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Thoughts on deployment/rotation length & HLTA

Is pairing Battlegroups an option?

Assigning two battlegroups to a theater for 12-18 months at a stretch but with only one BG in country at a time.  Stagger the sub-unit rotations to something like 3 months on and 3 months off so that the work-up period between "shifts" is reduced/eliminated.   Also, when the assigned BGs are nearing the end of their tour you could "dovetail" or overlap the incoming BGs so that you have an experienced HQ and support (for example) with a mix of experienced and "untried" sub-units.  
 
With deployments, it is better to get it over with.  Multiple short cycles of deploy - home - deploy - .... will increase the strain on soldiers & family as the process is streached out & the "good-bye ritual" re-lived.
 
It does work for the Air Force, but that is dependant on a more permissive enviroment.  This could be an option for some future Cyprus.
 
Iterator said:
Technology should be utilized to keep the replacement unit informed of the situation on the ground throughout the entire deployment of the preceding unit. Pre-deployment readiness and handovers should not be cataclysmic events, and settling in should not be a hardship.

This is already in place and has been for years.  If the replacement unit is not informed of the situation prior to deployment, it's not technology's fault...
 
Kirkhill said:
Is pairing Battlegroups an option?

Assigning two battlegroups to a theater for 12-18 months at a stretch but with only one BG in country at a time.  Stagger the sub-unit rotations to something like 3 months on and 3 months off so that the work-up period between "shifts" is reduced/eliminated.  Also, when the assigned BGs are nearing the end of their tour you could "dovetail" or overlap the incoming BGs so that you have an experienced HQ and support (for example) with a mix of experienced and "untried" sub-units. 

I would still propose that Battle Groups be deployed for about 3 months and then expect to rotate back in about 2 years.

As an example:
- BG #1 deploys and BG #2, which has been increasing its readiness, has been assigned as the replacement BG.
- During BG #1's deployment BG #2 would maintain a high state of readiness and stagger its own sub-units on short pre-deployment leaves (to be concluded at least a couple of weeks prior to deployment).
- BG #1's own replacement pool would handle any individual replacements, but BG #2 would be available to provide any sub-unit replacement.
- As BG #2 deploys, BG #1 returns to Canada and maintains a high state of readiness for a couple of weeks before going on post-deployment leave. This will allow BG #3 to get settled into its role as BG #2's replacement.

A 3 month deployment allows for shorter pre-deployment and post-deployment leaves, and eliminates the need for mid-deployment leave.

The expectation for return in 2 years allows deployments to be more of a natural occurrence rather than an exception to the norm. It also allows for an overall increase in unit readiness, while allowing enough time for courses.


GreyMatter said:
Iterator said:
Technology should be utilized to keep the replacement unit informed of the situation on the ground throughout the entire deployment of the preceding unit. Pre-deployment readiness and handovers should not be cataclysmic events, and settling in should not be a hardship.
This is already in place and has been for years.  If the replacement unit is not informed of the situation prior to deployment, it's not technology's fault...

I would want awareness down to the section level. Commanders should be in daily (or close to it) contact with the commanders they are expected to replace, video from patrols, even a virtual presence at meetings. The replacing unit should be able to deploy as if it had been there for the previous deployment. If this is being done, then there should be little difference in performance between the start and end of deployments.
 
Iterator said:
I would want awareness down to the section level. Commanders should be in daily (or close to it) contact with the commanders they are expected to replace, video from patrols, even a virtual presence at meetings. The replacing unit should be able to deploy as if it had been there for the previous deployment. If this is being done, then there should be little difference in performance between the start and end of deployments.

Although desirable, I dont think its achievable unless you are dealing with veterans coming back for a second or more tour.
 
Be careful wishing for the three months on and three months off for however many years.

The Airforce has been doing 56 day rotations in and out of theatres for years (certain trades ie Aircrew/Maintence/MAMS). All it has accomplished is burning a lot of people out. Causing undue hardship on family life. PLUS Govt held back certain entilements because the members did not serve long enough in country to qualify.

Once people get their wits about them and their head space and timing sorted out it was time to go home for a few weeks only to be tasked out on ex or a Boxtop or some domestic operation. Come home for a couple of days and then off to some other 56 day deployment.

The government got its cake, ate it, recycled the box, washed the plates used them again for more cake and didn't pay a thing.
 
Thanks for that Mover1.

Now I am regretting posting my "thought".
 
I fully beleive that HLTA needs to be shitcanned, if the 6 month tours are be be kept.

If people are willing to accept that this is a war  :o -- then perhaps a better system could be adopted (don't ask me what it is) its hard to mobilize the army for a theatre that you cant employ them (wrt kit and equipment beyomnd the deployed BG).

BigRed and I, do 8 on 4 off rotations in Iraq he's been doing this for 3 years, I had 4:1 rotations on the private side in Afghan -- yes its different.  But the principle remains that given an incentive that the body and mind can deal with the rotation schedule quite well - or we are just crazy.
  The way we rotate is so 2/3 of our team is always on the ground - thus current - and the schedule is staggered so that the fresh guys are not arriving to the team enmasse.

It would be a frightfully expensive way to run a war though  ;)



 
 
Correct me if I'm wrong the reason for the marines doing 13 month tours was because they would do a 12 month tour and on the 13th month they would spend doing admin getting them ready to rotate home, also as a sort of decompression.  This too was because in vietnam marines deployed as a unit and would rotate in and out as a unit where as (back then at least) the us army did it on an individual basis.  Yes no?

Personally I wouldn't mind  a 9 or 12 month our so long as work up training was shortened.

 
In Viet Nam Marines did not rotate as units, except initially. It was individual rotations. At any one time we had 2-5 new guys getting up to speed, but we retained the experienced core at all times.....worked well.

The 13th month for admin may have been the concept, but going in, I was with my initial unit within 24 hours of landing in Quan Tri, then within 3 hours to Da Nang, another 2 hours to Dong Ha, then choppered back out to Phu Bai.

Going out took even less time, and I was in the field up to and including the day I left. I had enough time to grab my ruck, and was on a chopper out of there.
 
wow right on thanks Gap.

I was just going off what I've read in a book but clearly your speaking from personal experience.  Cheers!
 
GAP, How long was your full training cycle before you got dropped off at Quan Tri?  Apparently you learned enough there to keep you alive long enough to figure out how to survive the rest of your tour.  :salute:
 
Kirkhill said:
GAP, How long was your full training cycle before you got dropped off at Quan Tri?  Apparently you learned enough there to keep you alive long enough to figure out how to survive the rest of your tour.  :salute:

We went through ITR at Pendleton for 6 weeks, and nothing (formal) else once feet were on the ground. The Company slid you into more aggresive actions over the next 1-2 weeks, but it was nothing like I have read where the Army ran a familiarization course for 2 weeks prior to going outside the wire. You were expected to have learnt your lessons, and for the most part, you had. The rest was taken care of by the company, which was great, because you could put your lessons directly into action.

If there was supposed to be anything more formal, we never saw it, plus we were too dumb and green to know different. (You are talking to the guy, on his first day, who continued to didy bop along with rockets landing on either side of him, and not realizing why everybody was running....meh)
 
See my comment about apparently having learned enough to keep you alive etc....?  Scratch that.

Sheer luck.  ;)
 
We approach the topic again - this time comments from our Allies spark the debate.  Although I think that the US Army's 15-month tours have the potential to kill an army, I agree with the General when he says the advantage comes with intimately knowing the terrain.  Perhaps a longer tour (8 months, 9 months?) would provide an optimal balance between familiarity and fatigue?

Fair Dealings blahblahblah

http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/301698

---------------
Longer troop deployments urged
TheStar.com - World - Longer troop deployments urged

NATO commander says 6-month tours undertaken by Canadians in Kandahar too short to get job done

February 08, 2008
Mitch Potter
EUROPE BUREAU


VILNIUS, Lithuania–Last month, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates frayed tender NATO nerves by suggesting some allied troops in southern Afghanistan come up short in the battle against insurgents.

Now the senior U.S. commander on the ground in Afghanistan has elaborated on the theme, saying that six-month deployments such as those undertaken by Canadian soldiers lack the longevity to get the job done American-style.

In a blunt assessment of the alliance's shortcomings in Afghanistan, top NATO commander Gen. Dan McNeill told reporters at the Pentagon he is hamstrung by "a minimalist force" too few in number and too burdened by political and military obstacles to match the counter-insurgency efforts of U.S. troops.

Praising the "absolutely amazing" progress in U.S.-controlled sectors of eastern Afghanistan against the struggles encountered by Dutch, British and Canadian troops in the south, McNeill contrasted the elongated 15-month rotations of American troops against the six-month rotations that are the norm for Canadian soldiers.

"What does 15 months mean? The American soldier ... develops a relationship with the terrain, with the indigenous people and their leadership, and with the enemy. And they have sufficient time to exploit that relationship to their advantage," McNeill said. "Secondly, ... Congress well endows the commanders in the U.S. sector with reconstruction money, bureaucratically unencumbered, more or less, so that they can apply those monies in a pure and comprehensive way in counter-insurgency operations, and they can see to immediate and genuine needs, not just once."

Asked to contrast that approach against other nations involved in the fractious south, where most of Canada's 2,500 troops are deployed, McNeill said: "Most of the other forces are typically on a six-month tour length. They probably are not as well-endowed by their governments as U.S. soldiers are. Some of them don't have the same level of pre-deployment training."

McNeill did not specifically mention Canada in his comments at the Pentagon. In a separate interview published yesterday, he told The Washington Post he prefers that Canadian troops "stay in the fight" rather than shift their emphasis toward training and mentoring Afghan forces. But he also suggested that NATO should consider the idea of U.S. forces taking charge of the southern command, where the Taliban insurgency is strongest.

A former commander of the U.S. Army's force generation headquarters, McNeill said, "I know the level to which (U.S. military trainers) go to replicate battlefields, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, before we send the unit into either of those locations. It pays off greatly ..."

McNeill's comments on short-term deployments are a familiar complaint among aid workers in Afghanistan. One United Nations official who spoke to the Toronto Star in Kabul in December described the dynamic as being like the movie Groundhog Day.

"You sit down with a commander who just arrived and bring him up to speed on the humanitarian situation," the official said. "Six months later, you sit down with the next one and do the same thing over again. If we find it frustrating, imagine what the Afghans think."

Asked at the NATO gathering in Vilnius yesterday whether he agreed with McNeill's assessment, Gates answered cautiously.



"If you are addressing it as an intellectual matter, then a longer tour and a greater familiarity does enhance your ability to carry out a counter-insurgency," Gates told the Toronto Star. "The other side of that coin, though, is that longer tours have a real wearing effect on the troops ... Frankly, I would like to get back to 12-month tours (for U.S. soldiers) if that's possible."

 
FYI -- I would suggest a 9-12 month tour with no HLTA.
  I know it may suck for the time but...

If I where Emperor of Canada  ;D  -- I'd be running TWO CF Btl Groups -- 12 months in lenght - with the rotation between the two staggered at the 6 month period -- so the new TF can be somewhat mentored/supported by the other in theatre.  Bde staff would do 14 month deployment rotated throughout the time with a one month overlap for the incoming positions.
 
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