully Reserve or 10/90 structure could never work to generate deployable units for Canada. I think the political, societal and economic realities are sufficiently different between Canada and the US that a US National Guard structure is not one that we could successfully duplicate.
I'm guessing that a 30/70 structure could work for
SOME types of units/sub-units but realistically given the geographic, economic and socio-political challenges we face the Reg Force ratio in many/most units would likely be higher.
In your 6 x Brigade/2 x CS Brigade/2 x CSS Brigade structure what would be the proposed Reg/Res ratio of each? Do you envision being able to deploy 2 x Divisions each with 3 x Brigades and one each CS/CSS Brigade? I think that a logical starting point would be to determine what you expect to be able to deploy (and sustain) in your worst case scenario
Some equipment is more complex, much is not. Any design of the force must incorporate that complexity. Remember, it's exactly the same raw material that becomes a ResF member or a RegF member. We're not talking about whether or not Reservists are mentally or physically incapable of learning the skills that the Regs do but whether or not they are given the training and experience needed to operate that equipment. When we talk about a Grade 11 student who goes on to a CC or university then we are talking somewhere in the neighbourhood of 8 to 16 months of available summer training while they take their education. There are very few trades in the Army that require that much.
To be honest I'm not so much concerned about the ability to generate sufficiently skilled personnel if required. Let's be honest, if the threat is dire enough corners will be cut and risks taken.
While equipment is a limitation, the concept behind a 30/70 unit with one fully equipped sub-unit and two under equipped res sub-units, is to provide both the equipment and the expertise within the unit to train the reservists on all of the equipment they are expected to use if deployed.
Essentially the first phase of a 30/70 reorganization is to create a better manpower pool out of our existing manpower and our existing equipment.
And don't forget the system also provides for 100/0 Quick Reaction RegF units as well.
If your 30/70 unit may only require enough equipment to be trained during peacetime but it will need the full complement of equipment if it is to be deployed. Plus enough equipment to sustain itself through losses.
The fact is that unlike the past, it's often faster to replace trained personnel than it is to replace their equipment. In WW2 Ford's Willow Run Assembly Line was pumping
out one B-24 Liberator Bomber PER HOUR at its peak! By contrast F-35 production is
156 per YEAR. Obviously those are pretty extreme examples but the fact is that modern armoured vehicles, weapons, missiles and even things like heavy trucks take much longer to produce than in the past (never minds ships, subs and aircraft) and increasingly a major war will be a "come as you are" affair.
I think it's important to keep that in mind when planning force structure. Unless you have deep reserves of vehicles, weapons and equipment to replenish your deployed forces then regardless of your manpower pool you'll be forced to consolidate units due to lack of kit.
I'm not sure if we have an accurate picture of how the Russians are really reconstituting. There are two basic models - add new pers and equip to attrited units and rebuild them either in the line or behind the line; or build new units from previously non-mobilized units and feed them in as they reach an adequate level of training. Russians had hundreds on uncommitted units with equipment and some level of cadres. Essentially reinforcing committed units or building up uncommitted cadres are the same process albeit the latter have no combat experience. The course to take depends entirely as to what cadre is available in each of the two models. From what I've seen the Russians are using both models depending on circumstances.
From the websites and blogs I've been following my understanding is that the Russians have mainly been re-building existing units using mobilized troops rather than creating new units. For example I recall reading that the 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade that has taken very heavy losses in fighting around Vuhledar has basically been "rebuilt" three times since the war started.
However, repeating what I said above I think that replacing our equipment losses will (like is happening with the Russians) be in many ways a greater challenge than recruiting and training replacement personnel. Resorting to older/less effective replacement equipment will likely increase your personnel losses in a manner similar to deploying lesser trained replacement personnel.
The problem we have in Canada is that we have put our cadres into one basket, the RegF one. If we were to commit a RegF brigade and suffer casualties we could only rebuild by taking equipment from another cadre RegF brigade and people from a cadre RegF brigade or the reserves. However, if our reservists have not been trained on the equipment in peacetime, then they can't be fed into the reinforcement stream without additional training. Right now we use almost six months of pre-deployment training. The alternative is to feed them in only slightly better prepared than the Russian conscripts.
The real purpose of a 30/70 reorganization is to create better trained reservists that can be mobilized and fed into the system, whether as reinforcements or in new units and sub-units, much more quickly than we currently can. That ensures that we do not have to rapidly reinforce with RegF members but can keep them back to form new cadres and train replacements.
Agreed that a Total Force structure is required to make effective use of the Reserves. We're effectively a 70/0 force structure now because Reg Force units aren't fully manned and the Reserves aren't actually integrated into the Reg Force units. That's kind of the worst of all possible worlds when it comes to maintaining combat capability over time in a conflict.
Creating a workable Total Force means either giving the Reserves access to the proper equipment to train on...or having them fulfill roles that can be done with only equipment that they can hold and maintain internally. I suspect that given the geographic/economic/structural challenges we face only a portion of the Reserves can viably do Option A and the rest will likely have to do Option B. The result is that the resulting Reg/Res ratio will likely end up being somewhat greater than 30/70 in many cases for the foreseeable future.
Equipment is a whole different issue.
Fully equipping the 70% ResF components would definitely require a conscientious and procurement process. That would be entirely dependent on a national security study to determine the actual force levels we wish to have available. I always say firing half the people in Ottawa would give us recurring $ to buy equipment with but I say that half facetiously. The reality is we make budgets and squeeze a defence capability out of it. The process should work backward from defined defence needs. Obviously budgets will play a role but current defence tasks are based very much on the tasks to be performed by the CAF during peacetime with only a minor nod as to wartime role. IMHO defence policies must contemplate and point towards a worst case scenario in order to truly provide for national defence.
And that's essentially what the 30/70 construct does. But in addition it creates a structure that can very quickly be ramped up to a Phase 2 with the addition of equipment.
"Spreading around" the equipment in peacetime is done to facilitate training. There is nothing to stop the concentration of equipment. The model I've been working on in fact prepositions an entire brigade in Europe. There it is available for combined arms training for both RegF and ResF companies (remember in the construct, all battalion headquarters are RegF). It could be used there the way CMTC works now (with terrain limitations) several times a year including large numbers of reservists in the summer and large numbers of RegF during the spring/fall.
Remember too that most of our Afghan deployments consisted of battalions that had ResF augmentees and entire companies come from other battalions. Building battle groups out of multiple units has been a necessity for a long time because of our manning issues.
That said, there is nothing wrong with the idea that if the prepositioned brigade needs to be mobilized that it could be done by an existing 30/70 brigade using both their RegF and ResF members or, if a rapid mobilization is required, that it come from a battalion deploying its 30% RegF company and augmented by two other RegF companies from other battalions. The point here is there would be options available that aren't currently available.
A 30/70 construct leaves you no worse off than our current situation but would in fact up the number of deployable manoeuvre brigade headquarters from just three to six and also provide deployable CS and CSS brigade headquarters (vice 10 nondeployable CBG headquarters). On top of that the number of deployable manoeuvre battalion/regimental headquarters would go up by between 20-30% allow for longer times between peacetime rotations on operational deployments. The number of deployable RegF companies roughly stay the same.
I don't think we're really terribly far off on our general concepts of integrating the Reserves into the Reg Force structure. I think however I'm much more pessimistic about the amount of equipment that will ultimately be made available to the Army than you are. I certainly don't see the equipment required for six Brigades (plus CS and CSS Brigades) PLUS the additional equipment required to cover losses to those Brigades. I'm also less optimistic than you in a workable 30/70 Reg/Res ratio being workable overall across Brigades. I think it's more likely that in order for any given Brigade to be deployable relatively quickly in many areas you might end up being closer to 50/50.
Where as you might lean toward establishing more Brigades (and generating more deployable HQ options) I think that the lack of depth of equipment would likely result in a fairly rapid requirement to re-constitute Brigades and units from other Brigades and units once they start to take losses. My thought is that it would be better to have fewer Brigades but with greater depth in both equipment and manpower in Reserve in order to sustain those units intact. Both ways I guess are technically workable, but to my mind the latter potentially provides greater cohesion.
Another area where we might differ is force composition, but regardless of how the Army ends up being equipped you still need a clear plan on how it will be manned.
