Canada's military, how impressive it really is.

[Dougie93]

5 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

What's a Vimy?

Kids don't even know about the history of it all.

adults don't know much about it

If I invoke Canadian history, most Canadians literally think I'm crazy, talking nonsense

Quebeckers tend to know their history

but the Anglo population are basically Americans now by default

[DogOnPorch]

4 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

adults don't know much about it

If I invoke Canadian history, most Canadians literally think I'm crazy, talking nonsense

Quebeckers tend to know their history

but the Anglo population are basically Americans now by default

 

Many Americans know what Antietam or Shiloh was, mind you. But point taken and agreed re: Canadians. Can't show WW2 on the history channel! That might show a swastika & Nazis at work. 

Edited February 26, 2022 by DogOnPorch

[Dougie93]

10 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

Many Americans know what Antietam or Shiloh was, mind you. But point taken and agreed re: Canadians. Can't show WW2 on the history channel! That might show a swastika & Nazis at work. 

well, there is a subset of American history buffs

but actually, if you go to college campus right now ?

you'd be hard pressed to find a kid there who could tell you the significance of Sharpsburg or Shiloh

bloodiest day in American history is not going to be on the tip of their tongue

Albert Sidney Johnston, they never heard of him

they might say Civil War battle, but they might think it was World War Two

Southrons tend to know, but Yankees not so much

 

Edited February 26, 2022 by Dougie93

[DogOnPorch]

Shiloh. The battle of flower petals.

As it was early March in Tennessee, spring had sprung and all the trees were in blossom. Artillery started big forest fires as well as sent petals lofting high in the breeze...raining down on the huge battle by the river. Must have been incredible. A two day affair with Grant coming into his own.

[Dougie93]

just for the illumination of those reading the forum

the Battle of Shiloh 6 April 1862

the significance was that is was the point of no return

the first big battle, with horrendous casualties, and they had no evacuation, no medical support

so the men just lay dying slowly in the fields

this was when the Yankees fully mobilized, started creating the Military Industrial Complex to fight the war

Sharpsburg or Antietam as Yankees call it, 17 September 1862, the Bloodiest Day in American history

this was the battle that incited Lincoln to go to total war of annihilation

subsequently invoking the Emancipation Proclamation

[DogOnPorch]

Canada has of course been involved in many big battles. Kapyong has to be the bloodiest in terms of ratios. I think one MG company of the PPCLI managed 100-1 or something horrible (for the Red Chinese) like that.

[Dougie93]

10 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

Shiloh. The battle of flower petals.

As it was early March in Tennessee, spring had sprung and all the trees were in blossom. Artillery started big forest fires as well as sent petals lofting high in the breeze...raining down on the huge battle by the river. Must have been incredible. A two day affair with Grant coming into his own.

I'd say the cruelest battles of them all

were Cold Harbor,  for them Yankees, 12 June 1864

and Franklin,  for the Confederates, 30 November 1864

 

[Dougie93]

4 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

Canada has of course been involved in many big battles. Kapyong has to be the bloodiest in terms of ratios. I think one MG company of the PPCLI managed 100-1 or something horrible (for the Red Chinese) like that.

worst battle in Canadian history has to be Dieppe

they just stood no chance, getting gunned down by enfilading machine gun fire from three sides, stuck on the beach

[DogOnPorch]

5 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

worst battle in Canadian history has to be Dieppe

they just stood no chance, getting gunned down by enfilading machine gun fire from three sides, stuck on the beach

 

Dieppe was criminal.

Test the defenses, my ass...yeah...they work.

[Dougie93]

Dieppe,  19 August 1942

907 Canadians killed

2,460 wounded

1,946 captured

in a single day

out of a force of 6,050

that's 80% losses in a single battle

[Dougie93]

3 minutes ago, DogOnPorch said:

 

Dieppe was criminal.

Test the defenses, my ass...yeah...they work.

the purpose was actually to try to capture an Enigma Machine at the German navy headquarters in Dieppe

the whole battle was just cover for Ultra, Ian Fleming's 30th Intelligence Assault Group

 

Edited February 26, 2022 by Dougie93

[Army Guy]

On 2/23/2022 at 7:54 PM, Moonlight Graham said:

50,000 active troops?  That''s a national disgrace.

We just sent like 450 troops to help with Ukraine.  450 lol.

The release rate is at the highest it has ever been, they're simply no money for training, no real money for anything one can only do so much vehicle maintence on vehicles that don't move .. Soldiers are siting around with nothing really to do....so bored they are getting out. 

When i first joined in the 80's i was gone 8 total months out of the year, every soldier knew his job and one level above him, now soldiers are lucky to get 2 to 3  months out of the year, even NHL players train almost year round...for a sport, we are talking about combat where lives are measured in mere seconds..

[Army Guy]

On 2/25/2022 at 1:50 AM, Moonbox said:

21st in the world for what?  Spending?

Canada has little/no force projection capabilities and has to rely on allies for logistics and often transport.  We've virtually no independent operational capability and (I would imagine) wouldn't be even be capable of defending our own soil if anyone ever invaded. 

Canada not spending its military dollars wisely is one of the oldest stories I know.  From what I understand, the soldiers themselves are well trained and motivated, and we have some fairly good equipment in different places, but the whole apparatus seems to be built on the assumption that the Americans will and our other allies will look after a lot of the...details for us.  

That number comes from Citizen source, I'm assuming it means over all we are 21 st in the world...

We don't have enough Lav 6.0 (light armored vehicles) not Infantry fighting vehicles used in high intensity warfare,  to cover each company in our mechanized infantry Battalions, some travel by school bus, or walk ,     We have no ground air defense capability at all ( from manpads upto long range systems),no self propelled Artillery vehs, our logistic wheeled fleet is in shambles most if not all are well past 30 years old rusted out most sit in empty fields stripped for parts, we have 40 tanks battle ready, the rest (40) are trainers not meant for war, no attack helos, our utility helos are civilian helos not meant for combat, No tracked IFV , all our artillery assets are towed by truck which are to slow to put into action or take out of action, little to none UAV of any size, not enough fighters aircraft to cover all their duties like NORAD, training, but little to no dedicated to ground or close air support, no awacs, only a few air to air re fuelers.... the list goes on and on and i have not even got into the Navy... 

[Army Guy]

23 hours ago, Nexii said:

Judging our military based on spending as a % of GDP or gross amount is deceptive, because salaries are such a big part of it. Russia spends 3x what we do yet they have 20x the troops. We should look at our number of troops, planes, ships etc per capita vis a vis other allies and rivals.

And yea the other issue as noted is that spending doesn't equal effectiveness if you are wasteful...

 

That is only half of it, This liberal government has done some creative accounting to bring us upto that level of 1.3 % GDP, it takes into account our national preparedness department (their entire budget is out of DND's, also army operation in support of RCMP, Fisheries, Coast Guard comes out of DND 's budget, pensions for civilians working for DND , along with pensions from military personal comes out of the same basket, Justins or infact any MP travel on Military aircraft out of DND budget, along with any humanitarian aid that uses military aircraft, there is alot more that brings out grand total up to 1.3 % when if we used the NATO standards we would be at .9 or 1 % and shrinking as it does not rise with inflation. 

[Army Guy]

23 hours ago, Aristides said:

If you have an all volunteer force you need to make it attractive for people to join and that includes decent pay. 

Canadian soldiers are the second highest paid in the world , with Australia being the highest. Not saying the pay is great as many other federal government employees are paid much higher such as RCMP officers, but still the pay is good... but it does eat into 75 % of the total budget. 

[Army Guy]

21 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

The have their own Van Doo Regiment, with a pretty proud history I might add, it shouldn't be hard to sell that to separatists. 

The 22nd are all grunts (government rejects unfit for naval training - ? to army guy, yz and D93) but they could get AF training (kind of homo-erotic, but I'm not judging) which has very valuable training for the civilian world, or they could man-up and join the few, the proud, and the elite in the navy. 

So you went down that road, fair enough, atleast i don't have to wear a Chasity belt when going to sleep, so your fellow navy dudes don't roll you over in the middle of the night or you wake up with Vaseline all over your bum, ... nor do i have to worry about some fat guy getting stuck in a hatch way when everyone is trying to get top side.... and i don't have to tread water if my LAV gets hit, nor do i have to worry about sharks or anything else in the ocean food chain, that and the fact your a one huge target that is hard to miss. ,

Sorry I'd rather take my chances in the mud or snow. Did some amphibious training for a couple of weeks or so in NFLD, aboard the Toronto i think,  could not wait to get to shore on solid ground...sea sickness has to be one of the worst experiences of my life, it does not stop until your off the boat, or the sea state goes away... .... and you could not get me to repeat that for a million dollars 

On top of all that the NAVY is DND lost forgotten step child with the plague, we used to complain of the lack of tools and resources we had in the army, but those couple of weeks with the navy, they are deprived 1000 % more than the army was... and will continue to be until they get through this ship building program in tact and fully funded that is. 

Canada’s Navy in Deep Crisis – 2021 – Canadian Naval Review

[WestCanMan]

3 minutes ago, Army Guy said:

So you went down that road, fair enough, atleast i don't have to wear a Chasity belt when going to sleep, so your fellow navy dudes don't roll you over in the middle of the night or you wake up with Vaseline all over your bum, ... nor do i have to worry about some fat guy getting stuck in a hatch way when everyone is trying to get top side.... and i don't have to tread water if my LAV gets hit, nor do i have to worry about sharks or anything else in the ocean food chain, that and the fact your a one huge target that is hard to miss. ,

Sorry I'd rather take my chances in the mud or snow. Did some amphibious training for a couple of weeks or so in NFLD, aboard the Toronto i think,  could not wait to get to shore on solid ground...sea sickness has to be one of the worst experiences of my life, it does not stop until your off the boat, or the sea state goes away... .... and you could not get me to repeat that for a million dollars 

On top of all that the NAVY is DND lost forgotten step child with the plague, we used to complain of the lack of tools and resources we had in the army, but those couple of weeks with the navy, they are deprived 1000 % more than the army was... and will continue to be until they get through this ship building program in tact and fully funded that is. 

Canada’s Navy in Deep Crisis – 2021 – Canadian Naval Review

Touche

[Army Guy]

5 hours ago, DogOnPorch said:

Canada has of course been involved in many big battles. Kapyong has to be the bloodiest in terms of ratios. I think one MG company of the PPCLI managed 100-1 or something horrible (for the Red Chinese) like that.

2 VP, still wears the Presidential unit citation on their CF uniforms... 

Battle of Kapyong – VALOUR CANADA

[Army Guy]

8 minutes ago, WestCanMan said:

Touche

My 2 weeks aboard the toronto was eye opening , and although we do criticize jokingly about the navy all the time, i came away with a healthy respect for what the navy does, and what they go through every day stuck in a tin can bouncing around the Atlantic like a cork... It is definitely not for everyone...

[DogOnPorch]

1 hour ago, Army Guy said:

2 VP, still wears the Presidential unit citation on their CF uniforms... 

Battle of Kapyong – VALOUR CANADA

 

Part of the larger Chinese Spring Offensive in 1951. Canadian units were actually in very dire circumstances but managed to keep their casualties very low. Excellent defensive positions. It wasn't quite as bad as being pushed back to the Pusan perimeter as in the previous year, but still a massive affair involving about a million soldiers.

Edited February 26, 2022 by DogOnPorch

[WestCanMan]

4 hours ago, Army Guy said:

My 2 weeks aboard the toronto was eye opening , and although we do criticize jokingly about the navy all the time, i came away with a healthy respect for what the navy does, and what they go through every day stuck in a tin can bouncing around the Atlantic like a cork... It is definitely not for everyone...

When I was a gunner on the Qu'Appelle our only gun mountings were 3'50s (twin 3' bore barrels 150 inch long. The 'big' gun mounting on the fo'c'sle pictured) which are hand-fed. The gunnery range for the west coast is Whiskey 601 which is notoriously rough, I guess that's why we'd go there - everyone else goes around it, so chances were if there was a fire-ex, I was already ill. Anyways, there are two loaders per gun, one on each side, so two guys stand back-to-back in the middle and there's one on the outer side of each. 

The turret spun around at about 23 degrees per second side to side (super slow by today's standards), which isn't fun when you're already seasick, and the barrels could point anywhere from about ten degrees below horizontal to straight up, so you had to contort your body to get the shells in when it was moving. They were about 3 feet long and weighed approximately 50 lbs. Each barrel shoots 23 rounds per minute, so each guy would load 11.5 rounds per minute, which gives you about 5.5 seconds to grab a shell and stuff it in in there. 

It's pretty crazy, that big breech block is just slamming up and down 2 feet in front of your face and the guy behind you is constantly bumping you if you were in the middle, the turret would acquire new targets and change direction autonomously, but the adrenaline when you're finally shooting makes you unseasick for a while. We'd be in there for a couple of hours sometimes, mostly waiting though (you know the "hurry up and wait" drill...) and when you were closed up and cleared away you couldn't get out of the mount. 

I stood in those gun mountings choking back puke many times while that turret was just spinning around but we weren't shooting anything. 

That ship might has well have been called HMCS Sitting Duck. The turrets were designed in 1955 to shoot down planes going max 400 knots. Migs were going over Mach 2 back then, just forget about the missiles. Our only hope would be if they went right out the other side ?. Subs? Not a chance. We had good torpedoes, and our ship was capable of upgrading to more modern ones quickly if we needed to, but subs always see you first, and they have missiles and torpedoes of their own.  

We did 13-17 hr days at sea during normal days, over 21 hours on mid-cycle workups, which was 2 weeks of hell. I just did my 3 years and got the f out. 

I still have a lot of friends from back then, mostly just on FB all over the country. 

[Dougie93]

5 hours ago, Army Guy said:

My 2 weeks aboard the toronto was eye opening , and although we do criticize jokingly about the navy all the time, i came away with a healthy respect for what the navy does, and what they go through every day stuck in a tin can bouncing around the Atlantic like a cork... It is definitely not for everyone...

I got posted to Borden to teach C7 to recruits

they sent me to teach RCN recruits as the SME

it was fun, just teaching C7 all day and otherwise goofing of on Borden which I enjoy as a base

but the navy was creepy

like one big happy family, no real internecine rivalry

I couldn't get with that

 

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Dougie93

[WestCanMan]

8 minutes ago, Dougie93 said:

I got posted to Borden to teach C7 to recruits

they sent me to teach RCN recruits as the SME

it was fun, just teaching C7 all day and otherwise goofing of on Borden which I enjoy as a base

We had the FN when I joined. The C7 was finding it's way onto our boats soon after I got out. 

Quote

but the navy was creepy

like one big happy family, no real internecine rivalry

I couldn't get with that

There was no rivalry because the gunners were the undisputed kings ?

[Dougie93]

Just now, WestCanMan said:

We had the FN when I joined. The C7 was finding it's way onto our boats soon after I got out. 

There was no rivalry because the gunners were the undisputed kings ?

yeah, I started out on C1/C2 in the 80's, this was later when I worked at Battleschool in the 90s

but I liked the infantry for the rivalry, I like to fight

like I can't be stuck on a ship having to get along with guys for months on end

I got into fights, just to blow of steam

[DogOnPorch]

Fabrique Nationale....errr Herstel.