Army Guy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17127488 http://www.bmtdsl.co.uk/bmt-design-portfolio/bmt-aegir-logistic-support-vessels/ http://www.casr.ca/bg-navy-jss-joint-support-ship-aor.htm

Why would would not follow the british, and patner with their design, and get a larger ship with more capabilities, built much sooner

I must of missed something , was the euro fighter pulled from the bidding. Five identified companies with aircraft in production—The Boeing Company, Dassault Aviation, EADS Eurofighter, Lockheed Martin and Saab Group—were previously sent a draft of the questionnaire on January 25, 2013, for comment http://news.gc.ca/web/article-eng.do?nid=723489

I'd say the number should be close to 42 years , is that not the number that was forced onto the end price of each Aircraft...lockmart price plus 42 years of operational costs. if not can someone sort me out. And yes Waldo UNmanned flight will be perfected by then or atleast should be, but that is an uneducated guess, as is yours. But then again this is Canada's purchasing program we are talking about, and i'll bet a years wages we will still be flying those F-35's well after unmanned flight is perfected. WALDO Can you make a logical debate on why why do we "not" need a strike fighter.

Yes the Gen spoke his mind to the media, he however does not talk for the Commander of the Airforce does he, nor does his remark mean that he has insider info on everything inside the Airforce. Before the Afghan war all the element commanders were doing the same thing puffing up thier chests, beating the war drums it is what we do ,getting a chance to prove your training is something all warriors life for....until they get there then once they have a taste of war it becomes a different story...When asked by the Prime minister , the CDS told him we DND was not ready for a conflict....despite all the chest pumping by his suborintes.

Perhaps i did not explain it well enough, the upgrades mean we moderized the aircraft to fight in a modern enviroment to a piont. Without upgrading struture meaning airframe wing roots etc you can not extend the life of any aircraft...be like changing your 8 track for a cd player in your model t....Once the airframe hours are up they to will need to be refitted or the aircraft retired. And that is close to where we will be in the near future. Concerns over getting the funding for new planes , is being looked at , hence why DND and the government is looking at reductions evry where. like it or not new fighters will be coming , how many, or what they are is a question they have not answered yet. But i can tell you they are not willing to drop this capability. Drone tech is not mature enough, nor has the airforces around the world decided to go unmanned just yet. Something will give currently it is the size of our Armed forces, as it shrienks so will it's abilities to defend this nation, domestically and abroad. This is what DND has been saying forever there is no more fat to cut, with some exception of what Gen Lesily suggested, and there is not much meat there either....You keep saying that something has to give, eventually someone is going to have to make some hard decisions because our military will soon be reduced to ineffective. When do you see deficit reduction coming to an end, is there a line in the sand or do we wait until we have no deficit. How long will that take ? As for the coast Guard, they are the countries retarded little brother when it comes to funding. and always have been, all one has to do is look at the equipment they have and it's age and what they don't have....They have been cut past the bone. Your going to have to give some examples of Canada's global nation building aspirations...

yes they did just come out of a moderization refit, upgrading them for many things, but they did not refit the airframes and wings, it is those refits that extend life times...not putting in new radar, and comms etc...those upgrades were to modernise the aircraft in terms to combat abilities, and don't extend airframe hours....Those upgrades were not done because of F-35 delays, they were done because we needed them to be compatiable with our allieds, and the tech that was on them was well past it's time .... In comparison with other users of this aircraft, these would have been retired long ago had they been US aircraft, but then again we have always reset how many hours we can fly anything, look at the sea kings or C-130 B or H models i don't think there is one nation with as many hours on those types except Canada. As for the numbers of F-35 required...well the Airforce seems to think that will be enough....i myself don't see how the math works out....if 80 F-18 were not enough to support a Afghan deployment, then i'm sure 65 F-35 will not be enough...that being said that is beyond my pay grade and is my best guess. Where is the money going to come from where it always comes from the taxpayers....As for competing priorities our air space is one of the top pri's for the military....with out it you place all your other military elements at risk...You make this out like this is all the militaries fault for wanting the top of the line fighters wasting your money....and yet this dates back over the last 25 years to every polictical party that ran this country....if this equipment had been replaced in a timily manner our Armed Forces would not be in the shape it is today...needing 100 of bils just to keep everything at par.... DND is always been there for this country, regardless if it was giving our lives or taking the bigest hit when it comes to deficit reduction....it has now caught up to us....we either pay the bill or find another solution to our defense needs....both have consquences that you have not talked about... So do the proposal you have stated, use of drones, converting our military main effort to transport....where do we get that funding....So far you have deflected your arguments away your post , i think we would all like to hear you go into detail

Well for the most part i think DND use of it's F-18's were due to the caveats that our government put on them, during the Gulf war they were assigned to CAP patrols, although there was an engagement of a surface ves..as for Kosvo well i think the US had that handled with their stealth aircraft F-117, and B-2 bombers, i'm not sure anyone flew Strike missions (low Level) i think once again caveats , and for safety.... Even back then the F-18 was over the hill when compared to the other aircraft the allied's were using....Libya not sure what altitude they were flying i'll have to do some research. As for chasing bears, well that is one of the prime reasons we purchased them, that and to fill our NATO needs in Europe...which although we no longer have aircraft based in Europe that mission is still there, on top of our NORAD mission and of course our soveriegnity patrols. Which brings this question what do we fill these open holes with that you will have in regards to NO fighters aircraft.. Transport aircraft, well many have suggested that we take on a niche roll, why not transport i guess . In what form more aircraft, more ships? And is that what NATO needs, i mean it already has the US, plus NATO has it's own transport aircraft fleet, plus there is the EX soviet rental agreement. Drones , could you please provide some more info to what type and what purpose they would have ? What does Canada need ? My personal opinion about why F-18's were not there in Afghan, i think the Airforce is Stretched pretty thin, puting a sqn in Afghan would have overloaded the airforce, and it's current NATO and NORAD taskings....short on pilots and spares, Afghan would have eat them up faster than they could be replaced, not to mention that combat hours are not the same as flying in Canada, the Aircraft are to old and what life is still in them needed to be preserved....Not having the means for a projected deployment speaks to not have the right numbers of equipment and pers....in this case more than 80 aircraft with the pilots to fly them...

Just a question you state that Fraking makes the ground unstable, and contaminates ground water do you have a link, the reason i ask is because the US and Canadian EPA sites state that there tests are un conclusive, that and the fact there are othr sites that say Fraking is not harmful, infact they state there has not been one case of fraking contamination of drinking water due to fraking ...they do say however there has been a case of fraking liquid split at ground level that did result in some local water supply being contaminated.. I watched your Movies gresland, and now confused...

Just a question waldo, this post has gone on for 93 pages, so long in fact i've forgotten which aircraft your pushing. and why....the reason i ask is for 93 pages we have heard derek position inside and out, not that i'm getting tired of dereks posts as i've learned more about the F-35 from him than any other source. I just thought it was time to put someone else on the hot seat....hear you defend your postion....

Yes most of the cuts are aimed at adminstration, but also targeted are operating and maintence,while there may be some room to cut administration at the higher headquaters level, the operating and maintence budgets are critical to maintaining training and operating the equipment we need to train with...those are already cut to the bone. further cuts will only decrease our forces ability to provide trained soldiers...it also effects the forces to deploy any where including here at home. www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/02/26/military-cuts-canada_n_2768190.html Most of the cost saving from being deployed to afghan have already been been used up, shifted into procurment projects, or giving more training funding. there is no large savings here. www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/03/18/canada--budget-military_n_2902963.html While the rafale is still in delopment that costing i provided is just for the 40 years of development costs it does not include any operating costs over the same period which would drive this price over the top, well past the F-35. While true the F-35 is not finished it's development , the program has shown that costs are going down not up, and those costs include operational costs for 42 years... Waiting for drone tech to mature is a gamble, replacing the F-18 with a drone based airforce is not there yet, nor on the short term radar for atleast another 10 years...The Airforce has alrady studied this in great detail, our next fighter is going to be manned....it also needs to be able to survive in a drone enviroment, one look at our procurement process will tell you that....it is this histroy of buying or replacing equipment that is driving the need for a 5 th gen A/C, while today those new 4 or 4.5 gen aircraft look attractive, will they be able to do the job in 30 to 40 years...The airforce does'nt think so... I done 3 tours in Afghan, and if there was one thing we all wished we had over there was our own air cover....Canadian pilots with a vested interest in keeping Canadian soldiers alive.... Not saying allied pilots did not do that, but there was some issues.... While the US airforce does have plenty of aircraft to use world wide, in any major campaign it still relies on allied aircraft to fill in the gaps...Canada has signed on to defense agreements , which gives us the responsabilty to live up to our end of the bargin....which in the last 40 years it has not even come close...

I think that tech is going to develope as with anything else on the aircraft. The Airforce who fly Combat missions for a living seem to think it is the best choice, what is it that you know that they do not. Have you compared the range of F-18 to the F-35, last time i checked the F-35 had much better range. Why would the french bother they just spent huge amounts developing the Rafale,and is not due for replacement until 2040...besides the rafale is 1980's tech, with production beginning in 1992, and then again in 1997, with production completed in 2011... could they even build more Aircraft.... The total programme cost, as of 2010, was around €40.690 billion, which translated to a unit programme cost of approximately €142.3 million. The unit flyaway price as of 2010 was €101.1 million for the F3+ version.[2] The following year, the French Senate revised the programme cost up to €43.56 billion for 286 fighters, which translates to a unit price of €152 million. This figure takes in account improved hardware of the F3 standard, and which includes development costs over a period of 40 years, including inflation.[45] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Rafale#Design_phase_and_prototype In case you did not see the price that is 152 million EURO per aircraft, what does that translate into Canadian dollars....oh did they mention that France is the only NATO member flying these....and production is already done. It would still be cheaper to buy the F-35 don't you think....

It does suck the whole table sucks, Bonam is right on the money, that may sound silly to you but it is the truth. they only thing the UN can agree on is that Israel is bad...everything else is well time wasted.... So how is this treaty going to change anything? do you think those countries with multi trillion dollar arms industries are going to just stop building wpns....do you think those countries that want to war are just not going to buy wpns...Now that is silly. It is time to dump the UN period.

I'm sure Afghanistan would be happy to grant mr Khadr his citizenship, then we could take away is Canadian citizenship....along with the entire families....so he could linger in a nice comfortable cell over there . As he has yet to face Afghan courts for the crimes he commited over there....Good piont.

He had his day in court, he did the crime now is is doing the time....he's lucky to be alive....

Then you are aware of the the state of our equipment then, you've seen first hand that we are not operating "Chevys" but rather Model T's when compared to our possiable enemies equipment. Your aware that new equipment must be purchsed with a sense of urgency because of how our procument works, and how long it takes to put a finished product in soldiers hands. Perhaps this is why they are the Bull in the china shop....And it is not just the Cons that see this it is, the liberals as well, and yet they use every oportunity to score political pionts by delaying these projects, not just the F-35 but all the projects. But while going to war in chevy's may be fine for you, perhaps your mind would change if it was one of your family members that had to strap themselfs into a cockpit, or crew a tank, crew a ship. because in todays warfare hotrods mean survival, take a look at the LEO IIA6M we finally borrowed from Germany, this veh is responsable for saving dozens of crews from IED's, mines, and enemy anti tank wpns....then take a look at the LEO C2 performance which had the deaths of serveral crew memebers attributed to it... That is the problem with our military today, our soldiers have to die in order to get our nation spured into buying new and improved kit, or as you described it "Hot rods"...every piece of kit we deployed to Afghan was there because our soldiers paid for it in blood....including simple stuff from our "green Combats, to Iltis patrol jeeps, M777 guns, new armoured logistic trucks,Leo IIA6M tanks, the list goes on.....and when it was purchased it's only barely enough for the mission at hand not for general use by the military.

It would seem obvious to me as well, but i had to ask, So what is the plan for addicts who don't want rehab or counselling, who take advantage of those free drugs for instance like my buddies sister who has been getting her free methadone for 10 years now...She is not alone this has been going on for sometime in fact methadone has become a currency in it self, it is sold, and traded...

Do these INSITES treat addicts or is it just a free zone for addicts to shoot up with government provided drugs. I have a buddy who's sister is an addict, for the last 10 years, although she has substituted hard drugs for methodone she remains an addict...According to her methodone is become a currency in her world, it is often sold or traded for other drugs or money....and while it may be a start in the right direction, what is being done to get these people back into normal world....

I would say you'd have a piont if our military forces were as large as Russia's, or if we had a history of Military coup's or even invading other countries for the hell of it. But this is Canada and it's soldiers and members are regular canadian citizens just like you. So relax our military is not out to get you, or take over the country, now we might shovel some snow for toronto, fight floods in Manitoba, Ice storms in Ont ,or Que but we have yet to take away anyones rights or beer or cancel any hockey games....i think your safe....

While subsequent policy statements have been issued in 2005, and most recently in 2008 with the Canada First Defense Strategy (CFDS), the Canadian Forces (CF) have been left to rely on dated or sparse documents that contain unreliable figures and vague policy direction. Canada's last Defence White Paper was published in 1994. http://romeodallaire.sencanada.ca/en/p103008/ The elected representives are the ones that are deciding what they want the military to do, along with what equipment to do it with... With that being said DND knows what equipment to buy, according to the last White paper, and policy statements issued by our elected representitives....As for the people well sorry they do not have any input into any of those decisions other than who they are going to vote for, and to protest bad decisions....

I was and still find it unfair to have those costs counted twice.but as was told to me it is law and that was that, suck it up, this is the way we do bussiness now. and when those costs are eventually added in, that year will be the highest ever spent in Canada's history. As for the highlighting that no contracts have been signed, according to your source that having a signed contract does not matter it was whom started the project....much like the martime helo's and hercs....the liberals did not have contracts signed either....well they did have a contract but then cancelled it...does that count ? I will be the first to agree our procument sys sucks, all of it's processes and policies suck....and this needs to be fixed , it these problems that ham string any party in charge. And i have said repeatily the procument sys needs to be politically free of interference....it is this Hey we need to get re elected that prevents them from pulling the trigger...But hey next time you go to the car dealer and he say's that car you want it cost a 100k as we've costed it out for 35 years , what answer do you think your wife is going to give you when you ask her if you can buy it....but then again we've already had that discusion and i lost, it is law and that is just the way we do it now.

Question ? Are you saying that this effort to reduce deficit is not one of the main causes of todays military state. Other than the 2005 Election Budget is there a Chretien / Martin budget that focused or provided the military with much needed equipment ? And it was not me that picked this budget out it was you that highlighted it with your source document. I just found it laughable because the Liberals knew they had serverly damaged the military in their efforts to control the deficit, and failed to either control that damage, or find another solution they also knew there was a good chance they were leaving office, so poof out comes a election budget where they could promise the world and not have to deliver anything. As for the major purchases started within the liberal government of the time, the 3 made by Trudeau which is brought up by you and your source document, F-18's, frigs, and tanks, where started by trudeau because he was presured to do so by NATO, and the US, not because he wanted to throw the military a bone, during his spending spree.....but was basically forced to make that buy, once again it was your source that went back to Trudeau and his spending spree and it was not me giving credit to trudeau ,i did however piont out that these purchases were not of trudeau's making but rather he was forced to do so. The other liberal generated purchase of helos again is a beast and a liberal failure , why you or your source wanted to bring that up is beyond me. so far this contract has proved a failure for both sides....that being said one could hardly call it liberal generated as Mr Chrietien cancelled the whole thing, the ball was picked up by the cons.... Question, are you suggesting that the purchase of 4 C-17, or 15 CH-47F, or TPAV are a minor purchase. if so where is the line drawn in the sand, how many bils need to be spent to hit the radar.... your source did say "not one single purchase had been made", it did not say big or small. I disagree with you on this topic of artic sovereignty it is proably not the best time for the governments decision to keep up with the russians in the north and that funding could be spent on some of the basics. Again i think you would be hard pressed to find a NAVY guy that would say we need AOP before anything else. defending the artic would be compared to icing on the cake, right now we have not even got the cake made yet. As for the Coast guard , i agree with you , here is a dept that has almost starved for funding, but it lacks the political will or punch to sell it's ideas, and as far as the Citizens of Canada are concerned , well i don't think the topic comes up...even though they are one of the depts that make up Canada's defense team. Currently DND runs on the last White paper to be published, it clearly states that the goal and function of our military is to be prepare to defend Canada, and it's foreign interests, plus be able to contribute to our defensive agreements, such as NATO, NORAD, etc...you can't do that with out having a general purpose military that is equiped and trains for the worst case situation...if that is done correctly and maintained all these other tasks such as SAR, Assistance to coast Guard, Artic Sov, are a piece of cake....but they will never be the main show in town unless there is a new white paper that pionts us in that direction....

Your not familar with the current procurement policies are you. Other than creating a requirement it is PWSG that controls what is available to test, DND tests those products and it is the Government that makes the final choice, very rarely does the military get a final say on what they want. examples of this are the LSVW, built by western star in BC, Griffon helo from Bell Canada. Kind of like sending your wife out to buy your power tools, rifles, or your next truck....How smart is that.....So there is a major difference between buying your sons first car , or buying something that men and women of the CF very lifes depend on, with that in mind why is it a bad chioce to let those very same men and women have a direct voice in what is purchased, it could in the long run save money...Military purchases should be free of all taxpayers and polictical interference. what both parties should be concerned with is how much is it going to cost period , not what product or how many or what political gain can come from it...but limited to how much funding is available....let the Military or end user pick out thier tools, if they are expensive then they buy fewer....Like we would do for our sons first car, here you go , heres 5000.00 buy what ever you want but thats all you get. Lets also not forget that some purchases are not generated from DND, such as the AOP, DND does not need a AOP, and would if had the choice spend those funds else where, AOP was never on the Navies shoping list it was some dream a polictician had and pushed through...it was also a job creation venture, and to spark up our ship building industry. I'm sure if you had told the NAVY to purchase what ever they wanted.... ships built or designed in Canada would not be amoung them.... why because we suck at it...making warships anyways.