Army Guy

If that is the case why do you feed the beast, by posting response after response to their comments....Is their a monthly prize for post count. If there is such dislike for the people your mentioned, then why not ignore them....Perhaps they are posting material that actually is a threat to your position....I don't know perhaps you can explain....

The reasons I joined the military, are in no way reflected or tied to the current condition of our military, or it's perception of Canadians may have upon it , as I tried to tell you earlier. The topic was the current condition of our military, and the way our nation treats it's vets..... And your right the common forum is for anyone to post in. This conversation was for the general forum public, I did not mean you could not post, but rather informed you that your post was off topic.

How does this even relate to the conversation that myself and smallc had. It does not....it was never about choosing a carear, it was about Canadians and their treatment of the armed forces, and the current condition of our military....

"Your" not seeing the need, because you have already expressed you don't give a shit.....Your not interested in the topic, nor do you want to here anything about.....And yet for a guy that does not give a shit your waste a lot of time expressing your opinion about it.....Opinions that are based on here say, or false info....or taken out of context....and when presented contrary sources you out right dismissed them, saying it cant be as bad as all of that..... AH, yes blame my attitude for forming your opinions....and yet it has become a sport with Canadians to see how much they can starve our military and still make them dance on a string when we whistle....And then they become surprised or pissed off like you when you find out that soldiers have an attitude towards the same majority that gets it's rocks off torturing our military....as if it earns them some liberal badge of honor......a place in the liberal heavens..... Mean while Canadian vets still struggle trying to get the care the need, or any assistance from the government that sent them over to these shit holes in the first place....so much so that they have taken vets to court, and said it is not the nations reasonability to look after broken soldiers........ Those that are not broken still answer the call, and do the job out of serving something bigger some thing most Canadians do not know of or care about.....and because of that they fear those same soldiers that do nothing more than protect them in tough times.....and all they get back in return is spit upon, or told STFU.....we pay your wages....we pull the strings.....beaten with a stick and locked back up in the cage....until the next photo op, or flood.... Yes smallc your one of them.....stand up take your applause you've earned it...

That's it in a nut shell isn't "I really don't care" Don't fret this is something all our soldiers, and their families have know for a long time.....And yet you waste your breath telling everyone everything is fine go back to sleep.......as if to hide your shame that things are really not as you have been saying.... I'm also sure that your words are going to console those grieving soldiers and their families when it comes to light that all it would have taken is money to save loved ones..... And Canadians begin to wonder why soldiers have developed the attitudes they have...when our own country treats them so badly..... Your opinions have been exposed as Bullshit....and now you said your not interested or to lazy to refute any of the dozens of sources I've provided....Fair enough....I know where I stand, no need to reply as I to, are not interested in any more of your bullshit....

That's the problem Smallc your not supporting anyone, you seemed fine with having a few examples of wpns systems available is great enough to do the job, but once that thinking is exposed as inadequate you spout off with your go to line, we have new equipment on the way..... I've shown you dozens of examples of how poorly our forces is equipped....and funding shortfalls forcing units to park vehs, ships, and aircraft to save money and yet you refuse to see it for what it truly is....everything is pink in rosey in your world....and you refuse to even contemplate that Canadians are incapable of doing this to our forces.....it could never happen, nor will it....Time to wake the frig up...it's being done, it is here,and now.....

WOW....I don't suppose you have any proof of all these accusations....secret locations, torture, and then the last statement Canada is a police state.... I'm beginning to think you would not know a police state if it bite you in the ass.....

WOW the TPV is coming....and the LAV 6.0....ask Smallc if and when they are all delivered will each Mech Inf Bn have enough vehs for all it's troops, or will there still be major shortfalls..... New medium trucks.....Yes there is a purchase of 2500 9.5 ton vehs to replace a fleet of just over 7500 2.5 ton trucks....Government has said this purchase will have to do, and DND will have to curb it's need for heavy lift....A 9.5 truck is not a medium truck but a heavy truck....the numbers do not work out, nor does this contract even come close to the veh fleets now, sitting in fields awaiting to be sold as scrap.....those vehs pulled from army inventory are the LSVW (1 ton truck), MLVW 2.5 ton truck, and the HLVW trucks 7.5 ton...All SMP vehs or standard military pattern, extreme off road....the new vehs are not SMP vehs.... Tow systems are not going to be general issue to all units unless they purchase more. and todate there is no new contract.....there is a few working systems pulled from storage....Our surplus systems were sold off years ago....with no other at system, unless you include the M72 system, which we used for bunkers...could hardly take on modern armour.... Chinnoks were a good investment.....to bad we did not get more.... Armed griffons.... we have always had them, only problem is once they are armoured up, then armed , they can't carry troops.... So while Smallc thinks we are good to go for this next mission, I wonder if he has a seat on the C-17 that will bringing in the first troops.....Because i'm sure the troops have a long list of shortfalls they'd like to have....With no major American force near by to depend on I wonder if this is a good idea as well....

That was not the question was it, What did the Conservatives renew, and in comparison what capabilities was lost during their reign ?.... to put it all into perspective ....What new equipment did the army actually receive and what was the numbers of what was purchased.....I think you'll find the cons did buy some equipment, but in low numbers, and mostly for use in afghan only, with some samples for training in Canada. yes there are some exceptions, such as C-17, and c-130J....but overall did the cons really do DND any favors....

I guess all those media reports are full of shit then....And what exactly did the cons renew., and in comparison what capability did they dismantle or dismiss........as you've been quoted here in this forum that they actually did very little , great talkers.....but lacked any action.....I will give them this they've down more than the liberals....but then again nothing is easy to beat.... Our present equipment will do the job just fine, when compared against 3rd world equipment. but there is huge capability gaps in our forces that have to be addressed....

Canada coast guard ves have never been armed, nor is their crew been trained in the use of small arms. In 2012 the cons considered arming our coast guard ships , but very little came of it. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/canada/coast-guard.htm http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/government-to-consider-arming-coast-guard-vessels-1.1199547

Nice play, taxme the coast guard, a dept that is in worse shape than DND, and when we do get rid of our military....the coast guard will be filling up the media and the forums stating the same thing expected to to much with a shoe string budget...... Below is an article of the turbot wars, inside the art they have misidentified the Canadian navy ship, by calling it an armed coast guard cutter....our coast guard ships are not armed....only the navy ones are...Kind of hard to counter a NAVAL ves with an unarmed coast guard ship.... As for the UN yes, the protectors of the free world....we should as those nations because there is so many ....that seen the UN in action maybe the former Yugoslavia ask it's people how much power and control the UN has to solve issues around the world....it could not even stop the ongoing ethnic cleansing.... If that is your take on WWII then I would suggest maybe re reading the topic.... http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2014/07/19/the-turbot-war-a-look-back-at-how-canada-stood-up-to-foreign-overfishing-book-excerpt/#.V5fkyspTGUk

Well that would depend on the target would it not....or the objective you are trying to achieve....IE would Have WWII been shorten if we had killed Hitler earlier ? most seem to think yes, remember the last few years in the war is when the most people were slaughtered....so if Hitler could be killed but we would also have to kill 10,000 or 100,000 German civilians to do so....would it be worth the price....keeping in mind we could save millions.... Same as the dropping of the atomic bombs in Japan, although that action killed thousands....how many did it save.... Killing of high value targets in Iraq or Afghan will not give us the over whelming advantages as the two examples above but it does change the course of the conflict..... "How many more terrorist are we creating", good question there is no doubt that NATO did create more terrorists by it's bombings and other actions during the conflict. But this opinion is a two edge sword.....90 % of all civilians killed in both conflicts were from the actions of the terrorist themselves....Attacking civilians was their primary goal...to achieve there aims...How many people did the terrorist drive in NATO's direction....a lot more than NATO created.

The terrorist themselves have their own wpns tech tree that over the last 20 years has advanced as fast as any NATO country. Take a look at suicide bombers and IED's and how they went from very simple devices to very tech devices. and with every improvement NATO has made to detect or overcome these wpns they have invented another counter.... If you take a look at history you can see that wpns are becoming for and more effective with less civilian damage....Take a look at WWII then at the modern battle field....Now I know that does not warm your heart and make you feel very good, but that is war....a while it is a cold hearted thing to say, that is exactly what war is all about....it has no values or morals and has very little rules.... Yes Iraq is a shit show, and yes the coalition had no problems with sweeping aside sadams army.....that is what it was designed to do, however it was not designed to fight an insurgent war, that being said the coalition did not plan very well for the after party, nor did the governments involved....what should have gone from a military mission to a diplomatic one failed....Nation building should have happened once Iraqi military forces were defeated.

So we are to discount all of our nations interventions around the globe, such as the Boar war, WWI,WWII, korea, and the hundrds of peace keeping and peace making operations ?

We don't rely on the US, we depend on the US....knowing that we know the US will do everything in its power to secure Canada and we take advantage of that......Big difference on relying on friends or taking advantage of friends which we do ....

Your right why is this so hard ? When I've explained to you dozens of times, not every country is in the same boat or condition as Canada, who over the last 20 years or so has cut back or delayed purchases projects that where required yesterday....most of those countries in your charts have made regular purchases and have kept their militaries up todate. Here is the hard part our military has a severe shortage of almost everything, take a look at the panic the liberals are in right now to find a solution for the f-18... So far the only answer you have provided is " every country is doing the same thing" Who gives a rat ass about what the rest of the world is doing....it does not make it ok, nor right. Your wrong the government defers or holds back funding for future projects all of the time, and once again, that 2.7 bil is for yearly maintence of what we already have in inventory.....very little is being used to address current short falls..... Your wrong , funding had already been set aside for the replacements of LS, ML and HL fleets, or have you forgotten that a US company is suing over cancellation of it's portion to provide trucks to Canada perhaps take a look at the FMTV veh the us army currently uses. Funding had set at 4.5 bil been has been clawed back, and reduced to the 830 mil, one of the many sources I gave you covered this , the government response was DND will have to make do with funding provided.....it made this decision after it was made aware that most of this fleet of trucks was already pulled off the road deemed unsafe for military use.....they now rot in fields across the country waiting for replacement.....STILL The 830 Mil , was used to buy heavy trucks 9 plus tones, to replace a 1.5 , 2.5, and 7 ton veh....each with their own mission and use....you can't use a one veh fits all mission approach. kind of like using a moving truck to go to 7-11 for a pop. Not sure what branch of project mangers your refering to, on the military side any one can be a project manger, often made up with someone with experience in the field of the project , throw you on a few courses and bamm your a project manger.....on the PWSG side of the house it is just another commodity....no special insight required..... But if this is the best excuse you have it's really a sad one.....and that's not why so much funding gets returned....it is the restrictions on our procurement policies that ensure money is returned.....it is to complicated and lengthy to ensure the funding is spent in a timely matter, that and DND has to hold a contingency funds in case of emergency deployments, which often gets returned as there is no time left to spend it....it also creates a massive wave of wasting it on useless things because depts. are afraid their budgets will be cut....not just a DND thing the entire government works this way.

It makes sense if you account for all the regular equipment DND buys on a yearly basis, which 2.7 bil is really not a big number when you account for the regular purchased equipment such field equipment,regular veh replacements such as civilian fleet, training area maintence fleets, snow removal etc.....all of which is included in equipment purchases.....which means very little of your 2.7 bil dollars is actually going towards future projects....such as AOPS, JSS....and your examples of LAV UP a bil upgrade was announce in 2009, along with TPAV and a 750 mil project announced also in 2009, should have already been paid off....Your new trucks was announced in 2015 and are only worth 843 mil....and may of been added to your over all numbers....and this rate we could see a slight difference in another 20 years or so.... But the orginal project to replace over 10,000 vehs has been canceled, instead DND is told to make do with 1500 new trucks, but the army has yet to been told on the status of the other vehs already in scrap yards......which dos nothing to solve the issue of the LSVW, MLVW, OR HLVW FLEETS... below is the Defense acquisition for 2015. as you can see very little is mention in MAJOR equipment purchases...or new intiatives....with exception of perhaps the new FSWAR contract to be announced later....your 2.7 bil won't last very long with these types of every year purchases that consume most of your planned budget for new equipment , meaning very little is ongoing right now in the terms of correcting DND sever MAJOR equipment shortfalls .... http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/business-defence-acquisition-guide-2015/index.page Projects were deferred by the Harper government in 2014, pushed back until 2016, and are still sitting on someone desk now years behind schedule....I give kudos to the liberal government for pushing the F-18 project along, but it really need to sit down and look at all the projects new and old, and come up with a plan and make it public.....that has not been done.... http://www.cgai.ca/defence_budget_2015

That is your opinion of the chart, it does not say that this funding is going towards the projects you listed, in fact it does not say where the funding is going , One could also assume that the 2.7 is spent on regular replacement of major equipment items, which happens all the time, with the update of smaller equipment not worthy of a media event. And has I already pointed out the projects that you have listed are covered top to bottom in the media, and by our government, and yet we are all wondering what projects is this money spent on....because nothing in the media. More to that fact is most DND major projects were put on hold this year, deferred until a later date, NO major projects will be looked at until after the defense review...did the government mislead us, or was these purchases left over from the Cons period in office... Do you have a source to clear this up ? Sure it is, but does that make it right, I thought we were our own nation, part of the G-8, setting the example for some of the rest of the NATO, and western countries. I thought we walked in our own foot prints.....And yet our government and know the exact condition of our military, it's reported one a daily and weekly basis and despite knowing this condition, which is bad enough to order a defense review, and cause concern with NATO, and our allieds, very little is being done to correct the issue on any level....and one would wonder why there is so much frustration out there...not only with myself but it has been voiced in many media outlets.... Am I wrong, do the math if you just use the 65000 troops and account for wages it comes out to roughly 40 % I don't have the figures for pensions so i'm guessing....and yet add in reserves, and civilians and civilian MNDND employees and your numbers are now over 120,000 people....or over 60% of the budget.....and yet you chart states only 45 % of the budget is spent on personal.... I'm not sure what your talking about when referring to base budgets being smaller, Is the total budget 21 bil, or not....your chart refs to 45 % of the total budget is spent on wages or personal....when I refered to the media reports done about this topic they quote 60 % of the total budget is spent on personal....some one has it wrong.....And i'm betting it is not the bean counters here in Canada, or within DND. Like I said your charts do not provide enough context , there is lots of important info missing from them to make any firm decision on how well our forces are doing....These charts are printed in NATO....the same organization that has been continuously pleading with us to spend more on defense.....and yet these charts tell a very different story....SO what is up ? your right for the most part they do, but that's not why I am questioning them, it does not make sense for a lot of reasons I already mentioned them above, in reality or on the ground the forces are not in great shape at all, which points to several problems one we are not managing our funding properly, we are paying far to much for our procurements , for less quality, see ship building program for example, it also points to the big issue one can not compare one military with another because of the millions of different ways it actually spends it's money on it's military.... In Canada we spend more on wages than most countries, and yet they have other programs or bonuses to assist soldiers, like rent control, or free family, medi care, which allows the pay check go further....Military wages are not all that out of whack when compared other civilian jobs in Canada such as public service or public sector. The list of examples is much to large to list here, but it is apples to oranges....

Yes but your charts lack the details in what that funding was spent on, for instance equipment purchases could include any purchase of equipment....or anything that is called major equipment, any vehs, or veh related equipment ie veh bourne shelters ie sea containers, runway equipment, civilian vehs, forklifts, heavy equipment required for training areas maintence, or snow removal, rentals, etc etc.....Nor does it mention funding put aside for future purchases, or past purchases..... Coming back to Argus point, every major purchases are extensively covered in the media, with government not wanting to miss any photo op opportunities to make announcements of purchases or future plans.....So what did Canada buy with this 2.7 bil dollars ? or was it a combination of many smaller purchases that did not rate a media report....The fact remains DND has a sever equipment shortage, in all 3 elements....That need to be addressed by the current government as previous governments have passed the buck. No it does not take into account any reserve or civilian salary's or MND employees, if you look at the other charts Canada has only 65,000 personal. meaning reserve and civilians were not included. In fact it has been reported in the media on many occasions that well over 60 % of the budget has been spent on salary's alone.....Hence why all the talk of reductions to allow for equipment purchases....with out need to increase DND over all budgets. Your charts have to be taken into context, that context are not provided, rather it assumes the readers already have basic info required to put it all into some sort of sense. That is not happening here. So your charts are not the end all be all. With out that basic inside info one would read it and think Canada's military is a modern combat machine....it is only when one uncovers all the camouflage it becomes clear.....you continued to think my opinion is all doom and gloom, and only my opinion.....and yet I've provided you with several media reports that say other wise, infact they back my doom and gloom insight....but you have brushed them aside preferring to continue on with every thing is fine .....

Until there is a major break through in wpns development , things are going to stay as is for now, it is just the way things are. Can they be more careful, I am sure they can, but when you add in many other things such as the fog of war, your enemies tactics, their counter intel capacities, there is a huge list of things that could go wrong.....Murphy's law ....War is a terrible thing and it does horrible things most whom are innocent... As for not knowing who the enemy is, for the most part that is true, when we talk about the smaller tier people, but NATO Intel services are vast, tracking millions of cell phone, sat phone and intra net conversations, combine with intel and spec ops on the ground, or other governmental assets, finding bad guys is easy, it is killing them while minimizing civilian cas that is the hard part.... That being said some times the value of the target is worth more than civilians lives.

Almost every mission Canada takes on is based on mechanized warfare, from our peacekeeping operations to our latest mission in Afghanistan. Almost every formation we send is a Mech Inf BN or battle group. Since we have no other capabilities, no Airborne , Airmobile Bns. or marine type forces...Sure we have serveral light Bn's but even they are mechanized or motorized. Yes they do limited training in regards to these type of operations, but for the most part all their training is based on the mechanized role.... That being said our mechanized forces are paper forces only, sprinkled with some dated IFV, and even more dated combat support equipment....to think we could take on even a third world nation in a medium or high intensity warfare is wishful thinking. we don't have the equipment and what we do have there is not enough.... Someone mentioned our army is full of combat veteran's....not true, a lot of those that have Afghanistan experience have left the forces, you may have 40 to 50 % that now have combat experience, but then again lets put that into context, there is less than 3000 Infantry soldiers, maybe 3000 other combat arms soldiers including Combat eng, Arty, tankers, That is including all those in training schools, recruit schools, advance training schools, and those already on mission around the world and on postings around the world....Of course those numbers also include members not fit operations due to mental or physical conditions, which could be as high as 20 % of your total number.....That is across the entire country.....

I get that the liberals left power in Feb of 2006, however all that being the LAV project was started in in 1999, under the liberals, and the TUA LAV project was completed until 2006, we both know that these contracts take years before they become reality.....The phase out of M-113 TUA began in 2003, with the final machines with drawn from inventory in 2005,with the turrets to be used in the new LAV III TUA....This withdrawal also included Tow ground systems....as they were going to be replaced with a Medium range lighter, more portable system (still waiting on this project) That being said no long range AT sys in the CF during this period... http://canadianforcesmilitary.com/tow.html The contract for LAV III TUA was suppose to fill these gaps, however the contract was amended with only 38 machines built, most of these machines were later reconverted back into LAV III with an RWS system similar to the US strikers....meaning no 25 mm turret, just a 7.62 GPMG RWS. Now I have seen a few LAV III TUA systems out in CFB Wainwright, but no more than a couple of examples.....still in service.... Now why would Canada need to buy new missiles in 2007 and 2010....well during that time we were in Afghanistan, the LAV III was brought over to the Afghanistan mission in 2006 , still no tanks at this time, at it was thought that role could be filled by the LAV III TUA, (at this time they had not been converted to LAV RWS) which did not happen until 2011,( but sat in warehouses waiting the final decision on what to do with them, and them messing around with the MMES (addats platform) with some examples at the units to conduct limited training with.... once converted to LAV III RWS's the media asked why? as we had just purchased more tow missiles.... To make a long story short the original contract was modified by the liberal government, to build only 38 machines....and yes it was harpers choice to agree to have existing stocks of LAV III TUA's back into LAV RWS...as there was not enough of them, to deploy at unit level, and the Army was short of LAV III....Due to the fact that orginal LAV III contract was cut in half by the liberal government...

Not typically but always, more civilian casualties in every war since man first learned to club his enemies. Once again one has to measure the gains against the losses....to find out if it was really worth it, in terms of lives lost. WWII was a terrible war with over 60 million lives lost, but how many were saved if Hilter and his cronies were not stopped.... That is the nature of war, that will not go away for some time. it is the attitude of "unacceptable" that is driving better wpns that limit civilian cas, but it is very slow. Yes there has been times that I was not on the same page as our government during conflicts the Yugoslavia UN mission was one ....But I also felt that my service brought about more good than bad....while the elites are controlling the big picture, for the most part it is soldiers that control things on the ground....

The TOW systems were taken out of the Armys inventory in 2006, Both the TUA's ( M-113) and ground systems and the liberals were in charge back then. These missiles are not cheap, each new member of a tow team is required to fire between 3 to 5 missiles just to become qualified....like I said there used to be up to 36 tow platforms per BN, a lot of training missiles going down range every year....when you combine the effectiveness of the missile, and compare it to new tech it was not worth the funding spent....it was supposed to be replaced and is on a long list of equipment the Army needs...when it gets it is unknown , keep in mind it has been gone since 2006.....along with the Eyrx AT sys ( med Range), been gone since 2006 as well..... As for the surplus missiles, I can not say, there where rumors of stocks, and a sale to US marines, but I can not confirm any of that other than the sources provided in the media. What I do know is like every munition they have a shelf life, and old batchs of ammo are tested regularly at CFB Gagetown, along with testing of new munitions or proto types by an Army testing cell in Gagetown (Trails and evaluations) who may have been testing new equipment , however I can not confirm this either.