Signals.Cpl

If we give units an easier way to kick out troops who go NES soon after they go NES so that those positions are freed up could be an advantage but my point is getting dedicated troops in the units so that we can function as a cohesive and organized force rather than pretend we are said force but only field a fraction of the troops we have on paper. We need to demand more from the reserves when it comes to numbers on effective strength. I agree with you here but the problem is the regimental structure where regimental associations and the units themselves will fight this tooth and nail. Yeah but West Coast reserve units will be at a disadvantage as there are no close by reg force infantry and armored units amongst others. A Ready reserve oftrained personnel to reinforce both Regular Force units and Primary Reserveunits with trained troops, force generation for the Primary reserve and supporting the Primary reserve as well as manning the schools. Contracts would be along the lines of a regular force contract, say for 2-4 years where you are obligated to serve x number of days a year, obviously there has to be leeway as this is a part-time job so if there is a reasonable request to cut the contract short then by all means do so but the idea is to sign an obligation that you will in fact belong to those units for a certain amount of time. There will obviously be a large turnover rate with people leaving once they finish initial contract because many would be in college/university and civilian jobs take over after but for the time being you have troops that have taken the obligation to serve in a particular role for an extended period of time. The more promising soldiers with potential could be posted to reg Force units for the summers to gain experience or even full year stints with the reg force in order to gain experience and return to their units with that experience so that they can improve their unit performance. The troops who came back from Afghanistan in my old unit were invaluable because they brought in the operational side and basically taught us based on their experience whether they were a Cpl, MCpl a Sgt or a WO. I remember reading that during World War One the PM promised the allies that the Canadian Divisions will be at 100% strength at all times, a secondary/supplemental reserve could make sure that the Primary contract based reserve units are at all times near the 100% strength. In Wartime we would have further troops that could form more units or supplement/reinforce the existing units should they take casualties but the Reg Force and the contract reserve units would be essentially our first line of defense. In an emergency we would have 9 Reg force infantry battalions and another 3-5 Reserve battalions on contract to be able to deploy within say 5 days in an emergency with advance party on the ground within 48-72h.

I spend 3 years in the reserves before I switched reg force and in the 3 years there were many people I only saw once a month so that they can stay the right side of NES, others showed up to one or two exercises a year, the exercises that were indoors and easier. We need reserves where saying that there are 100 soldiers in the unit means that 100 soldiers parade and exercise on a regular basis rather than having 100 soldiers on paper and having the regular crew of 15-20 on every exercise and another 15-20 going on only one or two exercises a year. There are some Communication Regiments/Squadrons that are wearing out their active troops because the majority don't show up, when an infantry regiment asks for a 3 men CP detachment and a signals regiment sends a 1 man detachment because 8 other C/S require a CP as well as a Brigade CP and you have only 10-12 to man the positions, we see the good soldiers who show up every parade night and go on every exercise leave because they do all the work and see that all of the higher positions are tied down by people that rarely if ever show up instead of kicking them out and having MCpl's, Sgts, and WO's that show up every exercise or as close to it as possible. We need a reserve force that we can depend on and one where we can have permanent units that work well with each other year after year rather than having ad hoc units each exercise. We need to know that we have 20,000 army reserve means that it is a 20,000 army reserve rather than having 20,000 "trained" and 8,000-12,000 regularly on exercise if we are lucky. We need a reserve force that can augment the reg force but also one that can deploy its own units when/if it comes to that. Hurting recruitment doesn't matter if those who are turned away are not the serious once... The idea I was proposing would be to split the reserves where its job would be to train and maintain x number of infantry battalions, armoured recce, engineers, service battalions etc... manned by reservists who have taken some steps to assure their reliability when it comes to attendance through a contract but as a result are more likely to be deployed as a unit. Right now we have 9 infantry battalions and x number of reserve infantry "regiments" some of which are platoon strength, so why not restructure the reserves to know exactly how many battalions we can deploy at any one time? Instead of forming units for specific missions and then manning them from throughout the CF reserves we can deploy a formed unit with only individuals brought in from other units to make up any shortcomings due to injuries etc... My point is not to worry about the next big war and say to ourselves that we dealt with the last one well enough so we can deal with the next one, but to be able to field x number of battalions and support units within a short amount of time rather than spending weeks or months on end building up battalions from dozens of reserve units and sub units just to have a battalion deploy with zero unit cohesion because they have never worked together. Exactly, three levels, Reg force, Primary reserve and secondary/supplemental(which is basically the same as todays Primary reserve). The new primary reserve will be on contract and will be equipped and trained to a standard equal to the reg force and have access to similar courses so that soldiers could easily transition from one to the other in times of need. Experience is much harder but at the same time with the contract based reserves we can guarantee that the little time they have to gain experience they will take advantage of it rather than not show up at all or only show up once in a while... The idea is not to outfit all the reserves to the same standard as it is not likely to happen but having say 5,000 reservists on contract supported by 20,000 reserves who act as force generation, support, training and are manning the schools. The idea is to have a cohesive unit that can be on par with the reg force when it comes to deployment, just think about how bad it would be if before deploying 2 RCR DND decided to take out all the troops and man the battalions with 500 randomly selected soldiers led by an officer who does not know or barely knows his subordinates and soldiers who don't know each other or their superiors? It would work and they would get the job done but it should be done only in an emergency not when we have time to restructure so we don't keep doing the same thing to the reserves.

Thats why we need to restructure the reserves but I was leaning more on putting naval reserve units near the coasts so that we can recruit people who already are in the business to one degree or another. If we can tap in to the available pool of qualified personnel we will need shorter conversion courses. I know this sounds naive but I think with proper restructuring of the reserves and legislation that protects reservists jobs and encourages employers to higher reservists through incentives could solve some problems. I am with you on this one to a degree, we need Primary reserve which is contract based , a secondary reserve which is force generation as well as manning training establishments and it should be along the lines of the current primary reserve. Singing on the dotted line with the primary reserve be it navy army or airforce would mean that you get better pay than the secondary reserve, better set of benefits but also higher level of training and better equipment as well as that you could deploy as individual augmentation for a deployment or as a unit be it at the platoon, coy or battalion level.

When all are trained a reg force member costs about the same as 3 reservists which would provide 3 trained members to alleviate stress of multiple deployments. We already have members that are double dipping by getting a pension and reserve pay at the same time so why not take advantage of their experience and maintain a ready reserve to assist the Reg force? Also a restructure of the Reserves as a whole could solve the short comings by eliminating members who don't parade consistently from the total strength, by this I mean eliminating the people that show up once every 30 days just to stay off of NES list. I personally think that the answer is to utilize the cheapest source possible and reservists are that source and those reserve units should be on the coasts or as close as possible to a major naval base rather than having them in cities with no financially viable access to either coast with a major base.

What about reservists mixing in with the reg force navy? It works for the patrol ships so why can't we expand the reserves to meet financial constraints and maintain larger numbers with the larger combat vessels? Essentially have naval reservists at the same type of deployment structure as the Army where they are integrated within a unit rather than deployed as a unit.

I'm done with him. Sorry to detract from the conversation.

What do you know about real life military? Scratch that, what do you know about real life at all? You support genocide! What else do we need to know about you? You don't value human life, you are on the same league as Hitler, Himmler, Mao Ze-Dong, Tojo, Stalin, Kambanda and the hundreds of other lowlife genocidal animals of the last 60-70 years and in the same league as the thousands of others who have supported or participated in genocide throughout history... nothing more needs to be said except that your opinion holds no value when you don't value human lives and attempt to make an extremely idiotic and simpleminded justification for the mass murder of innocent people, you were born about 70 years to late in the wrong country on the wrong continent and would have fit in with the SS quite well...

Worthy of naming you a productive member of humanity because judging from your posts you are either delusional, in your own little world, a troll or a combination thereof... I cannot for the life of me see someone who comes up with such idiotic ideas having any life experience past kindergarden let alone experience in the working world because if you did have even one day of experience working a real job your "ideas" would be significantly more believable and refined rather than the rubbish you throw around. You support genocide! What else needs to be said login?

Is she trying to make her story less believable on purpose or is she just that stupid?

What should they be teaching us? Put on the tinfoil cap and think of conspiracy theories from every direction? You wouldn't know seeing as you have never and will never do anything worthy so I guess I shouldn't be too hard on you...

I am not going to waste my time disproving your entire "argument" again but Ill give you a few things to think about: 1) We might run afoul with international law if we arm merchant ships. 2)A surprise attack against our Merchant ships while unarmed might see our entire navy at the bottom of the ocean in a matter of minutes while the weapons are on shore. 3)War ships need to be ready at a moments notice not in a month or 5 or or even a year if they are needed now they are needed now. 4)Experience is important, having a well armed ship with an inexperienced crew is a recipe for disaster, having people qualify on their job once a year and then don't see the equipment until next time negates the entire basis of the military. In your world I would be equal to a MWO simply because he will have just about as much experience as me whereas in todays military be it the Army, Airforce or navy a senior NCM with 20-30 years experience is invaluable. 5) Professional military forces have shown their dominance since well before the time of the Roman Empire, trying to argue against several thousand years of history to prove your "point" is pointless because you can't win... If war breaks out I want the RCN ready to fight and defend Canada rather than be caught unarmed and defenceless all over the world and either sunk or interned in neutral ports which means we can see our fleet decimated in a matter of minutes. As for this little gem let me dissect it. We have people who chose a profession and are the best in that field be it firefighter, police officer, infantry, signaller, engineer, paramedic etc I don't want to go for an heart surgery and have an Orthodontist do the surgery as his/her secondary job. I want the firefighter who knows what he is doing to come and get me out of a fire rather than a jack of all trades and a master of none, I want a police officer who knows what he is doing rather than someone who will screw up the investigation due to lack of experience, knowledge, training or any combination thereof. We can have a first world police department, fire department, military and healthcare system or we can have a third world police department that cannot solve a crime, a fire department that sees 10 houses burn because they didn't know how to stop the fire at the first house, a military that dies by the hundreds in the smaller firefight or the doctor that kills more through inexperience than saves... I don't know why I waste my time talking to you as you appear to be some immature little kid hiding in mommies basement but hopefully someday you can come out and see the real world and realize that none of your ideas work anywhere other than your head. I am done wasting my time with you.

Ok so lets see if I can explain to you the simple reasons why your argument has no bearing on reality. 1)The whole problem of "weaponize at a future date" means that we have essentially a group of people who will not be capable of doing their job because they have no practice at doing said job since most of the time if not all of the time their ships are unarmed. 2)When the PM says we are deploying a destroyer and 2 frigates to the middle east I think recalling our "merchant navy" back from whatever port they are in, adding the new equipment and retraining the crew might make Canada an irrelevant player. If Canada needs to protect its coasts what would be the preferred method? Call the navy and have a ship en route in 12h or a ship potentially en route in 3 months after "weaponizing" and retraining? 3)What is needed is people who know what they are doing and how they should do it to build our ships and we need people who can fix them and maintain them to fix and maintain them...we don't need some ass backwards way of doing things that will make us the worlds most inefficient and incompetent navy with zero abilities to do anything to protect Canada and requiring USN assistance to stop illegal fishing in our waters let alone something more serious. 4)We have two oceans that we need to protect now with a third ocean that will likely pick up a lot of traffic over the next few decades and we need to be able to protect them as well as assist our allies wherever they might be. 5)When you put military use as secondary you are essentially saying that we should just give up on having a navy, we need people who are experts in their field so that when the time comes they can perform their task, they can do so as experts which means that as many of them come home as possible rather than having amateur merchant marine sailors masquerading as navy sailors dying in droves. 6) Changing the name means nothing, the navy is the same wether you call it the RCN, the coast guard or the canoe people, the coast guard and the navy serve two different purposes and even though they might need to work closer together they are not interchangeable. Thats like saying we will merge the police department and Fire department whose job would be to clean the streets and if there is crime we send them in to fight crime and call them cops if there is a fire we call them firemen but their primary job will be sanitation and their vehicles will be outfitted based on the need, so if there is a fire they will outfit their vehicles as a firetruck and if its a crime they will be outfitted at police truck(see they didn't buy cruisers because those cannot be used for the primary job of sanitation right) and what does this sh*tshow give the people? It gives respond times horribly slow with the responding personnel unable to do their jobs due to lack of training, experience, equipment etc... with incredibly slow respond time to allow for them to return to their station and outfit their vehicles based on the emergency, can you imagine waiting 4h for a firetruck to arrive and when they do arrive they cannot do their job because of previously mentioned shortcoming? The military is not meant to bring in money, the military is meant to protect Canadians. Do you think you are the smartest person in the world and everyone else is an idiot because every other nation that has a dedicated army navy and airforce, uses them as such instead of having a military that does not even consider being a military force as its primary job... We need a military we can depend on or we need to become a protectorate of the US either way I prefer knowing that if an emergency arises we will be protected rather than feeling protected but having an ill trained, poorly equipped excuse for a military. The military is there to protect Canadians, that is their primary, secondary and thirdly and that is what the military should be equipped and trained to do rather than being a business with a secondary job of protecting Canada which ultimately makes it useless...

You have severe problems with reality...

You have got to be kidding me... they are selling the stone, that is their motive to make money. Chavez died because he was sick not because the US made him sick. The NDP could win and the US will do nothing other than a congratulatory call to the new PM and move on. You should cut down on the movies.

Because they hold a loaded gun to 20 million South Korea's which kind of means that anything done by either SK or the US will cause casualties before they can take out the threat. Besides speaking louder and louder means nothing if the only thing that NK can do is kill a few million unarmed civilians and and get defeated quickly thereafter... The US imports much more from China than the other way around which means if the US is pushed they can shut it down and China is in trouble. And when one of the players is led by a lunatic the outcome can be scary... Which part do they occupy? Japan and South Korea are independent democratic nations which are not under occupations by American forces so what does the US occupy other than their own territory in the region? You can give NK anything and everything they want and they will still demand more, they are in this position because of their own actions not the Actions of SK, the US or anyone outside their country. Compare the history of the two Korea's over the last 60 years and compare their current situation, SK has a better economy, a much higher standard of living and a world class military which includes all components, a strong navy, a formidable airforce and a powerful army while NK has a military that is stuck in the 1970's that has only one ace up their sleeve and that is the artillery aimed at the heart of SK since their army is numerically large but of dubious quality by any standard a navy that can at most stand up to SK for no more than 5 min in open combat and an airforce that get limited flight experience because of fears of defection. I suspect that the US and SK have been working on the problem for sometime now and eventually will come up with a solution if they don't have one already which means that with or without Chinese approval NK will be put down. I love how you romanticize a dictatorship that is killing its own people and threatening to kill millions of people in minutes and still blaming the US for it...

Yes I am sure the US will sabotage the stone we import from them in order to do what? What would be their end game here? Kill our politicians? Spy on us?

Come on login, your argument is based on pure fantasy...

On the fact that the Liberals collapsed last election which is a pretty good indication of being on their way out... the NDP has 57% of their seats in Quebec while using MPs who are essentially seat warmers which makes it a precarious situation, considering the political relationship between Quebec and the ROC this makes the NDP position very shaky to say the least.

Polls mean nothing...see federal election 2011 for more details... both the BQ and Liberals were doing as expected in the polls until just before the election so if the polls of 2-3 months before the election were wrong what makes you think that the polls 2 years before the election are of any value?

You rely on polls a little too much...

Wasn't someone on this board afraid of being beheaded by a muslim?

Big difference between an insurgency and a conventional war, the US is one of the best nations when it comes to conventional war and I don't think that China wants to tangle with them just yet. This is like comparing apples and oranges...

Significantly stronger airforce and navy and a powerful army that can hold its own while economically China is tied to the US and closing trade with one of the biggest markets in the world will hurt them while giving a boost to the US economy. China is a lot less likely to to throw hundreds of thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars down the drain, there is ABSOLUTELY no reason for them to go to war over NK, the USN sits off the coast and sinks or captures any ship going in or coming out of there and China will be on its knees soon enough as they don't have the means to defeat the USN in combat. USN sits off the coast and destroys China's trade with the rest of the world and who loses then? None of the nations they border will help them because they will be too busy taking over China's markets and we can see China going back a generation. The US could takeout NK, the few thousand arty pieces that are aimed at the heart of SK are the stumbling block, the US does not want to go to war when it means millions of people will die within hours of start of hostilities and millions more would be homeless and injured. War is for SK to decide since SK would be doing the dying if they decide to go to war with NK we should support them but we should not be forcing them to let millions of their children die... If they were only rational enough to care.... Care to explain the last 20 years then?

The same could be said about the NDP and the Liberals.

How so?The events of 1950-53 do not mean anything in todays world and the players are not in the same situation, for example I don't think that the Chinese people will be willing to see over 140,000 dead to protect a spoiled nutcase on a powertrip. A war between China and the US will be devastating to China whereas it might actually help the US economy to recover. Left over with a pissed of Korea and a large contingent of US soldiers, sailors and airmen which would mean that they suddenly have to increase their military to meet the new threat. The USN and the USAF are the largest and strongest in the world, it would be a few decades before the Chinese navy can hope to challenge the USN and the same applies to the Chinese airforce which means that China wouldn't want a strong American presence on their border, a much stronger presence than right now. With substantial technical and material support from the USSR and with limited economic ties between the US and China, something that China depends on at this point in time and will not risk over NK. And so is the US. And that does not negate the advantage of the US... saying that I haven't fought anyone in a long time does not influence my ability to fight...