Originally posted by paul g
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The Future of the Army Reserve - Discuss
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Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
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RDF to disband 2011
Lt Col ******* today announced to the PDF CO's that the RDF will be disbanded either IN or BY 2011.
Looks like the RDF is being put to sleep. I was told thursday that the Army 'would offer u the RDF as the sacraficial lamb if they faced major cuts....
[Mod: There is an existing thread for this - use it. Threads merged]
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Originally posted by hptmurphy
Diabanding it on a temporary basisIs God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
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The RDF Lt Col designate in the South has been appointed and is in place to take over from the existing Lt Col when he retires next month."Fellow-soldiers of the Irish Republican Army, I have just received a communication from Commandant Pearse calling on us to surrender and you will agree with me that this is the hardest task we have been called upon to perform during this eventful week, but we came into this fight for Irish Independence in obedience to the commands of our higher officers and now in obedience to their wishes we must surrender. I know you would, like myself, prefer to be with our comrades who have already fallen in the fight - we, too, should rather die in this glorious struggle than submit to the enemy." Volunteer Captain Patrick Holahan to 58 of his men at North Brunswick Street, the last group of the Four Courts Garrison to surrender, Sunday 30 April 1916.
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Lt Col ******* today announced to the PDF CO's that the RDF will be disbanded either IN or BY 2011.
Looks like the RDF is being put to sleep. I was told thursday that the Army 'would offer u the RDF as the sacraficial lamb if they faced major cuts"Let us be clear about three facts. First, all battles and all wars are won in the end by the infantryman. Secondly, the infantryman always bears the brunt. His casualties are heavier, he suffers greater extremes of discomfort and fatigue than the other arms. Thirdly, the art of the infantryman is less stereotyped and far harder to acquire in modern war than that of any other arm." ------- Field Marshall Wavell, April 1945.
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I think you'll end up with a reserve similar in size to the TA in Britian, the north after all, with a population of a million and a half have only one TA infantry battalion and an artillery battery, with a few units in support. Multiply that by three, and you've got a brigade of reservists.Last edited by paul g; 19 April 2009, 18:37.
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What does scale down mean?
As has been said before on paper there are about 12000 in the reserve but in reality there are only about 3000 actually active. (any one that wants the accurate figures us the search function)
However there is still the infastructure for 12,000.
Maybe it is only this infastructure that needs to be made more realistic.
Such as less cadre and better utilisation of acomodation.Without supplies no army is brave.
—Frederick the Great,
Instructions to his Generals, 1747
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Luchi has hit on the key here, infrastructure, its hard to believe that the army reserve has 9 infantry battalions, whie the Uk's T.A. has only 14, and 3 artillery regiments while the uk has six. Yet infrastructure is difficult and expensive to maintain. If there are only around 3000 active in the army reserve, then perhaps its best to model a force around 4000. Ireland always had a large army reserve, for lots of reasons, in the 1950 and 1960's it was difficult to get people to join the PDF due to poor pay and conditions, and thus, having lots of reservists was a way of getting defence on the cheap.
In many ways the AR of this size is obsolete, its premise is that the army might require rapid expansion in time of crisis, eg, war in europe or problems in the north, which might require the fieding of large numbers of soldiers. However, both problems have evapourated, war between two european states in the next decade is unthinkable, and while the north will always have fanatics, its largely settled and their supporters are a small minority. The AR no longer has any real purpose.
My own thoughts is that the next white paper will see an end to integration, with the PDF's numer of brigades and battalions being resized and cut accordingly, and a much smaller better trained and equiped army reserve, around the 4000 mark.
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What I mean by scale down is that the decision to reduce the numbers is the easy one to make however from experience the decisions to put an appropriate infrastructure in place to improve training, recruitment and retention will be left on the long finger, so what you end up is a reduced reserve with the same infrastructure problems. The average life of a reservist will still be 18 months and in a few years the establishment strength of 4,000 will equate to an effective strength of about 1,800.
How I am coming to this conclusion? Just look at the history of the reserve, when they reduced the establishment strength in the 50s, after a few years the effective strength ended up being about 60% of establishment, when the reduced the establishment strength in 2005 within one year the effective strength ended up being about 50% of establishment. Why do you think this won't happen again? Do you honestly think that any reduction decisions that may be made with regard to the RDF will be done with the intention of improving the organisation as opposed to just reducing a cost figure in the books? The powers that be have not demonstrated any intention of putting any effort into improving the reserve. So get real, if you think that by reducing the reserve to 4,000 will lead to a lean mean properly trained organisation you are living in fantasy land.
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What I would suggest however, is not putting things on the long finger, but actually taking decisions about the future of the reserve, if it appears that you can get no more than two to three thousand people with the ability to commit to reserve training, there is no point in pretending that they equate to three brigades, when they clearly don't, and that it is an all arms reserve, when clearly its not. .
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