Roadside bombs

[jdobbin]

I don't see the political will in either the Gov't or the Public for expanding the size of the land forces to the amount needed to create and nourish a commando brigade of 5000 souls. That size would neccitate around 25,000 further bodies in support roles. Given that we would still want conventional troops to do conventional soldiering, add another 30,000 (5k troops + support)

60,000 soldiers is close to the total for all branches of the armed forced....you would be looking at a 100% increase in strength. Not impossible, but impossible under the present circumstances.

I believe in 2004, Paul Martin had proposed increasing troop strength by 5000 in the Army and 3000 in the Reserves. A year after that decision was made, the Forces were still having recruiting problems as outlined in the Auditors report. They are now increasing their numbers but I haven't heard recently what the Tories consider to be an adequate number. The Afghan war has been a drain on training and recruiting.

I'm not sure I agree with your total numbers thus far. It is obvious that both the previous Liberal and now the Conservative governments realize that we lack sufficient numbers of people to fulfill more than one deployment at once. For Afghanistan, we have 2500 soldiers deployed, 2500 soldiers preparing to be deployed and 2500 soldiers who are just back from deployment. It is not enough and even one emergency in Canada will leave us short.

I still think rapid deployment is our best strategy. How that is carried out should be discussed with seriousness. A haphazard build up could just problematic in terms of future deployments.

[White Doors]

A rapid deplyment force is a good strategy, but only one componet of the overall strategy.

5000 soldiers is too much. habe to keep it smaller to keep the standards up.

[M.Dancer]

I don't see the political will in either the Gov't or the Public for expanding the size of the land forces to the amount needed to create and nourish a commando brigade of 5000 souls. That size would neccitate around 25,000 further bodies in support roles. Given that we would still want conventional troops to do conventional soldiering, add another 30,000 (5k troops + support)

60,000 soldiers is close to the total for all branches of the armed forced....you would be looking at a 100% increase in strength. Not impossible, but impossible under the present circumstances.

I'm not sure I agree with your total numbers thus far.

My numbers? I thought they were yours?

Their isn't really a problem getting recruits, according the the General, but getting them into camp.....which is all the more reason that a 5000 strong commando brigade is not likely nor desired.

[jdobbin]

My numbers? I thought they were yours?

Their isn't really a problem getting recruits, according the the General, but getting them into camp.....which is all the more reason that a 5000 strong commando brigade is not likely nor desired.

I was talking about the additional support numbers you were talking about.

Perhaps the overall military numbers and procurement will become clearer over the next months. We've seen some rapid fire announcements on purchasing but haven't gotten a sense of the overall strategy of the military long term. It probably is because Afghanistan hangs over the future of everything the military does now,. Still, it is important to go over the needs and prepare farther ahead.

[M.Dancer]

My numbers? I thought they were yours?

Their isn't really a problem getting recruits, according the the General, but getting them into camp.....which is all the more reason that a 5000 strong commando brigade is not likely nor desired.

I was talking about the additional support numbers you were talking about.

Perhaps the overall military numbers and procurement will become clearer over the next months. We've seen some rapid fire announcements on purchasing but haven't gotten a sense of the overall strategy of the military long term. It probably is because Afghanistan hangs over the future of everything the military does now,. Still, it is important to go over the needs and prepare farther ahead.

I was being very conservative which modern outsourcing allows. Traditionally the support personal ratio was 10 bodies for every fighting soldier. That number includes service and logistics corp, intelligence, ordinance, quarter masters, medical, air supports, mechanics.....for example my uncle was in Italy and Normandy in the engineers....not the combat engineers...sanitary engineers...a crucial trade if you want dysentary and desiase kept at bay....he was near the front setting up latrines and showers....

....but i the modern army many services are outsourced...gone are combat cooks and such aand those jobs are perfomed by well paid civilians. Si I think the 1 to 5 ratio is close to accurate. Maybe Army Guy has thoughts....

[weaponeer]

What I was putting fofrward is along the lines of what army guy mentioned, a fast in and out force. You would not need it too be that big, it's effectivness would be it's speed (rapid deployment), combat power and it's ability to strike anywhere.

example;

There's and AQ training camp in Somalia, near the coast. Offshore a Canadian army JTF2 team deployed on Canadian navy sub surfaces late at night, deploys the JTF2 in RIB boat to shore. JTF2 comes ashore in the dead of night, infiltrates the camp and nuetralizes it, then back to shore and extract to the sub.

Same situation, except the training camp is located 100 miles or so inland. 2 newly upgraded Canadian frigates, each with 2 new Cyclone helos sits offshore. At night the helos load up a SOF team, JTF2 or CSOR, and depard towards land. Crossing the beach the helos go very low level toward their target. Out of sound range of the camp the helos land and deposit their "cargo", which moves on foot to the camp. Once in place the SOF team radios the ships, that fire off a volly of Tomahawk land attack missile (which our ships should be getting). Once the missles strike the camp taking out key targets the SOF team attacks, with air cover from the helos. Once the camp has been secured, all AQ killed or captured, they extrcat by helo back to the ship.

You don't need 5000 guys for it, or a commando brigade. In fact you could take a few regular infantry men, and train them for one specific mission, execute it and return them to their regt. This is just an example. Remember, intel will find out there's a camp or major AQ leadership unit hiding somewhere, if we have time we can react with regular troops specially trained for one raid, but we do still have JTF2 & CSOR troops ready all the time, for short notice ops. Also, who says the troop have to be Canadian, perhaps a Canadian sub could deliver Norwegian commandos, or New Zealand SAS. Who says the mobile strike force has to have Canadians at all, other NATO countries could participate as well. German SOF teams, Danish, Dutch etc....

Thoughts.....

[jdobbin]

You don't need 5000 guys for it, or a commando brigade. In fact you could take a few regular infantry men, and train them for one specific mission, execute it and return them to their regt. This is just an example. Remember, intel will find out there's a camp or major AQ leadership unit hiding somewhere, if we have time we can react with regular troops specially trained for one raid, but we do still have JTF2 & CSOR troops ready all the time, for short notice ops. Also, who says the troop have to be Canadian, perhaps a Canadian sub could deliver Norwegian commandos, or New Zealand SAS. Who says the mobile strike force has to have Canadians at all, other NATO countries could participate as well. German SOF teams, Danish, Dutch etc....

Thoughts.....

It sounds good to me. Everything except delivering some of the troops from countries mentioned. Seems to me that there are only a few of them who seem willing to take part in such a strike. lol

I still think we need more Army personnel but it is probably better to have a real discussion on the subject to decide how best to serve the needs of the Forces.

One thing is clear: it is the very type of strike that you've described that may be the most effective. Rather than occupy...we'll use your example of Somalia, we hit hard and fast and remove the threat. Leave regime change to Somalians. Perhaps they'll get the idea if a rapid deployment force takes out their allies.

[Army Guy]

I think this is the direction we are heading right now, with the stand-up of the CSOR Bn ( ranger type LT inf) which will have a JTF componet to it, it will also have a a Spec op's avaition unit attached to it ( not a true Spec Op Avaition unit in comparrison to the US or UK version) but it still is trained for Spec ops operations, even with Griffon helo's....

Aside for giving Canada an expanded Spec op's capabilty it has other benifits attached with it as well.

Since the dismissal of the A/B regt the army has been missing a couple of links in the chain in regards to progression of our soldiers into spec ops warriors..

Now a soldier has opitions of progressing from say a regular Inf soldier, to a CSOR member, training is tougher and requires more skills, and after they are trained to this level the next step could be JTF, making this transition much more easy, in regards to mental and physical conditioning...producing a much better canidate for spec ops units...

The CSOR bn will maintain our airbourne capabilites, and tactics that differ from say us mechanized bound warriors.

The CSOR Bn will also allow greater support to JTF ops, allowing operations to get larger, even spare JTF operators for other tasks.

The draw backs are spec op's units are very costly to equip, train, and maintain....and money is always an issue...