Canada's flawed military policies

[Smallc]

They might sink by then but they will most certainly not be replaced by then.

They will keep at least two of them around...they won't sink.

The icebreaking ships are not comparable in any way. And in any event, we are not building any icebreakers and have no plans to build any.

The icebreaking ships that they will be building will not be strictly icebreakers. They will become the patrol craft for all three coasts because the current patrol ships are too small. There is information out there to be found on this...and we will be getting the ships, they're in design phase right now and I haven't read of any cancellation.

In other words you were being dishonest.

I'd go back and read my post before saying that.

[normanchateau]

May 2, 2009 Liberal Convention:

A resolution asserting Northern sovereignty, including an expansion of Canada’s military presence, was also approved.

[waldo]

Given the amount of money this government has spent on political projects of no particular need to the country, it HAS the money to expand and modernize the military. It does not choose to do so. At a bare minimum we need more infantry, and a lot more equipment - so that even the troops at home have vehicles which actually run - and more inshore patrol craft. We also need the equipment, including icebreakers, to exercise sovereignty in the north - or we're going to lose it to those willing to do so.

I would expect additional monies "should" be forthcoming... in balance... to the 2011 end of combat troops in Afghanistan.

after all... in support of the Afghan "mission", monies were/are forthcoming to the tune of a $14-to-$18 billion estimate...

Afghan mission cost: up to $18B

Page’s forecast provides a range, suggesting the final bill could be anywhere between $14 billion and $18 billion, but it is based on the assumption that the current deployment of 2,500 troops and support staff remains the same. If the mission expands, so will the costs.

[jdobbin]

Governments in Canada have shown very little attention or interest in the needs of the military over the past thirty years. And Harper's Conservatives have not been much of an improvement over that. Governments are preocupied with policies and deal making which they hope will bring them further electoral success - as opposed to bread and butter issues like roads and ports and the military - unless the procurement can be touted as bringing jobs into important ridings, of course.

Is it a question of money that you are talking about?

Canada in 2007 was the 13th greatest spender on the military and within NATO was the 6th greatest spender dollar for dollar.

Spending next year year will be 40% higher than in 2000. It started rising each year from 2000 on and now in adjusted dollars is more than during the Cold War.

We've had scattershot announcements of purchases, and possible purchsaes over the last few years, but nothing substantive. The military has not increased by so much as a single soldier, sailor or airman, despite being overburdened by the Afghan mission, and there has been no defense white paper on what it's priorities are to be.

I agree that a list of priorities would be good.

Spending has increased though even if there are no additional soldiers. Do you think the percentage should rise to what spending was in World War II?

Australia, by contrast, just brought out a white paper which will govern not only military priorities but purchases over the coming decades in an organized fashion. Australia, about 2/3rds the size of Canada in terms of both economy and population, has announced, for example, that it will purchase 100 fighter planes. Canada has announced it might go for perhaps 60 or so, which is the most we can possibly afford, but there's no set date for that. Australia will purchase 12 submarines - Canada is desperately trying to repair the 4 used ones we bought. Australia will purchase a couple of dozen combat helicopters, ie, gunships. Canada has none and has no plans to purchase any. Australia's defense minister spoke of "self reliance" and said "we need to be able to defend our country without necessarily relying on the assistance of other nation states."

Australia's sub program has been as much of a disaster as Canada. They simply don't perform as well as they are supposed to and they have crewing problems to this day. Don't know if that it is going to be that much difference than they have now. Aren't Chinooks also known as gunships? Canada is buying 12 of those.

Canada has made a few mouth noises along those lines over the years, but never backed it up. Harper has flexed his rhetorical muslces about the north, but done nothing whatsoever to improve our defense or assert our soverieignty. There are no icebreakers, despite their promise a couple of elections ago, and it is extremely unlikely the government will commit to any given their priority of trying to buy votes in Quebec.

I'll agree that Harper fell short on the icebreakers and the slushbreakers are probably insufficient to the task.

Unfortunately, the only thing to look forward to if or when Harper is replaced by a Liberal government are cuts to defense spending, as already accidentally released in a conference call by their defense critic during the last election.

Since the Liberals are the ones that increased spending from 2000 to 2006, I wonder why you would think so.

[Smallc]

Canada is buying 12 of those.

I thought it was 16?

[jdobbin]

I thought it was 16?

That is the Chinook purchase for the future.

At the moment, they are buying six used Chinooks and leasing four to six commercial helicopters for Afghanistan.

[Smallc]

At the moment, they are buying six used Chinooks and leasing four to six commercial helicopters for Afghanistan.

Oh, yeah, the use ones that they bought from the US are already there and being used, it was on NewsNet 2 or 3 weeks ago.

[bush_cheney2004]

....Such is the nature of the world.

Correct...during much of WW2, ethnic Serbs allied themselves with Britain/Canada, but in 1999, Canada bombed the crap out of them. Go figure....

[waldo]

Correct...during much of WW2, ethnic Serbs allied themselves with Britain/Canada, but in 1999, Canada bombed the crap out of them. Go figure....

are you feeling a bit sluggish today... a bit out of sorts, perhaps? You failed to mention Chretien - should we send someone to check if you're alright?

by the by - who was directing NATO at that time... which country was overwhelming influencing that bombing you address? Which leader insisted planes fly no lower than 15K feet in order to minimize American casualties? Which leader held steadfastly against a ground invasion for fear of an attack by the Republican party? What happened when that leader finally succumbed to European pressure to authorize a ground attack... that's right... Milosevic pulled out of Kosovo, highlighting the futility of those carpet bombing runs and the death/devastation that ensued.

[bush_cheney2004]

are you feeling a bit sluggish today... a bit out of sorts, perhaps? You failed to mention Chretien - should we send someone to check if you're alright?

PM Chretien is a lesser included offense.

by the by - who was directing NATO at that time... which country was overwhelming influencing that bombing you address? Which leader insisted planes fly no lower than 15K feet in order to minimize American casualties? Which leader held steadfastly against a ground invasion for fear of an attack by the Republican party?

(In my best Flip Wilson voice)...."The Americans made us do it (again)".

What happened when that leader finally succumbed to European pressure to authorize a ground attack... that's right... Milosevic pulled out of Kosovo, highlighting the futility of those carpet bombing runs and the death/devastation that ensued.

Another bogus reference to "carpet bombing"....no matter...Canada gets a hard on for such things whenever "human rights are at stake (see "Responsibility to Protect").

[Sabre Rider]

Aren't Chinooks also known as gunships? Canada is buying 12 of those.

No, the CH-47 Chinook is a fair sized medium twin rotor transport helicopter and is ill suited for the gunship role. They have been around in one variant or another ever since the Vietnam War. They are good at hauling troops or artillery pieces around in protected airspace, however because they are large, slow and relatively sluggish when compared to true helicopter gunships, make excellent Triple A (anti-aircraft artillery) targets. In the gunship role they would be blown out of the sky in job lots. We would be better retrofitting some of our existing Griffins as gunships then pushing the Chinooks into the role.

The CF had a fleet of nine CH-47C's back in the 80's while I was serving, but they were sold off to I believe to Norway in the mid '90 and the two squadrons flying them were disbanded. The new fleet of sixteen CH-47F's are not expected to be in service until 2013 and in the meantime Canada has bought or will buy 6 used commercial (civilian) CH-47D's in 2009 as a stop gap measure.

F'ing pathetic if you ask me.

[Sabre Rider]

Correct...during much of WW2, ethnic Serbs allied themselves with Britain/Canada, but in 1999, Canada bombed the crap out of them. Go figure....

As I said, todays friend maybe tomorrows enemy and todays enemy maybe tomorrows friend. To think otherwise is foolish. Which is why I just shake my head when I hear people say "America is our friend and would never invade us". That may well be true today, but who knows what tomorrow will bring.

[Smallc]

Canada has bought or will buy 6 used commercial (civilian) CH-47D's in 2009 as a stop gap measure.

No, they are ex-US military helicopters. Also, they are armed, as are the Griffons that we sent.

Edited May 3, 2009 by Smallc

[Smallc]

The unarmed helicopters you are talking about are the leased Russian built ones from CHC. They are not used fro troop transport.

[Sabre Rider]

No, they are ex-US military helicopters. Also, they are armed, as are the Griffons that we sent.

Armed they maybe, but gunship they are not. True helicopter gunships are a completely different breed. Helicopters such as the original AH-1 Huey Cobra and its upgraded variant the Super Cobra, the AH-64 Apache, the EC-665 Eurocopter Tiger, the Agusta A129 Mangusta and the interesting Russian Kamov Ka-50 Black Shark and Ka-52 Alligator. These are true helicopter gunships.

The idea of mounting weapons on troops carrying helicopter dates back to the Korean War and it was the Soviets who took that concept to its ultimate form with the famous Mi-24 Hind. This helicopter attempted to merge the best aspects of both transport helicopters with those of a true gunship and when it first appeared, took the world by storm. However Afghanistan proved the concept to be basically erroneous and the Soviets operated Hinds as either dedicated non-troops carrying attack helicopters or as dedicated non-attack troop carriers.

Edited May 3, 2009 by Sabre Rider

[Smallc]

Armed they maybe, but gunship they are not.

I realize that. I'm not sure if we need gunships given the fact that the helicopters we have seem to be functioning well enough in the role of escorting the Chinooks.

[Sabre Rider]

I realize that. I'm not sure if we need gunships given the fact that the helicopters we have seem to be functioning well enough in the role of escorting the Chinooks.

Perhaps, but it is still jury rigging at best. Chinooks are rather large and slow helicopters with a heavy lift capacity and having rotors fore and aft makes them very vulnerable to ground fire. Mounting mini-guns and rockets on Griffins and pressing them into escort service is really a stop gap method that dates back to the Vietnam War when the US Army retro fitted older UH-1 Hueys into the role. A dedicated Attack or Helicopter Gunship is much better suited for the role as its crew is trained for the mission, the A/C is specifically designed for the mission and has the weapons and sensors required to carry out the mission.

So far we have been really lucky in Afghanistan in regards to helicopter loses, however that may not be true in the future. During the Soviet-Afghan War, the Soviets fielded a large helicopter force and at first ruled the ground and skies with almost impunity. Then the Mujahideen got their hands on some FIM-92 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and the tables were turned. One can only imagine what would happen to CH-47 Chinooks and our Griffins if the Russians decided to return the favour and secretly supply the Taliban with a few hundred or thousand 9K38 Igla or Chinese made FN-6 shoulder launched missiles.

Edited May 3, 2009 by Sabre Rider

[bush_cheney2004]

Perhaps, but it is still jury rigging at best. Chinooks are rather large and slow helicopters with a heavy lift capacity and having rotors fore and aft makes them very vulnerable to ground fire.

Yea..... it would never work. The ACH-47's used in Vietnam never really existed except for fake YouTube videos like this one:

One of the ACH-47's was named "Birth Control".

Edited May 3, 2009 by bush_cheney2004

[jdobbin]

No, the CH-47 Chinook is a fair sized medium twin rotor transport helicopter and is ill suited for the gunship role. They have been around in one variant or another ever since the Vietnam War. They are good at hauling troops or artillery pieces around in protected airspace, however because they are large, slow and relatively sluggish when compared to true helicopter gunships, make excellent Triple A (anti-aircraft artillery) targets.

They are described as gunships in the military forums but I guess you mean the one or two crewed attack helicopters.

The Chinooks are need for transport. It is probably why they have ordered them.

In the gunship role they would be blown out of the sky in job lots. We would be better retrofitting some of our existing Griffins as gunships then pushing the Chinooks into the role.

The Griffons have been upgraded for that purpose although the military denied it at first.

The CF had a fleet of nine CH-47C's back in the 80's while I was serving, but they were sold off to I believe to Norway in the mid '90 and the two squadrons flying them were disbanded. The new fleet of sixteen CH-47F's are not expected to be in service until 2013 and in the meantime Canada has bought or will buy 6 used commercial (civilian) CH-47D's in 2009 as a stop gap measure.

The Dutch were the ones that bought them. They are using them in Afghanistan now.

Mulroney sold them off.

The government is buying six used Chinooks now and leasing four to six more commercial craft.

[Sabre Rider]

Yea..... it would never work. The ACH-47's used in Vietnam never really existed except for fake YouTube videos like this one:

One of the ACH-47's was named "Birth Control".

Four were built as test beds and deployed to Vietnam. Three were sent over with one being left behind in the states for further testing. One of the original three was destroyed when it ran into another parked helicopter, the one left in the US was sent over as its replacement. Of those three, one actually shot itself down when one its fixed 20MM side mounted forward firing cannons broke loose and shot off its forward rotor. A second one, your Birth Control was brought down by enemy fire and the fourth was retired to be used as a training platform. All in all, not a good record. That is why most Military' have opted to smaller dedicated gunship platforms.

Edited May 3, 2009 by Sabre Rider

[bush_cheney2004]

Four were built as test beds and deployed to Vietnam. Three were sent over with one being left behind in the states for further testing. One of the original three was destroyed when it ran into another parked helicopter, the one left in the US was sent over as its replacement. Of those three, one actually shot itself down when one its fixed 20MM side mounted forward firing cannons broke loose and shot off its forward rotor. A second one, your Birth Control was brought down by enemy fire and the fourth was retired to be used as a training platform. All in all, not a good record. That is why most Military' have opted to smaller dedicated gunship platforms.

Right...we can read all that over at Global Security just like you. Still, US special forces have long employed attack versions of such "plodding" airframes (e.g. AC-130 Spooky / Spectre).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130

Canada has opted for neither. Iltis Jeeps were far less expensive.

Edited May 3, 2009 by bush_cheney2004

[Argus]

May 2, 2009 Liberal Convention:

A resolution asserting Northern sovereignty, including an expansion of Canada’s military presence, was also approved.

Yes, but Harper said the same, and has done nothing. I have yet to see anything of the Liberals to suggest they are doing anything more than making mouth noises.

Especially in light of their defense critic secretly telling people during the last election, over a conferene call to insiders, that they intended cutting the military budget.

[Argus]

Is it a question of money that you are talking about?

Canada in 2007 was the 13th greatest spender on the military and within NATO was the 6th greatest spender dollar for dollar.

Yeah, well Canada is about the 6th largest country in NATO population wise. But much of our spending is making up for lost time, for equpiment we should have bought ages ago.

Spending next year year will be 40% higher than in 2000. It started rising each year from 2000 on and now in adjusted dollars is more than during the Cold War.

What Canada is doing is, as it has done from time to time, trying to make up for some of the rustout the military has suffered over years of neglect by buying a bunch of stuff at once. In addition, Afghanistan has been a godsend to the military as neither the Liberals nor the Tories dared deny the troops the gear they needed. The bad publicity was simply too dangerous politically. So both governments have been buying and rushing equipment over to Afghanistan to equip what is basically a small regiment over there with decent gear. As a result, they are fairly well equipped over there.

As for over here... nope. The new, modern, functioning LAVs and armored vehicles, as well as everything from electronic and communications gear to flack jackets, are in too short supply to hand them out to everyone. So the troops here can't really use the stuff. They have to go over there and learn it on the job. I'd love to see someone do a comparison of the gear a unit in Afghanistan has with what a unit in Canada has.

Spending has increased though even if there are no additional soldiers. Do you think the percentage should rise to what spending was in World War II?

What I think is that the military should be properly equipped, especially, at the moment, the infantry, and that includes all of the infantry, not just the ones who are in Afghanistan right now.

In addition, we have so few infantry, and they are so overworked, that we desperately need at least several thousand more infantry.

Since the Liberals are the ones that increased spending from 2000 to 2006, I wonder why you would think so.

The Liberals did nothing but cut the military. As they did nothing but cut health care. They didn't care about either. It wasn't until the Conservatives became a threat, and stories began appearing in the media about our troops dying in Afghanistan for lack of proper gear that the Liberals began to purchase some equpment and ship it over there. That was not because they cared about the troops, but because they cared about bad publicity.

Edited May 3, 2009 by Argus

[Sabre Rider]

Right...we can read all that over at Global Security just like you. Still, US special forces have long employed attack versions of such "plodding" airframes (e.g. AC-130 Spooky / Spectre).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130

Actually, the original Spooky was the AC-47 (not to be confused with the ACH-47 Chinook helicopter gunship) variant of the C-47 Dakota/DC3 aka Puff the Magic Dragon. Some smart person had realized that if an aircraft was to fly around at a set altitude at a high bank angle with side mounted weapons, it could deliver a concentrate amount of firepower into a small killing zone for a sustained period of time. This is what the AC-47 variant was designed for and it proved to be good infantry ground support and area denial platform, however it was under gunned and under powered to take on heavier weaponry.

The C-130 Hercules transport however had the payload capacity, engine power and fuel load to not only carry a heavier weapons load but could do so at a higher altitude and for a longer duration and so some were converted into the AC-130 Spectre. First mounting an array of 7.62 mini-guns, 20 MM Gatlings and a pair of 40 MM Bofor Cannons, its main mission was to interdict NVA supply trucks traveling down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Later the Bofor's were replaced with 105 MM howitzers. The Spectre differed from the Spooky not only in terms of fire-power but also with it sensor suite which included, early FLIR, low light TV, and other exotic sensors to help them locate their targets. Also, they are the only fighting A/C in the USAF that still carry enlisted crewmen.

The third fixed wing gunship developed was AC-119 Stinger based on the then recently retired Fairchild AC-119 Flying Boxcar, it was brought into service as a replacement for the AC-47 Spooky and to support the AC-130 Spectre.

Because of the nature of their attack mode, basically drilling circles slowly about the air, all three are very vulnerable to ground fire. In order to minimize the risks, these A/C operate mainly at night under the cover of darkness and in areas generally free of SAM's or radar assisted Triple A guns. During the Vietnam War, 6 Spectres were lost to ground fire and SAM's. I have an interesting book written by a former Spectre Navigator about their war in Vietnam. The main rule of thumb was, once SAM's appeared on the scene, Spectre' made like a ghost and disappeared, and the NVA were very apt at setting up SAM sites where no one ever imagined they could.

The newer AC-130U's have been designated Spooky II instead of Spectre for some reason and apparently they are working on a lighter version to support the AC-130's which is to be designated Stinger II.

Canada has opted for neither. Iltis Jeeps were far less expensive.

Of course not, even the USAF has a very limited number of AC-130's because they have a very limited mission scope, basically they can only operate in area's where there is a minimal anti-aircraft threat and mainly under the cover of darkness. Bring in SAM's or even Manpad anti-aircraft systems and those lumbering AC-130 are just so many sitting ducks flying around in circles saying, "Shoot me, shoot me now!!!".

As for your Iltis Jeep comment, thanks for confirming that bush_cheney equates to boorish_clown.

[bush_cheney2004]

...The newer AC-130U's have been designated Spooky II instead of Spectre for some reason and apparently they are working on a lighter version to support the AC-130's which is to be designated Stinger II.

That's right..."they" are working on such things all the time. It is best to have the resources in place before embarking on missions that require such capabilities.

Of course not, even the USAF has a very limited number of AC-130's because they have a very limited mission scope, basically they can only operate in area's where there is a minimal anti-aircraft threat and mainly under the cover of darkness. Bring in SAM's or even Manpad anti-aircraft systems and those lumbering AC-130 are just so many sitting ducks flying around in circles saying, "Shoot me, shoot me now!!!".

Bring in combat air patrol and air superiority and it gets even worse....but the Taliban is lacking in this capability.

As for your Iltis Jeep comment, thanks for confirming that bush_cheney equates to boorish_clown.

I will investigate how many Iltis jeeps the Americans started with.