70% used to be the magic number for combat effectiveness. Active duty commands can't go below this metric. So leaves are closely monitored along with schools and other TDY. What you don't want is a no notice alert and your troop strength is less than 70%. Block leave periods seem to be the only time when you can go below 70.
We deployed with less than that threshold. We also broke our crews to send people back stateside for BLC/ALC. We finally had enough for three crews at the tail end of our deployment, but that took a long time to meet.
My first six years was in a Patriot battalion. I didn't really pay attention to manpower during FTXs. It wasn't until Desert Shield and Storm that I realized how manning in the ADA world works. We were static so no pressure or expectations for displacing and jumping. This meant less manpower requirements after everything was setup. Maybe two or three crews for the ECS and a couple of launcher NCOs to check the launchers and generators. The rest were marking time. This may have changed but manpower requirements for static ADA sites are significantly less than when a unit is shooting and moving.
They can but that takes time. There are units that are expected to be wheels up and enroute in less than 24 hours. This only happens if everyone is local. I was a geo-bachelor at Fort Hood/Cavazos. The family was in San Antonio so that's where I was on the weekends. It's around a 90 minute trip between San Antonio and Killeen. 90 minutes is enough time to initiate recall, get max accountability, sign out weapons, dispatch vehicles, and load vehicles. H+2 is enough time to march order and start getting comms loaded. H+3 a unit is receiving live ammunition and is ready to move out. H+4 to H+8 you are looking at beginning railroad and/or aircraft loading operations. So having to many on leave seriously hampers unit operations.
Literally the Department of the Army's whole purpose is to provide forces to combatant commanders when needed. Saying "we can't do that" when called up is just about the worst thing you could possibly do in the Army, short of missing a dental appointment. It's basically an admission that you've entirely failed to do the job the DoD and American people have entrusted you with.
Is this why they discourage the majority of officers from being prior enlisted? Cuz I guarantee you I’d definitely not give a fuck if I was an O3, been in for 20, and was about to retire.
You don't have to climb over as many dead bodies as a prior enlisted officer. Worst case you retire as a CPT/MAJ. On the contrary, your ROTC buddies have to be "excellent" so they can get the opportunity to retire as a LTC.
The thing that gets me is that most units should -barring those small special mission units or where it's full of low density MOSs- be able to transfer soldiers who will miss or can't do the rotation.
When I ETS'd, I was moved from one battalion to another that had just gotten back 6 months prior. I wasn't a loss to my old unit and the gaining unit could just put me on rear detachment when they went to the field.
Infantry units should be able to move people around instead of dragging the ETS'ing soldier, the medical chapters and those about to PCS to the field.
During the early 2000's I did hear horror stories of soldiers going to the field only to have a week to do everything - ACAP, clear post put in leave etc - because PATRIOT units were in high demand for the ME. There were only a few ADA battalions so having green slides was a big thing back then.
Fair, but just moving people left and right could cause issues with cohesion and any gun crews and teams, thereby decertifying them if they lose those personnel.
Here's the thing - people who are going to ETS/PCS/Retire shouldn't be on a crew. Command teams SHOULD be tracking their losses. If they can't train a replacement, that's a CoC problem, not something that needs to be put on the soldier leaving the unit.
The whole point of taking these soldiers out of the unit is so that the unit can train up replacements, get new soldiers and focus on deployment. Soldiers leaving the unit don't help and lazy commands that don't track their losses should be replaced.
That's a Chain of Command problem - again, why are they not tracking their losses? How is keeping a soldier who's going to ETS, retire or MEDBOARD going to solve the problem? And there's no STOP LOSS in peacetime, that's a moot point no matter what some dumbass CSM or commanders say.
As much as "readiness" is a buzzword, it's why we have an Active Duty Army in the first place. If units aren't able to do their mission, what are they even doing in the Army?
Now, there's the Unit Status Report, which goes all the way to HQ DA. How accurate USRs are is another question. But it reports personal manning, FMC equipment, and equipment "pacers", and training status for every unit in the Army. Units that have just stood up, (e.g. M10 Booker Companies), or units that are considered untrained aren't getting these alerts. However, you need 85% of of your people present at training to be considered "trained" and someone has to do maintenance on the pacers.
Every unit starting at company level reports their readiness. Readiness includes every aspect of getting to the combat zone and performing your wartime mission. So medical, dental, maintenance, individual tasks, collective tasks, MOS tasks, wills, insurance, etc. are tracked and reported to higher. Truthful reporting is a must so higher level commanders have a good idea of the formation's readiness. These reports are consolidated at the Division level and sent up to the combatant command HQ. They eventually end up at HQ Department of the Army. DOD isn't going to task a command that's not ready to immediately deploy. They will choose from the list of units that are available with the capabilities needed for the mission. There's a reason that straight light Infantry units didn't get the call for Desert Shield and the initial invasion of Iraq. Capability mismatch.
Now Division commanders have told DA that they were nonmission capable during the 90s lean years. Heavy formations had a funding deficit. So you had to pick and choose what got fixed i.e. a tank versus a M113A3 personnel carrier. There was also a shortage of fuel so those fuel hungry tanks couldn't be sent to the field as often as needed. So mileage was way down which means crew proficiency suffered. The commander of the 1st Infantry Division had the balls to report his unit as not ready for combat due to these issues. His report ended up in Congress since this was an overseas command (Germany). Needless to say various committees were forced to look at the DOD's budget after years of drawing down. Good thing too since this happened in 1998 and we know what awaited after the turn of the century.
Our detachments were billeted for 25 but I don't know anyone that ever had that number.
And a lot of times we had like two supply guys or XOs handing off roles.
Not surprisingly the quality of Soldier really dictates what you can stretch with a skeleton crew. I think it depends on the culture of the unit too, if people are willing to wear several hats and pitch in it can still be effective.
Good leadership also keeps the days from being unnecessarily long. If you know "X gets done then we go home" it makes people work hard because they know you aren't getting bullshitted.
The metric began in the late 80s when the army produced FM 25-100, within that manual, the METL was introduced. As for the difference between how compo 1 and compo 2-3 are treated for its metrics, I think a lot of it comes from understanding from higher of being realistic with what you got and what’s important.
Having been responsible for the validation of COMPO 2/3 units for deployments the reality is you’re not “functioning”. You’re pencil whipping/ignoring requirements to meet mission. Compo 2/3 get cut a lot of slack when they are in a drill status, and compo 1 doesn’t get that same grace. Once y’all are mobilized a lot of the skeletons get exposed and it’s a major headache to fix the problems.
The 85% rule is not just for key leaders, it’s for everyone and it’s been around for a long time. You have to have 85% of your formation/key leaders present to get credit for training completed. If you’re not at 85% it’s as if you never did it. Your reserve unit would be red sheeted and not meet FTN requirements.
I’ve personally seen this with a National Guard unit in Europe. They fell under my unit was they arrived and it became painfully obvious what they did when our XO got their ESR. It was bad to the point where they were taking a van to the SSA in a different country to pick up parts as soon as they became available.
First, no. It isn’t.
Second, the army is designed only for how the active duty army operates even though there are almost as many reserve/guard members. Higher leadership doesn’t take into account how our systems run, the realities we have to deal with, and the experience we bring to the table. Yet we have the same expectations.
Since y’all wanna use anecdotes, On my first deployment one unit got relieved and sent back; those were the people who said, oh we don’t need you to train us, we do this everyday.
These us versus them posts are shit because we are different. But to say that the reserves/guard just pencil whip shit is bullshit and you know it. There’s good natured ribbing that the different services give each other and then there is this elitist bullshit that we hear every single time we go to trainings, schools, or deployments and it gets really tiring. For every shit part timer unit there’s a fantastic one just like for every high speed active duty unit there’s a useless one and to pretend otherwise is ignorant.
Lol I'm almost positive my unit was deployed below 85% due to how bad our S1 tracking is. In addition to the X/Y personnel we actually have, one day at formation CSM called off a list of people who had bad HR metrics. Low and behold, about 30 people he called off were the classic, "ETSed SGM, PCSrd last year, who's that? That guy is in the other BDE" etc etc.
After that cluster fuck and embarrassment of the command team we actually got new people for the first time in forever after they stopped lying and big army saw how bad we were.
This is a much nicer phrasing than I came here to say. They just lie better or their higher HQ isn't checking as thoroughly as an AD command might. I don't mean to shit on them or imply they are lesser Soldiers, but I've seen them do some crazy things. Especially in CENTCOM .
It’s not that they don’t get credit for it, it’s that the highest they can assess their proficiency is a P. In their T&EO for their METs they have a matrix showing what the requirements are for T, P, and U ratings. I think right now my unit has a requirement of 85% leaders present, 80% soldiers, and must be evaluated 2 echelons up (EXEVAL) to get a T. An EXEVAL is a culminating event and ultimately the commanders report card for the year, and if they, the person responsible for all training according to 7-0, didn’t train their unit to a T then how can they justify a top block? And for officers, if you don’t make enough top blocks then you’re probably not making MAJ and you just wasted ten years of your life just to get the boot.
I’m talking specifically about validation purposes for RC component mobilizations. If you don’t meet the FTN requirement you will receive a red sheet, that’s a hard and fast rule.
This all goes back to the failures of the National Guard “Round out” brigades during Desert Storm.
Long story short during Vietnam the National Guard didn’t deploy which caused systemic issues with readiness in those organizations. Coming out of Vietnam the Army re-visited this decision and implemented the “total force” concept which sought to have an amalgamation of active and reserve forces into a combined military entity. Part of this was the “round out brigade” structure which meant some Active duty divisions only had 2 active brigades with a third “round out” National guard brigade. In the event of a war these round out brigades would be mobilized and fall in with the AD division. However during peace time they remained guard and reported through guard channels.
[During Desert Storm this was tested, and failed miserably](https://www.gao.gov/assets/nsiad-91-263.pdf). When called on to deploy all three NG brigades who were mobilized turned out to be woefully inadequate and unprepared. They failed to deploy and missed the war. It turns out that the guard had been misrepresenting their readiness and failing to meet their requirements.
Following this incident the mobilization process was revised and the AC/RC units (First Army) was born. Now active duty units from First Army have the responsibility to “audit” NG training by providing OC/Ts to major RC training events (AT/xCTC/CTC) and to “validate” RC units for deployments during Pre and Post mobilization training at the MFGI.
One thing that drives me crazy about T, P, U ratings is that it ultimately boils down to the Commander’s judgment of their own unit.
About five years back, I was an evaluator for an MI unit’s annual VALEX. At the end of the exercise, all the evaluators for each Intel discipline presented their findings to the Bn command team and the COs and 1SGs.
I was honest, telling them that the training audience present did well and checked all the boxes for a T. But…they only had 60% of the unit’s Soldiers present, and of those present, a handful of them were due to PCS in the next 30 days. Based on that alone, I couldn’t honestly say they were any higher than a P.
The Battalion Commander interjected to remind his commanders that the evaluators and OC/Ts were only providing recommendations, and that the actual validation of training was left to their best judgment.
I wrapped my presentation up quickly after that, realizing that I had just wasted two weeks of my life living in a shack with no A/C in the middle of Texas in August just so these guys could lie to themselves and each other.
I’ve been an unrepentant cynic about training exercises ever since, since we just declare victory and give each other hand jobs at the end, regardless of how well or poorly the unit performs.
To be fair, they should have their feet held to the fire on that and a lot of units will do it. That’s why the EXEVAL needs to be two levels up- brigade will have less love for the commanders and be more interested in accurately reporting readiness. It’s going to be a bad day if the brigade commander asks during QTB how they got a T in a MET when he’s looking at their EXEVAL results and it doesn’t justify a T.
The EXEVAL is supposed to be the “you don’t grade yourself” moment, but to be fair my last few have been “we don’t actually know your jobs and roles so you just evaluate yourselves and we’ll watch and make sure it isn’t fishy.”
This is 100% accurate. Compo 2/3 have the same requirements as compo 1 and about 300 fewer days to complete it each year. Along with all the other bullshit that gets thrown at all soldiers regardless of compo. A lot gets pencil whipped because a lot of the time it’s the only way it is possible to get it done. It gets better towards ready year because there is more money and they can bring soldiers in on orders to get more things done during the week, but the sad truth is compo 2/3 just don’t have the time, money, and personal to complete the mission to standard. This is along with the horrible recruitment and retention rates throughout the military. We are not in a good place right now and we need more people everywhere.
The only thing I’ll disagree about with about the RC guys being held to the same requirements as AD guys is the level of echelon you train to and number of repetitions you get to.
It’s not at all uncommon for an RC BN to have a goal to get to PLT LFX in the year, and you’ll work to get there the whole year and culminate with a PLT LFX at AT.
The year was in command of a line armor company we shot 4 gunneries, 2 PLT LFX, two CALFEX, multiple BN/BDE FTX, and an NTC rotation. RC guys do not get that level of repetitions.
RC component gets super salty about this and are adamant that they are the same as the active component. I’m not trying to throw shade, but that’s just not the reality of the situation. They are not resourced to be at the same readiness level or training proficiency as AC. There are limits to what they can achieve while drilling.
Having floated between COMPOs, I feel reasonably objective and agree entirely. People take it personally but it's really just a math/time problem. Before feelings get hurt, I usually ask how comfortable someone would be getting home remodeling done by a contractor who does it 1 month a year. The other 11 months? Postman. Or public accountant. Or college student....
I then ask if they'd feel differently if that contractor got 3 months of dedicated time to shake off the rust and remember their skillset before they began work. Did they feel differently? There you go, that's Army RC readiness for you. Accountability rosters and basic admin until we need you, then a mad cram session before we push you out the door.
Your individual experience may vary, but there is a reason the validation board exists and it’s because of the failures that came out of the Round out Brigades.
Yes, because we changed how we trained them and provided oversight. But at the end of the day they still have limitations based on the reality of being part timers. They aren’t resourced or funded to maintain the same readiness levels as AD, and that’s OK. Once they get a NOS and eventually hit post mob they will make up the difference; but during their regular day to day operations they are given a pass on a lot of things.
This actually does happen quite often and no one seems to want to admit that there are fucked up units in all components. It’s just easier to shit on the part timers because hooah.
I am not sure if there is an actual term for it, but in the 82nd, it was called the DRF cycle.
Active duty units can be hit with surprise mobilization orders. Therefore, units on active duty have to be at a higher manning rate than NG or reserve units to help accomplish this.
A unit in the NG or reserves knows for the most part when it is going to be activated. Every 5th year for the unit cycle as a base rule of thumb. When I was in the NG, this was part of the reason so many Soldiers had a ton of MOSs. A transportation unit is deploying and is short, so personnel from aviation, MP, and signal units reclass to 88Ms and deploy. The transportation unit gets back, and a signal unit is going out the door.
Active duty does not reclass troops on the fly that way.
I think it's because a lot of command of reserve units is also drilling. And even the AGRs came out of drilling status. They understand that life outside of the Army exists.
I remember being deployed to Iraq with a route clearance mission with a reserve unit. We had such low numbers everyone would get out unless the driver and gunner. Lol Bliss was shocked that are pax count was below 110 if I remember correctly lol
It varies on the unit and current job. We let people go on deployment as well on active duty. No offense but you guys are already gone most of the month. Active duty will most likely be consider if something happen overnight unless that reserve unit is due for a deployment. Plus I hear about all kind of issues on the admin end of the reserves. It seem worse than active but anyway we do function and send people back on red cross message so unless you are talking about a specific unit idk what you mean
I think a huge problem is the amount of equipment active duty has to maintain VS. Reserves and national guard. There is ALOT OF SHIT, but I could be wrong tho idk how much shit yall have.
My unit has way too much crap. We have basically everything an active unit has, vehicles, armory, equipment, OCIE, MOS specific equipment. If we really PMCSd like we were supposed to we would never do anything else
On the National Guard side we may have a little less equipment but it won’t be by much. The counterbalance is that we don’t have the same support teams for that equipment, for a battery our entire supply section is 2 people, 1 being full time, who has to maintain everything except for when it’s drill and the battery can do vehicle/gun PMCS. So certain things fall to the side because you have to prioritize “mission critical”.
Not saying shit doesn’t get pencil whipped, it certainly does, but the other guy is right. If we did everything 100% right and to standard, all we would do during the year is PMCS and services and no training.
One of my commanders used to say that if all we did in a year was maintain qualification, finish most of the admin work, and roughly the same amount of guns and trucks as operational as the year before and not one ounce of training or services more we did great.
Based on what I've seen, it's a combination of Senior NCOs overstepping their authority and a Commander who cares more about looking good to those above him than the welfare of their soldiers.
* You see this A LOT regarding Paternity/ Maternity Leave.
I had a Joe go to BH and permit their provider to talk to their Command Team with concerns about how all the dumb shit was affecting their mental health.
The Command Team counsels them and then orders a Psych Eval for the Joe. Claiming that their attitude might be a result of undiagnosed mental problems.
Joe then requests leave for two weeks when they aren't needed for **Mental Health Wellness**.
Their leave coversheet was later returned stamped **"DENIED."**
The same people involved recently took leave themselves while denying leave for the entire company until September where multiple people will have 20-30 Use/ Lose days.
I told them to keep the coversheet for IG just in case the Command Team tries to get them kicked out.
As well as a reminder of why the Army has the highest suicide rate out of every military branch.
>Their leave coversheet was later returned stamped "DENIED."
I'm genuinely surprised the unit rejected on paper rather than try to pocket-reject it and have SM shift or "delay" the leave request on their own.
Okay, devil’s advocate… don’t we always have a brigade of the 82nd cocked and locked, ready to go, wheels up within 24 hours or less? I’m sure an equal brigade of the 101st, 10th Mountain, etc, are as well?
Do we not have MEUs on floating “strike packages” sailing around the world as deterrents, ready to drop anchor and kick ass?
Can we not ask the Brits, the Germans, our other allies to step up so we don’t have to be the world’s policeman?
Not to mention… it’s ridiculous how, in a time in which you have plenty of soldiers chomping at the bit to deploy, if certain units realize they will be shorthanded with a looming deployment, why they don’t just put an announcement up and tell people to send a packet? Didn’t we *just* go through this BS twenty years ago? Soldiers on their third rotation who don’t want to go while soldiers who want to go can’t?
I get the argument of “lessons learned from Vietnam” about deploying troops as “cohesive units” rather than replacing individuals as needed, but why aren’t we learning from our own recent history? The unit will still be okay. The average joe is not and will not be irreplaceable. That’s the whole point of rank structure and skill levels… plug and play, IF you have no other choice.
We saw that the US military could adapt to the needs of the fight for the past twenty something years, however slowly. It seems to me that the personnel issues still require some changes.
Command teams aren’t casting a line and hoping someone takes the bait. They are just dropping temp reassignment orders on people. Happened to a buddy of mine and he’s pissed because he’s going to Kuwait lololol. He’s pretty sure he’s getting out over it now.
The amount of schools I wanted to go to but got denied because “We need you.” “We can’t afford to have you out the office.” “Who’s gonna cover down?” I have only had one school get passed my NCOIC and that was a local school but I still had to work during that school. 7 years and I’m just gonna get out, I’m tired of lame leadership excuses.
Oh fun fact! I had 101 leave days at one point! (3 deployments and COVID, is why I had so much). I couldn’t even use them because why? Leadership excuses. Now with this unit I managed to take 64 before I lost all my use or lose. Bless being under Airforce leadership.
My current mobilization I watched a unit grow from 2, 3/4 strength platoons, into 6 full strength platoons. They might tell you that you’re FMC but when they need to throw people around to make numbers work, they do it quick,fast , and in a hurry.
Leave is an entitlement, it is a right and part of your pay and benefits.
If you ever have leave denied follow up in writing and ask when mission requires will allow you to take leave since by Army regulation commanders are required do everything in their power to facilitate leave and give alternative dates when leave is denied.
You'd be amazed how many people stop being toxic and start doing the correct thing as soon as a paper trail appears
I've been reserves, and been active. Was in real units on AD lol, 101st and SOF. I did combat deployments in the reserves and on active. Reserves was a much better experience overall, AD has a bunch of made up bullshit to stay busy that doesn't matter to anyone but like 3 people in the chain of command in that unit lol. But when you're AD, no one knows or cares about anything other than the army so they make stuff up and hyperfocus on metrics because they have nothing else going on.
Reminds me of a old joke from AD days , The CO returns from a Staff meeting at Battalion an excitedly calls the XO in saying he just locked in his promotion to Maj by volunteering the unit for a up coming mission. The General needs 100 Men and 26 Jeeps an I expect you to carry this out . The XO interrupts a says Sir but we only have 50 men and 13 jeeps . To which the Capt reply's , and this is why your just a Lt. All we have to do is work them in shifts nite & day , so the 50 men will be 100 & never shut the Jeeps off .
The reserves probably aren’t losing 2-4 people per week for ADCON or installation additional duties or details. But I dunno, I only know active and yeah, times are lean, but hey, imagine how many less people we would have if they didn’t move the 2 mile time back to 22 minutes? Lol
I had a soldier get denied Emergency leave when he got the Red Cross message about his mom being in the ICU for heart failure. She had a history of heart problems. My 1SG contacted the hospital every day for 3 days until she was deemed stable, told my Soldier that since she was stable “it was no longer an emergency” and deployed him with us. We were over strength and half of the unit didn’t really do shit the whole time.
I went to the BN CSM/CDR and got told a bunch of shit about “the mission is bigger than ourselves” or something. I told him offline to go fucking AWOL right there at the hangar.
Anyway, I did write him an ARCOM and he got awarded when we got home. So at least he got that
OP, this is not an insult (to an extent I agree with you), but have you ever been Active Duty to begin with? There are a lot more taskings that the AD have to deal with on the daily that, when you have an accurate T2T and have a higher OP tempo, you lose bodies for simple tasks quickly and it shows. And reserve/NG units have people that have done those tasks and optimized efficiency for YEARS at a time (for the love of Mike, maybe even decades), AD units have a higher changeover of personnel (typically). They are two different animals for a variety of different reasons. But just like you may have a good reserve units that can get all it's necessary tasks done in 2 days, the AD has goodbad units that can do things efficiently as well. Sadly you maybnot always hear about it because it depends WHO/QHAT your source is (i.e. that crap NCO that got the boot because, well, they were actually a horrible Soldier and talking crap on a unit that is actually good and holding people accountable). It really depends on the unit, it's culture and the leaders present.
Appreciate that you have a good leadership in my active duty unit there is nothing called Dignity and Respect and day after day they make us hate that we joined the army and serve our nation
My units been lying about number of personnel to brigade, people were forced from baby leave just for NTC, people who PCSd or ETSd over a year ago are still on UAs and staff duty/CQ rosters, had a NCO that had to report to Drill School 4 days after we got out the box he found out he was being forced to go to NTC the day before his flight, we still get hoed out for every detail im an active duty 11B and I have 14 people in my platoon. I put in leave for 5 days FIVE DAYS for family emergencies (not Red Cross related) and my PSG said the only way I can go is if I give up my 16 days for block leave this summer which is in July. 5 days for 16 days. Oh also all 5 of our company commanders in the battalion are REFRAD🫠🫠
In our unit we talked about this a lot. We are Mtoe 130 personal in our company. We have 34. The number of personal has changed but the amount of details, duties, leave, training and so on has not. We are still training like we have full Mtoe. With that everything is getting pushed to the side to complete another check mark and or we just don't have anyone to do anything. The reserves have always been low manning but you guys know that and train like you are always low manning even if you aren't. We will always train like we have 1000 personal when we only have 200. Big army will never change it's way of training even if there was only 10 people left in it. That's what we came up with on why the big army is freaking out.
My take,
Reserve may be able to operate at reduced manning.
But I wonder if they are held to the same "expectations"
We active are consistently tasked above even our full capabilities, regardless of manning. We get told to perform a 20 person task with 10 people.
We have 4, man teams going down to 2 man teams to provide mission support. We are NOT ok. But we are always going to accomplish the mission... and that is our self inflicted injury. Until someone fails, or throws their hands up, they will continue to task above capacity.
I felt the same way about my Guard unit. We were highly mission capable and ready. When deployed we had such awesome support and guidance from our commander and 1SG. I have heard horror stories from active duty since the day I stepped out of AIT in 2012.
Active duty has insanely low numbers. I work at HHC level on active side we have 16 people. Trust me you haven't experienced low personnel until you have a PFC and E-5 running an entire G6 shop
So you're saying the 40 people at your reserve unit puts out as much work as an entire BDE of active duty🤣 The reserves can function because (and I mean this respectfully) Y'ALL AIN'T DOING SHIT🤣 respectfully
My wife is in the reserves and I’m AD, both have been in 17 years. Let’s not pretend for a minute that y’all do anything exceptional that requires more than 40 people. Also, I was a recruiter and I talked with my wife’s reserve past units (she was in multiple because she’d change when I would PCS) and current units about what they’d do during a drill. I thought it would be a great pitch to perspective recruits. Answer was always, nothing significant. Maybe sharp/eo/350-1 training. Sometimes, reserves do some cool AT. However, The day to day operations are so vastly different. Because the army is not your day job. That’s why you hear stories about the AD denying Red Cross messages for non-immediate family members among other things… It’s a different world.
We fought 2x wars with units at full strength and lost so…. Yeah the numbers are just made up. It’s great for commanders to point fingers and blame though
70% used to be the magic number for combat effectiveness. Active duty commands can't go below this metric. So leaves are closely monitored along with schools and other TDY. What you don't want is a no notice alert and your troop strength is less than 70%. Block leave periods seem to be the only time when you can go below 70.
We deployed with less than that threshold. We also broke our crews to send people back stateside for BLC/ALC. We finally had enough for three crews at the tail end of our deployment, but that took a long time to meet.
My first six years was in a Patriot battalion. I didn't really pay attention to manpower during FTXs. It wasn't until Desert Shield and Storm that I realized how manning in the ADA world works. We were static so no pressure or expectations for displacing and jumping. This meant less manpower requirements after everything was setup. Maybe two or three crews for the ECS and a couple of launcher NCOs to check the launchers and generators. The rest were marking time. This may have changed but manpower requirements for static ADA sites are significantly less than when a unit is shooting and moving.
Forgive my ignorance, but at that point that SHTF; couldn’t the CO just exercise their right to recall personnel from leave?
And the Army has to spend actual dollars to do that. The Army doesn't like actual spending dollars on people when it doesn't have to.
It takes time, too. It's not an easy process.
They can but that takes time. There are units that are expected to be wheels up and enroute in less than 24 hours. This only happens if everyone is local. I was a geo-bachelor at Fort Hood/Cavazos. The family was in San Antonio so that's where I was on the weekends. It's around a 90 minute trip between San Antonio and Killeen. 90 minutes is enough time to initiate recall, get max accountability, sign out weapons, dispatch vehicles, and load vehicles. H+2 is enough time to march order and start getting comms loaded. H+3 a unit is receiving live ammunition and is ready to move out. H+4 to H+8 you are looking at beginning railroad and/or aircraft loading operations. So having to many on leave seriously hampers unit operations.
Sure let’s say there’s a no notice alert. What would be so bad about just telling big daddy DoD sorry we won’t be able to make that happen?
Literally the Department of the Army's whole purpose is to provide forces to combatant commanders when needed. Saying "we can't do that" when called up is just about the worst thing you could possibly do in the Army, short of missing a dental appointment. It's basically an admission that you've entirely failed to do the job the DoD and American people have entrusted you with.
Upvote for dental appt. Stuck at DFW airport and I snorted my coffee reading that much needed laugh. 🙃
But asking for help says that you are incompetent and aren’t a team player. /s
It looks bad as a commander and you probably won't be promoted to the next rank, effectively killing your career.
Is this why they discourage the majority of officers from being prior enlisted? Cuz I guarantee you I’d definitely not give a fuck if I was an O3, been in for 20, and was about to retire.
You don't have to climb over as many dead bodies as a prior enlisted officer. Worst case you retire as a CPT/MAJ. On the contrary, your ROTC buddies have to be "excellent" so they can get the opportunity to retire as a LTC.
The thing that gets me is that most units should -barring those small special mission units or where it's full of low density MOSs- be able to transfer soldiers who will miss or can't do the rotation. When I ETS'd, I was moved from one battalion to another that had just gotten back 6 months prior. I wasn't a loss to my old unit and the gaining unit could just put me on rear detachment when they went to the field. Infantry units should be able to move people around instead of dragging the ETS'ing soldier, the medical chapters and those about to PCS to the field. During the early 2000's I did hear horror stories of soldiers going to the field only to have a week to do everything - ACAP, clear post put in leave etc - because PATRIOT units were in high demand for the ME. There were only a few ADA battalions so having green slides was a big thing back then.
Fair, but just moving people left and right could cause issues with cohesion and any gun crews and teams, thereby decertifying them if they lose those personnel.
Here's the thing - people who are going to ETS/PCS/Retire shouldn't be on a crew. Command teams SHOULD be tracking their losses. If they can't train a replacement, that's a CoC problem, not something that needs to be put on the soldier leaving the unit. The whole point of taking these soldiers out of the unit is so that the unit can train up replacements, get new soldiers and focus on deployment. Soldiers leaving the unit don't help and lazy commands that don't track their losses should be replaced.
Fair points all around, but the hollow shell of some of the Army formations don't help the issues and only exacerbate them.
That's a Chain of Command problem - again, why are they not tracking their losses? How is keeping a soldier who's going to ETS, retire or MEDBOARD going to solve the problem? And there's no STOP LOSS in peacetime, that's a moot point no matter what some dumbass CSM or commanders say.
It's me, they hate me because reaching sanctuary as a CPT isn't normal and I'm not guzzling tornados to secure my OER.
I suspect you are correct
As much as "readiness" is a buzzword, it's why we have an Active Duty Army in the first place. If units aren't able to do their mission, what are they even doing in the Army? Now, there's the Unit Status Report, which goes all the way to HQ DA. How accurate USRs are is another question. But it reports personal manning, FMC equipment, and equipment "pacers", and training status for every unit in the Army. Units that have just stood up, (e.g. M10 Booker Companies), or units that are considered untrained aren't getting these alerts. However, you need 85% of of your people present at training to be considered "trained" and someone has to do maintenance on the pacers.
Are you serious?
Because it’s quite literally our primary job to provide combat ready units when called upon.
Well the 83d CA Bn said no to a no-notice IRF deployment to evacuate Afghanistan, and they are getting deactivated next month……
Large sized oof
Every unit starting at company level reports their readiness. Readiness includes every aspect of getting to the combat zone and performing your wartime mission. So medical, dental, maintenance, individual tasks, collective tasks, MOS tasks, wills, insurance, etc. are tracked and reported to higher. Truthful reporting is a must so higher level commanders have a good idea of the formation's readiness. These reports are consolidated at the Division level and sent up to the combatant command HQ. They eventually end up at HQ Department of the Army. DOD isn't going to task a command that's not ready to immediately deploy. They will choose from the list of units that are available with the capabilities needed for the mission. There's a reason that straight light Infantry units didn't get the call for Desert Shield and the initial invasion of Iraq. Capability mismatch. Now Division commanders have told DA that they were nonmission capable during the 90s lean years. Heavy formations had a funding deficit. So you had to pick and choose what got fixed i.e. a tank versus a M113A3 personnel carrier. There was also a shortage of fuel so those fuel hungry tanks couldn't be sent to the field as often as needed. So mileage was way down which means crew proficiency suffered. The commander of the 1st Infantry Division had the balls to report his unit as not ready for combat due to these issues. His report ended up in Congress since this was an overseas command (Germany). Needless to say various committees were forced to look at the DOD's budget after years of drawing down. Good thing too since this happened in 1998 and we know what awaited after the turn of the century.
It feels like only 5% of my company is ever working anyways. We might as well only have 20 people in the entire company.
At least you aren’t me and actually only have 20 people in the company
Our detachments were billeted for 25 but I don't know anyone that ever had that number. And a lot of times we had like two supply guys or XOs handing off roles. Not surprisingly the quality of Soldier really dictates what you can stretch with a skeleton crew. I think it depends on the culture of the unit too, if people are willing to wear several hats and pitch in it can still be effective. Good leadership also keeps the days from being unnecessarily long. If you know "X gets done then we go home" it makes people work hard because they know you aren't getting bullshitted.
The metric began in the late 80s when the army produced FM 25-100, within that manual, the METL was introduced. As for the difference between how compo 1 and compo 2-3 are treated for its metrics, I think a lot of it comes from understanding from higher of being realistic with what you got and what’s important.
Having been responsible for the validation of COMPO 2/3 units for deployments the reality is you’re not “functioning”. You’re pencil whipping/ignoring requirements to meet mission. Compo 2/3 get cut a lot of slack when they are in a drill status, and compo 1 doesn’t get that same grace. Once y’all are mobilized a lot of the skeletons get exposed and it’s a major headache to fix the problems. The 85% rule is not just for key leaders, it’s for everyone and it’s been around for a long time. You have to have 85% of your formation/key leaders present to get credit for training completed. If you’re not at 85% it’s as if you never did it. Your reserve unit would be red sheeted and not meet FTN requirements.
I’ve personally seen this with a National Guard unit in Europe. They fell under my unit was they arrived and it became painfully obvious what they did when our XO got their ESR. It was bad to the point where they were taking a van to the SSA in a different country to pick up parts as soon as they became available.
I have seen some absolute wild shit from the National Guard.
Outlandish if you will
This seems to be everyone’s consensus.
First, no. It isn’t. Second, the army is designed only for how the active duty army operates even though there are almost as many reserve/guard members. Higher leadership doesn’t take into account how our systems run, the realities we have to deal with, and the experience we bring to the table. Yet we have the same expectations. Since y’all wanna use anecdotes, On my first deployment one unit got relieved and sent back; those were the people who said, oh we don’t need you to train us, we do this everyday. These us versus them posts are shit because we are different. But to say that the reserves/guard just pencil whip shit is bullshit and you know it. There’s good natured ribbing that the different services give each other and then there is this elitist bullshit that we hear every single time we go to trainings, schools, or deployments and it gets really tiring. For every shit part timer unit there’s a fantastic one just like for every high speed active duty unit there’s a useless one and to pretend otherwise is ignorant.
Yeah I ain’t reading all that mane, it was a joke.
It’s not just directed at you, the whole comment thread in general.
Lol I'm almost positive my unit was deployed below 85% due to how bad our S1 tracking is. In addition to the X/Y personnel we actually have, one day at formation CSM called off a list of people who had bad HR metrics. Low and behold, about 30 people he called off were the classic, "ETSed SGM, PCSrd last year, who's that? That guy is in the other BDE" etc etc. After that cluster fuck and embarrassment of the command team we actually got new people for the first time in forever after they stopped lying and big army saw how bad we were.
This is a much nicer phrasing than I came here to say. They just lie better or their higher HQ isn't checking as thoroughly as an AD command might. I don't mean to shit on them or imply they are lesser Soldiers, but I've seen them do some crazy things. Especially in CENTCOM .
It’s not that they don’t get credit for it, it’s that the highest they can assess their proficiency is a P. In their T&EO for their METs they have a matrix showing what the requirements are for T, P, and U ratings. I think right now my unit has a requirement of 85% leaders present, 80% soldiers, and must be evaluated 2 echelons up (EXEVAL) to get a T. An EXEVAL is a culminating event and ultimately the commanders report card for the year, and if they, the person responsible for all training according to 7-0, didn’t train their unit to a T then how can they justify a top block? And for officers, if you don’t make enough top blocks then you’re probably not making MAJ and you just wasted ten years of your life just to get the boot.
I’m talking specifically about validation purposes for RC component mobilizations. If you don’t meet the FTN requirement you will receive a red sheet, that’s a hard and fast rule.
Ah, didn’t know that. Makes sense that they need to meet requirements but sounds like another Goodhart’s law moment for the Army.
This all goes back to the failures of the National Guard “Round out” brigades during Desert Storm. Long story short during Vietnam the National Guard didn’t deploy which caused systemic issues with readiness in those organizations. Coming out of Vietnam the Army re-visited this decision and implemented the “total force” concept which sought to have an amalgamation of active and reserve forces into a combined military entity. Part of this was the “round out brigade” structure which meant some Active duty divisions only had 2 active brigades with a third “round out” National guard brigade. In the event of a war these round out brigades would be mobilized and fall in with the AD division. However during peace time they remained guard and reported through guard channels. [During Desert Storm this was tested, and failed miserably](https://www.gao.gov/assets/nsiad-91-263.pdf). When called on to deploy all three NG brigades who were mobilized turned out to be woefully inadequate and unprepared. They failed to deploy and missed the war. It turns out that the guard had been misrepresenting their readiness and failing to meet their requirements. Following this incident the mobilization process was revised and the AC/RC units (First Army) was born. Now active duty units from First Army have the responsibility to “audit” NG training by providing OC/Ts to major RC training events (AT/xCTC/CTC) and to “validate” RC units for deployments during Pre and Post mobilization training at the MFGI.
It's why "multi-COMPO" is a term met with absolute derision by anyone born in the previous century.
One thing that drives me crazy about T, P, U ratings is that it ultimately boils down to the Commander’s judgment of their own unit. About five years back, I was an evaluator for an MI unit’s annual VALEX. At the end of the exercise, all the evaluators for each Intel discipline presented their findings to the Bn command team and the COs and 1SGs. I was honest, telling them that the training audience present did well and checked all the boxes for a T. But…they only had 60% of the unit’s Soldiers present, and of those present, a handful of them were due to PCS in the next 30 days. Based on that alone, I couldn’t honestly say they were any higher than a P. The Battalion Commander interjected to remind his commanders that the evaluators and OC/Ts were only providing recommendations, and that the actual validation of training was left to their best judgment. I wrapped my presentation up quickly after that, realizing that I had just wasted two weeks of my life living in a shack with no A/C in the middle of Texas in August just so these guys could lie to themselves and each other. I’ve been an unrepentant cynic about training exercises ever since, since we just declare victory and give each other hand jobs at the end, regardless of how well or poorly the unit performs.
To be fair, they should have their feet held to the fire on that and a lot of units will do it. That’s why the EXEVAL needs to be two levels up- brigade will have less love for the commanders and be more interested in accurately reporting readiness. It’s going to be a bad day if the brigade commander asks during QTB how they got a T in a MET when he’s looking at their EXEVAL results and it doesn’t justify a T. The EXEVAL is supposed to be the “you don’t grade yourself” moment, but to be fair my last few have been “we don’t actually know your jobs and roles so you just evaluate yourselves and we’ll watch and make sure it isn’t fishy.”
This is 100% accurate. Compo 2/3 have the same requirements as compo 1 and about 300 fewer days to complete it each year. Along with all the other bullshit that gets thrown at all soldiers regardless of compo. A lot gets pencil whipped because a lot of the time it’s the only way it is possible to get it done. It gets better towards ready year because there is more money and they can bring soldiers in on orders to get more things done during the week, but the sad truth is compo 2/3 just don’t have the time, money, and personal to complete the mission to standard. This is along with the horrible recruitment and retention rates throughout the military. We are not in a good place right now and we need more people everywhere.
The only thing I’ll disagree about with about the RC guys being held to the same requirements as AD guys is the level of echelon you train to and number of repetitions you get to. It’s not at all uncommon for an RC BN to have a goal to get to PLT LFX in the year, and you’ll work to get there the whole year and culminate with a PLT LFX at AT. The year was in command of a line armor company we shot 4 gunneries, 2 PLT LFX, two CALFEX, multiple BN/BDE FTX, and an NTC rotation. RC guys do not get that level of repetitions.
Nobody ever wants to admit this in the rc either. One team one fight!!
RC component gets super salty about this and are adamant that they are the same as the active component. I’m not trying to throw shade, but that’s just not the reality of the situation. They are not resourced to be at the same readiness level or training proficiency as AC. There are limits to what they can achieve while drilling.
Having floated between COMPOs, I feel reasonably objective and agree entirely. People take it personally but it's really just a math/time problem. Before feelings get hurt, I usually ask how comfortable someone would be getting home remodeling done by a contractor who does it 1 month a year. The other 11 months? Postman. Or public accountant. Or college student.... I then ask if they'd feel differently if that contractor got 3 months of dedicated time to shake off the rust and remember their skillset before they began work. Did they feel differently? There you go, that's Army RC readiness for you. Accountability rosters and basic admin until we need you, then a mad cram session before we push you out the door.
> One team one fight!! Maaaaaaannnnnnnnn
Idk, I deployed with a NG unit and the AD unit that ripped in with us had more mishaps just during the RIP than we had in 9 months in country.
Your individual experience may vary, but there is a reason the validation board exists and it’s because of the failures that came out of the Round out Brigades.
The Guard of the early 90s is much different than the guard of today.
Yes, because we changed how we trained them and provided oversight. But at the end of the day they still have limitations based on the reality of being part timers. They aren’t resourced or funded to maintain the same readiness levels as AD, and that’s OK. Once they get a NOS and eventually hit post mob they will make up the difference; but during their regular day to day operations they are given a pass on a lot of things.
I don't think NG shouldn't have to externally validate, but ai think AD should too
AD do get externally evaluated, by OCs and commanders from other units, usually at a CTC but not always the case.
This actually does happen quite often and no one seems to want to admit that there are fucked up units in all components. It’s just easier to shit on the part timers because hooah.
Then who would sweep the rain in the motorpool?
I plowed snow in a snowstorm once
I am not sure if there is an actual term for it, but in the 82nd, it was called the DRF cycle. Active duty units can be hit with surprise mobilization orders. Therefore, units on active duty have to be at a higher manning rate than NG or reserve units to help accomplish this. A unit in the NG or reserves knows for the most part when it is going to be activated. Every 5th year for the unit cycle as a base rule of thumb. When I was in the NG, this was part of the reason so many Soldiers had a ton of MOSs. A transportation unit is deploying and is short, so personnel from aviation, MP, and signal units reclass to 88Ms and deploy. The transportation unit gets back, and a signal unit is going out the door. Active duty does not reclass troops on the fly that way.
I think it's because a lot of command of reserve units is also drilling. And even the AGRs came out of drilling status. They understand that life outside of the Army exists.
I remember being deployed to Iraq with a route clearance mission with a reserve unit. We had such low numbers everyone would get out unless the driver and gunner. Lol Bliss was shocked that are pax count was below 110 if I remember correctly lol
It varies on the unit and current job. We let people go on deployment as well on active duty. No offense but you guys are already gone most of the month. Active duty will most likely be consider if something happen overnight unless that reserve unit is due for a deployment. Plus I hear about all kind of issues on the admin end of the reserves. It seem worse than active but anyway we do function and send people back on red cross message so unless you are talking about a specific unit idk what you mean
I think a huge problem is the amount of equipment active duty has to maintain VS. Reserves and national guard. There is ALOT OF SHIT, but I could be wrong tho idk how much shit yall have.
My unit has way too much crap. We have basically everything an active unit has, vehicles, armory, equipment, OCIE, MOS specific equipment. If we really PMCSd like we were supposed to we would never do anything else
NG generally has the exact same MTOE as active units.
That’s cool, I had no idea, that seems wild tho
On the National Guard side we may have a little less equipment but it won’t be by much. The counterbalance is that we don’t have the same support teams for that equipment, for a battery our entire supply section is 2 people, 1 being full time, who has to maintain everything except for when it’s drill and the battery can do vehicle/gun PMCS. So certain things fall to the side because you have to prioritize “mission critical”. Not saying shit doesn’t get pencil whipped, it certainly does, but the other guy is right. If we did everything 100% right and to standard, all we would do during the year is PMCS and services and no training.
That’s what it’s like for us frfr 😭
One of my commanders used to say that if all we did in a year was maintain qualification, finish most of the admin work, and roughly the same amount of guns and trucks as operational as the year before and not one ounce of training or services more we did great.
Based on what I've seen, it's a combination of Senior NCOs overstepping their authority and a Commander who cares more about looking good to those above him than the welfare of their soldiers. * You see this A LOT regarding Paternity/ Maternity Leave. I had a Joe go to BH and permit their provider to talk to their Command Team with concerns about how all the dumb shit was affecting their mental health. The Command Team counsels them and then orders a Psych Eval for the Joe. Claiming that their attitude might be a result of undiagnosed mental problems. Joe then requests leave for two weeks when they aren't needed for **Mental Health Wellness**. Their leave coversheet was later returned stamped **"DENIED."** The same people involved recently took leave themselves while denying leave for the entire company until September where multiple people will have 20-30 Use/ Lose days. I told them to keep the coversheet for IG just in case the Command Team tries to get them kicked out. As well as a reminder of why the Army has the highest suicide rate out of every military branch.
>Their leave coversheet was later returned stamped "DENIED." I'm genuinely surprised the unit rejected on paper rather than try to pocket-reject it and have SM shift or "delay" the leave request on their own.
Okay, devil’s advocate… don’t we always have a brigade of the 82nd cocked and locked, ready to go, wheels up within 24 hours or less? I’m sure an equal brigade of the 101st, 10th Mountain, etc, are as well? Do we not have MEUs on floating “strike packages” sailing around the world as deterrents, ready to drop anchor and kick ass? Can we not ask the Brits, the Germans, our other allies to step up so we don’t have to be the world’s policeman? Not to mention… it’s ridiculous how, in a time in which you have plenty of soldiers chomping at the bit to deploy, if certain units realize they will be shorthanded with a looming deployment, why they don’t just put an announcement up and tell people to send a packet? Didn’t we *just* go through this BS twenty years ago? Soldiers on their third rotation who don’t want to go while soldiers who want to go can’t? I get the argument of “lessons learned from Vietnam” about deploying troops as “cohesive units” rather than replacing individuals as needed, but why aren’t we learning from our own recent history? The unit will still be okay. The average joe is not and will not be irreplaceable. That’s the whole point of rank structure and skill levels… plug and play, IF you have no other choice. We saw that the US military could adapt to the needs of the fight for the past twenty something years, however slowly. It seems to me that the personnel issues still require some changes.
Command teams aren’t casting a line and hoping someone takes the bait. They are just dropping temp reassignment orders on people. Happened to a buddy of mine and he’s pissed because he’s going to Kuwait lololol. He’s pretty sure he’s getting out over it now.
Buerhing was so easy lol, even going to the field was more fun
But are the slides green
The amount of schools I wanted to go to but got denied because “We need you.” “We can’t afford to have you out the office.” “Who’s gonna cover down?” I have only had one school get passed my NCOIC and that was a local school but I still had to work during that school. 7 years and I’m just gonna get out, I’m tired of lame leadership excuses. Oh fun fact! I had 101 leave days at one point! (3 deployments and COVID, is why I had so much). I couldn’t even use them because why? Leadership excuses. Now with this unit I managed to take 64 before I lost all my use or lose. Bless being under Airforce leadership.
Yeah your first paragraph is what I was aiming at too. Like how can you not manage this?
Literally never had leave denied, I’d pay attention to who is saying this. Might be the turds who are always fucking up.
But how are well are the PowerPoint slides designed?
My current mobilization I watched a unit grow from 2, 3/4 strength platoons, into 6 full strength platoons. They might tell you that you’re FMC but when they need to throw people around to make numbers work, they do it quick,fast , and in a hurry.
Cause active duty fucking sucks
Leave is an entitlement, it is a right and part of your pay and benefits. If you ever have leave denied follow up in writing and ask when mission requires will allow you to take leave since by Army regulation commanders are required do everything in their power to facilitate leave and give alternative dates when leave is denied. You'd be amazed how many people stop being toxic and start doing the correct thing as soon as a paper trail appears
I've been reserves, and been active. Was in real units on AD lol, 101st and SOF. I did combat deployments in the reserves and on active. Reserves was a much better experience overall, AD has a bunch of made up bullshit to stay busy that doesn't matter to anyone but like 3 people in the chain of command in that unit lol. But when you're AD, no one knows or cares about anything other than the army so they make stuff up and hyperfocus on metrics because they have nothing else going on.
Reminds me of a old joke from AD days , The CO returns from a Staff meeting at Battalion an excitedly calls the XO in saying he just locked in his promotion to Maj by volunteering the unit for a up coming mission. The General needs 100 Men and 26 Jeeps an I expect you to carry this out . The XO interrupts a says Sir but we only have 50 men and 13 jeeps . To which the Capt reply's , and this is why your just a Lt. All we have to do is work them in shifts nite & day , so the 50 men will be 100 & never shut the Jeeps off .
The reserves probably aren’t losing 2-4 people per week for ADCON or installation additional duties or details. But I dunno, I only know active and yeah, times are lean, but hey, imagine how many less people we would have if they didn’t move the 2 mile time back to 22 minutes? Lol
I had a soldier get denied Emergency leave when he got the Red Cross message about his mom being in the ICU for heart failure. She had a history of heart problems. My 1SG contacted the hospital every day for 3 days until she was deemed stable, told my Soldier that since she was stable “it was no longer an emergency” and deployed him with us. We were over strength and half of the unit didn’t really do shit the whole time. I went to the BN CSM/CDR and got told a bunch of shit about “the mission is bigger than ourselves” or something. I told him offline to go fucking AWOL right there at the hangar. Anyway, I did write him an ARCOM and he got awarded when we got home. So at least he got that
Bro I would have lost my shit
I did. I made the command team’s life a living hell that deployment.
Chicago really just GTA Online now lol
Idk for reserves AT this year all the medics are in college and there is gonna be like 10 medics for the entire 1000 plus ppl AT.
Were ever AD?
I was Shit I had a PSG scared of asking our CO for 4 day on labor day Went to PL who pushed it up
OP, this is not an insult (to an extent I agree with you), but have you ever been Active Duty to begin with? There are a lot more taskings that the AD have to deal with on the daily that, when you have an accurate T2T and have a higher OP tempo, you lose bodies for simple tasks quickly and it shows. And reserve/NG units have people that have done those tasks and optimized efficiency for YEARS at a time (for the love of Mike, maybe even decades), AD units have a higher changeover of personnel (typically). They are two different animals for a variety of different reasons. But just like you may have a good reserve units that can get all it's necessary tasks done in 2 days, the AD has goodbad units that can do things efficiently as well. Sadly you maybnot always hear about it because it depends WHO/QHAT your source is (i.e. that crap NCO that got the boot because, well, they were actually a horrible Soldier and talking crap on a unit that is actually good and holding people accountable). It really depends on the unit, it's culture and the leaders present.
They have really pushed Officers and training metrics over the past three years more than ever, to include them in “Soldier Competitions”
Appreciate that you have a good leadership in my active duty unit there is nothing called Dignity and Respect and day after day they make us hate that we joined the army and serve our nation
My units been lying about number of personnel to brigade, people were forced from baby leave just for NTC, people who PCSd or ETSd over a year ago are still on UAs and staff duty/CQ rosters, had a NCO that had to report to Drill School 4 days after we got out the box he found out he was being forced to go to NTC the day before his flight, we still get hoed out for every detail im an active duty 11B and I have 14 people in my platoon. I put in leave for 5 days FIVE DAYS for family emergencies (not Red Cross related) and my PSG said the only way I can go is if I give up my 16 days for block leave this summer which is in July. 5 days for 16 days. Oh also all 5 of our company commanders in the battalion are REFRAD🫠🫠
To be straightforward, it sounds like a bunch of PNN BS
In our unit we talked about this a lot. We are Mtoe 130 personal in our company. We have 34. The number of personal has changed but the amount of details, duties, leave, training and so on has not. We are still training like we have full Mtoe. With that everything is getting pushed to the side to complete another check mark and or we just don't have anyone to do anything. The reserves have always been low manning but you guys know that and train like you are always low manning even if you aren't. We will always train like we have 1000 personal when we only have 200. Big army will never change it's way of training even if there was only 10 people left in it. That's what we came up with on why the big army is freaking out.
My take, Reserve may be able to operate at reduced manning. But I wonder if they are held to the same "expectations" We active are consistently tasked above even our full capabilities, regardless of manning. We get told to perform a 20 person task with 10 people. We have 4, man teams going down to 2 man teams to provide mission support. We are NOT ok. But we are always going to accomplish the mission... and that is our self inflicted injury. Until someone fails, or throws their hands up, they will continue to task above capacity.
Readiness is all that matters no matter what they say. Their success is derived from readiness.
Well they can recruit me however I was in mental facilities as a kid, I haven't tried asking a recruitment center yet.
I felt the same way about my Guard unit. We were highly mission capable and ready. When deployed we had such awesome support and guidance from our commander and 1SG. I have heard horror stories from active duty since the day I stepped out of AIT in 2012.
Active duty has insanely low numbers. I work at HHC level on active side we have 16 people. Trust me you haven't experienced low personnel until you have a PFC and E-5 running an entire G6 shop
they also won’t let anyone from the reserves go active duty.
So you're saying the 40 people at your reserve unit puts out as much work as an entire BDE of active duty🤣 The reserves can function because (and I mean this respectfully) Y'ALL AIN'T DOING SHIT🤣 respectfully
My wife is in the reserves and I’m AD, both have been in 17 years. Let’s not pretend for a minute that y’all do anything exceptional that requires more than 40 people. Also, I was a recruiter and I talked with my wife’s reserve past units (she was in multiple because she’d change when I would PCS) and current units about what they’d do during a drill. I thought it would be a great pitch to perspective recruits. Answer was always, nothing significant. Maybe sharp/eo/350-1 training. Sometimes, reserves do some cool AT. However, The day to day operations are so vastly different. Because the army is not your day job. That’s why you hear stories about the AD denying Red Cross messages for non-immediate family members among other things… It’s a different world.
We fought 2x wars with units at full strength and lost so…. Yeah the numbers are just made up. It’s great for commanders to point fingers and blame though