The Future of the Army Reserve - Discuss

[Bravo20]

If there is a fundamental lack of understanding of what the PDF is, needs and should be, we can hardly expect anything but woolly thinking about the RDF the few times per decade anyone in the department thinks of it at all.

Also, we can hardly expect the PDF to be truly committed to working with the RDF when the department that controls them treats the PDF itself as a glorified reserve. Our basic problem is that the DoD does not take its own job seriously, or even acts as if it is a gatekeeper to preventing militarism. Which it surely was in the 1920s...but nothing has changed since.

You hit the nail on the head.

[morpheus]

s things have got worse (in the PDF) the PDF are appreciating the RDF

Sadly,one of the wrong reasons why the PDF should suddenly gain an appreciation for the RDF

[DeV]

Sadly,one of the wrong reasons why the PDF should suddenly gain an appreciation for the RDF

True but I'd say there are times when they are glad that there still is an RDF.

Imagine if we hadn't been mismanaged over the last probably 15 years. Bn Comd's could actually have full RDF companies to task (the RDF would never be full to establishment but if 50% of the establishment was effective.....

[trellheim]

Well it does make perfect sense that infantry reservists are the resource of absolute last resort when there are PDF contractual obligations and duty pay at stake. Besides, PDF infantry trumps RDF infantry hands down, right?

It also makes perfect sense that the only reservists with any degree of operational utility are those with specialist skills.

The question is, why then did they build a post-VFM model RDF to be 74% infantry heavy when it seems so widely accepted before and indeed afterwards that RDF infantry are as useful as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest?

Why would anyone want to be an infantry reservist if the organisation and culture is so prejudice against you, doesn't recognise your rank or reserve military qualifications and you have absolutely no hope of ever putting your training to use?

Well at least there's the RDF specialists, whose skills in Medicine, Engineering, and ICT are so valuable to us that the DOD is willing to use them on an "unpaid voluntary capacity". That is until the DOD can craft out WP15's much coveted "Specialist Reserve" AKA "Extra Pension for Retention" Troop. It'll be interesting to see how the DOD square that circle, having a specialist reserve where ex-PDF who can continue to accrue a pension are mixed in with RDF SMEs who are barely paid at all.

Do you want fries with that rant ?


Alternative view : after my 30 years, 11 months and 11 days service its the best its ever been in terms of RDF appreciation by the PDF of peoples skills. Its that simple. Stop ranting about stuff we cant change.



Corollary : unless you have *actually* demonstrated strong value to the PDF on an individual and as a team and hat it acknowledged, there is absolutely no way they will go to bat for anything from the DOD or anyone. This must be done, and this lobbied for and talked about on a cooperative basis for mutual improvement. Hence rants above drive a wedge. This is personal opinion, of course, but it reflects my experience with large organisations and building bridges.

[morpheus]

What use are the multitude of infantry companies that cannot field complete sections due to horrific numbers? Speaking as a member of one such locale

[DeV]

What use are the multitude of infantry companies that cannot field complete sections due to horrific numbers? Speaking as a member of one such locale

Does the RDF element of your unit contribute nothing to your units taskings?

No GoHs, no duties, no combined exs, no drivers on taskings, no ATCA.....

[trellheim]

What use are the multitude of infantry companies that cannot field complete sections due to horrific numbers? Speaking as a member of one such locale

been there and had the tshirt in the 80s 90s and 00s . Dont worry atuff will change.

[morpheus]

Does the RDF element of your unit contribute nothing to your units taskings?

No GoHs, no duties, no combined exs, no drivers on taskings, no ATCA.....

That's not the point i was making, yes we get tasked, but no we cannot meet those taskings.
i'm asking what use are those infantry companies that dont HAVE personnel to complete taskings? we need to surge our numbers back up or we will lose the remaining skeleton crew that operates the unit either through retirements, resigning from the force or migration to better manned and equipped units.

[trellheim]

What numbers did you get so far in the current rec campaign ?

[morpheus]

low numbers generally, in the tens

[DeV]

That's not the point i was making, yes we get tasked, but no we cannot meet those taskings.
i'm asking what use are those infantry companies that dont HAVE personnel to complete taskings? we need to surge our numbers back up or we will lose the remaining skeleton crew that operates the unit either through retirements, resigning from the force or migration to better manned and equipped units.

Sorry misunderstood your post

I know 7 Inf, have closed their outlying coy and merged the active guys into 1 coy

[Truck Driver]

That's not the point i was making, yes we get tasked, but no we cannot meet those taskings.
i'm asking what use are those infantry companies that dont HAVE personnel to complete taskings? we need to surge our numbers back up or we will lose the remaining skeleton crew that operates the unit either through retirements, resigning from the force or migration to better manned and equipped units.

Am surprised the RDF wasn't reconstituted as a CS/CSS formation. The British Army Reserve is heavily weighted in this direction, I believe. Their plan is to surge to 32,000 personnel as part of their Army 2020 campaign. Of course, the permanent force is being cut by 20% at the same time...

[Bravo20]

That is because "The Steering Committee could not identify any ongoing operational requirement that justified an expansion in the role of the Reserve" [Direct Quote from the VFM report] and the also strongly considered the abolition of the Reserve.

[trellheim]

If I had 365 days a year to do taskings it wouldn't be enough at the moment its so darn busy lots of separate work areas at the moment and ALL are relevant.

Many of my peers report the same - its as busy as you want it to be if you show you can deliver.

[barrybadrinah]

Am surprised the RDF wasn't reconstituted as a CS/CSS formation. The British Army Reserve is heavily weighted in this direction, I believe. Their plan is to surge to 32,000 personnel as part of their Army 2020 campaign. Of course, the permanent force is being cut by 20% at the same time...

The surge to the reserve was a failure, hence loads of us are getting requests to come to the "Regular Reserve" days where we get paid substantial beer tokens for a day of briefings and catch up with the old pals.

[ropebag]

The surge to the reserve was a failure, hence loads of us are getting requests to come to the "Regular Reserve" days where we get paid substantial beer tokens for a day of briefings and catch up with the old pals.

That's not why it's being done - it's a trial of different methods of activation of the RR. Some are paid, some are expenses only, some are easy to get to and some are a pain. It's to measure different response rates and to decide future policy based on the results.

I sit next to one of the SO1's running it...

[DeV]

The surge to the reserve was a failure, hence loads of us are getting requests to come to the "Regular Reserve" days where we get paid substantial beer tokens for a day of briefings and catch up with the old pals.

Which was probably due to the TA being f@cked about so much

[trellheim]

That's not why it's being done - it's a trial of different methods of activation of the RR. Some are paid, some are expenses only, some are easy to get to and some are a pain. It's to measure different response rates and to decide future policy based on the results.

I sit next to one of the SO1's running it...

we should try something like that

[barrybadrinah]

That's not why it's being done

Didn't realise there was method to the madness. A few of us couldn't fathom what was going on, so many dits being spun.

[Sir]

Do you want fries with that rant ?

Sure, why not.

You sound very busy with the RDF and that's great for you. But in reality, there's probably only around 50-80 reservists whose professional services the defence organisation are actually bothered about engaging or are simply commissioned yes-men, or both. Therefore if what you're doing is so valuable that they can feed you work 365 days a year, given the rank limitations in the RDF, I would suspect what you're worth to your employer is significantly more than what you're being paid by the DOD. That is of course assuming you get paid for what you do in uniform. Either way, it's a steal for the lads who were just as happy to abolish the RDF altogether.

There's a reason why Morpheus is part of a company that can't field a section, because they're at absolutely nothing of any substantive use. That's not to say that Morpheus and his comrades aren't ready, willing and able reservists, but if the organisation doesn't invest in the people, why should people invest themselves in the organisation?

I have no faith in the WP15 project teams to deliver anything positive for the RDF for a simple reason. If there are any reservists on the project teams, they are probably among the regularly engaged and no doubt satisfied reservists from the previously mentioned 50-80, and not someone from what's left of Morpheus' unit.

[trellheim]

There's a reason why Morpheus is part of a company that can't field a section, because they're at absolutely nothing of any substantive use. That's not to say that Morpheus and his comrades aren't ready, willing and able reservists, but if the organisation doesn't invest in the people, why should people invest themselves in the organisation?

Morpheus' local organization well able to defend itself. I'm interested, for example, in what marketing efforts were done locally in that area to ensure people logged onto military.ie and signed up in the recent campaign - it was open for long enough to ensure several platoons worth were in the mix ; is that DOD's fault - it was well publicised I thought. and it was up to the local unit to ensure it was capitalized on by messaging appropriate to the locale .

Just because there is not many of us does not mean more are not needed - Right now I need particular special skillsets and I can't get them so if you want to transfer etc then why not ? Or is it about a personal need for something else or do you go where its needed . I've talked about this several times and Truck Driver echoed it.

I'm 31 years in, most in the Infantry.

As for investing in the people - take a look around and look at the sh1t deal the PDF get its fking horrendous

What on earth do you want from WP15 we spent ages hoping WP2000 would help and it was worth fk all

Single Force, recession and cut your cloth to get the job done did more to help the organization work together than it ever did

And with that attitude what positive thinking do you inspire in subordinates - given your handle I assume you are a Sir

Are we regularly engaged and no doubt satisfied ? Dunno ; I suppose we are engaged regularly at least . By the sound of it you want everyone to fall back into some sort of lazy soldier mentality where we don't push the boundaries of the possible and don't show value to the PDF - instead hold up some sort of "but we can offer some unquantifiable value if you pay us good dosh - and you should take our word "


well that hasnt happened despite very senior and smart senior RDF officers ( and FCA back in the day ) forcefully putting that very point over the last 30 years - so time for a change -

[DeV]

It is about making your self relevant. Doing your job within the unit to the best of your ability, giving ideas and running with them, contributing to your unit.

I do my job. I take a days holidays from work to take over Accomodiation etc prior to a weekend/week.

I'm not as available during the week as I should be to get the job done but nothing I can do about that.

[morpheus]

we did campaign locally and we did advertise, that doesnt mean that joe public is interested - many are aware of the sh!t deal that the military get in ireland so for that reason a lot arent interested, i believe the numbers now are much higher than I had been initially told of, which is good news.

now unfortunately the next problem arises - who will train the new recruits? I'm heavily invested in other courses as are most of my NCO colleagues, and were all trying to get time to do SIC 2 -
if you do SIC 2 and have no leave left you cant train recruits. if you DONT do SIC 2 and hold onto leave - you STILL CANT train recruits.
Some of us may get lucky and get onto a SIC 2 run out of normal hours, if such a thing happens. but with small number of instructors locally and many of us committing to a different large career course and SIC 2 in the brigade, I worry that there will be nobody left at HQ to train the recruits.

Nevertheless the numbers are a bit more promising so i'm happier about that and its thanks to a small number of key people who have made the effort to make it happen.

[trellheim]

Morph - I am 1000% percent behind this. Making people do SIc2 just to tick a box ( and believe you me I've listened to all the arguments here and elsewhere ) is the height of silly it is purely people who

Training Analysis Volume 1:

Time Available - there is no point doing SIC2 if you won't have any instructors at the end of it . Should have been done via distance learning.

Different argument to PT tests - do the training in your own time and pass the test - takes a morning outx2 no more.


I can't come in and instruct if the guy at my rank gets called away for work its loony, agree 1000%

[DeV]

we did campaign locally and we did advertise, that doesnt mean that joe public is interested - many are aware of the sh!t deal that the military get in ireland so for that reason a lot arent interested, i believe the numbers now are much higher than I had been initially told of, which is good news.

now unfortunately the next problem arises - who will train the new recruits? I'm heavily invested in other courses as are most of my NCO colleagues, and were all trying to get time to do SIC 2 -
if you do SIC 2 and have no leave left you cant train recruits. if you DONT do SIC 2 and hold onto leave - you STILL CANT train recruits.
Some of us may get lucky and get onto a SIC 2 run out of normal hours, if such a thing happens. but with small number of instructors locally and many of us committing to a different large career course and SIC 2 in the brigade, I worry that there will be nobody left at HQ to train the recruits.

Nevertheless the numbers are a bit more promising so i'm happier about that and its thanks to a small number of key people who have made the effort to make it happen.

It's a catch 22

Of course, in the scheme of things a large percentage of your NCOs in a coy could be 2 individuals. Although when it is an all RDF career course that you are referring to (assuming it's the one I'm thinking about) why are all the instructors coming from 1 unit?

With regard to SIC2, there is a proposed course over a number of weekends and a proposed course for next year which will be more RDF friendly (will still involve FTT however). The knock on effect of the SIC2 is no recruit instructors. My formation (which is relatively small currently has 5+ personnel who are SIC2 qualified). If necessary, nothing to stop the unit commander tasking PDF instructors.