Scottish & North Irish Yeomanry hone skills

There is an article kicking around somewhere from from the last 12 months with reserve units being issued jackels. The land rovers need scrapped even if they are only using them for basic training. No one will be deployed in them again ever so it’s a waste of time and maintenance.

So, if they have them, good stuff.

A lot of landrovers have also been replaced with foxhound

Makes sense. It would be interesting to know how many MRAPs are still in service and back in Europe vs what was written off, sold or scrapped once we left Iraq and Afghanistan. I think the large surplus of MRAPs was part of the reason the army switched its attention to Ajax rather than Piranha 5 and then back to boxer as they thought they way as well wear out the MRAPs first.

I believe Foxhound replaced Snatch. We bought around 400.

16AA gave up their Jackals!  😳 

Not surprised tbh, (and for that matter I think all non-Cav units gave up their Jackals a while ago), they aren’t exactly the most air-mobile vehicles are they.

(BTW last I checked most infantry battalion retain WIMIK for their Recce Platoons).

RWIMKS not standard landy’s

I think people are getting confused by the A2020 concept which saw LR infantry and cavalry units lose their third manoeuvre sub unit. The paired reserve unit was supposed to deploy the 3rd sub unit for major deployments. However, by 2015 everyone realised it wasn’t realistic – so the third sub unit was reinstated (as was a separate guns Pl for Sp Coy) – but it was done by creating the specialised infantry Bns (which are about 250 strong) and moving the liability to the remaining light units.

Pairing has continued and paired reserve units tend to supply individual augmentees to the regular units when needed and often a sub unit deploys on major TESTEXs (like WESSEX WARRIOR) as their annual camp – but it’s additional and normally isn’t graded in the way the regular company groups are.

Hope that wasn’t too waffly!

I mean that concept was dropped so quietly and so long ago that I’m pretty sure it was never implimented, at least I’ve never served with a unit that had anything less than 3 manuver coy’s+1 support coy.
I wouldn’t necessarily characterise the creation of SpecInf as a bad thing btw.

Wasn’t too waffly at all, pretty good summary of the state of affairs actually.

So you’re right, my last Bn still had 3 Rifle Coys, but there were only 2 x Rifle Pls in each plus a Guns Sect (called a Pl, but definitely a section.)

I commanded the Sp Coy which had Atk, Mor, Sniper, Recce and Asslt Pnr Pl (no guns Pl at the time).

I wasn’t being negative about Spec Inf concept, merely meant that they hadn’t increased the establishment again – they moved it around.

IMO the entire reserve idea needs to be rethought. We’ve established the idea of formed units of Reserves, either at sub-unit, or, heaven forbid, unit level, being deployed overseas for long periods of time is not realistic. Peoples careers rarely can support that. So the answer to me is: find roles within the UK the Reserves can do that require short term commitments and free up Regulars to do the long overseas stuff.
MACA seems like the obvious tasking to me, de-couple Reserves from Regular units, institute a “Linkedin” style system by which individual reservists can volunteer to fill gaps across the army, and tie local reserve regiments to regional HQ’s so they are directly respsonsible for civil resillience in their local communities. But that’s just my thoughts on the matter.

One of the “reforms” did establish such a role for the 14 Infantry Battalions. They were also to undertake a “Civil Contingency Reaction Force” role, which I thought was a great idea using them locally in their recruitment area.

I think the whole idea died away quietly.

I think that idea is fundamentally at odds with what became the stated objective of intigrating the reserves into the regular army. I’m hoping now that it’s been proven that that doesn’t work something like CCRF will prevail.
Especially if we are hoping to forward deploy a much less “domestic” regular army, I feel like the slakc on the MACA/Civil Contigency/Op Tempora front will have to be taken up by reserves to some degree.

CCRF died because it was a solution looking for a problem. The police were adamant that they’d never tolerate the Army doing anything they should be, whilst what you do see occasionally as MACA (floods etc) can be drawn from regular and reserve forces without needing standing or trained pers as CCRF was.

The other issue was CCRF by definition had to deploy outside the area they lived in, so that made it an admin and logs pita.

The whole thing never made any sense, but it did give some extra MTDs to units for a few years.

Given the amount of MACA the armed forces have been providing in recent years I’d argue that it may have been ahead of it’s time.
Anyway, align Reserves to Regional HQ’s. Delink the entire thing from the Regulars, and presto, you have a CCRF equivilent formed from the Reserves that is Regionally aligned.

National guard works well for cousins

Oh, there was no shortage of MACA even then, but CCRF was a step up from that, and just not needed as you could generate MACA taskings from any units, reg or reservr (as TA did all the time to vary training experiences as often getting out to anplace and doing stuff in the real world was far more challenging than again to X training area for serials Y and Z) plus anything more “aggressive” or even “assertive” was police territory and they were absolutely not interested, indeed, adamantly against it (I recall one Chief Super after CVRTs were at Heathrow saying the Police had nationally decided that would never, ever happen again because not only was it OTT, but it was their territory and they werent having unaccountable soliders on streets that werent under their control). The coppers won.

Plus once you do start doing more assertive stuff then the regional alignment by necessity breaks down as reserves cannot be deployed in their home area (like coppers dont live in their beat and comes on centuries of bad experiences with militia and yeomanry). There may even be a law about it, I forget.

So quite different from US NG concept.

Never say never of course, but it started with noise and then just petered out. Nobody seemed to miss it as of course Telic and Herrick were in full swing and it was all about that with almost 50% deployed at a time in my unit.

The problem is the MoD wanted US National Guardsman commitment and capability but as ever, on the cheap and absolutely without any political issues.

Reservists can and will deploy, many did of course, but allowing for training standard and “life commitments at that time” its going to be a 1:2 ratio, so a Bn could generate say a Coy. This was done iirc in Iraq albeit mixed effects as an OC went a bit “medal hunting off the reservation” (althiugh to be fair, my Afghan regular CO did also… and if you talk to those at Cimoc house about PWRR vs their LI predecessors…)

The key issue is employer support. The MoD is utterly silent on those that lose jobs and so on and does notbing to support them. What’s needed is funding to bribe employers and recompense them on a level akin to the US, to make it in their interests. What we have is a system that is so stingy and hard to negotsite that as one small employer told me, “it just isnt worth the effort”. The MoD has zero interest in changing this because it would cost money and political capital (laws and going after companies who get rid of reservists).

Ultimatley the Reserves could easily be a US NG level of capability but it’d be at a cost. The MoD and Army arent interested in that because they are only interested in the Reserves because they are cheaper up front (as in you can get rid of 20k regulars and add 5k resevists and have a truckload ofncash to waste on stupid AFV projects).

In truth, it should be about a regular Army sized around 6 or whatever deployable Brigades, and a Reserve sized around providing speicalist and augmentees as needed then doubling that to relieve the burden of enduring tasks – just as the US NG and its (seperate) AR do. In the enduring task, the reserves with noticbcan generatr sub unit and possibly even unit sized contributions, but again that also means equipment being provided and a training commitment considerably in excess of the 27 days plus incentives to stay in, meet the standard and employer support being a positive benefit to them.

I sincerely doubt the UK wanted a seperate military sturcture subordinated to the constituent members of the realm rather than Westminster. 🙂

Reservists can, and will deploy but as individual replacments and at a VERY max effort at a sub-unit level as you say. While I don’t begurde the army the attempt, we didn’t know it wouldn’t work until it was tried, we’ve shown that even with a 10 year lead up we can’t generate a single reserve battalion to deploy, so the idea needs to be re-examined to see how we can best use our reservists.
As I’ve said before the best way probably is to make the Reserves once again a Terretorial Army with an ability to do “Job shopping” for individuals looking for a multiple month tour in a more expeditionary focused regular army. Point being, the current system doesn’t work, it needs to change, and I don’t think recompensing employers will help that much either, we have a fundementally different cultural attitude to the armed forces than the Americans have.

I disagree with your force structure, regular army could easily have about 7+ deployable brigades, and the Reserves could continue to exist in much their same current form, they’d just have to have a domestic focus and the ability for individuals to volunteer for trawls. I disagree with the enduring task as well, as was proven in 2 enduring tasks (Afghan and Iraq) even with notice the Reserves are incapable of generating unit sized contributions, and sub-unit sized are a major struggle. I’d argue the only time the Reserves should be planned to be deployed en-masse out of country is in the event of something so big that the government can baisically turn to employers and say “tough luck, you try to keep these guys and you go to gaol.”

Constituent members of realm? I’m not talking NG as in states having use of them, but the NG as a credible deployable combat capable force from part timers.

Actually, I and many others said back in 2010 that without fundamental changes in Reservist Ts&Cs and the relationship between the MoD and employers, then the “Army Reserve” was nothing but changing the name. Indeed, I partly left because it was obvious it was a mere PR exercise – to my disapointment, I was right (I’d genuinely love to have been wrong).

As with anything, if you dont change the inputs to a system or what you do in it, the outputs will not change.

Plus to be fair, we’ve hardly needed even the regular Army in this period hence why it keeps shrinking, so disrupting Reservists lives to prove a point makes little sense and there are of course hordes of Regulars arguing (as I’ve experienced) that their careers need the op tours more than Reservists need a distraction.

I think my point is in terms of what the AR could be formation wise or whatever (details really) is that if we want a combat deployable Reserve at unit level, then acheiving that is perfectly feasible providing we put the money up for their training, equipment and employer support on a much greater scale than at present. How much cheaper that would be than Regulars I dont know (assuming it even would be) – but it’s irrelevant because the entire Reserve policy has been driven by nothing more than a cover to slash the Regular Army and pretend there is a strategy behind it.

As an example, a US Army Reserve SNCO I know was give $50,000 lump sum to sign back on for 5 years and include an op deployment. That’s the kind of money you need to spend if you want to incentivise people to manage the dual life of a reservist and the commitment it entails. But that mentality is a million miles away from how the MoD treats its people as we all know.

In contrast, what we did was destined to fail, and indeed, the cynic in me suspects the top of the Regular Army intended it to fail.

As for “incapable of generating”, the TA generated at least one unit deployment to Cyprus (I was part of generating that), and frankly, was never asked to do so for Telic/Herrick, and its very hard to understand where the equipment and logistics to support one would have come from anyway or how any regular unit would have accpeted being replaced in the roulementd by a TA one.

Reality is the UK force structure commitment overseas has not required unit level Reserve commitments, just individuals to fill gaps in its own recruitment and retention.

I strongly disagree about having needed a Regular Army during this period, if anything the last 8 years have been extremely busy for the army, and look to be busier still.

I also disagree that a Combat Capable AR at unit level is feasible, we’ve failed to achieve it since WW2. It’s at a cultural level in the UK and demanding more training time (more time away from jobs) for deployments which already will drag them away for a year (when you factor in PDT) won’t change that.

Also pretty sure there was a golden handshake for Reservists signing on. But fair enough if the army, strapped for cash and barely able to afford the reliable component can’t afford 50k for a reservist who probably won’t show up anyway.

Wow, we managed to get a reservist unit on Tosca? So we have a timeline for generating a reserve deployment: 45 years. And there is a reason they where never asked to deploy to Afghan: They couldn’t raise the manpower.

Disagree again, a few more units on the ground would really have been usefull in Afghanistan…. we were quite thin there, or Iraq. Just a shame there’s no utility in the reserves for that kind of thing.

As I said: Reform is needed. The AR can easily have a domestic role that doesn’t require massive disruption to peoples lives, and ends this fiction that we can deploy them overseas. Let the AR focus domestically, free up more of the Regular Army for overseas work, and thus maximise the use of available assets. Which, judging by the IR, is what the Army is planning to do anyway.

The Refular Army is doing very little of value. It only discovered the Eastern Europe “requirement” as Afghan ended as a desperate bid to keep relevance. Its a make work busyness, which is fair enough as all services, indeed, organisations, do it, but lets not pretend there is really important stuff going on.

As COS Land said to me (and others) complaining of overstretch in 2004 (or 05, I forget), “if we dont keep ourselves busy, we wont exist”.

Yours is a pretty insulting view of the reserves tbh that doesnt fit the reality.

In 2003 98% of those mobilised turned up. Something like 86% deployed once medicals and changes of plan and so on had ensued. I recall our Adjt remarking if only regular units could actually send that many of their nominal headcount then they wouldnt need so many reservists…

Of course Reservists can master the skills and deploy for a year, they’re western civillians no different in education or motivation to US National Guard troops who do it – the difference being the US spends the money on their people whereas the MoD thinks it should pay peanuts, as your dismissal of the $50k as some kind of outrage suggests (how many reservists could the money spunked away on Warrior have trained or incentivised?). Noting this need for a fundamental shift in how “our most precious asset” are treated applies across the board, Reservists are by no means a special case.

The Aussies, who have an integrated force and make it work well, also treat their people much, much better.

We havent deployed the TA since WW2 because none of our deployments have ever been large enough to need it, and politically the Army didnt want to risk losing its strength on a “well the TA can do it”, which I kind of read into your comments tbh. Its pure politics and having set the TA/AR up to fail, now trying to poke fun at people for not doing something they were neither asked nor resourced to do, yet still 1000s deployed and not all came back, seems rather daft.

For instance, in Herrick/Telic, there wasnt the logistics for more units to go, and headcount was tightly restricted so whilst on a superficial level more troops would of course been useful, that was never on the agenda no matter what their source. Noting the MoD could barely equip the force structure that was there.

The reality is the politics dominate, the Regular Army doesnt want a capable Reserve because that threatens it. Sadly the Regular Army doesnt seem to have done even a half decent job of looking after itself either – perhaps the solution is to hand the entire tbing over to the Reserves and see if they can do a better job? Be hard to do a worse one on procurement!

It’s funny because other countries manage reserves/national guard and do it well. Cousins Switzerland Finland israel . I think it’s symptom of a lack of respect by many in U.K. for forces and life that goes with it.