View Full Version : Army Reserves Capability
battlensign
07-04-10, 03:45 PM
I would like to know what Forum members think in relation to the Reserves (in particular Army Reserves): about their role, structure and readiness specifically. The background reading on the topic is troubling and disconcerting even if not entirely unexpected.
Strictly speaking the views on the reserves may vary widely depending on the time-frame analysed. My query relates more to the approaches adopted in more modern times - say the last 20 years. As recently as 2000, the Defence Sub-Committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade (Jfadt) considered issues pertaining to the Australian Army and the Army Reserves in its Inquiry entitled "From Phantom to Force: Towards a More Efficient and Effective Army" . Overall, it made for some depressing, but not entirely unexpected, reading. However conclusions reached as part of that analysis have not been adopted as part of the Defence White Papers of 2000 and 2009.
To provide some context - at the time of the report, the ARA had around 23’906 personnel and the Reserve 21’486. Recruitment for the forces was, as a percentage of targets, around 80 for the ARA and 51 for the GRes. ARA personnel were 34% more expensive than the personnel of the RR Scheme and 72% more than GRes personnel. In December 1999 Reserves were leaving Army at a rate of 23.45%.
(Department of Defence, Defence Annual Report 1998–99, Defence Publishing Service, Canberra,
19 October 1999, p. 162)
Also, at the time of the Inquiry:
1) 1st Brigade was staffed at 70%
2) 3rd Brigade was staffed at 85%
3) 7th Brigade (Integrated) was staffed at 73% (6 RAR’s Timor Tour was to include 300 Reserves on VS)
4) 5th, 8th, 9th, 11th & 13th Brigades averaged 31% staffing.
5) 4th Brigade, trialling new structures, had a staffing of 40%
Ultimately the Inquiry concluded that Army needed 3-4 brigades in the Ready Deployment Force with the capacity to generate up to 8 brigades within two years. The was based on a perceived need for Army to maintain a both a brigade and a battliongroup on operations.
Intriguingly, in the Defence White Paper of 2000the government dismissed such a force structure but still recognised the requirement for Army to maintain a Brigade on extended operations whilst simultaneously maintaining a battalion group ready for contingencies. (http://www.defence.gov.au/publications/wpaper2000.PDF)
In the lead up to the May 2009 DWP, Neil James (Executive Director of the Australia Defence Association), in a September 30 2008 speech to the Royal United Services Institute of New South Wales, stated:
I see no future, however, for the Army Reserve (five brigades nominally) as a manoeuvre force above company level because of irreversible decline in the size of the reserve and the huge expense required to maintain it as a separate force. As an integrated part of the total force it still has a very bright future.
(can be found here: http://www.rusinsw.org.au/Papers/20080930.pdf )
These words appear to have been prophetic. The Defence White Paper 2009 had this to say about Reserves. You’ll note the emphasis on individuals for unit round-out and High Readiness and Reserve Response forces limited to no more than Company (or Combat Team) size.
The Use of Reserves
10.12 In some circumstances, Defence may be required to surge its capabilities to rapidly increase force levels, enhance preparedness or broaden our military response options. The balance and structure of the ADF's full-time and part-time forces can be a force multiplier in such circumstances, and could be managed more strategically.
10.13 Over recent years, Defence has employed part-time units in several operational deployments and large scale 'national security' activities such as the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, APEC meetings and visits by international dignitaries. Critical specialists, such as surgeons and other professionals, provide invaluable service to Defence operations on a part-time basis.Part-time personnel also routinely undertake extended operational deployments in the near region, such as the infantry company group currently deployed on rotation to Solomon Islands. Part-time units can also undertake very short notice aid to the civil community tasks, such as assistance during and after bushfires and floods. Individual part-time personnel from all Services have also contributed to multinational peacekeeping tasks in a number of theatres, and have served in multinational headquarters and coalitions.
10.14 However, a number of factors have constrained the ability of part-time personnel to play a larger role in the delivery of trained and ready capability. These factors include:
the complexity of the tasks performed by the ADF (and the sophisticated and intensive mission preparation required);
the availability of part-time personnel for extended duty;
the complexity, cost and availability of some equipment (and the higher training load required to maintain competencies);
the significant annual wastage rate among part-time personnel, which can be a brake on the delivery of capability; and
the dispersion of part-time units and facilities.
10.15 The Government is committed to a better integration between part-time and full-time service in the ADF, and removing the factors which can impede the contribution that part-time forces can make to ADF capability. Chapter 9 describes how this will be done in relation to the Army, which contains the largest number of part-time personnel.
10.16 The Government also intends to further enhance the High Readiness Reserves (HRR), a category of part-time service that allows for some part-time personnel in the Army and the Royal Australian Air Force to be held at much higher readiness for deployment than most reservists. By January 2010, six company-sized Army combat teams, made up of HRR personnel, will be available for operational tasking such as protecting points of entry (for instance ports or airfields), and guarding headquarters and vital installations. Defence will grow this capability, to provide a total of more than 1,000 troops in deployable combat teams, and more than 1,700 additional individuals and small teams to round-out other elements of the Army, including Special Forces. Additionally, the Army's Reserve Response Forces (RRF) provide six teams, each of company-size, for the purpose of Defence Assistance to the Civil Community, in the case of natural disasters, and Defence Force Assistance to the Civil Authority tasks. As discussed in Chapter 9, Defence will also investigate a new form of part-time service based on workforce sponsorship, with the current HRR scheme possibly being adapted to support such an initiative.
(http://www.defence.gov.au/whitepaper/docs/defence_white_paper_2009.pdf)
What do you all think? Is the debate over? Are Reserves to be confined to willing individuals for small tasks or is there a real need for a much larger force? Even if there is a potential need for a larger force, is there likely to be the political will to establish and maintain it? Can we make the reserves a useful and rewarding experience for its members?
Brett.
Raven22
07-04-10, 04:56 PM
The reserves will never again make up large parts of the manoeuvre force, and IMO this is a good thing in the real world we live in. The main two reasons are the cost and training liability.
Cost. Defence is a zero sum game. You give money to the reserves you have to take it away from the regs. As an example, the cost of LAND 400 is so great that it is unlikely the army will be able to buy enough new vehicles to fully equip all the units that require them. The army will be forced to make greater use of pooling and simulation to make up the difference. It is the same for pretty much every other new project. Why would you give equipment to reservists if you dont have enough for your regs?
Training liability. The equipment and new skill sets required for modern combined arms teams is too great for it to exist in a part time force. Even the regs are struggling to maintain proficiencies how are reservists supposed to do the same?
The way I see it the reserves will have three major functions:
- Providing HRR coys etc for domestic security tasks, relieving the regs of the burden.
- Providing a pool of highly qualified specialists (doctors, medics, linguists etc) to supplement the regular force in war time. You only need so many medics in peacetime, in wartime you need as many as you can get etc.
- Providing sub-units to be incorporated into reg units groups after an appropriate period of training. Ie, a reserve rifle company acting as the fourth rifle company in a battalion.
In the end, the art of war has progressed to the point that the cost and training liability to get reservists to a level of capability useful to the government is too much. Better to spend it on capabilities that can and will actually be used.
I'd add low risk level foreign security taskings, similar to Solomans and Timor, too. There seems to me to be little about these taskings, that a predominant, but not wholly part-time Australian/NZ force couldn't successfully undertake, especially after the early "frenetic" activities and missions are sorted out...
Based on my experience in Finland the biggest problems for using reservists have always been availability issues (deployability) and physical fitness requirements. Because these things seem to be more and more important I donīt see a very bright future for reserve forces. Other things kind of depend on what is the background of your reserve force, what is their mission and how much you are willing to invest in their training. Probably the biggest role of reserves in the future is to give flexibility for human resources planning and to provide added capabilities in the form of civilian specialists.
Just my 2 cents
Gubler, A.
07-04-10, 11:46 PM
Neil James wasn't being prophetic he was being 20 years behind the times... The structure of most reserve units is ridiculously high compared to their manning, even back in the peak of 30,000 something back in the 1980s (taking into account who was fully trained). This is because the reserve used to be an expansion base. Like the German Army between the wars the idea was to train a leadership cadre that would be rapidly filled out by volunteer spear carriers with six months training come Armageddon. It is no longer but getting the army to get rid of useless command and staff appointments seems to be impossible.
The Phantom to Force report has the required recommendations to make the reserves far more useable. Its quite simple: restructure. From 1 Div HQ and 6 1/2 brigades to six battle groups plus training groups (for reservists yet to reach full IET trained level) at current ~18,000 manning. Of course this is a 2/3s cut in command appointments but it would provide units at strength of trained soldiers. The second step is to provide employment protection so these units can be called up and injected into the Army's rotational deployment structure. Obviously reserves deploy at a lower rate than regulars just as in the USA. But it provides more capability from the current human pool.
Gubler, A.
08-04-10, 01:23 AM
Cost. Defence is a zero sum game. You give money to the reserves you have to take it away from the regs.
The problem with this metric is it doesn't take into account human resources. Defence can't buy and sell willing soldiers as easily as it can armoured fighting vehicles. Making use of those Australians willing to be soldiers is something that needs to be accounted for.
Currently the ADF has found enough Australians to raise the Army Reserve personnel levels to 12,000 trained and 6,000 being trained (from memory). Of these soldiers only a minority are in useful units: 1 Fd Regt, 16 AD Regt, some specialist engineer capabilities, RFSUs, 1 Cdo Regt and the six HRR combat teams. The rest are wasted in the bloated 2 Div structure maintaining an illusion of an expansion force which is no longer needed.
Now if 2 Div was restructured into six battle groups (7,200) and six force support groups (4,800) and six training groups (6,000) you would have something that could be deployable by need in a way to make a SIGNIFICANT difference to Army capability. The groups for individual training would also provide something of an expansion base as well as a low intensity respite posting for full timers and even a dumping ground for surplus middle management to save the command structure from the current over bureaucratisation.
The full time Army’s nine deployable battle groups (armd cav regts and inf bns) can sustain long term in theatre at the most three battle groups with each serving eight months out of every two years on operations. There are other battle group HQs (1 Armd Regt) and the aviation battle groups but realistically only these nine units provide the combat teams that make up COIN/PSO battle groups.
Now if you had six more functional and organised part time battle groups they could sustain a fourth in theatre battle group. Serving one year full time out of every four (or eight months out of four years in theatre plus pre deployment training) in a similar service demand to US Army National Guard and Army Reserves during the height of the OIF campaign.
So using the Army Reserves can provide the Army with a 33% increase in deployable combat power. As to equipment needs applying the Adaptive Army rotational structure to the Army Reserve means only a 33% increase in combat systems (assuming only battlegroups deployed and undergoing pre deployment training are fully equipped) and a steady state to training systems (2 Div has more equipment demands than its six useable HRR combat teams).
The less tangible element of all this is that giving the reserves a real mission and organisation will significantly improve their training and motivation as well as ground the Army’s current operational commitments in the community. Currently very few Australians notice, understand and feel the strain of our war commitments. If units raised from the wider community, rather than the garrisons, were to be deployed this would change.
Gubler, A.
08-04-10, 01:36 AM
Training liability. The equipment and new skill sets required for modern combined arms teams is too great for it to exist in a part time force. Even the regs are struggling to maintain proficiencies – how are reservists supposed to do the same?
Only the way the Australian Army seems to be doing it. Other armies have no problems raising and sustaining reserve units equipped with the most sophisticated weapon systems. The US Army even has reserve attack helicopter regiments.
Part of the problem with current reserve units is untrained soldiers are injected into units before they have trained up to their IET level. These soldiers should be in training units until they finish their individual training. I wonder how competent an ARA unit would be if 10% of their E1s hadn’t gone to RTB, another 10% had only finished half of RTB, 20% had only finished RTB and 20% had only done half of IET and only the remaining 40% of E1s were IET trained (not to mention actually Proficient!).
I don’t think anyone realistically expects the reserves to provide anything more sophisticated than motorised infantry battle groups. So we don’t need to train them on M1 tanks, ASLAVs, LAND 400 AFVs, ARH Tiger, etc. The rotational structure also provides a mechanism for sliding scales of competency as units rotate around the deployment cycle.
battlensign
08-04-10, 03:46 AM
The problem with this metric is it doesn't take into account human resources. Defence can't buy and sell willing soldiers as easily as it can armoured fighting vehicles. Making use of those Australians willing to be soldiers is something that needs to be accounted for.
Currently the ADF has found enough Australians to raise the Army Reserve personnel levels to 12,000 trained and 6,000 being trained (from memory). Of these soldiers only a minority are in useful units: 1 Fd Regt, 16 AD Regt, some specialist engineer capabilities, RFSUs, 1 Cdo Regt and the six HRR combat teams. The rest are wasted in the bloated 2 Div structure maintaining an illusion of an expansion force which is no longer needed.
Now if 2 Div was restructured into six battle groups (7,200) and six force support groups (4,800) and six training groups (6,000) you would have something that could be deployable by need in a way to make a SIGNIFICANT difference to Army capability. The groups for individual training would also provide something of an expansion base as well as a low intensity respite posting for full timers and even a dumping ground for surplus middle management to save the command structure from the current over bureaucratisation.
The full time Army’s nine deployable battle groups (armd cav regts and inf bns) can sustain long term in theatre at the most three battle groups with each serving eight months out of every two years on operations. There are other battle group HQs (1 Armd Regt) and the aviation battle groups but realistically only these nine units provide the combat teams that make up COIN/PSO battle groups.
Now if you had six more functional and organised part time battle groups they could sustain a fourth in theatre battle group. Serving one year full time out of every four (or eight months out of four years in theatre plus pre deployment training) in a similar service demand to US Army National Guard and Army Reserves during the height of the OIF campaign.
So using the Army Reserves can provide the Army with a 33% increase in deployable combat power. As to equipment needs applying the Adaptive Army rotational structure to the Army Reserve means only a 33% increase in combat systems (assuming only battlegroups deployed and undergoing pre deployment training are fully equipped) and a steady state to training systems (2 Div has more equipment demands than its six useable HRR combat teams).
The less tangible element of all this is that giving the reserves a real mission and organisation will significantly improve their training and motivation as well as ground the Army’s current operational commitments in the community. Currently very few Australians notice, understand and feel the strain of our war commitments. If units raised from the wider community, rather than the garrisons, were to be deployed this would change.
That's quite an interesting idea, and I agree that East Timor, Butterworth and Solomon Islands deployments appear tailor-made for your Reserve units. It would give them valuable institutional experience and value, whilst maintaining moral and community exposure.
I have a couple of questions though:
Your Battle groups appear to be quite large (1200), is this including a 120% manning establishment for the BG's elements?
Would you envisage these BGs equiped homogenously as Light Infantry or Motorised with Bushmasters or would it vary?
If there were a large 1bde presence in SA (APISA), would there be an opportunity for the Reserve unit based there to be equipped with whatever the ASLAV replacement might be (Patria AMV?) - structure with the notion of say, 4 deployable squadrons?
The Inquiry report noted reaearch indicating that warning times for conflicts had typically been 14 months or less (up to and including ET). What sort of readiness are you really talking about here for your Reserve BGs? (obviously money and equipment are key issues here)
Brett.
Raven22
08-04-10, 04:12 AM
Only the way the Australian Army seems to be doing it. Other armies have no problems raising and sustaining reserve units equipped with the most sophisticated weapon systems. The US Army even has reserve attack helicopter regiments.
Comparisons with the US aren't very useful in an Australian context. The US Air Force Reserve also operates stealth fighters, but that isn't a very good argument for Australia giving our stealth fighters to reservists. Politics also plays a big a part in the US as it does in Australia - its worth pointing out that the US Army Reserve retains exactly zero combat units, it consists entirely of CS and CSS units. The part time combat units are part of the National Guard, and of course the politics and interstate rivalry is generally the deciding factor in who gets what instead of need. Hell, if we told the premier of NSWthat he could have his own tank regiment if he paid for it, maybe that would work.
However, even the US National Guard is reducing its number of combat brigades and 75% of it will be support units. A large part of this is the reduced efficiency of Reserve/Guard units during ops in Iraq. It is no surprise that with less training and less experienced commanders that part-time soldiers weren't doing as well as the full time units. Now, to the US that was acceptable, they were warm bodies and they were doing the job, if imperfectly. To the Australian government that would be unacceptable - anything less than perfect is not good enough to risk. This is the same government after all that in an inquiry into the death of a soldier in Afghanistan decided that an experienced combat officer and beret-qualified commando wasn't sufficently trained in track discipline and that contributed to his death. The excitement that 1 Cdo is causing in the papers with their antics doesn't help either.
That's the biggest kicker - Army doesn't exist in a perfect world, it exists to do the bidding if the government of the day. Why waste money on a capability the government of the day is not going to use? Now, low level capability to conduct domestic security tasks and wander the jungles of Timor and the Solomons is a different matter, and how ever you want to organise an organisation for this can't be worse than the current set up.
Gubler, A.
08-04-10, 04:22 AM
That's quite an interesting idea, and I agree that East Timor, Butterworth and Solomon Islands deployments appear tailor-made for your Reserve units. It would give them valuable institutional experience and value, whilst maintaining moral and community exposure.
If the Army Reserve was restructured into six battle groups as part of the Adaptive Army’s force generation rotation those reserve battle groups activated for deployment one out of every four years should be able to deploy anywhere a regular/full time battle group does. If managed properly the reserve battle group should be just as well (or badly) equipped, as well trained and physically fit as the regular battle group. The biggest differential would be in quality of leadership which is often found in reserve units to be better in human quality but poorer in military skills (compared to regulars).
Your Battle groups appear to be quite large (1200), is this including a 120% manning establishment for the BG's elements?
Nope. 1,200 is the Army’s rough standard for a fully pimped out battle group. That is around 800 for an infantry battalion with attached cavalry (or swapped), artillery, engineers and CSS team (company sized). Basically it’s a one third slice of a brigade.
Would you envisage these BGs equiped homogenously as Light Infantry or Motorised with Bushmasters or would it vary?
I would imagine that all six battle groups would be best organised based on a light infantry battalion (4 Bde: 5/6 RVR, 5 Bde: 4/3 RNSWR, 8 Bde: 2/17 RNSWR, 9 Bde: 10/27 RSAR, 11 Bde: 9/49 RQR, 13 Bde:11/16 RWAR) with light cav sqn (PMV-L) and APC sqn (Bushmaster PMV-M) support provided as needed by Army Reserve RAAC units. Apart from being cheaper, easier and so on it would provide the Army with a deployable capability of two medium battle groups and two light battle groups which is a fair balance.
If there were a large 1bde presence in SA (APISA), would there be an opportunity for the Reserve unit based there to be equipped with whatever the ASLAV replacement might be (Patria AMV?) - structure with the notion of say, 4 deployable squadrons?
There are no plans to locate any armd cav units (ASLAV and replacement) in SA. Providing the former 9 Bde battle group (10/27 RSAR) with ASLAVs or LAND 400 AFVs would just be too complex, too much training demand and unnecessary. A Sqn, 3/9 SAMR would be better equipped with PMV-L and PMV-M to provide light cavalry recce and Bushmaster APCs as needed. Any armd cav / mech inf capability needed by reserve battle groups being deployed on operations would be provided by the full time units that provide this type of capability as per the general nature of assembling battle groups and combat teams to meet the need.
The Inquiry report noted research indicating that warning times for conflicts had typically been 14 months or less (up to and including ET). What sort of readiness are you really talking about here for your Reserve BGs? (obviously money and equipment are key issues here)
Phantom to Force’s concept of readiness is 10 years out of date and based on the emergency response (aka ODF) concept. Currently the Army is moving to the adaptive army rotational concept (in a typical half arsed way, see thread discussing this elsewhere on the forum). Under this method units rotate between previously typical peacetime posture of raise, train, sustain to pre deployment training to high readiness state or operationally deployed.
Based around the eight month deployment block this would mean of the six reserve battle groups at any one time four would be at a typical lower readiness raise, train, sustain posture, one at a higher readiness pre deployment training (which could probably be conducted as a mix of part time and full time activity) and the sixth at full time service high readiness either operationally deployed or at a high readiness state for potential emergency deployment if there is no demand for operationally deployed units.
If the reserve units were not activated into the force generation rotation because of low demand they would be at a low readiness. However since these units would only comprise trained soldiers and be kept at full strength their readiness would be much higher than most current reserve units. Which even if they were activated tomorrow would need months to train up the high percentage of untrained soldiers in each unit.
Gubler, A.
08-04-10, 04:30 AM
That's the biggest kicker - Army doesn't exist in a perfect world, it exists to do the bidding if the government of the day. Why waste money on a capability the government of the day is not going to use? Now, low level capability to conduct domestic security tasks and wander the jungles of Timor and the Solomons is a different matter, and how ever you want to organise an organisation for this can't be worse than the current set up.
Can you imagine a Government of the Day abolishing the Army Reserve? It is about as likely as banning bowling clubs because of the stink it would make in the papers.
As to 1 Cdo Regt in the crap heap there are plenty of ARA units, leaders that have made fools of themselves but haven’t ended up in the paper. Is this more a matter of who’s leaking to the media what agendas rather than actual unit performance?
Now if the money spent on the Army Reserve could be redployed into three more battle groups for the regular army then that would no doubt a good thing. And the Army Reserve reduced to the same kind of individual specialist function like the RANR, RAAFR. But it isn’t going to happen.
However if the ARes was to get its act together as organised battle groups they could potentially be as good as an ARA battle group. The key determiner would be how much pre deployment training they were to receive. 4-8 months of full time training for a reserve unit made up entirely of at least IET level soldiers. It just needs a chance to either succeed or fail, which is much better than the permanent state of failure built into the current 2 Div system.
Interesting discussion - It may be that the yanks can maintain reservists in some of these more technical professions because they seem to expect far less of each individual. To explain, the mob we trained with (7th Inf Div Light) years ago, the drivers were not trained to even change the tyre on a Humvee - that was someone else's specialisation, the grunts were trained to fire their M16's, but would not pick up the SAW if you 'killed' their gunner in an assault. Because of the increased specialisation, it should nmean that you could have a reservist unit using say M109's. The driver would just drive etc. Whereas we expect a mechanised grunt to have all of his basic infantry dismounted skills, we also expect him to be responsible for a large part of the maintenance of his vehicles. It was difficult enough maintaining all competencies at 5/7RAR (Mech) in the early 90's due to the high turnover (retention issues) on the regs - a reserve unit? No chance, partly due to the age of the vehicles, partly because we really did have to maintain a wide range of competencies. In that way I can understand why the reserve artillery units are being downscaled to mortars and the M113's are being replaced by essentially trucks (armoured or not).
The one exception to this were reservists that were ex ARA - Because of the throughness of their training and the length of time they had to practice their skills, they could get away with just having their skills 'refreshed' one night a week and on the occasional exercise, and still manage a moderately complicated piece of kit to a reasonable level.
Raven22
08-04-10, 05:01 AM
I didn't say anything about abolishing the Army Reserve. I just said that they won't (and shouldn't) make up a large part of the manoeuvre force and should be realigned with realistic roles and tasks. That is also in line with our major allies thinking.
There's also no doubt that with enough time and treasure a reserve unit could be brought up to a deployable level of capability. If you organise the reserve to conduct low level tasks like domestic security and regional assistance missions, they could still be brought up to a deployable level with time and money, but they would actually have an affordable day to day role. Individual training remains the same, but unit METLs are different. Now how you want to organise the reserve to generate that capability I don't know, nor do I really care, but in a money constrained environment in a time of 'peace', why waste money to generate capability that isn't going to be used?
Raven22
08-04-10, 05:09 AM
I wouldn't put down the US way of specialisation - for an Army their size it bloody works, and it allows them to maintain high level capability despite having a turn-over rate two or three times that of Australias. It does amaze me that a rifleman isn't trained on all the weapons in his fireteam though. Being able to pick up the SAW or M-203 does seem to be a base requirement, but anyhoo...
The one exception to this were reservists that were ex ARA - Because of the throughness of their training and the length of time they had to practice their skills, they could get away with just having their skills 'refreshed' one night a week and on the occasional exercise, and still manage a moderately complicated piece of kit to a reasonable level
That I think is the crux of the issue. With a high enough level of individual training you can generate collective capability quite quickly. If your soldiers don't have that basic level of individual training, then trying to generate any sort of collective capability is next to impossible. Abe is right in that it is very dumb to have untrained soldiers make up Reserve units that are supposed to have a collective capability.
Gubler, A.
08-04-10, 05:12 AM
In that way I can understand why the reserve artillery units are being downscaled to mortars and the M113's are being replaced by essentially trucks (armoured or not).
ARes artillery units are being re-equipped with 81mm mortars not because they can’t handle the 105mm guns but because there will be no 105mm ammunition and the government doesn’t want to spend the cash for another 30-40 155mm guns for all the reserve units. ARes artillery units maintain a pretty near ARA level of competency because of the peculiar nature of developing skills in artillery compared to infantry and armour. Servicing and operating the guns is relatively easy compared to training to be a tactically competent infantry section/AFV crew. The tactical competency of an artillery unit is not in the gun crews but in the forward observer teams (JOST) and fire planning cells (JOSCC) where reservists given enough play with things going bang in the distance are well suited to developing the same skill levels as full timers.
From my personal experience the current ARes mix of about 1/3 proficient, 1/3 partially trained and 1/3 not trained actually can work very well in an artillery unit. Because the untrained Gunners are just put to service lugging shells, trail aping and other general heavy lifting. I don’t think armour and infantry have this kind of luxury of carting around some spare wide shoulders without any tactical skills.
Gubler, A.
08-04-10, 05:26 AM
I didn't say anything about abolishing the Army Reserve. I just said that they won't (and shouldn't) make up a large part of the manoeuvre force and should be realigned with realistic roles and tasks. That is also in line with our major allies thinking.
I think we are both on the same path just approached it from different directions. Re organising 2 Div into six battle groups and six force support groups is a 2/3s cut in their on paper manoeuvre force strength and a doubling of the force support strength. I would imagine with the current low demand for deployed battle groups (1-2) that HQJOC would be more interested in ARes force support group and battle group CSS team capability if organised for rotational force generation than anything else.
But I don’t think all of the ARes should be turned into a uniformed civil defence organization as there are real contributions it can make to the combat power of the Army if given half a chance. Of course the reason the ARes is organised as a useless 2 Div is not some plot by the CSC to suppress their contribution to operations but rather a vainglorious act by the ARes’s own leadership to maintain their command and staff appointments. The ARes can survive on the smell of an oily rag if needed – and has so in the past, subsequently generating the two great AIFs – as long as it is properly organsied and missionised to the need and demands of the time.
Raven22
08-04-10, 05:37 AM
On an unrelated note, I love the word vainglorious. It is right up there with synchronicity and oblong as my favourite words.
I wouldn't put down the US way of specialisation - for an Army their size it bloody works, and it allows them to maintain high level capability despite having a turn-over rate two or three times that of Australias. It does amaze me that a rifleman isn't trained on all the weapons in his fireteam though. Being able to pick up the SAW or M-203 does seem to be a base requirement, but anyhoo...
Yeah we were quite surprised too - and it was supposedly one of their better Brigades we were working with - the 'Manchus". But, this was 1989 during Ex Caltrop Force, so quite a while ago.
That I think is the crux of the issue. With a high enough level of individual training you can generate collective capability quite quickly. If your soldiers don't have that basic level of individual training, then trying to generate any sort of collective capability is next to impossible. Abe is right in that it is very dumb to have untrained soldiers make up Reserve units that are supposed to have a collective capability.
Certainly something we struggled with at 5/7 - because of the high turnover of all Holsworthy based units back then blokes were being sent on drivers courses before they had properly mastered the art of being a decent infantryman. Then they were being swamped with maintenance on the buckets, and being made crewie before they had mastered being behind the sticks (a problem exacerbated by the restriction on track km's back then). Along the way the basic skills would often suffer - confirmed by the average showing of the Bn during the Duke of Cluster...
ARes artillery units are being re-equipped with 81mm mortars not because they can’t handle the 105mm guns but because there will be no 105mm ammunition and the government doesn’t want to spend the cash for another 30-40 155mm guns for all the reserve units. ARes artillery units maintain a pretty near ARA level of competency because of the peculiar nature of developing skills in artillery compared to infantry and armour. Servicing and operating the guns is relatively easy compared to training to be a tactically competent infantry section/AFV crew. The tactical competency of an artillery unit is not in the gun crews but in the forward observer teams (JOST) and fire planning cells (JOSCC) where reservists given enough play with things going bang in the distance are well suited to developing the same skill levels as full timers.
From my personal experience the current ARes mix of about 1/3 proficient, 1/3 partially trained and 1/3 not trained actually can work very well in an artillery unit. Because the untrained Gunners are just put to service lugging shells, trail aping and other general heavy lifting. I don’t think armour and infantry have this kind of luxury of carting around some spare wide shoulders without any tactical skills.
So no more 105's... Interesting. Thanks for the info.
Gubler, A.
08-04-10, 06:56 AM
So no more 105's... Interesting. Thanks for the info.
I'm not sure if the Hamel guns will be disposed of. They may go into storage along with the tooling for making M1 105mm ammunition so we can retain a strategic national artillery capability.
Of course as pointed out by anyone with half a brain for the past 10 years and even the ANAO in their recent EXO audit moving to an all 155mm artillery is crazy unless tooling for building 155mm is acquired. The key item lacking from the Benalla ammunition plant being a hot metal shapping thingy big enough for 155mm shells (the current thingy can only handle shells up to 127mm). If we start to build 155mm locally then the Hamel guns can be disposed of. Probably won't make for good park playthings because of the exposed coils.
If the M198 is retained in service as seems likely for 1 (Mdm) Fd Regt then perhaps Army should look at another 45 surplus from the US F-111G style so we could raise 15 batteries of 155mm if needed and provide the ARes with guns again.
All I can say is, it looks like I went inactive at the right time - at the height of the Reserves' utility and morale. From what I'm hearing now morale is down the crapper and there are only two types of people in the Reserve infantry units - those who are going ARA and those who are getting out. And you can't blame them when they are treated so badly - no training days, no bullets, no armour, no guns.
I understand we can't deploy Reserve units into combat zones like the Israelis and Yanks can, when we can't even stand the media and public scrutiny of our regular infantry in combat roles. But the thing is they're always going on about utilising the Reserves more, and as things stand currently it's probably not even safe to send Reservists to the Solomons or Timor - they just don't have enough training. Actions speak louder than words, and while they'd pontificating about One Army and all that crap, they're not backing it up.
Why not following the British model? They train the TA and then slot them into Regular sections as required. I think this is far better than making a Reserve company a 4th rifle company of a reg battalion. I know 6RAR did do this in Timor and also Iraq, because I know Reserves who went, as Riflemen transferred to 6RAR on CFTS.
Anyway, that rant has been building for a while now. Fair enough if you think the Reserves aren't worth maintaining as a combat or even operational capability, but then can the crap about One Army. Because the Reserve's capabilities are only going to keep heading downhill through lack of training, lack of resources, lack of morale and ultimately lack of soldiers.
Hopefully they learn some lessons from the UK model - as a result of SDR in 99 they went from 40 odd half strength TA infantry battalions down to 15 which two years later were also half strength. Unless you are able to break the regional/local model and take the Navy/Air Force route, reserve recruiting is invariably a function of location and closeness to a drill hall. Once those have gone forget about it apart from the 10-20% who would have joined up regardless.
The UK gets quite a lot out of the TA despite the shoddy treatment it gives it. Individuals backfill regular units, while composite companies get generated by battalions to do force protection work at Div or Bde level (although in Afghanistan they also do other things - TA Royal Irish also did ground holding and mentoring tasks). Specialist units also get called up - I know in 03 the TA Port Regiment was mobilised en-masse to replace its regular counter-part in the UK when it deployed to Kuwait, 131 Cdo Sqn RE usually gets the call when 3 Cdo Bde deploys, a TA unit took the amphibious M3 rigs to Iraq in 03 etc etc.
Although one thing to note is the small amount of training these guys usually get - my old unit had guys deploying to Iraq in a composite company in 05 who had done 6 weekends basic training, 2 weeks Combat Infantry Course and 5 weeks pre-deplyment training. They performed pretty well at the multiple level although the big difference between them and a regular company was in the quality of leadership and general experience (I was out there with a regular unit at the time so got to see both sides at work). TA individuals are usually completely assimilated into regular units within a couple of weeks although you always get the occasional duffer who it pretty quickly sidelined.
Dan
Why not following the British model? They train the TA and then slot them into Regular sections as required. I think this is far better than making a Reserve company a 4th rifle company of a reg battalion. I know 6RAR did do this in Timor and also Iraq, because I know Reserves who went, as Riflemen transferred to 6RAR on CFTS.
We did that for our RCB tour (B Coy 6 RAR) as the battalion was in such bad shape numbers wise that they disbanded B Coy when we got back. Back in the late 80's any grunts leaving Singleton were sent straight to the ODF in Townsville in an attempt to stem the retention problem they had. Being in Brisvegas our retention was excellent, but normal attrition saw the battalion that Jim Molan arrived to command looking more like a well reinforced company. Our platoon was 1 and 16 before deployment - the ARES blokes fitted in fairly well, despite being a mix of truckies, bucket drivers from 2/14, and a few grunts from one of the RQR's. By about the middle of the RCB deployment the platoon was functioning well - a testament to the minimum 8 year experienced Section Commanders and a 12 year experienced Pl Sgt.
In all seriousness, you'd have to be a chump to actually want to be reserve infantry at the moment.
The notion that the resources spent on reserves would be better spent on the regular army is to my mind the crux of the issue; either you want a reserve capability, or you don't. If you don't, lets just get rid of the reserves and be done with it. If you want to keep the reserve CSS / specialists, then fine do so - but make sure they're funded to do their jobs.
Reserve training got slashed as part of the '1bn savings' created by defence, and the end result is you've got an 18 month retention period. 18 months, and soldiers MIGHT be trained up for 6 of those!
The vast majority of new recruits that I met last year were fairly cluey guys, they're not going to put up with the second rate treatment that you all seem to be recommending.
This comment
"...
10.14 However, a number of factors have constrained the ability of part-time personnel to play a larger role in the delivery of trained and ready capability. These factors include:
the complexity of the tasks performed by the ADF (and the sophisticated and intensive mission preparation required);
the availability of part-time personnel for extended duty;
the complexity, cost and availability of some equipment (and the higher training load required to maintain competencies);
the significant annual wastage rate among part-time personnel, which can be a brake on the delivery of capability; and
the dispersion of part-time units and facilities.
..."
makes me wonder if the author(s?) know the difference between Capability and Capacity.
How is it that if the USA Army has "reserves" (We don't call them reserves BTW, we call them Army. If you are part of the "reserves" you are Army period.) then why are Australian reserves suddenly more stupid then every other human organization on the planet and unable to deploy?
This is not a flippant remark. I have ties with Australia and I am irritated, surprised and not a little bit concerned by the described situation in this thread that (if true) the Australian Army has such a glaringly STUPID weakness.
Item one: Every nation needs Defense. Because every nation also has other needs like Education and so on you also need reserves. Why? Because it is more efficient. It is far cheaper to maintain a cadre of (as I think Abe said) willing citizens then to maintain a fully functional Army ready to go into combat with an hour's notice.
In other words reserves maintain a nation's ready CAPACITY to provide Defense.
This whole debate about whether reserves are essential or not is ridiculous. They are, or otherwise you wouldn't have a Defense Force that would have sustainable capacity. Ergo, if you don't have a strong and robust program of supporting citizens willing to provide Defense Capability and Capacity to your nation then your Nation's Defense is inherently weak. This is a truth, not an opinion.
The analogy is dry twig or green twig. You want a green twig that can bend, not a dry twig that will snap, if you place it under pressure.
Anyway, to address the issue of complexity of equipment and training. The answer is to buy the RIGHT equipment. If your reservists don't have the capacity to fight, it is not because of lack of intelligence to create the capability to fight. It is because they lack the correct equipment. Lets take a look at that in more depth.
Remember Performance ( or in this case your ability to provide Defense) is the sum of Capacity AND Capability. Capability is easy to create because a dominate component of Capability in Defense is training (Education). If your training is not yielding results then you have 3 key areas to look at:
1) Is the curriculum relevant? (are you teaching the right thing?)
2) Is the equipment or tools you are using Capability enhancing? (Are you using the right tools and Does it take a long time to train or a short time to train on these tools?
3) If 1 and 2 are good then are you allowing enough Time for your Capability to mature?
I find it bizarre that this is not self-evident.
It also seems that Australia has a very serious problem I alluded to above. From the comments floating around here, there seems to be a delimiter between Australian reserves and Australian Defense. The answer is to get rid of the delimiter. Make the reserves "regular army training units" or what have you, but the idea that they are different is dangerous, counter productive and a waste of both money, human resources and time. All you do is create bitterness and lower morale on either side of the artificial divide you have created, allocate resources inadequately and end up with a Defense Force that is a shadow of it's full potential.
To sum up:
Treat your people right
Buy the right stuff
Train the right way
An example of training right ( as it seems people are not getting the obvious). Separate your training units into two and then split them up into two different time zones. Apply a curriculum where the two units support each others efforts. This is called a "Do-Check loop". The ideal would be to separate them by 12 hours. This makes training 60% more productive for the same amount of time (1 day) and it is particularly effective in virtual environments. For example ( and just one way to do it): Just because the USA has an exercise at White sands or whatever, does not mean EVERY unit in Australia cannot participate in that exercise while in Australia. All you do is re-create the exercise in the middle of a training grounds the same size as the one on the other side of the planet and MIRROR it.
You can LEARN more stuff this way.. e.g. Rimpac Hawaii does one thing... your guys in Australia want to do it another way... so they do and you can immediately COMPARE (Do-Check loop). Don't have enough warships? Paint a fishing boat blue.
&^^&$(&^%^&%#$)!
cheers
w
How is it that if the USA Army has "reserves" (We don't call them reserves BTW, we call them Army. If you are part of the "reserves" you are Army period.) then why are Australian reserves suddenly more stupid then every other human organization on the planet and unable to deploy?
This is not a flippant remark. I have ties with Australia and I am irritated, surprised and not a little bit concerned by the described situation in this thread that (if true) the Australian Army has such a glaringly STUPID weakness.
That problem is not exactly limited to Australia. There are always some who think that regulars are super-humans and especially officers are next from God, while reserves are just weekend soldiers (even thought they might have long experience and served in many operations). And when you repeat these attitudes long enough everyone involved start to believe in this (after all there is a kernel of truth in these stereotypes) and things get polarised.
Leadership culture (some might say directing culture) in the army is somewhat different than in civilian organizations and reservists are often more used to civilian style management practices (and vice versa). Therefore managing reservists requires different skill set although they are all supposed to be soldiers in the same army.
Off course I exaggerated by generalizing, but donīt you recognize these things?
PS These partly artificial divides between different personnel groups are quite common in old government bureaucracies and waste too much human resources.
That problem is not exactly limited to Australia. There are always some who think that regulars are super-humans and especially officers are next from God, while reserves are just weekend soldiers (even thought they might have long experience and served in many operations). And when you repeat these attitudes long enough everyone involved start to believe in this (after all there is a kernel of truth in these stereotypes) and things get polarised.
Leadership culture (some might say directing culture) in the army is somewhat different than in civilian organizations and reservists are often more used to civilian style management practices (and vice versa). Therefore managing reservists requires different skill set although they are all supposed to be soldiers in the same army.
Off course I exaggerated by generalizing, but donīt you recognize these things?
PS These partly artificial divides between different personnel groups are quite common in old government bureaucracies and waste too much human resources.
Fair enough. I guess I hold Australia to a higher standard which is unfair.
The first problem is in leadership.
The term "Weekend Soldier" is a dehumanization of assets. The assets (being human) will therefore function at a lower performance no matter what the situation, but especially when integrated with "professional" soldiers where they need to communicate to be successful in a task or operation.
This leads to an elitist mentality which by definition is qualitative or relative. so it in fact leads to something worse where the elitist body has a low yard stick for comparrison (an unmotivated and unskilled warrior class to compare themselves against) to establish their superior social position. If you didn't understand that it means; using the term "Weekend Warrior" leads to decay of capacity and capability where your professional or "full time" soldiering body becomes DELUDED as to their ability to do anything.
It fosters further procreation of the same attitude so that the elitists will then create a body that they in turn "look up to" and the danger then becomes that the only body of capable soldiers in your defense force are the elite of the elitists...
It is comical.
Now I am beginning to understand why Australia hasn't committed regular soldiers to Afghanistan. If the above culture holds true, then the Australian Army has a negative frictional force or vector affecting their capability and capacity to contribute in a meaningful manner and only their Special Forces can achieve any sort of combat performance.
If you get rid of the reserves instead of correcting this stagnant culture then you will foster a situation (or create the environment) in which the Defense Force can decay at an exponential rate. Not unlike the collapse in an eco-system such as a fish population. The sudden catastrophic collapse is not linear as politicians might like to think. The integrity of the organization is undermined and becomes one that can suddenly collapse. i.e. one day it looks fine and then the next week it is in a shambles.
You can see these same pressures at work amongst NATO allies who are threatening to pull out. The "pull out" is the non-linear collapse.
The reason they are pulling out is they can no longer sustain the conflict, both politically and literally.
As to leadership culture in Civilian populations you can see how the two (the directive culture you speak to riddu) and I guess the antithesis would be a collective leadership culture are affected in recent US presidential adminstrations. The common denominator between the last 2 administrations is that they have both held rigid to a militaristic directive culture during their campaigns for the White house. But in so doing they have failed to recognize and/or change their leadership style once they have won the seat of power.
In other words you can afford to make assumptions with your own staff during the campaign ( as a military leader can who is backed by a hierarchal culture day in and day out). But you cannot afford to make assumptions when that staff transitions to becoming a cabinet. Doesn't work and you end up with a lot of people spinning their wheels and not fulfilling their potential.
This comes back to my first point in the previous post. If you want people to perform. If you want your soldiers (in this case) to maximize their collective worth, then you have to treat them right. That means no in-fighting and no dehumanization and no false yard sticks.
I sound like good old George W. Bush
cheers
w
buglerbilly
10-04-10, 12:14 AM
I sound like good old George W. Bush
cheers
w
No you don't, that was a far too intelligent a reply for him...........
battlensign
10-04-10, 07:59 AM
I don't necessarily like the options being proposed here. At face value, Abe's plan makes sense when accepting the theory that if pollies will not fund then contract until funding levels are politically acceptable and try to provide real capability. The problems I have with these types of plan are:
1) They assume that the contraction is not a 'downward spiral' (evidenced by Dan's example of the B. TA). i.e. who says the new force level will be funded and equiped? This concern was expressed by the Defence Reserves Association. As Deks mentions, Reserves are clearly not seen as a priority.
2) What happens to the plans for the Reserves as the 'expansion base'. Under a plan for a contracted reserve there does not appear to be a 'critical mass' that can be called upon within, say, 6 months (or less). Purely as an example, Abe's proposal of 6 BGs would not be enough to maintain two brigades on operations - so even with reserves no more than 1 1/2 brigades on ops. It is legitimate to determine this is sufficient, but I personally do not feel that way.
3) On a more minor side of the argument - what effect would having even less regional presence impart on ARA and Reserve recruiting? (this one is more difficult to answer if there is a vibrant, funded and active [albeit smaller] Reserve)
It is true to say that it is difficult to achieve strategic effects through the army when considering Australia's small population size. However, it seems to me that we are deliberately aiming low and then not even funding that target. I would think that, as a minimum, Australia would need at least 4 brigades at less than 4 months notice and a further two at less than 6 months notice.
Brett.
P.S did anyone else notice that the force evisaged for Army in 2030 as outlined by the DWP09 after 20 years of population growth did not expand accordingly?
SteveJH
11-04-10, 03:44 PM
On Paper the Royal New South Wales Regiment has 4 Battalions. Could you draw a battlegroup sized force from these battalions by taking one company from each battalion? Assuming each battalion could provide at least a companies worth of trained troops that is.
Keep the current structure. If the regular troops are to mix and match companies from multiple units to form composite battlegroups, why can't the reserve units do the same?
Don't the regular units get pre-deployment training anyway? Just extend it slightly if needed.
Basically have each reserve battalion required to provide a deployable company with the rest of the battalion as filled out as possible, with an expension cadre in place at the very minimum (say each company depot has 1 deployable platoon + 2 partial mobilisation platoons). If they have the manpower to have two or three deployable platoons, good, if not....well...work around it....
Oh, and while i'm giving my opinion, personally I think all the reserve Cavalry regiments should get Bushmaster, especially since didn't they all have M113 until a couple of years ago anyway?
SteveJH - that's basically what the HRR is. I forget what the manning is though, it may well be one company per Brigade.
Gubler, A.
12-04-10, 02:19 AM
I don't necessarily like the options being proposed here. At face value, Abe's plan makes sense when accepting the theory that if pollies will not fund then contract until funding levels are politically acceptable and try to provide real capability.
The theory that the manning of the ARes is determined by a lack of funding provided by Government is totally wrong. It is a lot more nuanced than that. ARes contracted from some 24,000 to under 18,000 in the past 10 years despite being in the best funding era of its existence since the 1950s. The contraction was because the training commitment was increased to try and make ARes more deployable and not as many potential reservists were willing to meet that commitment. Obviously the current down swing on the Yo-Yo thanks to the SRP isn’t going to help things. But heah this is ADF and the day it is well managed will be the first since the 1980s.
1) They assume that the contraction is not a 'downward spiral' (evidenced by Dan's example of the B. TA). i.e. who says the new force level will be funded and equiped? This concern was expressed by the Defence Reserves Association. As Deks mentions, Reserves are clearly not seen as a priority.
The big difference is matching the force structure to the type of training commitment. Currently (on paper) the ARes has a high readiness training commitment with a low readiness force structure. The TA changed to a high readiness force structure while keeping a low readiness training commitment. Of course it’s going to be a dog’s breakfast especially if you also close the depot structure which is certainly not something I would propose for an ARes restructure (except some of the unit signs out the front). Though clearly in the case of the TA the force structure change was probably an underhand attempt to drive the manning down to save more money by HM Govt.
Currently the ARes could be considered to be in a downward spiral because of significant inconsistencies in its organization. However the ‘shadow’ organisation of the HRR combat teams (one per brigade) and the regional PSO missions are keeping the high readiness capacity of the ARes alive while the rest stilts away.
2) What happens to the plans for the Reserves as the 'expansion base'. Under a plan for a contracted reserve there does not appear to be a 'critical mass' that can be called upon within, say, 6 months (or less). Purely as an example, Abe's proposal of 6 BGs would not be enough to maintain two brigades on operations - so even with reserves no more than 1 1/2 brigades on ops. It is legitimate to determine this is sufficient, but I personally do not feel that way.
Who cares. How likely is a rapid expansion base needed in modern Australia? You planning on invading anyone? Because no one is planning on invading us. The full time army has no 30% manning brigades sitting around waiting for an influx of conscripts to go off to North Africa and defend Tobruk so why should the ARes? It’s not a serious mission.
As to sustaining on operations it’s all about tempo. If the Army had nine full time battle groups and six high readiness part time battle groups it could sustain four on operations for long periods of time. But if more was needed because of demand then all of the reserve could be activated to full time. The Army could then sustain five out of 15 battle groups on a one out of three rotation. If things were to get even hotter then we could move to a one out of two rotation as in WW2. The Army could then sustain seven battle groups.
Further if a major war was to happen as quickly as East Timor did the Army could deploy up to all 15 battle groups (five brigades) within six months for up to a year to 18 months. Under the expansion base system the Army would only be able to deploy three brigades over the first year while needing to recruit or conscript at least 30,000 soldiers and spend a year training them in order deploy only six brigades a year later (the original three brigades would need to be withdrawn to be reconstituted by this time).
Plus you can always raise new units without needing to have a long existing cadre. The full time Army has quickly raised some eight different units since the 1960s (5, 6, 7, 8, 9 RARs, 2/14 LHR, 7 RAR, 8/9 RAR) by using a cadre split off from an existing unit and filled out with new recruits. Doing IET in the unit being raised is a good method for speeding up the process.
Finally in the high readiness force structure outlined above there are regional training groups that act as a parading unit for those ARes recruits that are not trained yet to IET level. That is around 6,000 soldiers that in an emergency could be quickly trained at full time level to provide casualty replacements and raise new units.
3) On a more minor side of the argument - what effect would having even less regional presence impart on ARA and Reserve recruiting? (this one is more difficult to answer if there is a vibrant, funded and active [albeit smaller] Reserve)
Just look at what the RAN and RAAF can achieve without a regional reserve presence: 1,000-2,000 reservists! ARes depot construction is actually going ahead pretty well – the Government likes to build buildings – the new multi user depots are well positioned and effective. The new ARes complex going into Greenbank in southern Brisbane is going to be pretty swish and will better serve recruiting reserves than the old Kelvin Grove barracks.
SteveJH - that's basically what the HRR is. I forget what the manning is though, it may well be one company per Brigade.
Yep. Each HRR is supposed to be a combat team which is a reinforced infantry company with attached JOST, engr section, CS & CSS, etc.
So in effect the ~14,000 odd ARes soldiers in the 2nd Division provide the Army with six useable company teams of ~1,000 soldiers.
Just look at what the RAN and RAAF can achieve without a regional reserve presence: 1,000-2,000 reservists!
I can't speak for the RAN, but the RAAF certainly treats their people a heap better than the Army does. In my old unit there was quite a number of senior soldiers migrating over to the Airfield defence guards for exactly this reason, FWIW.
This comes back to my first point in the previous post. If you want people to perform. If you want your soldiers (in this case) to maximize their collective worth, then you have to treat them right. That means no in-fighting and no dehumanization and no false yard sticks.
Couldnīt agree more. Without that you end up with a downward spiral and things will only get worse. In my old reservist unit there used to be a man with a PhD serving as a rifleman. Why would those people bother without proper incentives? However you are missing one important point: there is not a credible direct military threat against Australia or most European countries. The United States and Israel have been so deeply involved in conflicts that they their Defense Forces have been forced to optimize human resources. In many other countries military forces have started to behave like peace time bureaucracies.
... However you are missing one important point: there is not a credible direct military threat against Australia or most European countries. The United States and Israel have been so deeply involved in conflicts that they their Defense Forces have been forced to optimize human resources. In many other countries military forces have started to behave like peace time bureaucracies.
No, I'm not missing the point (I'll explain) and you are correct in what you say. But this is the reasoning behind the need for Defense, particularly in Australia or any other democracy that is not, nor will ever likely to be threatened.
The constitution of democracies world-wide are based on one single thing...retributive justice or "reward and punishment". This stems from a religious base in either Christianity, Islam or hinduism. Well, I can guess you can argue that India's democracy is grounded in English democratic process, but never-the-less it is supported by the major religions.
It is for this reason that Defense is a pillar of society within that nation, because the premise of the constitution and therefore, the country's law is based on violence (reward and punishment).
Australia, internally is just like the USA. It is all about reward and punishment. From a child's birth the baby is taught reward and punishment. The kid goes to school and the education system rewards and punishes the kid until they are an adult. the tertiary system reinforces this yet again and then the adult is exposed to it for the rest of his or her life. Even in nursing homes you ahve reward and punishment.
So by definition this leaves the possibility of rebellion or "home-grown cells". It is always there because of the retributive nature of society. So therefore Defense is a pre-requisite to a healthy society based on retributive justice.
Now you look at Australia's neighbors and they have similar systems, so you need defense for outside threats. If your society is a productive and "happy" one like Australia, then naturally your focus needs to be on external threats. In other words, rebellion and home grown cells in Australia can be treated as organized crime, or a "flare up" that can be responded to if and when they occur.
It is the external influence that Australia needs to focus the majority of it's efforts and that can come in form of "cyber- warfare", implanting of cells, importing of contraband, and then your more traditional conventional type of warfare.
either way, Australia needs a robust defense force.
I would also argue that another democracy like Iceland needs a robust defense force for the same reasons. Iceland is becoming a hosting hub on the internet, therefore it is a readily accessible target for Cyber Warfare. But being an island (like Australia) it is difficult to attack with conventional forces. Yet it relies on the perception of international justice to protect it's primary resource....fish. As global pressures increase you can easily revert to a situation where a friendly neighbor, turns bad and tries to take that resource (again) lol
cheers
w
battlensign
13-04-10, 02:25 PM
The theory that the manning of the ARes is determined by a lack of funding provided by Government is totally wrong. It is a lot more nuanced than that. ARes contracted from some 24,000 to under 18,000 in the past 10 years despite being in the best funding era of its existence since the 1950s. The contraction was because the training commitment was increased to try and make ARes more deployable and not as many potential reservists were willing to meet that commitment. Obviously the current down swing on the Yo-Yo thanks to the SRP isn’t going to help things. But heah this is ADF and the day it is well managed will be the first since the 1980s.
Okay, but that suggests that if we want a trained and capable reserve that this notion of 'part-time' remuneration needs to be revisited. It sounds like HRR-type payments need to be made upon completion of service (say, $8000 for min. 50 days etc ). BTW was the ADF properly run in the 80s? - not that it could have been much worse than what we have seen as a result of what I think we can all agree was the 'lost decade' for Defence.
The big difference is matching the force structure to the type of training commitment. Currently (on paper) the ARes has a high readiness training commitment with a low readiness force structure. The TA changed to a high readiness force structure while keeping a low readiness training commitment. Of course it’s going to be a dog’s breakfast especially if you also close the depot structure which is certainly not something I would propose for an ARes restructure (except some of the unit signs out the front). Though clearly in the case of the TA the force structure change was probably an underhand attempt to drive the manning down to save more money by HM Govt.
Currently the ARes could be considered to be in a downward spiral because of significant inconsistencies in its organization. However the ‘shadow’ organisation of the HRR combat teams (one per brigade) and the regional PSO missions are keeping the high readiness capacity of the ARes alive while the rest stilts away.
I am pleased to hear that your plan is more about rationalising the way the books are operated than divesting depots (i.e that the severely understrength 'Battalion' becomes the same depot but as a reinforced 'Company').
Who cares. How likely is a rapid expansion base needed in modern Australia? You planning on invading anyone? Because no one is planning on invading us. The full time army has no 30% manning brigades sitting around waiting for an influx of conscripts to go off to North Africa and defend Tobruk so why should the ARes? It’s not a serious mission.
Well.......there were those plans for West Timor, West Papua, PNG etc. ..... lol :P
In all seriousness. In any expansion scenario in response to a legitimate threat, the Regs would be employed in an attempt to either defeat the enemy directly or delay for time to build an army. As such there is no reason for the Regs to maintain 30% staffed elements. However, even under your plan there could be 4 Brigades organised with one or two BGs each along with one of your support groups. Frequent employment of Reserve BGs on ops could see them staffed with skilled and experienced people. Your 'trainees' could be then be trained up as the second or third BGs for these units. These 'Brigades' could then provide a basis for expansion - realistically and within a year.
As to sustaining on operations it’s all about tempo. If the Army had nine full time battle groups and six high readiness part time battle groups it could sustain four on operations for long periods of time. But if more was needed because of demand then all of the reserve could be activated to full time. The Army could then sustain five out of 15 battle groups on a one out of three rotation. If things were to get even hotter then we could move to a one out of two rotation as in WW2. The Army could then sustain seven battle groups.
Further if a major war was to happen as quickly as East Timor did the Army could deploy up to all 15 battle groups (five brigades) within six months for up to a year to 18 months. Under the expansion base system the Army would only be able to deploy three brigades over the first year while needing to recruit or conscript at least 30,000 soldiers and spend a year training them in order deploy only six brigades a year later (the original three brigades would need to be withdrawn to be reconstituted by this time).
Plus you can always raise new units without needing to have a long existing cadre. The full time Army has quickly raised some eight different units since the 1960s (5, 6, 7, 8, 9 RARs, 2/14 LHR, 7 RAR, 8/9 RAR) by using a cadre split off from an existing unit and filled out with new recruits. Doing IET in the unit being raised is a good method for speeding up the process.
Finally in the high readiness force structure outlined above there are regional training groups that act as a parading unit for those ARes recruits that are not trained yet to IET level. That is around 6,000 soldiers that in an emergency could be quickly trained at full time level to provide casualty replacements and raise new units.
I agree that 5 brigades within 6 months is much more decisive than 6 in a year to 18 months. However I wonder whether using some sort of hybrid model we could achieve 6 brigades within 6 months. Essentially consisting of 3 Regular and 3 Reserve Brigades. Surely we could get those who have yet to complete IET through the system within 6 months (and we should plan effectively to enable this as a strategic capability). This would then mean your proposed 6 Reserve BGs supplmented by a further 6 for a total of 12BGs. Not sure whether this is feasible but it is an interesting idea.
Yep. Each HRR is supposed to be a combat team which is a reinforced infantry company with attached JOST, engr section, CS & CSS, etc.
So in effect the ~14,000 odd ARes soldiers in the 2nd Division provide the Army with six useable company teams of ~1,000 soldiers.
Are these HRR Combat Teams in addition to the RRFs? Am I reading the DWP09 wrong here?
Brett.
Gubler, A.
14-04-10, 02:47 AM
Are these HRR Combat Teams in addition to the RRFs? Am I reading the DWP09 wrong here?.
The RRF is separate to the HRR combat teams with each RRF providing formation (each of the six 2 Div brigades and 1 Cdo Regt) supposed to be turning out a 150 strong response company. To be in a High Readiness Reserve (HRR) combat team you need to have all your individual training completed to the ARA standard and be on the 28 days notice to move of high readiness. You are also formed into a special all HRR element of your unit (say an infantry platoon or an artillery JOST, etc) and come together to do collective training as the HRR combat team. The Reserve Response Forces (RRF) is an extra training course in the civil defence functions and then a move to the contracted high readiness posture like the HRR combat team. But the RRF soldier stays in their normal unit position and only operates with the RRF company for special training and any actual response activity.
As to the rest of the discussion bear in mind what I proposed is a short term fix to the ARes. Take what we have now and make it better. In the long term we should be looking at revitalizing the Ready Reserve (RRes) concept of recruitment and training. RRes was a nightmare if it was replacing ARA capability (6, 8/9 RAR) but a great success if replacing ARes capability (49 RQR).
If we can start looking at entry into the reserves being through a “gap” year of full time training followed by five years of contracted ~50 days training per annum we can build a reserve force with high levels of individual and collective training and readiness. ARes is currently recruiting around 3,000 soldiers per annum. Under a RRes scheme this would mean around 15,000 fully trained (after a full year) that you could form high readiness reserve battle groups and force support groups from. Of course there would be some wastage from these numbers (but a lot less than normal ARes because they are contracted to serve) and additional personnel choosing to re-enlist (which would be needed to form your leadership cadres anyway).
So it’s not unfeasible under current levels of recruitment to have a force of seven to nine battle groups and force support groups. If such a reserve force was to provide fulfilling and interesting service then potentially it could recruit as well as the old “1812 Overture” ARes of the 1980s. Then 6,000-9,000 soldiers per annum was common. Sign up 6,000 reserve soldiers per annum and within six years you will have 15 full strength, high readiness battle groups and force support groups.
The key issue to realizing all this is to give up the addiction to the old divisional structure and the concept of the ‘expansion’ base. The secret to growth in this universe is activity not atrophy.
TBH I think you're insane if you think people will sign on for 1+5 years in the reserves.
It's probably the only way they'll work, though. :)
Gubler, A.
21-04-10, 01:44 AM
TBH I think you're insane if you think people will sign on for 1+5 years in the reserves.
It's probably the only way they'll work, though. :)
That *insanity* didn't stop the Ready Reserve... The idea is not to recruit comfortable middle aged men and women away from their lives into the reserves. But to recruit 18-21 year olds who have a lot more flexibility in their work/study commitments.
I made it pretty clear above I was talking about long term cultural change to sourcing personnel for the reserve. You wouldn’t suddenly from 1 May 2010 only allow people to join the reserve if they signed up to a one year full time plus five years part time training commitment. But you would reintroduce a ready reserve style recruitment option (perhaps in place of the gap year) and slowly evolve it to being the centre of recruitment options.
If we can convince 6,000-9,000 18 year olds a year to join up for a 1+5 commitment that is only 2-3% of their age cohort and it will provide more than enough personnel for a highly effective and capable reserve force.
True, but that was 10 years ago. Kids are much softer now than they ever were then, at least in my experience. I know guys who were in the readies back then, and I've also met those currently going through their IET training in the reserve batallions. Same same for people going into the reserves in the middle. To my mind, there's been a shift in the type of person going into the reserves that's very hard to quantify.
Course, you could most definitely off-set that by increasing wages agross the reserve forces, which should attract a wider variety of people and allow us to choose those most suited, as opposed to picking whoever decides that they want to join. It's a core problem, and one that only contributes to the retention rates and overall effectiveness of the reserves.
my 2c, anyway.
Course, you could most definitely off-set that by increasing wages agross the reserve forces...
I say give them free university studies, promise of more pussy and possibilities for promotion and your recruitment problems are over...
Raven22
22-04-10, 12:53 PM
I say give them free university studies, promise of more pussy and possibilities for promotion and your recruitment problems are over...
That's what ADFA is for. A free degree and 5 am frat runs.
As the Australian equivalent of a frat-boy (St Andrew's College, aka Shitheads, aka 139th-shits) I'd like to point out that our antics never happened before lunch unless we were still awake from the night before.
And I'm still irritated that the staff of RPA can't handle a few naked blokes doing a run past them. Honestly, if that's the worst thing they've seen all day then they've had a very good day...
Raven22
22-04-10, 01:12 PM
Ah, I think youhave misinterpreted my meaning of the word frat. 'Frat' is short for fraternisation. A 'frat run' is all the naughty boys and girls who have slept together running back to their own room at 5 am before roll call at 6. Its always very untidy when you accidentally sleep in to reveille and everyone is already up when you try to slip home.
Referred to at college (in Australia at least) as the Walk Of Shame. Or as I liked to describe it The Morning Meander*. God I miss Drew's...
*Traditionally mid morning, preferably whilst still wearing a dinner suit and with a glass of some kind of grain based spirit.
Raven22
22-04-10, 02:49 PM
The difference is in civvy world you don't get charged for it.
The 'walk of shame' to an ADFA cadet would mean the walk from the nightclubs of Civic back to barracks, usually when only wearing a T-shirt in the middle of winter and with a stack of greasy pizza you decided to spend your taxi money on instead.
If you happen to wake up in the morning in bushes outside the War Memorial, that is perfectly normal too.
That's what ADFA is for. A free degree and 5 am frat runs.
Back on topic, a double(or triple) RSO in the reserves could well work. That said, ADFA is for officers, no?
Gubler, A.
23-04-10, 03:47 AM
While it’s no surprise to see that others here have similar university experiences to me... It doesn't have much relevance to recruiting reserves. Unlike the USA or other places there isn't really a financial reason not to go to university in Australia. Austudy and HECS (or whatever they are called now) means disadvantaged students don’t need to pay up front or have some money behind them to go to uni in Australia.
What reserve service and in particular the Ready Reserve model provides is a university study friendly form of employment. Though that may have been more relevant in 1992 than it is in 2010 because since then student-teacher contact hours have been so heavily slashed at universities due to the massive increase in student-staff ratios that it is quite easy to work full time and study full time in a non-vocational degree.
The biggest hurdle to reserve recruitment remains making it employment friendly. Despite all the money and effort invested into various employer relationship building exercises (including paying employers to let reserves go train) there is no legal job protection. This is all that is required to make reserves accessible to all. A legal shield that means an employer or contractor must allow a worker or to attend reserve training without any disadvantage. If we can provide that kind of coverage to a range of other circumstances why not preparing to or actually defending the nation?
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