Death of the Canadian Infantry Corps

The Slow Demise of the Canadian Infantry Corps

The day I was posted to the 1st Battalion of The Royal Canadian Regiment in August 1998 was the day the Battalion disbanded its fourth rifle company. Little did I know that this was only the beginning of the slow demise of the Canadian Infantry Corps. While I thought that losing Delta Company was bad, I was comforted by the fact that the Battalion still had three strong rifle companies and a very capable combat support company. Each of these companies was filled with very experienced and highly trained soldiers, NCOs and officers. Most had just returned from Bosnia and for some it was their second, third or even fourth overseas tour. The NCOs and senior officers had almost all served in either the Airborne Regiment or in Germany. All had years of tough and varied training and reading their UERs was like reading a list of every course the CF had to offer. Soldiers, NCOs and Officers alike had taken courses on recce, mountain operations, parachuting, mortars and anti-armour weapons, to name a few. I was proud to join this battalion of well-trained men and women.

That first year in the Battalion was an amazing experience. We were in the field for most of the fall conducting combat team, battle group and brigade exercises. The following spring, most of the Battalion deployed to Gagetown to conduct a Battle Group exercise with the RCD which was followed immediately by three weeks in the field as a training tool for the Combat Team Commander’s Course. After one year with the 1st Battalion, I was thoroughly satisfied with my experience as an Infantry Officer and was convinced that I was in one of the best armies in the world. The future looked bright too: we were due to receive the LAV IIIs, TCCCS and Clothe the Soldier items within the next 2-3 years. Also, the 1st Battalion was scheduled to deploy to Kosovo in December of 1999 on Op KINETIC. I remember thinking “We’re checked out now; just imagine how good we’ll be with all this new kit”. I did not know at that time that the light I saw at the end of the tunnel was, in fact, a freight train.

After Kosovo, signs began to appear of the things to come. There were hints coming from NDHQ about either disbanding battalions or cutting back on the size of each battalion. Then the axe fell and all Battalions were told to disband their Pioneer Platoons. We were told that the manpower was needed to form new “Command Support Battalions” and the new Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre. The justification for cutting Pioneers was that the Engineers already do the tasks performed by the Pioneer Platoons, so why maintain this redundancy? While on the surface this idea seemed to make sense, when one thought about it, one could find a few discrepancies. Firstly, Pioneers and Engineers do not have the same role. Pioneers do not build massive tactical anti-tank ditches or minefields and Engineers do not normally have time to construct local defences and do not conduct decontamination. Pioneers exist to provide intimate support to the battalion whereas Engineers are generally employed in close or general support roles within the Brigade Group. Secondly, while the Infantry Battalions were losing their Pioneers, the Engineers were not gaining any personnel or equipment to fulfill their new role. This meant that the Combat Engineer Regiments would have to strip field troops away from normal engineer tasks to provide intimate support to the Infantry. Just before the Pioneers were disbanded, we had heard how all of the CERs were having a hard time providing sub-units for Bosnia rotations due to a lack of troops. I found it strange that this over-stretched corps was now being asked to take on an additional role. So now two Corps had their capabilities reduced but we were gaining Command Support Battalions and the CMTC. Then, right on the heels of Pioneer Platoon, Mortar Platoon was disbanded. We were given the same explanations we had heard when Pioneers disbanded. Likewise, we were told that the Artillery would now handle the Mortar role and once again, this left me scratching my head. To man the Mortars, the gunners had to park their M109s as they were not given any extra troops.1 In what seemed to me to be an example of robbing Peter to pay Paul, the gunners were trading in an armoured vehicle that could shoot a 100lb projectile 18km for a 5’ tube that could shoot a 10lb bomb 5 km. Not that the 81mm mortar isn’t useful, it is. It is an extremely versatile, transportable and effective infantry weapon. However, it is hardly a suitable replacement for a 155mm howitzer. Once again we saw two combat arms corps diminishing in capability.

Most recently, the mechanized infantry battalions have been told to hand in their TUAs and Coyotes as the Anti-Armour Platoons are to be disbanded and the Recce Platoons are getting LUVWs.2 The TUAs are needed to compensate for the firepower shortcomings of the Armoured Corps’ new MGS.3 Originally the Army was to receive 74 LAV IIIs with the TUA turret for the Infantry Battalion Anti-Armour Platoons. This would have given the Infantry Battalions a considerable amount of precision direct-fire support. The current plan is to only build 33 of these TUAs and to concentrate all of them in the Armoured Corps’ last “Armoured Regiment” in Wainwright. This was deemed necessary as the arrival of the MGS meant we will have an Armoured Corps that cannot kill modern tanks or manoeuvre under fire from anything heavier than a .50 HMG.4 It is hoped that the TUA (along with ADATS) will keep the enemy at arms-length long enough for our allies to neutralize the threat with MLRS and Attack Helicopters. Granted, there are plans to acquire a dismounted, medium-range anti-armour missile for the Infantry but they won’t arrive before 2007 and they won’t be on a mobile, armoured platform.

In addition to the losses listed above, each Infantry Battalion is currently manned well below wartime strength. As a result, Battalions often find it impossible to man all the necessary positions within their organizations. It is not uncommon to hear of Mechanized Battalions going on exercise with only four or five dismounts in the back of each LAV III. How can an Infantry unit conduct realistic and useful training when they have already suffered 50% casualties before crossing the line of departure? This shortage becomes critical when a Battalion is tasked for an overseas mission. When 1 RCR deployed to Kosovo we did so with only two rifle companies. The third rifle company was left behind but after it had been combed through for reinforcements for the other two companies it was little more than a reinforced platoon. This example is mild in comparison to more recent examples. When both 3 PPCLI and 3 RCR deployed to Afghanistan, each was reinforced by at least a rifle company from a sister battalion. Neither battalion could man 3 rifle companies. Naturally, this has a detrimental effect on the battalions lending the rifle companies as it prevents them from conducting various types of training, robs them of rare Senior NCOs and decreases the strength they have available to meet their own tasks. This effect snowballs as the lending battalions are then forced to lend soldiers or formed elements when it is their turn to deploy.

Concurrent with the gutting of the Infantry Battalions has been a steady drop in the amount and quality of individual and collective training. As I described in the opening paragraph, my first year in the battalion saw me participating in numerous exercises. The last position I held before leaving 1 RCR was that of Mortar Platoon Commander. During the year I was in that position, the Battalion conducted two company-level exercises and my Platoon was allotted a total of 120 81mm bombs with which to train. A Mortar Platoon can fire 120 bombs in less than 2 minutes. If we had really stretched it we might have been able to spend a day on the range with that ammo allotment. This was not an unusual set of circumstances. All other support platoons and rifle companies were given similar ammunition allotments. Range days for Rifle Companies were also severely curtailed to the point where soldiers only fire live rounds on a rifle range when they conduct their Personal Weapons Test. Gone are the days when a Company would camp at the Range for a week or more to conduct practice applications before firing their Personal Weapons Test. Ammunition shortages are but one example of the pressure put on the Infantry Corps. Decreased Field Pay, IMP allotments and driving kilometres all serve to limit the useful and interesting training a Battalion can conduct.

Individual training courses are also being scaled back as fiscal pressures force Commanding Officers and Operations Officers to make hard choices about what kind of training a Battalion can do. The large training bill associated with the LAV III exacerbates this pressure and further limits the choices available to the COs of Mechanized Battalions. The loss of Mortars and Pioneers (and eventually Anti-Armour Platoon) will have a greater impact than simply the loss of the respective platoons. Infanteers will no longer be trained in the fields of demolitions, fortification construction, indirect fire, forward air controlling or long-range anti-armour gunnery. Soldiers trained in these skills but not employed in the Combat Support Platoons were always a huge asset to the Rifle Companies. They brought with them considerable skills that good Company Commanders could use to the advantage of the Company. Before deploying to Kosovo, my Company Commander tasked my Platoon to form a Pioneer Section and a 60mm Mortar Section. This was easily accomplished as I had a number of QL4 Pioneer, QL4 Mortar and Advanced Mortar qualified soldiers and NCOs in my Platoon. These sections were put to good use on exercises and clearly demonstrated to me the need for cross training within the Infantry.

With the notable exception of the Brigade Training Event in April-May of 2003, most of the Army rarely conducts collective training above the company level.5 Only when Battle Groups are designated for an overseas mission do they receive collective training at the Combat Team or Battle Group level. This situation appears to be getting worse as two of the Armoured Regiments (RCD and 12e RBC) are converting to Reconnaissance Regiments which means two of our three brigade groups will not be able to conduct realistic combined arms training. Coupled with the shrinking of the Artillery Regiments, this means that the Brigade Groups will have difficulty forming more than one doctrinal Battle Group (3 Mechanized Infantry Companies, 1 Armoured Squadron, 1 Artillery Battery, 1 Engineer Squadron) each.6 1 CMBG is in a better position in that it will have tanks and a larger Artillery Regiment to train with but tanks and mechanized artillery have been given a low priority on the Army’s training bill so it is not likely that they will conduct a lot of combined arms training either. The end result of all this is that the Infantry will lose precious skills that can only be developed and honed in combined arms training. The ability to work with tanks, gunners and engineers and to learn their procedures is not something any Infantry commander would want to lose.

The Infantry Corps is in a dire situation and current plans and projections show that relief is not on the horizon. Despite the best efforts of the Army leadership, hard choices were made and capabilities were lost. The Infantry Battalions of today are quickly losing their most important capability: well trained soldiers. There was a time when Canadians could boast that we had the best trained soldiers in the world and to a degree, it was true. However with the dismembering of the Infantry Battalions and the concomitant loss of cross-trained infanteers; the related neutering of other combat arms corps; and the reduction in individual and collective training, we will soon no longer be able to make such claims. Perhaps this is not as bad as it seems. Perhaps we can be satisfied with mediocrity and low expectations. However, if the Army and the Infantry Corps truly wish to fight “alongside the best against the best”, some reforms are in order.

Firstly, we must rebuild our Infantry Battalions. This would involve restoring Pioneer, Mortar and Anti-Armour Platoons so as to provide COs with dedicated combat power. This would serve to restore the flexibility inherent in the Infantry and would free up the supporting arms to conduct their true roles. Larger Battalions with Mortar, Pioneer and Anti-Armour Platoons would be more able to conduct operations independent of the other Corps and would place less of a burden on those Corps when it came time to form Battle Groups or even a Brigade Group for operations. The Engineers and the Artillery should not be stressed to provide intimate support to Infantry Battalions that were up until recently, capable of providing that support themselves. This could be accomplished through a number of means ranging from disbanding one or more Battalions to reallocating manpower from other Corps or Branches. None of the options would be easy but all would be preferable to the alternative of less effective Infantry Battalions. The training and operational benefits of having properly manned and organized Infantry Battalions would far outweigh the benefits of maintaining 9 weak battalions. This would also serve to rectify some of problems that occur with almost every overseas mission the Army undertakes nowadays. Specifically, it would eliminate the need to pilfer soldiers from one Battalion to bring another deploying overseas up to strength.

Secondly, we must recognize the importance of cross training within the Infantry and strive to rebuild our individual training system. The strength of the Infantry Corps has always rested on its highly trained NCMs and officers. Restoring the Combat Support Platoons would go a long way to ensuring that our soldiers are well trained. Likewise, ammunition, ration, field pay and vehicle kilometre allotments must be increased to allow for realistic and challenging training. Disbanding one Infantry Battalion would go a long way towards freeing up money and resources needed for increased training in the remaining eight battalions.

Finally, collective combined arms training should be bolstered and infanteers should regularly work with their armoured, engineer and artillery comrades. In order to preserve perishable skills and maintain the ability to conduct combined arms operations. Combined arms units and sub-units are the key to our doctrine so we should begin practicing what we preach. It is not enough to slap together a Battle Group at the last minute and hastily undergo collective training. Cohesion must be developed at every opportunity and this can only be done through regular field exercises in a realistic training environment. This will only benefit the Infantry Corps and therefore the Army as a whole.

During my short time in the Infantry Corps I have seen some dramatic changes to the Army. I realize that many of these changes were brought on by external factors, and that the Army’s leadership did what they had to do under the circumstances. In no way is this essay meant as an attack against any individual or policy. It is merely my interpretation of the state of the Infantry Corps and my prescription for its resurrection. I believe we are incrementally and almost sub-consciously sapping the strength of the Infantry Corps through a serious of decisions that each have merit when viewed individually, but as a whole are disastrous for the Corps. Quick and sure decisions must be made if we are to reverse this trend and restore the capabilities of our battalions. I am convinced that we can and should return the Infantry to the standing of best in the world.

Alex Haynes Captain

1 The Artillery Regiments have been tasked to maintain a ‘residual’ Mortar capability which means that there will not be formed Mortar Troops on hand to train with the Infantry Battalions. Instead, the Artillery Regiments are on 30 days’ notice to provide one Mortar Troop if the need arises. One can only assume that the three Infantry Battalions in each Brigade Group will have to share this Mortar Troop amongst themselves. 2 Land Force Command Strategic Operations and Resource Direction 2004, 3-1A-H-3/8 to 3-1A-H-4/8 3 While the MGS does use the same 105mm cannon as the Leopard C2, it will only carry 18 rounds (1/3 as many as the Leopard) and the cannon will be mounted on a less stable platform. These two factors will affect the overall firepower of the MGS in comparison to the Leopard C2. 4 A project currently exists to equip the MGS with an active defence system to give it some protection against RPGs, ATGWs and (possibly) KE rounds. It remains to be seen if this ambitious project will succeed in meeting these goals. 5 SORD 2004. Units in “Reconstitution” phase can train to Platoon level in a Company context while units in the “Training” phase can train to Company level in a Battalion context with some scope for Battalion/Battle Group training at CMTC. At least two thirds of the Infantry Battalions are supposed to be in “Reconstitution” or “Training” phases at any given time. 6 In SORD 2004, some tasks calling for a Battle Group no longer list an Armoured Squadron in the organization but instead list a “Transitional Surveillance Squadron”. These are Coyote Squadrons that would not possess a meaningful direct-fire capability.