Army Guy

Yes lets recap: MLW peaceniks have feverishly rained down on the Claimed "Who is ever going to attack Canada" MLW war-hawks, have i think very clearly proven that both Russia and China are increasing their military strength, when they only possiable threat is the US. And in doing so needs to be considered a threat in many ways, it would be iresponsable for western nations not to be concerned. One of those nations being Canada... What kind of threat Cyber would be one these attacks that continue day to day and are very common including on Canada., Industrial or military intel gathering, another one that is very common and continues on a cold war level. military threats, perhaps not directed at North America, but most diffinently on US /Nato protectorites which the US has defensive agreements with, and of course we have agreements with the US, so you see how this ties into some of the decisions on why the F-35... Not only is it the only affordable gen 5 fighter on the market today, we also have to consider Canada's purcurement record, i mean 40 years to replace an aircraft type, thats pushing the envolope, we also have to consider, is this Canada's last manned fighter, although we don't have the tech now, one would think we would in another 25 years....which means we need experience with high tech some what stealth tech. It would be iresponsable of the Airforce not to take into account that as we speak Russia and China are building stealth gen 5 aircraft, that will be operational in the near future, 5 to 10 years...even if they don't attack we has a nation still need to be prepared...Like someone said it's like fir insurance, you never know when your going to need it, but with out it can devastate a family or nation...The purchase of the F-35 is not just for defense again'st red menance attacks...had Pakistan decided to attack Nato forces in Afghanistan, or any major blow out in the middle east, and we all know what a tinder box that is... I don't think it is much to ask for that our men and women be given the best equipment money can buy to give our sons and daughters an edge over our enemies so they may come home intact, and healthy... I think i'm diligent correspondant, but i brought those in response to other claims such as the one that Canada was turning into an armed camp, or that our government was a militaristic one...but now that it is out there, it is common knowledge that the US military spending out strips everyones combined...but i don't know where you going with this, is your intention to say we fall under their defensive umbrella of the largest spender in the world.. although that is true, if we want to keep our indentity, soverenity, and all that goes with that we need to pull out wieght, and truely we are not, in any form pulling our weight as if we payed the entire costs of defense it would be more alot more than it is now.

And while we are the 3 rd highest paid forces in the world, the avgerage cpl does not make as much as garbage men in the and around the toronto area...and he does not have to drive on IED infested streets or face Ak fire.... The average RCMP constabul after the first year makes over 75 K while a first year pte makes 34 K...in fact most police officer are better paid...in fact RCMP officer in Afghan make more in bonues than we do...and share half the risks... But you would be right if you included most workers in North American are over paid, not to mention we are by and by a welfare nation, with the government expected to provide most things...

Waldo: Waldo i think you mis read my post, i mentioned that other posters were complaining about the militarization of our nation, turning our nation into a big military camp. The index i used was Global Militarization index , which measures militarization of a nation. which includes more than just military expenditures. The graph you have used puts Canada at rank number 14, but it does not mention how it is measured, is it actual budget numbers, percentage of GDP,purchases, i'm not sure. The reason i ask is although our budget is or was at 22.5 bil 70 to 80 % of that is in the O&M budget, and i d estimate that 70 to 80 % of that is wages...Canadian military is the 3 rd highest paid in the world first being the Australians...

Currently China's current military size when compared to India, Pakistan and Russia, could be compared to Britians military, compared to the US. China Has already eminent power over Asia, by quit a large margin..and is planing to double it's current military spending by 2015....

Here is another brutally shocking cover up by the KKK....here is the link : John holmes is a black man, in a white mans suit....news at 5 , local KKK officals report john holmes the porno star is a blackman, and has the vidios to prove it, although the images are grainy, you can still make out john holmes big dick...you also see him shed is white mans pull over custume....Sources with in the CIA quote this clearly shows a world wide conspricy by KKK officals...to discount the romour that all white men have small disks....David Suzuki is reported to have only this comment "try being an asian man".... Remember White men don't have large penises, only 0.2 % of the white population sport huge boners, and this is due to a birth defect know has Hugecockitis according to local KKK sources at red neck city hall.... Being white means having a small dick, then why is there over 1 million reported big white dicks in Canada alone....Asks another famous porno who apparently likes Canadian men, not a race but just a excellent place to live. Jesus was a white jew, and had a big dick, or so say mary, the pope is researching this now, as this could change everything...... white is a race, being white and having a big dick not so much.... Remember If big dicks are white,then anyone who has a small dick belongs to the KKK....or so it has been report by local hooker in Red neck city.

NO, i say it because for the most part it is true, unless you can mange a mass demostration or have access to the media, you SOL. I've heard this over and over again, Canadians calling the cons a militaristic government, or a turning our nation into a military warehouse..., or comparing us to the USA...because we did what GOING to buy 65 planes, 100 tanks, and some ships....perhaps we should put that into some context. Russian government agrees to increase spending by 60 % link CHina defense budget is reported to increase by 7.5 % this year but by 2015 it is reported to almost double to 238 bil US Shit, Canada does not even make the top 30 nations on Global Militarization index in fact it is not even listed. Canada's spending at the peak was 22.5 bil, and now is decreasing.... One has to atleast ask the question who is going to attack China, Russia, no one, but yet their defense budget are sky rocketing why is that...why do these nations need such a huge military are they that afraid of the US, is the US threating to strike...no, then why? perhaps to take advantage of the worlds current situation when most western countries are down grading militaries and expenditures.....so we should sit down put our heads in the sand, with our asses held high so one day someone can fill it....we'll still be saying Who would want to attack Canada after watching a parade of red stars roll down town toronto....

That was not my piont, i was trying to say, the politicians should control the funding, thats it, and as long as the equipment was not stratigic in nature IE nuc missle, Air craft Carriers, those sort of things then what equipment is purchased would controled by the amount of funding released...In this way the military when funds are approved would be able to purchase the equipment it wants...it is a win win..elected officals still maintain control over tax payers funds, and the military gets the equipment they need... Tax payers don't have a say in much of anything until after the fact and only by controlling the vote, or some sort of massive protest....or media event

I spent alot of time reading up on WWI those guys must have had stones the size of boulders, to get up run across no mans land and watch most of their company get mowed down by MG fire...I thought we had it bad during OP mudusa, when the A-10 straffed us, and took out half the company in 3 passes....me and god had serveral conversations that day let me tell you...but nothing what those guys faced day to day in the trenches...

Got to fire the lee enfield when we went up north, on ex with the inuit, some excellent marksmen there hitting targets at 600 meters with the iron sights... Might be some news on that front, they are suppose to be upgrading to a new rifle, and disposing the enfields...might even make the open market I friend of mine had an old M-1D sniper rifle , i'd have to say one of the better rifles i've shot todate... seen and fired a shit load of AK-47 and 74, when i was in KAF there was a merchant that made them in his shop, i'd to see it to believe it, most of it was made of scrap metem we had chucked out, and a hammer and chisel....100 us dollars, and all the ammo you could carry...over all was not impressed , with accuracy, but then again fully auto 7.62...the AK -74 was a muched improved wpn over all better accuacy, better handling and the same toughness you expect out of a AK. I even won a M-14 marksmen rifle at a poker game one night, it was sweet looking , of course his gunney found out and made him get it back...although his gunney did take a few of us out to the range and let us hammer on them all day, very accuate rifle, out to 800 meters, we were hitting targets at 1000 but had to walk them in with 2 or 3 rounds That day got to try their Barretta 50 cal sniper rifle, that was awesume, put a full mag down range hit targets at 1200 meters no problem....although the highlight of the day was the 40mm auto grenade launcher, that wpn could give the pope a hard on during sunday mass...The detruction it could bring down was unbeivable...god bless America.

your right it is law a retarded one but a law, so thousands of hours will be put into getting a LCC estamte , when i could have pulled pretty much the same number out of my ass over the phone....because it will have the same impact at the end of the day, the opposition will be happey 25 billion dollars...they will run with it, the government has lied to us the purchase will cost 25 bil not 9 bil, we want heads, but will fail in explaining what the 25 bil represents.... But here is what we have to look forward to if the cons maintain it's majority then we will have these planes regardless of cost, the cost will remain the same ....and that is what pisses off the oposition, and if they are ousted the entire project will be canceled just out of principal....why because that is the way we role...

Anyone can decide how much funding to give each dept, with out have much knowledge in what that dept does, or can be advised. however picking military equipment is a military mans job not some tax payer or some politician...at the end of the day they don't have to crawl into it and place their lives in danger....this is why we continue to have light Ilitis jeeps in war zones, LSVW in war zones, MLVWs in war zones, it was only after soldiers paid for these mistakes with their lifes that things changed...Very few military purchases have resulted in the military getting what it wanted...or even in the class of equipment we needed... Give us the number that we can spend and let us pick it the equipment out ...what is the problem with that, you still get control and maybe we don't get as many as we need , what we do get will be exactly what we wanted... unelected bureaucrats such as the ones on this board have influence on what is purchased politicains don't use the tiolet unless it is ok with the people...and yet those soldiers that use the equipment have no say...none you get what you get don't like it get a new job....nice way to treat the very people that will one day put their lifes on the line for the very same ungreatful people...besides we have enough problems tracting elected persons and how they spend funding without oversight or accountabilty...

I've been doing this for 31 years now, and we have yet to be at war, but i can't tell you how many times i've been in combat. And perhaps you can name one politicain that followed that rule...build it they will come...if they have it they will use it... operations is DND's cost, WAR is a governmental cost hence why we have not been to WAR, but rather military operations.... And yes LCC needs to track combat as it will drastically shorten the perdicted lives of equipment,instead of 25 years it's now onlyn has 18 or 20... equipment is lost and needs to be replaced, spares are eaten up trying to keep it all serviced, fuel is gobbled down at 10 times the rate....ammo is expended at tonnes per hour, an example during the first couple of days of op mudusa we chewed through every bullet we had, dthe next day, more bullets came from canada, it was expended in a few days, more arrived however there was a severe restriction put on all ammo in Canada has they did not have enough, over the next few days we were using US ammo....try and track that on your LCC accounting, and yet here is millions of unaccounted funds , that DND is screaming for...a couple of operations and your LCC est is garbage and needs to be looked at again, something to think about when they say the F-18 is almost 40 years old , but how many operations does it have you'd almost have to add 15 to 20 years to that number to account for true wear and tear, which is what the LCC is all about is it not. DND is buying this aircraft under the idea we are going to fly it in combat, we don't buy them because the look good on the tar mac...we buy all military kit to kill people with and break shit...so to have any sort of accurate LCC it to must be thrown into the LCC mix to give accuate accounting....or your best guess is just that someone pulling numbers out of their ass.

The military does not pay for anyones home, they do however provide PMQ's and single quaters, as time progresses they will be providing less and less, as the trend is to tear the down due to costs. Again a soldier pays for the home and any taxes, maintence, just like anyone else. This is true there is a move allowance which does pay for these costs, because we have no chioce in where and when we move.\ Income from rent is returned back into the coffers of the government as with any return of funds from any dept . and is not returned to DND. up keep for any infra structure is out of DND's O&M budget. Any new construction would come out of Captital budget. yes they are looked after by a civilian component called CFHA, As with any new home you purchase labour is costed into the price, however, you won't find wages, food , clothing, over time, shitter rentals, other equipment rentals, you also will not find 25 years of electrical bills, sewage and water bills, putting on 2 or 3 roofs, added into that as you would not if you were shopping for a home, they already know what it takes to budget for x PMQ's they would add 2 more to that total. within DND we don't use the LCC model for costing, it is only required when the opposition screams for it... Yes those costs would be considered but when getting approval for these builds you would not say i need 1 million dollars to build 2 PMQ's here is my best guess at what it costs over the 60 years we plan to own them....you would submit material costs labour costs unless using DND labour which is free. It's not because they have failed to account for upkeep, that funding was diverted for other things like to fund the Afghan operation, purchase some new equipment, this should not surprise you LCC funding pratices will give you a rough figure, but they are not detailed enough to provide accuate info for 25 years out. most of our funding request come from historical data from the year before, plus what's on the calendar, up coming events etc etc. and by using some math ie a major exericise is broken down by x amount of troops is allot x amount for food, every day, water is free , but x amount is for bottle water, each veh is broken down by x amount of miles is equal to x amount of fuel, same for A/C , and ships. each portion of the ex is maped out in detail, and everything is account for. those costs are then added to last years budget and sent for approval. the only way to have any surplus is to cancel something for the airforce they stop flying for awhile for the navy they stay in port, check the media there is alot of that...the army virtally stoped major ex's usless training for Afghan or artic sov exs'....these funds are diverted what little there is to pay for small things like smaller equiopment items like night vision goggles things like that. those LCC costing princles have nothing to do with the amount of funding we get every year, the key driving factor is is the government in a spending mood or is the purse shut...if it's shut equipment does not move unless it's important...DND submits detailed budget request every year and some times you score and get what you want, other years we don't DND has to juggle they funding it gets and spread it thin, adjusts the calendar and waits for next year... If your under the impression that because a piece of equipment has had an LCC done on it the government has to lock in that perdicted funded your wrong...once the purchase is over DND has to ask for O&M funding each year...because each that LCC changes...and the same people who made the rules don't want 25 years out nor do they care, they want to know what is it going to cost this year...

This is a perfect example of what happens when politician decides what equipment to buy....the same thing here is happening spme what over the f-35 those that are the experts are being told the F-35 is junk.... In my family we have an understanding my wife does not buy or pick out my power tools or pick up, and i don't pick out her appliances or car....there is a good reason for that, she picks out shit that is cute and i pick out stuff because of it's capabilities....same thing happened with the Subs they look cute next thing we know we have cute subs but mech junk....

waldo: Your right they scewed the pouch, so what is next, do we have enough to have him fired, NO...is it enough to effect the next election, proaqbly not...Canadians have short memories,, Is it going to effect the purchases, yes it will unless the tories can win every election from here to there. opposition will cancel it just on principle, not becuase it is a good A/c it has merrits, today it is the best on the market, for it's class. it will be gone and Canada will be looking for another fighter any fighter as long as it is not the F-35....and once again our service pers will end up riding some of the cheapest equipment on the market... We both know that this is an extremily long process, and does not always work, such as when the belt has been tighten 2 or 3 notches ....but lets call it what it is a guess an educated guess at best but it still not accurate.... I like to agree with you but thats never happened, the role of the opposition is to get into power by any means, not to ensure the Cnadian tax payer and voter is getting the best out of their vote. this is a double edge sword i'm affaid the government will do anything in it's power to remain in power. as for anything with the F-35 name attached to it will make news and gather attention as far down as the local soup kitchen. And it should also be explained to Canadians exactly what it is a "bestguess....and by no means accuate. And in doing so jacks up the LCC costs, and to the average Canadian when asked how much does the f-35 cost will tell you 25 bil, when the actaul cost is between 5 and 9 bil...it's called sticker shock...and for that reason alone this project is doomed...

the AG asked for the LCC costs for the entire life time of the aircraft,show me where anything said combat was not to be counted....I read the AG report as well no where does it mention we just want day to day flying counted only...The reason it is mentioned because Combat flying means they are taking the aircraft to the very egde of it's specs, or beyond, this eats up the life hours faster, as it stress out the a/c making replacing componets sooner, well before they were due....it means more maintence, it means more fuel , it means more everything, more bombs drops etc....LCC means to account for everything put on or used to support the a/c for 25 years....i mean it is a combat aircraft , we did purchase it to kill and break things did we not....just in combat it uses hours at an incrediable rate...I'm not sure how fast maybe Dereck can answer that one. Going to war costs come out of DND annual operating budget, to make up the difference or unknown costs it trades in it's capital funds as it done in Afghan. Government does not give DND extra because we are war for the first couple years of the Afghan conflict we operated in the red. The cost of the operations does include everything that DND payed out while in operations, but the actual accounting is out of the O&M budget we don't have a war budget but we do keep track of all the cost it occurs to answer questions that will come later...

Horse shit, what did our ship builders do after they finshed the last frigates we had built, today one is bankrupt, the other down sized and moved to halifax, this entire build in a canadian shipyard is about provideing tempory welfare to these companies, and to these workers, if you think we are going to compete with korea, poland in ship building you should stop taking those pills. There is no future in building Canadian warships, unless me replace them every 15 years or so, that is not going to happen... as far as the rewards go for sending the work to soemone else one of them would be getting a quality war ship, with state of the art wpns... We made this decision years ago when we knew of the consquences of not constantly building ships, instead we say f*** it because we had a huge deficit...and entered the decade of darkenss not just for the military but every dept...and speaking of darkness when was the last time we invested in the coast gaurd....yes we as a nation are concerned with ship building...and this new ship building policy does not account for what happens when all the ships are built, what next...same as the last ime we close the door leave our nations ship building capabilites in the hands of major civilian companies who owe their share holders their loyality first...and in 40 years from now we'll be saying the saem thing "we used to be so good at ship building what happend..

I can't wait until a bigmac cost me 50 bucks because everyone has to account lcc...forget a new home,

Waldo: All the above information is available, in fact it's available on the web. DND keeps all the records that the treasure board has asked it to keep. the problem with the treasury boards rules is to predict the future costs one must rely on past historical data, and guess at the rest, this is what the real problem is, this course of action involves "guessing" at how much funding is required to operate one piece of equipment. It fails to take into account real life problems,and operations, it fails to give the tax payer an accuate cost. This can only be done year by year after they have been completed.. The other problem is these inaccuate figures will be the tools of the oposition, and they will fail to put them into context, that most of these costs are already accounted for in the annual DND operating budget. As far as tracking operational and Capital funds they are ear marked and tagged before the budget is released to DND, capital funds are controled by a separate DND organization, while operational funds are released to each unit, these units are restricted on what they can purchase, while the other dept controls only capital funds, which when compare to the overall budget are really quit small in size. but all this info is avaialable on line to everyone. Perhaps it is the way things are accounted for by DND, operational costs are accounted for in a separated portion of the annual budget. and have not been a inforced as a requirement in past purchases since 2006. and it is in mine opinion that the opostion is using these numbers to justify it's postion... When infact if it was explain correctly and we did account for these operational costs for the guessed at life time of the equipment it could blow back in their faces, DND would have to change the way it accounts for O&M funds, The government would also lock this funding in for that period of time ( in this case 25 years) meaning that portion of the budget could not be shrunk regardless of the problem as it has already been accounted for during the purchases phase. It would create a problem if the equipment is kept past that period of time, which it noramlly is. It does not account for losses or replacement costs this happens all the time. Or maybe they did hide them to prevent the oppostion for scewing the tax payers thought process, which it has...i will agree with you that was wrong, for what ever reason, that being said i think that asking for all O&M costs to be added into the actual intial cost is just plain stupid and is not proper accounting, and does not give the tax payer an accurate costing of having this peice of equipment in our inventory. and when using these figures it should be explained in full what they mean,

We know when the rule came in, I'm asking when a DND procument project was release to the public under these rules, and what project was it. todate 2012 no military project has been released to the public that fully complies with these rules... LCC costing is a guess at best, it does not give you a true cost of anything, it's all about taking a bunch historic data , normally data collected during peace time with no operations ongoing and times it all by the guessed service life. What it does not take into account is actual operations, as seen in Afghanistan, it does not take into account Dart type missions, or diasters at home, it also does not take into account how cheap our government really is, and how much past it's orginal est life span we keep equipment..nor does it account for inflation, our strength of our dollar, price of oil, there is thousands of factors not considered...hence why LCC is not an effective accounting tool, which is why DND accounts for it's O&M budget every year,at the end of each year, it's accounted to the cent and presented to the government, it projects all the factors we just talked about and asks the government for the next budget. Want to know how much the F-18 cost us that year it is all listed in the last years budget... It's not the problem acquisition cost are just that, how much is it going to cost us for this purchase today....want to know exactly how much a piece of equipment has cost us todate, to the cent it is available to the public. want to use LCC then it is a guess at best, wonder how many people would buy a home if we used LCC costing, and if we don't use it in our daily lifes then why are we demanding our government use it for the first time on this project, because they want to scare the shit out of the tax payer... The LCC is used , but it is a base figure only, and not used in any accounting, or quoting actual costs. the government already keeps track of all records of how much each major equipment has cost us, and tracks it by CFR, or tail number of ship number, these records are available to the public. they track everything down to the penny, except they don't track wages , how many lunches the pilot had, or how much windex was used to clean the windows. those are tracked else where in the budget... as far as knowing the future costs of anything another purcurement process will be started and the bidding agencies will tell you straight up what the costs are going to be. how can you make an informed decision on a best guess...when we are talking bils of dollars...this is not the standard i want it is not the standard that is asked of me when doing my job...and your right an asset is useless if we don't have a plan, DND already has a plan and it is accounted every year in it's O&M budget available for everyone to see. It how most nations work thier O&M budgets yearly..... LCC is a new process and if you going to use it to account for major purchases then a total re vamp of DND's budget needs to be done, and every peice of equipment will need to be assigned LCC funding, you can see the problem can't you....this is the only project that has these rules appied to it...DND's budget will actually shrink in size because it will no longer need to account for O&M funding it will already been accounted for, well atleast until that best guess runs short, but that will be years down the road, or an operation comes up and eats up 2 or 3 years of funding in one year...who's going to replace that funding , do we go back and ask for more , do we have to start a new purchase agreement, and let the tax payers know someone who guessed f***ked it up we need x more bils....Is that the type of accounting you want...

That is not what everyone has been saying the new rules are the new accounting laws....therefore one would have assumed since it is law that this is what and how it is being accounted for, and if the number 25 bil is a BS number meaning it does not have anything to do with the true accounting of tax payers money, then why is so much fuss being made about it. The government needs to explain it in those terms, that the 25 Bil is a number that is arrived at by guessing, and has no true accounting meaning. it is just an est of how much this entire program will cost, it is not the true value, IN OTHER WORDS it's being used to scare tax payers into dumping the project, I can hardly wait to see the new ships cost est. Yes, the tax payers do, they pay our 1.5 % of our GDP on defence, And those tax payers who have to risk there lifes and climb into the cockpit, to uphold our internal or foreign policy do they have a say where their money goes, I think not. For years we as Canadian have held the mighty dollar over lives, very rarely do we stop and think will this purchase save lives...instead the first question is what is it going to cost.

Who do you think pays for it, it accounts for 70 % of DND's budget which is certainly is funded by the tax payers, in fact with these new rules it is accounted for twice, ance during the procument process , and once annually ....

)&M portion of the budget includes Pay for all members,all cost for all maintenance which includes parts,labor,any cost incured during maintence including out sourcing. and repair to parts such as engines etc...operations include any cost incured to include fuel, benifits such as field pay, claims, rentals, food, local purchase items, the list goes on...hence why it is the largest portion of the budget....i'd est well over 70 % of the budget thats alot of funds to be accounting for twice....and it would require a major review of DND's budget and how we do business... SO according to your own link these items that DND has been asked to account for is being done twice, once during the procument phase for the entire predicted (guess) of the A/C life. and then once every year during the allotment of DND's budget, it is presented to the government for approval, here they approve of disapprove of DND's prediction of a years worth of O&M budget...as i said already it is the largest portion of the budget, which would mean bils are accounted twice and one would become free monies every year to be used as they seen fit...like more procument... But now that the entire O&M, plus more is costed at the procurment phase that should no longer be nessicary, as it is already approved, according to the new rules, And i say NEW rules because this is the first procument project that they have been asked for or even given. As SmallC has already explained to you. My entire piont in this debate is to show you it is in fact being accounted for twice, which is not good accounting , even a rookie accountant could tell you that....so it must be used for something else, and that is to mislead the tax payers and voters into rising up and crushing the F-35 because they have no other reason to smash this project....your on the ropes and now have to make up shit to support your cause.

Everything is accounted for, these additional costs are accounted for in the O&M budget within DND's annual budget. the augument is not if we should account for it, but rather it is accounted for twice, once during the orginal contract as required by the AG and once by DND annual budget. And by appling these new rules, what happens when the orginal guess is short, how do they do to increase funds, do they need to revist the entire purchase and what happens at the end of 35 years and there is a surplus where does it go... Currently as a DND annual budget if they run short other parts of the budget are shifted over to make up the difference, you can't do this if it's already part of the purchase contract...there is no flexibility.