More sailors needed for Canada's warships

[Eye In The Sky]

Pirates are oportunists and thieves.
Any show of force - be it in the air or on the sea will discourage even the most enthusiastic pirate.... but I see your point

This story appears to support that as well Geo.

International Operations

Sea King scares off pirates

As the CH-124 Sea King helicopter from HMCS Calgary approaches, a pirate skiff breaks off its attack on a cargo vessel and races away.

On the morning of June 3, 2008, just after Canadian Commodore Bob Davidson assumed command of Combined Task Force 150 from French Rear Admiral Jean-Louis Kérignard, one of Canada's Sea King helicopters, embarked in Her Majesty's Canadian Ship Calgary, intervened in an ongoing piracy attack on a commercial vessel transiting the Gulf of Aden, approximately 65 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia.

The frigate Calgary, one of three Canadian warships currently assigned to Operation ALTAIR, Canada's maritime contribution to the campaign against terrorism, was operating in the area when a broken call for assistance was heard from a vessel apparently under attack by small arms fire.

Calgary immediately altered course and increased speed to close the scene. Her airborne Sea King was promptly redirected towards the area and tasked to gather information on the situation. The helicopter's arrival in the vicinity of the attack did not go unnoticed by the perpetrators. Two small boats, commonly referred to as skiffs, were observed in the area and appeared to be armed.

"I am convinced that the presence of our aircraft drove them away from the traffic lanes and prevented any further attack today on merchant shipping in the area," said Commander Kelly Larkin, commanding officer of the multi-purpose frigate. "We continued to monitor those two skiffs and their crew as they were heading back towards Somalia territorial waters."

Ships assigned to this crucial operation deploy to the North Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of Aden, and parts of the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, where they work alongside many allied and regional nations, building security and stability by monitoring shipping, and countering
terrorist activity.

Photo Credit:  MCpl Robin Mugridge

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Lets try and get back on topic folks.

Milnet.Ca Staff

 

[Neill McKay]

Lets try and get back on topic folks.

Milnet.Ca Staff

Could I suggest a split?  There's probably enough on the tangent to stand as its own thread.

 

[Sailorwest]

More sailors needed for Canada's warships
More airmen needed for Canada's expanding air capabilities
More soldiers needed for Canada's Army

That's the problem with an economy that is, oddly enough, booming - against all expectations.

I think this is exactly the problem. To a lot of people the military in general, not just the Navy, is hard to sell when they make more and work less without having to go away from home for months at a time. I think very few people really want the lifestyle that comes with it. The afteraffects of the FRP are now being felt big time and the pierhead transfers to operational ships will become the norm. Unfortunately. Despite the strong recruiting campaign going on, I think they are just managing to stay ahead attrition wave.

 

[geo]

westie... with the slowing down of the economy, the forces may very well have a chance to slow down attrition while improving the quality and number of recruits....

A fella can always hope

 

[Patchit]

Maybe the Navy should consider closing down for Christmas in order to promote recruitment just like the Australian Navy is doing this year.
See the following link: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6277657

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Maybe the Navy should consider closing down for Christmas in order to promote recruitment just like the Australian Navy is doing this year.
See the following link: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6277657

If people are not joining because they may not have Christmas off then honestly I don't want them in my Navy. You obviously don't know what the Navy does on a day to day basis and the positions it fills if you think the entire organization can be given the day off :

 

[Marinero2008]

More sailors needed for Canada's warships...

...They have 8,000 sailors on their books and jobs for 8,600..."We are understaffed. There is no doubt about that,"
"We are looking at being short by about 300 people per coast and that is not insubstantial."

Me! Me! Me! Take me! Take me!...Nine months I am waiting to get into the military and be a sailor. Yet, they are still processing my application!
And I have my "sea legs" already - from merchant service.  :crybaby:  ;D 

 

[Patchit]

If people are not joining because they may not have Christmas off then honestly I don't want them in my Navy. You obviously don't know what the Navy does on a day to day basis and the positions it fills if you think the entire organization can be given the day off :

If you had read the article you will have noticed that they are not closing everything down completely. They still will have a ship in the Gulf, and continue with minor patrols of their northern waters and have a ready duty ship on both the east and west coasts. Try reading the article for what they proposed as a way of increasing recruiting. Being away all the time is destroying the family life. With civilian job applicants able to make the same money that the navy pays their members and not have to leave the local area, most would not consider joining the navy. Being short of crew and still keeping the same level of sailing is burning the sailors they still have out. The article focused around the Christmas break time due to the fact that in most religions Christmas time is usually about the family. Our navy could choose any time as a shut down period if they found this to be beneficial to recruiting members. As for giving the navy a day off (see your last statement), they do it all the time,  they are called National Holidays! I might suggest that in the future you should be less critical of someone you don't know and add some insight to the topic instead. Just to let you know, I do in fact know a lot about the navy since I have over 20 years of service in it.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Well congrats on your 20 years , I will hit mine in Feb. As Navy you then know that not everyone gets every holiday off. Duty watches onboard ships, Watchkeepers at the RCC, Athena and Trinity do not. Yes Stat holidays are generally made up for later, but your statement misleads anyone that does not know any better that you are advocating the complete shutdown for the Navy for one day for recruitment. How will that help with recruitment? I maintain people who join the Navy for what days they might have off, I don't want them, because they will be the ones who skive off.

I might suggest that in the future you should be less critical of someone you don't know

Well maybe fill out your profile more....

 

[Patchit]

Well congrats on your 20 years , I will hit mine in Feb. As Navy you then know that not everyone gets every holiday off. Duty watches onboard ships, Watchkeepers at the RCC, Athena and Trinity do not. Yes Stat holidays are generally made up for later, but your statement misleads anyone that does not know any better that you are advocating the complete shutdown for the Navy for one day for recruitment. How will that help with recruitment? I maintain people who join the Navy for what days they might have off, I don't want them, because they will be the ones who skive off.

As I said previously,  read the whole article (2 pages). The shut down wouldn't be for only one day but a month or two. I'm only submitting this based on the fact that the Australian Navy is having very similar problems to what we are having and they are trying this out. Maybe we can find out how this works for them and try it ourselves. That's all that I was suggesting. You're right in saying that not everyone can be let go but the article explains about skeleton crews, recalls, etc. It would have to be on some sort of rotational basis that we let the members go. 

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

I am just basing my comments on what you said, not the article. How is someone that does not know any better suppose to interpret your initial comments?

 

[Eye In The Sky]

2 words.

Duty Watch.

 

[Snakedoc]

Well I guess any enemy force will know the perfect month...or two..to launch a full attack on a nation then  :

Military forces of a country are there to ensure they are ready for just about anything when needed ANYTIME.  This is the very nature of the work we do and the reason why we can't just give essentially the entire navy a month or two off all at the same time just because its Christmas or December, the same is true for doctors, nurses, police officers, or any other essential service at christmas time.

 

[Monsoon]

Military forces of a country are there to ensure they are ready for just about anything when needed ANYTIME.

I take it you've never had to try to get anything done in Halifax during the summer block leave period...

 

[cobbler]

: I hate the media, I really do.

TO CLARIFY THE POINTS IN THOSE ARTICLES

The RAN is not "shutting down".

There will still be duty watches on every ship and every base, and HQ-JOC, NORCOM & AUSFLT watchkeepers will still be going round the clock to support the boys at sea.

The guys deployed to Iraq wont be putting there heals up, and we will still have a Major Fleet Unit doing Op Resolute over the period. The op tempo for our Patrol Boats on the Australian Station wont slow down either. Added to tht will be one vessel on operational standby at each of Fleet Base East, Fleet Base West, Cairns Naval Base and Darwin Naval Base.

What isnt being done is cocktail party trips "up top" (SE Asia), work ups, trials, daily routine work, any shore based training courses. Operational capability doesn't drop at all, most of my mates were on leave last christmas when I was doing Resolute.

The only difference this year and others is that its been extended from a month to 6 weeks (not 2 months as joe journalist is reporting).

Does Canada's Navy not take such a relaxation at christmas? And hell for that matter, does Canada's Army send any of you out to the field in an exercise area of BC for christmas? I thought not.

What you guys also have to consider is that the christmas/NY holiday period is the summer holiday period in Australia. And also, to take non-public holidays off, you still either have to have accrued leave to take, or be eligable for trainee leave, otherwise its turn to every morning for duty watch.

Hope that clarifies it, I would have expected you'd take what the media report with a grain of salt...

 

[ltmaverick25]

The truth is, recruiting and retention is an issue that challenges all three of our elements currently.  The army, although the larger element of the three is still considerably understaffed.  This is evidenced by the growing number of reservists being called up for deployments to Afghanistan.  Thankfully for the army alot of reservists are jumping at the chance.

I think the biggest issue facing naval recruitment is that Canada does not have much of a maritime identity outside of the maritime provinces and BC.  Most Canadians think of the army when they think of anything military.  Most people elect to join the army likely dont even realize the full spectrum of options available to them.  I am a good example of this.  My boyhead dream was always to be a fighter pilot, I was also always extremely facinated with the Navy, and yet for some reason that is still unknown to me, I joined the army!  14 years later I have finally transfered over to the Navy and I must say that every day is like xmas compared to my army time.

I am relatively new to the Navy, and only have limited experience in my own trade (MARS) but from what I can tell, we dont exactly do ourselves any favors in the retention department.  I dont know what its like for the other trades, but alot of junior MARS officers that are further along in training than I am are all telling me the same thing... MARS officers like to treat their new guys like absolute garbage.  I have not personally experienced any of this treatment yet, but it seems to be a common story.  I was in Halifax this past weekend doing some training and met a few MARS officers at a local bar and we spoke about training ect...  One of them who had just completed MARS 4 made some interesting points on this matter.  It was his feeling that if at the end of the MARS training members were actually enthusiastic about the Navy and looking forward to their future deployments, we would do much better with retention.  The military is a different animal from civilian life for sure, but that does not mean that behaviors and norms need to be established that serve to discourage long time service in the end.  Just my two cents on the matter.

The other issue the Navy faces, unlike the army is that we are always operational in peace time and in war.  The army during peacetime or absence of a major crisis will not have the high operations tempo that it does now.  Generally speaking, army members are not away from home nearly as often over a long term average as sailors are.  We are always at sea and a time of war or crisis only increases that tempo.  Many people who place high priority on commitment to family can find a career in the Navy to be unapealing because of this.

However, regardless of everything above, I still think the Navy is the best element to serve in, so all of you potential recruits out there thinking about the army, think again!!! learn about the other elements first and make an informed decision!

 

[jollyjacktar]

I came to the Navy at the 1/2 way point of my 20 Reg years so far.  I still very much enjoy it and have not looked back with regret at the move. 

That being said, despite Mavrick's stars in the eyes, I have noted in my time many a hairy bag bitter and pissed off by 20 or less.  The tempo has slowed some in my time, but I know prior to that it was more hectic.  This may account for the hard feelings I have observed, but don't know.
On a positive note, however there many like me who are quite content with a sailor's life.

Perhaps with the recent economic downturn that has commenced we may find more interest in the CF with variety of career options, S/L/A.   

So, from the lower decks too, come over to the Dark Blue side of the CF and GO NAVY!

 

[Snakedoc]

I take it you've never had to try to get anything done in Halifax during the summer block leave period...

No but i've had to in esquimalt.. :

 

[Pat in Halifax]

"Me! Me! Me! Take me! Take me!...Nine months I am waiting to get into the military and be a sailor. Yet, they are still processing my application!
And I have my "sea legs" already - from merchant service."
Sorry, still trying to figure out how to use the 'paste' thingy!
Can I safely say on behalf of ALL those currently serving on a ship, if this "application" took more than 30 minutes, someone in CFRG needs a boot in the buttocks!