ARmy Rumour SErvice

Originally Posted by polar

Why is the TA RLC equipped with DROPs? Surely OPTAG training could have provided FAM training.
etc etc

I could go on but just because your in a infantry unit don't assume everyone else is. We need to work together to protect the TA.

We can do one army but lets try one TA first

Errrr...Because the TA RLC were intended to provide the Transport support cut from the Regular Army during the 90's A Regular Brigade CAN NOT move the amount of stores that are needed for just to live without support, which has tended to be increasingly Civilian Drivers and trucks......

no one needs to shout at me, but i think the gov should bring back national service

Love it.

I notice that some on this thread are trying to drive a wedge between senior ranks and ORs, on the basis that one lot has deployed and one lot has not. B*ll*cks. I'm a SNCO, I've completed 27 months mobilised service in the last four years and I've been in some crunchy situations. All my blokes know me and can vouch for that.

Most of my blokes who were ORs in 04, were JNCOs in 07 and will probably be SNCOs in the near future. Hopefullly I will be there with them, throwing blankets and bullets at them from the back of a Chinook, or at least from out of an air conditioned tent.

If I am lecturing you on a drill night you best pin your ears back.

As unpalatable as it may sound there is a need for "enablers". Without these punters your FTXs will not happen. Yes, some of them will never deploy, but spuds need peeling, dixies need bashing and some of them work hard to make you underwater knife fighting exercise work.

There are a small minority of wasters at all ranks, but that is up to that soldier's line manager to sort. If it really grips you that much, front them out.

As for the actual subject of this thread. Well I'm surprised after all that has happened that the question needs to be asked. Yes we are, look at the amount of recent operational awards and ask the personnel who served alongside reservists. Nuff said.

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Originally Posted by polar

Why is the TA RLC equipped with DROPs? Surely OPTAG training could have provided FAM training.
etc etc

I could go on but just because your in a infantry unit don't assume everyone else is. We need to work together to protect the TA.

We can do one army but lets try one TA first

Errrr...Because the TA RLC were intended to provide the Transport support cut from the Regular Army during the 90's A Regular Brigade CAN NOT move the amount of stores that are needed for just to live without support, which has tended to be increasingly Civilian Drivers and trucks......

So is the SDR idea of TA CSS & CS being the predominat units in the RCZ now invalid. We should now be restructured to support providing IR's (less medics and infantry).
Maybe we should be forget the RCZ role and allow our soldiers to gain more realistic training simulating ops in more forward zones.

Originally Posted by polar

Originally Posted by Kitmarlowe

Originally Posted by polar

Why is the TA RLC equipped with DROPs? Surely OPTAG training could have provided FAM training.
etc etc

I could go on but just because your in a infantry unit don't assume everyone else is. We need to work together to protect the TA.

We can do one army but lets try one TA first

Errrr...Because the TA RLC were intended to provide the Transport support cut from the Regular Army during the 90's A Regular Brigade CAN NOT move the amount of stores that are needed for just to live without support, which has tended to be increasingly Civilian Drivers and trucks......

So is the SDR idea of TA CSS & CS being the predominat units in the RCZ now invalid. We should now be restructured to support providing IR's (less medics and infantry).
Maybe we should be forget the RCZ role and allow our soldiers to gain more realistic training simulating ops in more forward zones.

Or, alternatively, we could structure our Regular and Reserve units such that, upon deployment, each regular regiment gets a 'Contingent Component' - primarily consisting of a composite sub-unit - from a paired TA regiment to reinforce it (and fill the usual manning gaps). The two major units could train together when not deployed to develop some cohesiveness, and the TA element deploys in a formed unit, in role, with a hierachy up to OC.

Oh - but I think we are already doing that.

Originally Posted by Wingletang

we've had this debate before

We have indeed and many of the opinions have been expressed before, more or less eloquently.

All contributors should not forget the parameters under which the Strategic Defence Review was conducted in 1997. From the wiki:

Its overall strategic conclusions were that the British Armed Forces should be able to respond to a major international crisis which might require a military effort and combat operations of a similar scale and duration to Operation Granby during the Gulf War. It also should be able to undertake a more extended overseas deployment on a lesser scale (as in Bosnia) while retaining the ability to mount a second substantial deployment - which might involve a combat brigade and appropriate naval and air forces - if this were made necessary by a second crisis (as in Operation Veritas in Afghanistan). It would not, however, expect both deployments to involve warfighting or to maintain them simultaneously for longer than six months. The Armed Forces must also retain the ability, at much longer notice, to rebuild a bigger (pre-Options for Change) force as part of NATO's collective defence should a major strategic threat re-emerge.

So 1 big and 1 little op with warfighting in only 1 of them and for no longer than 6 months. That's what the government got the generals to staff up and thats what the regular and TA are established and funded to provide. Key to the TA's role are the first and last bits. support the regular army on Large Scale Direct Intervention (LSDI) like Telic 1 and form the basis for growth in the future as required.

Bit different from the current situation isn't it?

We are currently running 2 medium scale operations on an enduring basis. Harmony guidelines which dictate the optimum tour interval for regular soldiers are breached on an almost constant basis and the TA has been providing reinforcements for these ops at around 10% of the deployed force since 2003.

So don't forget when you are opining as to what the TA should or should not be doing that we are, as armed forces, not established or funded to provide what we are being asked to do. Everything on top is achieved through goodwill and flexibility with no significant funding or reorganisation. And can we stop going on about the 'home defence' role against a conventional threat to the UK mainland. That went out with Options for Change in 1990.

When it comes to mobilisation there should be no TA soldier serving or joining today who is not aware of the liability of compulsory mobilisation and the army's commitments. The regular army should be established and funded so that its enduring commitments can be met through its own strength supported by volunteers (and I mean real volunteers, no pressure, no quotas) from the TA and reserve. Compulsory mobilisation should be reserved for LSDI. Anyone involved in pressurising or defaming anyone unable or unwilling to volunteer but prepared to be compulsorily mobilised should hang their heads in shame.

Joining up, receiving less than a regular soldiers basic training and deploying straight on an operational tour is not what the TA is. Run the scheme by all means but give the soldiers a full regular recruit training package and don't package it as TA - it fulfills none of our long term tasks, just firefights the current problems.

Originally Posted by Wingletang

The review is now coming

There is the next defence review round the corner. In it we may see establishments and funding within defence change radically to face the ongoing challenges and operational tempo. Whether the roles of LSDI and regrowth remain are fundamental questions, but it would be a brave government indeed which did away with them altogether.

There may be much that is unpalatable to many of us in a future review. With a government unwilling to increase spending on defence while happy to increase the demands it places on its personnel anything is possible. Closure of isolated or city centre TACs, creation of 'junior soldier machines' and specialist pools, wholesale amalgamations and disbandments, all these are all potential, and in my eyes unwelcome, options.

There will still, and always be a role for the volunteer reserve, whatever it may be called. Indeed there are moves to see the edges blurred between regular full time, and TA spare time service over the period of a soldiers career. Whatever the outcome and implications of the review, the challenge is for every one of us to make their individual decision on whether the resulting organisation is one in which they are prepared to be a part.

Originally Posted by Blyth_spirit

When it comes to mobilisation there should be no TA soldier serving or joining today who is not aware of the liability of compulsory mobilisation and the army's commitments. The regular army should be established and funded so that its enduring commitments can be met through its own strength supported by volunteers (and I mean real volunteers, no pressure, no quotas) from the TA and reserve. Compulsory mobilisation should be reserved for LSDI. Anyone involved in pressurising or defaming anyone unable or unwilling to volunteer but prepared to be compulsorily mobilised should hang their heads in shame.

I have been watching this thread for some time and that sums up my view much more clearly than I might have expressed it myself. I haven't volunteered for operations for a variety of career and family reasons. That doesn't mean, however, that I won't go willingly if a brown envelope plops onto my doormat tomorrow.

Originally Posted by Chibber

Originally Posted by putteesinmyhands

Originally Posted by Chibber

It also appears that the 3rd shock army has declined our invitation to invade the british isles and the French don't seem to be terribly interested either. So the Dad's Army role isn't really worth the investment either. If the situation changes to one where the British Isles are at risk, I'm sure it won't happen overnight and we'll have time establish a home guard (like we did the last time we thought we'd be invaded).

We're supposed to learn from history, not rewrite it to suit our arguments.

"Last time" we had inklings that something was up about 6 years in advance, but nothing was done because it was felt that a political solution could be achieved. In fact, the LDV wasn't established until 5 months after war had been declared. In the beginning, they had few weapons and relied on improvisation. Training was provided to a large extent by veterans of WW1 who could probably give good advice on the intricacies of trench warfare but knew little about seaborne or parachute invasion.

And you advocate returning to that scenario?

By your arguments, we could withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan and disband the Navy, Army and RAF altogether. After all, until the Taliban are found to be making large purchases of amphibious assault craft, tanks and aircraft, we've got nothing to worry about as everybody else in the world loves us. Even then, we've got a Coastguard whose job it is to protect us from illegal immigrants. Freely prescribe LSD and we could keep the illusion going for ages.

Dunno, are there many WW1 vets out there with advice to give?

Chibber, that flippant comment kind of sums you up doesn't it? I'm sure if there were a few WW1 vets on here they could educate your ignorant arse on CQB and hand to hand fighting.

You posed a reasonably intelligent question at first, but throughout this thread have revealed a quite nasty bias against a proportion of the TA volunteers who have not yet been mobilised to go and perform on the two Enduring ops running at the moment.

Your consistent inference is that by not volunteering for warfighting at every opportunity the balance are somehow less capable than a young tom who has just done a single tour. Now while that young tom will in the main have benefitted from having done a tour. I think it would be premature to expect them to run a platoon instead of his old sweat SNCO who you seem very keen to F@ck off at the earliest. Simply it would seem because when they were a Tom they had fewer opportunities to Deploy in role. TA Seniors have had a life, probably wife Kids, careers and mortgages to consider all of which can dissuade them from Volunteering for a second time. I don't doubt that if the Brown envelope required them to turn up at Chillwell then thats were you would find them.

So why do you suggest that these people are not valuable. What is the alternative command structure around which you will form your new model Reserve Army?