Higher Command and Staff Course - University Degree needed ?
- Thread starter Kitchener
- Start date
And interestingly, of the Army Officers on my ACSC who had stated aspirations for HCSC, none of them did the MA...
They* wore black buttons, and frankly wasn't the cleverest on the course, even from his own Regiment.
*by which I mean "he".
They* wore black buttons, and frankly wasn't the cleverest on the course, even from his own Regiment.
*by which I mean "he".
History_Man
LE
And that is why the Army is in the mess that it is in. Still, as long as nepotism reigns supreme, what does it matter?
Perhaps what's interesting, is that the cleverest in his Regiment, who will undoubtedly go on to HCSC, did do the MA and was a really nice bloke.
Kitchener
Swinger
Does the advanced command and Staff Course come before the HCSC? Or are they for completely different routes? Maybe my question should have been about a degree for ACSC.
I found the MA I did useful, admittedly because it tied into both the day job and the RNR role. But, it was more of a hobby supplement than the MSc in systems engineering, which was a definite career-enhancer.
Still fun, though.
ACSC is typically done on promotion to Cdr/Lt Col/Wg Cdr; HCSC is for Capt RN/Col/Gp Capt or perhaps Cdre/Brig/Air Cdre for those being groomed to higher level operational posts.
It means far more to the Army than to the other two Services.
When I was involved with it, a decade or so ago, ACSC was for SO2s tapped for promotion, and was about forty weeks long ending in a two-week wargame. It struck me as being very heavy on staffwork and process, to the point that players were refusing to listen to the morning updates on the situation because they were busy putting slides together for that afternoon's Joint Effects Meeting (neglecting the issue that the update was, that RED had just managed a surprise seizure of the key objective for the campaign, completely transforming the joint effects that were now required... some firm correction applied by EXCON there).
HCSC was for OF5s destined for greatness (ran into both Jerry Kyd and Tony Radakin there) - thirteen weeks and much more focussed on "levers of power" issues than "how to be part of a big HQ", and therefore rather more interesting to support. There, their final war game was much more focussed on operational and strategic issues, such as one case where Blue actually managed to effectively prevent the conflict from breaking out at all by a very smart combination of diplomacy, economic pressure and military bluff (complaints that "it's not the Theatre Peace Game!" and a reset of "very well done, but we all want a proper scrap, so RED do invade and the fight's on..."
I did enjoy supporting both, and learned a fair bit by doing so. While I did get some opportunity to do ACSC (as a civilian) it seemed somewhat limited in relevance for the time involved, so I didn't pursue it: I was (perhaps hubristically) angling to be the first Dstl analyst to do HCSC (on the young side at the time but building my case - OGDs did send occasional civilians on it) before events overtook.
And since my last direct contact with it was in 2013 or so it's doubtless all changed since then anyway...
History_Man
LE
You could say the same of ACSC...
True.
And ACSC is quite different to that described by @jrwlynch.
And they've just changed the HCSC rules for Army Officers, perhaps to lessen the rampant grade inflation found in OF4 reports (2-up Excp required for HCSC, and only in last Command Report)...
History_Man
LE
The chisellers will stop at nothing to get ahead...
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