COMBAT READINESS AS A FUNCTION OF MANNING, EQUIPPING AND TRAINING THE FORCES

Building and maintaining adequate military capabilities and high combat readiness for the Armed Forces, as well as mobilization readiness for timely increase to wartime tables with reserve forces continue to be central to achieving defense and security goals. There is a strong interdependence between combat readiness and the system of manning, equipping, and training the Armed Forces. They all depend on the organizational structure, table of organization and equipment, and the level of training of personnel from active units and those from the Reserve in peace time.Combat Readiness is a certain state of the Armed Forces that determines the degree of training, manning, and equipping the headquarters, staffs, and troops that guarantee their adequate response to crises of a different character. Combat readiness is the real factor that exemplifies Armed Force’s preparedness to respond to every critical situation in a timely manner.The content of levels of combat readiness determines the level of preparedness of the military units to perform their duties at a certain point in time.There are certain states of combat readiness that have been adopted by NATO. Nevertheless, the lowest state of readiness usually represents the current/day-to-day status of military units and is usually called a "permanent" level of combat readiness. The highest level of readiness is supposed to answer the demands of readiness for immediate execution of battle actions, and it is perceived in most armies to be called "full" combat readiness.In order to optimize the overall process of activating military units to a higher level of combat or mobilization readiness, it is necessary to look for this in peacetime. It mainly concerns building a system of control and evaluation of the individual components of combat readiness and mobilization, and identifying measures for their improvement.Military HQs and formations are regularly evaluated to prove their operational capabilities to meet NATO standards in conducting military operations. Therefore the use of CREVAL– Combat Readiness Evaluation programs ensures the necessary operational capabilities and interoperability with allied units in multinational allied operations.Depending on the level of manning, arming, equipping and training military units are classified into different categories in ascending order. The smaller the category is, the higher the operational readiness of the military units is and vice versa, the higher the category is, the longer the mobilization period takes place, and the longer the time to reach operational readiness is. This further requires effective integration and use of the reserve staffs and the reserve forces’ units to enhance the capabilities of regular forces in the wide range of the expected operations described by the NATO policy documents.