Re: [OT] Interesting Facts of Canadian Military Life

On Mon, 20 Jan 2003, Morton Chalom wrote:
> >[Tomb] Glenn, you probably don't realize
> >this, but at one point, we had more
> >generals (flag rank people) per soldier (non-
> >flag rank) than anyone else in NATO: 1 per
> >1000 men in uniform.
> 
> Ohhh... so is Canada the "Major Power in the late 20th Century"
mentioned 
> by Heinlein in Starship Troopers when he refers to having so many
officers 
> that they wanted insignia to denote which were Line Officers?
> 
> I have often wondered what was the story behind that.

We don't really qualify as a "Major Power"... and I think the
too-many-non-line-officers problem is standard issue to most modern
militaries, simply because of the massive logistical efforts involved.
(Meaning logistics in the broadest possible sense, not just
battlefield/theatre supply but EVERYTHING a military does that might
need
an officer's authority but doesn't involve field/line duties
directly...)

TomB's comments were specifically about flag officers - Generals,
Admirals, and other creatures of that exhalted rank. Apparently we have
too many of those...

I've also thought that a 'Starship Troopers' style military would, in
over-reacting against the too-many-non-line-officers problem, cut into
it's efficiency quite drastically. Too many REMFs is bad, but you need a
certain number to actually make the machine work, otherwise you wind up
with "line" officers spending all their time on admin/etc anyway...

Brian - yh728@victoria.tc.ca -
- http://warbard.iwarp.com/~warbard/games.html -