American Small Unit Leadership

[Splinty]

Originally posted by gunnersman:

What is the point of the National Guard and the Reserves? I thought the NG was more "home guard" and the Reserves were kind of a stop gap. It seems they are both being used as stop gaps, and then some. Is the regular Army trying to get bigger? It seems dangerous to me to have to rely on anything but professional soldiers (no disrespect to the National Guard or Reserves).

As to the "Reserves" they're being used exactly as intended, to back up the active component. The Guard (of which I'm currently a member)is a different story. The Guard does have a historical background of being mobilized for federal service. We've been activated for every conflict since at least WWII, just not on the scale of OIF.

[Michael Dorosh]

The Canadian Army Reserve (historically called the Militia - how unfortuante that anarchists in the northern US have applied that same term to themselves) has gone through several identity crises, is it possible the US reserve forces have as well?

Up until the 50s our Militia was to form the nucleus for a national mobilization; they were all part time soldiers and each unit could be expanded in time of war. (Interestingly, however, this concept was abandoned in the First World War when the Canadian Expeditionary Force was created from whole cloth; Militia units were indeed mobilized, but amalgamated and renamed taking with them few of their traditions or distinctions of dress - this was not repeated in the Second World War when Militia units mobilized as units).

In the late 1950s, the fear was that any war would be devastating and nuclear weapons would be used and so the Militia was seen as unnecessary; their training turned, officially, to civil assistance and away from combat training.

In the 1960s the Militia again turned to "real soldiering" and were once again to act as a mobilization base.

In the 1980s, the Militia and the Regular Force began to merge into a Total Force concept; Militia pay was increased, courses were lengthened, and some units were declared "10/90" battalions - 10 percent of their strength would be full timers.

There was talk of doing what was described here as done by the USNG (and I've seen it discussed with regards to the TA in Britain also) - take away the combat arms roles and have reserve units provide purely logistical functions; water purification, for example.

I don't see how you would ever recruit people for that; I'm glad it never happened.

What HAS happened however is that due to manpower shortages, since the 1980s the Regular Force is drawing heavily on reservists as individual augmentees (in fairly substantial numbers) and lately even to provide formed subunits for Regular units on active operations.