The T.A. do, why don`t the RDF?

[ex pat 007]

CQ have you thought of getting together with a few other like minded souls and train outside of the RDF drills? If you can get enough people together maybe you could transfer into a centrally located unit or sub unit.

[HavocIRL]

Would that not be illegal?

[Barry]

Yeah, that sounds a bit militia-esque to me.

[Come-quickly]

Errr there is that concern (rather a big one) also there is the simple fact that a training course is more than just a few motivated individuals, admin and specialist knowledge would be required, otherwise striving for S**t hotness outside of training hours is ok among sane people but all it really is a bunch of mates going hiking, running, swimming, climbing, kayaking etc together and I find it hard to find people who do all of that never mind people who are reservists and all of that.

[jpb]

did any of you think to ask any of your cadre's to ask around the pdf guy's who would be willing to give up there time, IE CTI's, PTI's and the like on a weekend, of course they may have to recieve expense's as they cannot get payment but you may get some extra-carriculer training that would be recognised by the DF and maybe tighten the esprit de corp's that already exist's,

just an idea,

keep safe .

[Come-quickly]

I could see that working in some units (where cadre actually give a toss) but it still wouldnt match the meeting up of the most motivated individuals in a brigade or the entire reserve that a dedicated unit would.
Although the real cost of such a unit would be largely in personel expenses; even though there would be extra training expense I suspect much of this would be absorbed by the PDFs existing training assets apart from of course Instructors and other Cadre.
That'd be my proposal at the moment an all army (reserve) high readiness rifle battalion with much higher physical fitness requirement and a similarly increased commitment requirement, it would allow for members of all Corps to gain valuable cross training time, give three stars something other than a pots course to aim for, raise the standard in other units as people get sick of training all the time and revert to their original units after a couple of years.
And of course provide the defence forces with the very essence of reserve utility, surge capacity.

But then again maybe we should just keep calling anyone who doesnt treat their service like an extended visit to butlins a walter instead of facing up to our own inadequacies

[ex pat 007]

hmmmmm
I had hiking, land nav and other non- tactics training in mind.

[Come-quickly]

Already do that

[silverside]

Yep you don't need cadre staff to help you organize a hill nav session, orienteering, or road run/circuit training. Although use of facilities (gym/transport) are nice to have if you're laying on something for other personnel. In my opinion training nights are too valuable to be taken up with PT. Just set a standard, lay down a programme, and leave it up to people themselves to 'meet and train', encouraging the privates to join in.

[JAG]

Problem with organising extra curricular activities is that you generally need some form of transport, and army trucks come in handy that way- but would not be provided for insurance reasons.

Although it is still beyond me how insurance is a consideration. The DF have an annual budget of how much now? Just allocate some to compo- from June compo costs are going to go down anyway, and it can't be that hard to see the trend. (Strangely enough for a personal injuries solicitor, I'm looking forward to this).

[Come-quickly]

While we're on the subject does anyone else thats based in dublin have their day off during the week and want to go hillwalking on a regular basis?

[sierra one]

[MOD: Merge Thread]

does anybody know if the ARW have a reserve unit? if so where do they train and is it just like any RDF unit or do you have to do a selection for it?

[Fianóglach]

ARW Reserve

The answer to your question is no. But in the event of a major operation, serving ex-members of the unit may be called to provide backup in the form of drivers, inner cordon control etc. In the short term I don’t see members of the RDF providing a reserve unit, but who knows what the future holds.

[Come-quickly]

If the army converted one of its nine infantry battalions to a 4RAR/KCT type unit I think a reserve element would be wholly plausible for a reserve element in that sort of force, very fit infantrymen with specialist training in specific green role operations but for the ARW no, the Territorial SAS regiments are focused entirely on one or two green role tasks they are not as many assume an exact replica of the full time article.

[rod and serpent]

The TA SAS are used to fill in the gaps in the regular SAS for the amount of training that they do they could not go of by themselves and fight a war. More often than not when 22 are deployed they will take a number of reserves with them. If you were to let 21 and 23 go to war they could probably do the job but not as well as 22 ie due to their experience or lack of it .