Should we scrap the RDF??

r3nu4l

OS119 wrote: »

why not?

in the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's Ireland was a piss-poor country without a pot to piss in, it was in my view entirely fair that its defence budget was bog all - that is very definately no longer the case - Ireland now claims to be one of the richest - in GDP terms - in Europe, richer than Poland, yet it still tries to palm off its international obligations as if it was some agrarian economy of the 1950's

Ireland wants to be treated as a serious country when it suits it - a voice thats listened to whether in Brussels or New York - but not when it comes to actually paying for that seriousness in either blood or treasure.

why is it that Irelands defence spending - per head of population rather than just in absolute terms - is half of what the Scandanavian countries spend?

what makes Ireland so special that it can take the kudos, the economic rewards, the political clout and the security benefits of its membership of 'Europe' while not having to put its hand in its pocket in the way that every other European state does?

In fairness, this has very little to do with the debate about whether the RDF should be scrapped or not, except in a very circuitous manner. The subject of general defence spending regarding Irelands 'obligations' deserves a thread of its own imo.

Muppet Man, paying €25 a pop for every night each reservist trains may seem like a great idea but it doesn't actually increase commitment. What you would get is some guys showing up twice a week for cash to p1ss up against the wall on a Friday/Saturday night.

Muppet Man

guys showing up twice a week for cash to p1ss up against the wall on a Friday/Saturday night

Absolutely some will do that... but they will do that anyway regardless of where they get the money from. All I was saying is that if you want numbers to turn up and take things more seriously, you have to pay people. Committment is a fine principal (principle?) to live by, but committment without remittance wont pay for petrol at the pumps. I see parallels here with GAA players. They have to hold down a day job and show the committment during training, again for little or nothing only passion/pride. Thats definitely off topic though... sorry.

Cheers,
Muppet Man.

OS119

Muppet Man wrote: »

Absolutely some will do that... but they will do that anyway regardless of where they get the money from. All I was saying is that if you want numbers to turn up and take things more seriously, you have to pay people. Committment is a fine principal (principle?) to live by, but committment without remittance wont pay for petrol at the pumps. I see parallels here with GAA players. They have to hold down a day job and show the committment during training, again for little or nothing only passion/pride. Thats definitely off topic though... sorry.

Cheers,
Muppet Man.

off topic perhaps, but entirely reasonable.

without decent pay, far greater training opportunities, employment protection and something tangible to aim for - and for soldiers i'd suggest that means achieving a standard of fitness and competence that would allow you to deploy on operations - the RDF is on a hiding to nothing.

without the first three you can't, however eager your reservists, achieve real military fitness and competence - people just can't manage the time, molify the spouse and actually acheive the training goals - yet even if they had those three things, without the forth - the chance of actually putting their skills and training into action - they won't see the point.

perhaps 25 years ago the reservist would be happy with the idea that his only opportunity to put his skills to the test would be in the event of world war three, but now every Irish reservist has seen British and US reservists do their jobs in the most demanding circumstances in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo and Bosnia as well as their respective regulars, they have seen that the 'One Army' concept can work, they might well think "every other reservist in the world can manage it, why not us?".


if you aren't trusted to do your job, aren't paid, face problems at work and at home just for trying to do your bit - while watching others in the same role used to the greatest extent, paid well and protected - you might well think "why bother?"

trellheim

well I bother.

OS119 were you a member ?

Muppet Man, I believe the "Integration" you are referring to was the "Reorganisation". They are two separate things.

OS119

trellheim wrote: »

well I bother.

OS119 were you a member ?

no, i'm a regular member of the British Army - i was in the TA for four years while at university and was deployed alongside my regular counter-parts on UNPROFOR and IFOR/SFOR operations in Bosnia. i have worked with Irish forces on a number of overseas operations - Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan - as well as undertaking planning roles at PJHQ Northwood, and EUMS in Brussels, both of which involved professional contact with senior Irish Officers in both overseas and 'local' theathres of operations.

so yes, i have a good working knowledge of Irish doctrine and capabilities, as well as personal knowledge of reservists undertaking overseas operational duties.

greenarrow

RFHazard wrote: »

In short Yes.

The RDF serves no viable purpose, and has no clearly defined roles. It is, in essence, a social club for it's longer serving members and a youth club for the younger ones. The majority of it's members are between 17 and 20, and don't serve more than three active years, if even. The older sweats are set in their ways and cherry pick the activities that they want to participate in.

Officers and NCOs are too old and more interested in their perceived status and not so interested in training or advancing their units. Sam Brownes, swords, no rdf flash etc are symptomatic of this. Most will take off their berets when dealing with PDF they don't know, but in reality they can be spotted miles away.

The quality of training is poor, and there is little appetite for enduring the hardships entailed with raising the standard. Excuses are trotted out weekly on boards, and in messes as to why the RDF isn't better, but things don't change when extra time, money and resources are made available, and other excuses are made. Everybody wants wet gear to be a personal issue but I'll bet my house that they still won't show up when it's raining.

The reorg has been a paper exercise, and there is no real difference between the quality and capability of the RDF vs FCA. People get their knickers in a twist if you get the names mixed up, and I don't get why; except to say that in my experience of life in general those who are competent at something don't need to shout about it.

If you were playing a competitive sport you'd be giving up 2-3 evenings a week to train, and a full day/weekend to compete. Miss something without a good reason, and there are consequences. RDF aren't asked for a fraction of this and still can't manage it.

Scrap the RDF. It's leadership is deluded, apathetic and ineffectual, and it's main body are kids, and/or walts. Form a brand new reserve (no transfer of personnel), with new legislation, residential training, PDF instructors for recruits and career courses, consequences for those pull the piss, and the boot for those who do not meet the standard. Integration, and now overseas has/will prove that the RDF isn't actually interested in soldiering.

I would agree 99% of that. But possibly the real strength in the RDF is in its corps units, where it could be argued that it has a greater pool of resources in experienced personnel. Based on their civilian job and qualifications (i.e. doctors, EMTs, engineers, nurses, computer technicians) and this is an area that the army is crying out for vacanicies to be filled. A civilain doctor would be more experienced than a doctor in the army by miles.

And if the DF re-invested in developing corps units then it would prove to be more beneficial for the organisation. As well as attracting the right type of people too. Which would only serve the DF well. I mean we don't even have the internet in the army. Which is a joke in this day and age. Surely, someone working for a big firm could easily remedy something like this?

I say any re-evaluation of the RDF should focus on solid investment in Corps units, because it would be money better well spent based on the benefits it could offer to the army in the long-term.

bunny shooter

Good points about Corp units being the way to go. I was in an FCA Infantry unit and to be honest we would never have been able to fulfil that role properly.

Corp units with people able to perform their civy jobs within said Corp unit would be a better idea alright eg engineers in engineer unit, IT tech in signal type units, drivers in S&T units etc

As for no internet in the Army there is an internal intranet (not sure if this is the right term) available to the PDF which even the RDF have access to which contains training material such as manuals etc I have been on it even and a great piece of technology it is

minidazzler

bunny shooter wrote: »

Good points about Corp units being the way to go. I was in an FCA Infantry unit and to be honest we would never have been able to fulfil that role properly.

Corp units with people able to perform their civy jobs within said Corp unit would be a better idea alright eg engineers in engineer unit, IT tech in signal type units, drivers in S&T units etc

As for no internet in the Army there is an internal intranet (not sure if this is the right term) available to the PDF which even the RDF have access to which contains training material such as manuals etc I have been on it even and a great piece of technology it is

I know engineers do lots of stuff but forgetting that for a second, would you really do essentially the same job you always do but as a Hobby and for (probably) less Money?

Manic Moran

minidazzler wrote: »

I know engineers do lots of stuff but forgetting that for a second, would you really do essentially the same job you always do but as a Hobby and for (probably) less Money?

When I was talking to the recruiter, they looked at my skillset and ASVAB scores, and decided I might be a good fit for M.I. or I.T/Signals. I told them point blank that I sat behind a desk at a computer keyboard five days a week, and damned if I was going to do it on my weekends. I wanted to go blow things up. CalGuard retention took a horrible hit when people were mandatorily reclassed into jobs that the military thought they should have, not jobs that they wanted to do. They forgot that we didn't need to be there, we wanted to be there.

In any case, our experience has been that there are enough of representative of these varied trades in the combat arms that they have proven an asset. If you get carpenters, cops, network engineers, and so on in an infantry unit, they're the people who will be interacting with the locals as they go out and about on patrol.

The RDF should be kept, but there needs to be a major shift. I'm not talking about the Re-Org, but a down-to-the-basics reshift on the most fundamental level. If you want a professional (as opposed to full-time, the two need not be the same) force, you've got to start treating it as one. This means the employment protection, this means making the resources available to it, this means paying people for showing up whenever they show up, not just for a little bounty at the end of the year, and this means enforcing the standards expected and giving people the authority to enforce those standards.

If this means forgoing the weekly training nights and moving to a National-Guard style one-weekend-a-month system, so be it. If you can find a way of doing it without taking away weekends or other long periods of time, more power to you, but the RDF as it currently stands is a case of 'you get back the effort you put into it.' Ireland as a nation puts in bugger-all effort into the RDF, there's little surprise that the result is poor.

NTM

greenarrow

That's a good point manic about people wanting to do something different to their everyday job. But if there was a proper recruitment drive to attract people in who had specialist skills it would be a good thing.

Corps units would be well suited and benefit greatly from people bringing their skills to the table where they are needed and where they can be best applied. But at the end of the day it is up to brass to invest the money in the right places with equipment, uniform, salary, etc.

Until that happens its just a pipe dream because the majority of the allocated budget goes towards infantry. And Corps units are getting a fraction of the budget, and not a decent enough slice of the pie either.

Poccington

Corps Units get quite a bit of money put into them, at least in the PDF they do.

The RDF needs a complete overhaul but that would require quite a bit of money. Unfortunately the PDF needs quite a bit of investment as well and given the current economic climate, only one organisation will have the serious backing of the government and that's the PDF. So it will be a wait of a few years before the RDF gets any sort of proper investment put into it.

greenarrow

Yeah. Although it does beggar belief that people in the PDF are unwilling to share resources with the RDF at times. Like classrooms and lecture halls, auditoriums etc. Which are lying idle in the evening time anyway.

And likewise I can't understand why the government don't just buy all uniform in bulk, as it would be much cheaper. And we are all wearing the same DPM uniform at the end of the day.