Quality of PDF enlisted troops

[womble]

I am no expert on this but from what I have heard, the quality of Irish enlisted personell is quite high.
Do any of you think that this is because of the enlistment application system?
Other nations have recruiting sergeants that seem to do alot of the work. A potential recruit drops into a recruit office and the recruiting sergeant brings them through the process there, he decides if the potential recruit is suitable, etc.
Here in Ireland for the PDF, the recruit applies and is called to an interview panel. From what I know the process is over subscribed and the panel can be more selective.
Unfortunately, some other nations forces do not have that luxury and are obliged to take people without as much of the formal process that is required as here.

Would this be a fair approximation of the processes.

And, does the PDF's ability, if any, to be more picky about recruits it can accept lead to a better quality of enlisted personell in the PDF?

Cheers womble.

[silverside]

please don't anybody take any of the following personally. some reasons I see are.

1) National service / conscription. Some countries in europe still have this, makes for unmotivated conscripts for obvious reasons.

2) Better pay. Pay in UK for private soldiers is pretty bad. In Ireland i think it's reasonable.

3) Better general standard of education. My impression of the UK is that it has a large proportion of generally uneducated people (many leave school at 16) concentrated in poor urban areas. Plus UK seems more class-ridden where soldiering is seen as a working-class job. Ireland seems a bit more socially mixed.

4) (womble's point) Limited recruitement. For a period of about 10 years in the 80's/90's there was no recruitment whatsoever. Then when the price waterhouse report came out they started recruiting and getting rid of unfit people in an attempt to lower the age profile. at this stage there was a backlog of people who wanted the military lifestyle and applied. so at this stage you had lots of motivated/qualified people going for limited number of recruit places, so army could pick the best.

5) long recruit trainign period / quality of instructors
Histoically Ireland recruit training has been one of the longest internationally. i think its been made shorter now.

I think point 4) doesnt hold so strongly now that the economy has been doing better and there has been regular recruitment, you hear soldiers complaining that the new batch aren't as good. This may or may not be true but you hear it a lot.

[Steamy Window]

Don't soldiers always complain that the latest batch isn't as good/are softies/training was harder in their day?

[Bosco]

Don't soldiers always complain that the latest batch isn't as good/are softies/training was harder in their day?

Damn beat me to it.
Its like in college my mates (TA's) say that the new first years are thicker cos they are getting the dumbed down leaving cert and therefore get easier stuff in college.

But on the better soldier thing.
Id say the point about longer training times has a very important part to play, as well as the oversubscription.
If you can pick and choose you will get the best.
Case in point. Germany pre WWII was limited in its armed forces. The officers and men that they did have were the créme de la créme of the military minded population. When the NAZI's took power these men became the nucleus of the much larger military.

[Groundhog]

Don't soldiers always complain that the latest batch isn't as good/are softies/training was harder in their day?

Yes they always do, mostly because it's true. Recruits are now wrapped in cotton wool and overprotected by officers who dread the mention of A7.

[The Thing]

5) long recruit trainign period / quality of instructors
Histoically Ireland recruit training has been one of the longest internationally. i think its been made shorter now.

However don't forget, that when an Irish soldier finnishes training he doesn't train to that level again unless he/she goes for promotion or joins the ranks of special forces. In other armies this is not the case, soldiers train on a regular basis.
There should be constant training when allowed ie: not engaged in aid to the civil power. I mean it wouldn't take much for a section sized unit to be training on a constant basis within a company. I am not talking about going to the ranges day in day out, but rather field craft skills, FIBUA tactics, patrolling, and physical training/sports training.
As a solider it makes me angry that we aren't training more. The army can get very boring sometimes.
However I agree we are up to international standards, education and good pay has alot to do with making the job an attractive option for potential recruits as does the prospect of regular overseas deployment with modern equipment.

[Kieran Marum]

Yes they always do, mostly because it's true. Recruits are now wrapped in cotton wool and overprotected by officers who dread the mention of A7.

All the extra work seems to have created a new rank in the Army
namely that of BRIGADE QUARTERMASTER SERGEANT

In the Dail on March 7th in reply to a question from Mr Andrews [question 132] Entitled Defence Forces Personnel - they have the following ranks
Sergeant Major,
Brigade Quartermaster Sergeant,
Company Sergeant,
Company Quartermaster Sergeant,
Sergeant,
Corporal,
Private and
Cadet

Is it an error or plans for the future?

[silverside]

someone just made a typo, its obviously meant to be BQ (battalion QMS)

but maybe you knew that and were just trying to be funny.

[Barry]

Is it an error or plans for the future?

Plan to do more with less by making Battalions into Brigades!

[Kieran Marum]

Is the Army getting Younger

Further to my entry above the Dail answer gave some interesting data on the average age of the PDF - Comparing average age 321/12/2001 against 31/12/2006

Officers
BG 58.20,57.25 = [0.95]; Col 55.82,56.49 =0.67; Lt Col 51.78, 53.22 = 1.44;
Cmdt 45.19, 45.99 = 0.80; Capt 33.32, 32.40 = [0.92]; Lt 24.85, 24.68 = [0.17]
When the number of officers at each rank are taken we moved from 1258 to 1357
resulting in a decrease in age from 38.26 years to 37.631 years

Other Ranks
SM 52.30, 52.53 =0.23; BQMS 52.18, 53.10 = 0.92; CS 46.70, 48.00 = 1.30
CQMS 48.09, 49.17 = 1.08; Sgt 42.44, 42.99 = 0.55; Clp 32.22, 36.58 = 4.36
Pvt 31.04, 31.98 = 0.94 whilst Cadets 19.82 to 21.20 =1.38
When the number of officers at each rank are taken we moved from 9414 to 9119
resulting in a decrease in age from 45.742 years to 35.645 years

Overall the PDF moved from 10672 to 10476 strong
and average age 44.86 [2001] to 35.903 [2006]

Is this the picture you see every day



To complete the calculations I took data in other Dail answers which gave a breakdown of the PDF by rank, number and genda at the two dates.

[Darksaga]

I think the standard is getting better, many of the new recruits i met during the enlistment are huge and super fit. some of them even came from collage ( i never asked why they didn't do cadets) but they are not idiots and all have a good head on them.

Plus id like to think of myself as an above average recruit! LOL

But yet again I seem to be one of the youngest in the Pltn. everyone i spoke to is over 20, i think there was one 18 y/o.

[ZULU]

Not everyone wants to become an officer

[ELVIS]

ya. Alot of people assume that everybody wants to be an officer. Many people just want to soldier for awhile and not get laid down with contract committments and what not. That, and maybe they didn't get cadets..

[mutter nutter]

I think the standard is getting better, many of the new recruits i met during the enlistment are huge and super fit. some of them even came from collage ( i never asked why they didn't do cadets) but they are not idiots and all have a good head on them.

Plus id like to think of myself as an above average recruit! LOL

But yet again I seem to be one of the youngest in the Pltn. everyone i spoke to is over 20, i think there was one 18 y/o.

something to do with the "life less ordinary", probably people with collage or who've worked for a few years and want to do something different.....good thing I think, experience and maturity, the DF can only benifit

[criodan]

how are they rated exactly and against who etc???