Informing the Army’s Future Structure

[Rifleman62]

Not comphy, realistic. The Army knows there is a gap, problem whatever. There is enough people at Army HQ's to come up with a solution if there was any interest.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Not comphy, realistic. The Army knows there is a gap, problem whatever. There is enough people at Army HQ's to come up with a solution if there was any interest.

I deal with those higher HQs everyday. They are busy keeping the Reg Army going. And the problems of 72nd Fusiliers of Digby pale in comparison.

Waiting around for the very people you complain about to come up with a solution to your problems takes some real lack of organizational accountability and mental gymnastics.

It can be done, but the problem is the ARes actually has to want to change, rather than throw stones at big brother.

 

[Rifleman62]

I deal with those higher HQs everyday. They are busy keeping the Reg Army going. And the problems of 72nd Fusiliers of Digby pale in comparison.

Agree. Fast tracking (2026) ground to air defence, modern AD for Latavia deployed Cdn troops. Only Latavia or whole Cdn Army? Can't find an answer for that.

Waiting around for the very people you complain about to come up with a solution to your problems takes some real lack of organizational accountability and mental gymnastics.

It can be done, but the problem is the ARes actually has to want to change, rather than throw stones at big brother.

My stones are more often that not thrown at the ARes.

 

[Kirkhill]

I deal with those higher HQs everyday. They are busy keeping the Reg Army going. And the problems of 72nd Fusiliers of Digby pale in comparison.

Waiting around for the very people you complain about to come up with a solution to your problems takes some real lack of organizational accountability and mental gymnastics.

It can be done, but the problem is the ARes actually has to want to change, rather than throw stones at big brother.

The ARes actually has to want to change

So it doesn't really matter if the ARes changes.

We can afford it, and the Army, the luxury of democracy.

If our situation was dire then somebody, somewhere, would feel a sense of urgency and a need to grip the situation.

Apparently that sense of the situation is lacking.

This is what an army gripped by a sense of urgency looks like.

 

[Halifax Tar]

So it doesn't really matter if the ARes changes.

We can afford it, and the Army, the luxury of democracy.

If our situation was dire then somebody, somewhere, would feel a sense of urgency and a need to grip the situation.

Apparently that sense of the situation is lacking.

This is what an army gripped by a sense of urgency looks like.

It really doesnt. Because they are able to produce the augmentation that the RegF needs ATM.

I don't think anyone really expects the ARes CBGs to be some sort of independent fighting organization.

 

[FJAG]

These 30/70 or 10/90s will never work because we lack the fortitude to expect our A Class soldiers to show up and train. Until such a point the ARes desides it wants to hold its A Class accountable the best the ARes can do is provide augmentation.

The problem had its start here:

NDA 33.(2) The reserve force, all units and other elements thereof and all officers and non-commissioned members thereof

(a) may be ordered to train for such periods as are prescribed in regulations made by the Governor in Council; and
(b) may be called out on service to perform any lawful duty other than training at such times and in such manner as by regulations or otherwise are prescribed by the Governor in Council.

QR&O 9.04 (2) Subject to any limitations prescribed by the Chief of the Defence Staff, a member of the Primary Reserve may be ordered to train each year on Class "B" Reserve Service prescribed under subparagraph (1)(b) of article 9.07 (Class "B" Reserve Service) for a period not exceeding 15 days and on Class "A" Reserve Service (see article 9.06 - Class "A" Reserve Service), for a period not exceeding 60 days.

NDA

• 286 (1) Subject to subsection (2), every person, including an officer or non-commissioned member, is liable to be tried in a civil court in respect of any offence prescribed in this Part.

• 294 (1) Every officer or non-commissioned member of the reserve force who without lawful excuse neglects or refuses to attend any parade or training at the place and hour appointed therefor is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction for each offence, if an officer, to a fine not exceeding fifty dollars and, if a non-commissioned member, to a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars.
• Marginal note:Each absence an offence
  (2) Absence from any parade or training referred to in subsection (1) is, in respect of each day on which the absence occurs, a separate offence.

Within the reserve force, commanding officers find it impractical to use this section to enforce mandatory training. As a legal advisor I found myself beating my head against the wall every time a CO complained about people not showing up for training and my telling them to use the bloody law as it stands. No one ever did. They're bloody scared to do it.

Over the years I advocated with Chief of Reserves Council for moving this forward on a legislative change agenda to have neglect or failure to attend training to be a CSD offence and provide for a meaningful penalty. I heard crickets. The usual response was, people will quit in droves. My usual response was "better to have 5,000 trained and committed people than 15,000 dilettantes".

The "train when you feel like it" culture has been tacitly accepted by both ResF and RegF leadership for many, many decades. It's deeply culturally rooted and we don't need to merely change that culture, we need to deliberately break it and wrestle it into the ground. This is not a government problem. It's an Army cultural one and the Army can change it if it decides to.

It is relatively easy to set up the mechanisms of change that will provide for a core of obligatory service (lets say one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer of collective training) and leave a voluntary component for those who wish to take on additional skill and career courses at their own pace.

Will there be a loss of personnel up front? Probably, but once a system is established and people know what they are joining before they get there, both recruiting and retention will pick up again.

I'll add to that. Its not enough to merely break that mental mindset. It has to be accompanied by having the right training and the proper equipment otherwise obligatory training becomes meaningless. That's the basic concept behind 30/70; to put within one unit, sufficient equipment and sufficient leaders and trainers to make those obligatory days of training productive.

Let me be blunt. If something like that isn't done, there will never be any progress in developing a more capable ARes.

 

[Halifax Tar]

The problem had its start here:





Within the reserve force, commanding officers find it impractical to use this section to enforce mandatory training. As a legal advisor I found myself beating my head against the wall every time a CO complained about people not showing up for training and my telling them to use the bloody law as it stands. No one ever did. They're bloody scared to do it.

Over the years I advocated with Chief of Reserves Council for moving this forward on a legislative change agenda to have neglect or failure to attend training to be a CSD offence and provide for a meaningful penalty. I heard crickets. The usual response was, people will quit in droves. My usual response was "better to have 5,000 trained and committed people than 15,000 dilettantes".

The "train when you feel like it" culture has been tacitly accepted by both ResF and RegF leadership for many, many decades. It's deeply culturally rooted and we don't need to merely change that culture, we need to deliberately break it and wrestle it into the ground. This is not a government problem. It's an Army cultural one and the Army can change it if it decides to.

It is relatively easy to set up the mechanisms of change that will provide for a core of obligatory service (lets say one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer of collective training) and leave a voluntary component for those who wish to take on additional skill and career courses at their own pace.

Will there be a loss of personnel up front? Probably, but once a system is established and people know what they are joining before they get there, both recruiting and retention will pick up again.

I'll add to that. Its not enough to merely break that mental mindset. It has to be accompanied by having the right training and the proper equipment otherwise obligatory training becomes meaningless. That's the basic concept behind 30/70; to put within one unit, sufficient equipment and sufficient leaders and trainers to make those obligatory days of training productive.

Let me be blunt. If something like that isn't done, there will never be any progress in developing a more capable ARes.

Merci mon ami.

I was trying to draw on what you had expressed before WRT A Class reserve training orders and directives.

 

[Kirkhill]

It really doesnt. Because they are able to produce the augmentation that the RegF needs ATM.

I don't think anyone really expects the ARes CBGs to be some sort of independent fighting organization.

Which brings me back to my hobby horse

The most important contribution the ARes can make is finding and securing a group of civic minded individuals, organizing them, and teaching them to speak "Army".

They don't have to "be" Army. They just have to understand "Army".

The goal should be to reduce the training delta to the minimum possible should another balloon need shooting down over the Yukon.

And that

Like all previous Volunteer Forces - you have to ask, not command.

WWI ANZACs and Canucks were notoriously "Bolshie" - saluting was not a high priority. And yet somehow they managed to generate a cohesive force that powered the last hundred days.

The Ukrainians are repeating that experiment and proving, once again, that Napoleon could grasp the obvious.

“In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.”​

Variant: “In war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four.”

These words are from Napoleon’s notes entitled Observations on Spanish Affairs, which he wrote on Aug. 27, 1808 at the palace of Saint-Cloud.

Or

A volunteer is worth twenty pressed men

The origin of this proverb is in the early 18th century, a time when the Royal Navy would often have groups of sailors armed with cudgels, colloquially called "press gangs", travel the areas around ports with the objective of impressing, or forcing, men with some sort of nautical experience into military service. This practice started in the 1660s and continued until after the defeat and abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814. Impressment was required because, during that period, the British government did not conscript its subjects into military service. Of course, just because a man was clubbed over the head and dragged away only to wake up in the bowels of a sailing ship did not make him a good sailor. Hence in 1705, T. Hearne noted in his Journal for 31 Oct (published in Remarks & Collections in 1885) that:

Tis said my Lord Seymour presently after Mr. Smith was pronounc'd Speaker, rose up, and told then, Gentlemen; you have got a Low Church man; but pray remember that 100 Voluntiers are worth 200 press’d men.

As you can see, the ratio of volunteers to pressed men was much lower in this example, just one to two, and that number has varied over the years, with Rudyard Kipling in Captains Courageous in 1897 indicating that "one volunteer was worth five hirelings", and M. M. Kaye in Shadow of the Moon (1977) saying "one volunteer was worth three pressed men". Regardless of the numbers used, the concept is that someone who volunteers for a task is likely to put a much greater effort into it than one or more other people forced to perform that same task.

 

[Kirkhill]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1641149332123418627

Finland

Territorial Forces (Finnish: Maakuntajoukot, Swedish: Landskapstrupperna) are regional forces of Finnish Defence Forces (FDF) composed of volunteer reservists who have signed a contract that obliges them to do certain tasks during a crisis. The FDF works with and supervises the National Defence Training Association of Finland in the training of troops. Territorial Forces are composed of Territorial Companies, each of which is under command of the military province of their area (sotilaslääni, four in total, divided into 19 military districts, aluetoimisto), in total there are 28 companies. Sometimes the name is rendered as local defence units or volunteer reserve units.

Sweden

The Chief of Home Guard is the commanding officer of the Home Guard, representing 40,000 present and veteran soldiers, reporting directly to the Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces.

The Home Guard consists mainly of local rapid response units, numbering 17,000 of the 22,000 total Home Guard strength, organised in 40 battalions,[4] with 23 associated auxiliary defence organisations. Most soldiers maintain a civilian job while serving the army part-time. Rapid response units were formed in the early 2000s in parallel to the Swedish government's abolishment of conscription to the Swedish Armed Forces; small-scale conscription has since been reintroduced.

The Home Guard with the national security forces are part of the Swedish Armed Forces' mission-based organization. The Home Guard is a unit and constitutes the basis for the protection of Sweden. It has the task of operating over the entire conflict scale, from societal support during great strains in peacetime to armed combat in times of war.

The units of the Home Guard have a response capability that is measured in hours, as opposed to days or weeks. The personnel is made up of locally recruited volunteers and consists largely of experienced soldiers and officers with a background in mission-based units.

When the Armed Forces are called in to help with forest fires, flooding or missing person searches, it often falls to Home Guard units to support the police and Rescue Services. Territorial surveillance, base security, escort duties, transport protection, target identification and artillery spotting are other typical Home Guard duties.

In addition to personnel who have completed their national service or Basic Military Training, the Home Guard includes a large proportion of specialists, for example, paramedics, motorcycle orderlies and dog handlers, that are recruited and trained by voluntary defense organizations.

Denmark

The Danish Home Guard (Danish: Hjemmeværnet) (HJV) is the fourth service of the Danish military. It was formerly concerned only with the defence of Danish territory, but since 2008, it has also supported the Danish military efforts in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Service is voluntary and unpaid, though members' loss of income from time taken off work, transport expenses and other basic expenses are compensated. However, workshop and depot staff plus clerks and senior officers are all paid. The unarmed Women's Army Corps (Lottekorpset) was merged in 1989 with the then all-male Home Guard to form the present, armed unisex Home Guard.

Its top authority is the General Command (HJK) which is managed directly by the Danish Ministry of Defence (FMN). Only in times of tension and war will the Danish Defence Command (VFK) assume command over the Home Guard.

The Danish Home Guard is jointly headed by Major General Jens Garly (since August 2017) and a political leader (The Commissioner) who is usually a member of the Danish Parliament. On 1 March 2023 MP Torsten Schack Pedersen was named as the new political leader.[1]

The Home Guard often gives so-called ordinary help to other authorities, especially the police. It's especially Police Home Guard companies that aid in directing traffic, but also help for searching for missing persons and objects, and guarding crime scenes and such.

During COP15 in 2009, 1200 soldiers from the Home Guard aided the police in Copenhagen. Most of them were guarding and patrolling, but some of them were VIP drivers.

Members of a police company are also trained to give so-called special help to the police, which means tasks that are likely to involve the use of force against civilians (all kinds of police work). This help is to be negotiated between the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Justice.

The basic infantry weapon of the Home Guard is the 5.56mm GV M/95, while motorized units are equipped with the Kb M/96.

Suppressive fire is provided by the M/60 and M/62 machine guns and LSV M/04 light support weapon. Squad level anti-tank capabilities are provided with the M72 LAW.

The Home Guard utilizes a variety of different civilian transport vehicles and a small number of Mercedes GD light utility vehicle.

 

[daftandbarmy]

The problem had its start here:





Within the reserve force, commanding officers find it impractical to use this section to enforce mandatory training. As a legal advisor I found myself beating my head against the wall every time a CO complained about people not showing up for training and my telling them to use the bloody law as it stands. No one ever did. They're bloody scared to do it.

Over the years I advocated with Chief of Reserves Council for moving this forward on a legislative change agenda to have neglect or failure to attend training to be a CSD offence and provide for a meaningful penalty. I heard crickets. The usual response was, people will quit in droves. My usual response was "better to have 5,000 trained and committed people than 15,000 dilettantes".

The "train when you feel like it" culture has been tacitly accepted by both ResF and RegF leadership for many, many decades. It's deeply culturally rooted and we don't need to merely change that culture, we need to deliberately break it and wrestle it into the ground. This is not a government problem. It's an Army cultural one and the Army can change it if it decides to.

It is relatively easy to set up the mechanisms of change that will provide for a core of obligatory service (lets say one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer of collective training) and leave a voluntary component for those who wish to take on additional skill and career courses at their own pace.

Will there be a loss of personnel up front? Probably, but once a system is established and people know what they are joining before they get there, both recruiting and retention will pick up again.

I'll add to that. Its not enough to merely break that mental mindset. It has to be accompanied by having the right training and the proper equipment otherwise obligatory training becomes meaningless. That's the basic concept behind 30/70; to put within one unit, sufficient equipment and sufficient leaders and trainers to make those obligatory days of training productive.

Let me be blunt. If something like that isn't done, there will never be any progress in developing a more capable ARes.

We used to struggle trying to nail the people on the NES list....

If there was a full time person/team who could focus on that, you'd achieve a similar end I'm guessing.

 

[dapaterson]

We used to struggle trying to nail the people on the NES list....

If there was a full time person/team who could focus on that, you'd achieve a similar end I'm guessing.

You mean... If units employed their full time clerks to do clerk work and not everything else under the sun, then units would be administered better?

 

[daftandbarmy]

You mean... If units employed their full time clerks to do clerk work and not everything else under the sun, then units would be administered better?

But what about organizing critically important events like these?

2019 Kilted Regiments Conference​

- Essex and Kent Scottish

 

[WLSC]

We used to struggle trying to nail the people on the NES list....

If there was a full time person/team who could focus on that, you'd achieve a similar end I'm guessing.

We are pretty good on putting poeple on the NES list in 2Div. Then comes release admin, then stack goes up, then you end up with 40 pers on that list in average for the last 25 years. I've seen one pers on the release space for 3 years because he need to see a doc. He was at the lowest of the category IOT have an appointment.

 

[Kirkhill]

The problem had its start here:





Within the reserve force, commanding officers find it impractical to use this section to enforce mandatory training. As a legal advisor I found myself beating my head against the wall every time a CO complained about people not showing up for training and my telling them to use the bloody law as it stands. No one ever did. They're bloody scared to do it.

Over the years I advocated with Chief of Reserves Council for moving this forward on a legislative change agenda to have neglect or failure to attend training to be a CSD offence and provide for a meaningful penalty. I heard crickets. The usual response was, people will quit in droves. My usual response was "better to have 5,000 trained and committed people than 15,000 dilettantes".

The "train when you feel like it" culture has been tacitly accepted by both ResF and RegF leadership for many, many decades. It's deeply culturally rooted and we don't need to merely change that culture, we need to deliberately break it and wrestle it into the ground. This is not a government problem. It's an Army cultural one and the Army can change it if it decides to.

It is relatively easy to set up the mechanisms of change that will provide for a core of obligatory service (lets say one weekend per month and two weeks in the summer of collective training) and leave a voluntary component for those who wish to take on additional skill and career courses at their own pace.

Will there be a loss of personnel up front? Probably, but once a system is established and people know what they are joining before they get there, both recruiting and retention will pick up again.

I'll add to that. Its not enough to merely break that mental mindset. It has to be accompanied by having the right training and the proper equipment otherwise obligatory training becomes meaningless. That's the basic concept behind 30/70; to put within one unit, sufficient equipment and sufficient leaders and trainers to make those obligatory days of training productive.

Let me be blunt. If something like that isn't done, there will never be any progress in developing a more capable ARes.

Consent of the Governed.

In political philosophy, the phrase consent of the governed refers to the idea that a government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political power is exercised. This theory of consent is historically contrasted to the divine right of kings and had often been invoked against the legitimacy of colonialism. Article 21 of the United Nations' 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government".

Perhaps the earliest utterance of consent of the governed appears in the writings of Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar Duns Scotus, who proposed this in his work Ordinatio in the 1290s. Scotus's lengthy writing in theology have largely overshadowed this notable contribution that he made to early political theory. It is believed these writings influenced Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 [1]

Short walk from there to here

Sometimes called the First Rule of Command, "Never give an order you know will not be obeyed," is one of the fundamental principles of officership. Command is a relationship, and must be cultivated as such - and, in many fashions, it is built on the trust a subordinate has in their commander.
Once a commander has given an order they know will not be obeyed, they open the door to questioning orders when it really matters. When giving an order that is almost certain to result in the deaths of those ordered, the absolutely last thing you want them thinking is, "Hey, remember how we already disobeyed him once? Maybe this would be a good time to do it again." Bad plan.

In general, orders that will not be obeyed involve personal issues, and may tend to be chickenshit orders. There isn't a hard and fast rule that you can apply, but use common sense. If your airman's wife just ran off to Las Vegas, NV with a jarhead, the order, "Let her go" is pretty likely to be ignored. Cover for him.

Shorter walk from there to here

Fragging is the deliberate or attempted killing of a soldier, usually a superior, by a fellow soldier. U.S. military personnel coined the word during the Vietnam War, when such killings were most often committed or attempted with a fragmentation grenade,[2] to make it appear that the killing was accidental or during combat with the enemy. The term fragging now encompasses any deliberate killing of military colleagues.[3][4]

The high number of fragging incidents in the latter years of the Vietnam War was symptomatic of the unpopularity of the war with the American public and the breakdown of discipline in the U.S. Armed Forces. Documented and suspected fragging incidents using explosives totaled 904 from 1969 to 1972,[5] while hundreds of fragging incidents using firearms took place, but were hard to quantify as they were indistinguishable from combat deaths and poorly documented.

And to here

Conscription Crisis of 1917 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you want to blow up the Militia in its entirety then by all means proceed as you suggest. Push harder and you can blow up the government while you are at it.

 

[Kirkhill]

But what about organizing critically important events like these?

2019 Kilted Regiments Conference​

- Essex and Kent Scottish

Perhaps the earliest utterance of consent of the governed appears in the writings of Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar Duns Scotus, who proposed this in his work Ordinatio in the 1290s. Scotus's lengthy writing in theology have largely overshadowed this notable contribution that he made to early political theory. It is believed these writings influenced Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 [1]

Spot the commonality?

 

[Good2Golf]

It can be done, but the problem is the ARes protecting its myriad of hundreds of platoons regiments across this vast country actually has to want to change, rather than throw stones at big brother.

Okay, maybe a bit of bombast with ‘hundreds’ but…

 

[GR66]

Totally Force wasn’t a bad idea.
The 10/90 setup worked well for the Arty units in the early 90’s.
10/90 IMHO isn’t enough for the other Cbt Arms, and I think @FJAG is correct that 30/70 is a much better setup for that.

The other issue is just simply missing kit.
You can’t train to fight, if you don’t have gear to fight…

Hence why the ARes needs to take the bull by the horns and come to big Army with a solution.

Right now the ARes is doing what big Army wants, providing piecemeal augmentation. If the ARes wants to be and contribute more it needs to unf*** that themselves, to use your words

Maybe the problem with the Reg Force and the Reserve Force is that there is a Reg Force and a Reserve Force. How can you expect a "Total Force" to work if it's just two separate forces that you try to mash together when required?

Instead of two separate forces we need a single Army. And the units in that Army would be fully manned with whatever mix of full-time and part-time personnel make sense for the role/level of readiness you expect of them.

Trying to fix either Force separately will just leave you with an expensive Reg Force that is too small to be effective and a poorly equipped, trained and led Reserve Force that isn't deployable.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Okay, maybe a bit of bombast with ‘hundreds’ but…

 

[MilEME09]

Because no one else is going to. If the organization wants to be more than it is now, it needs to come up with that plan. Otherwise, get comphy.

There is no reason the ARes cant come to the Army with a realistic self improvement plan.

It can't because reserve leadership is self taught, we created our own monster that sees the status quo as fine and working. Want a better reserve force? Let's create a standards organization rub by tbe reg force that comes put to reserve CT who decides if we meet the BTS goals, and if we don't, start replacing officers. There needs to be accountability for senior leadership when 98% of the reserves is in the red, and only 1 Ares unit in the whole country is green with 91%ES and 81% TES.

 

[dapaterson]

The Army Res establishment is a work of fiction, larger than the authorized strength, and includes no BTL.

Fixing the Army Reserve means fixing the establishment. Which means that with about 22k paid strength target including BTL, radical change is necessary.