Previous  1  2  3  Next

Schadenfreude
Pretty much all we got, the joy of knowing others are even more fucked up/

   

It would be nice, if at the bare minimum, we could upgrade some of our basic systems. Apart from newer fighter jets and ships, we could bring our infantry weapons out of the Cold War. Either buy or license the NLAW's from Bofors or the US Javelins.

We have no dedicated Anti-air systems. So lets get the UK Star Streak system or US Patriot system.

Maybe we don't have to spend big, but lets start making the investments that can count in a pinch.

   

Light to medium infantry with a specialization in vehicle-killing and anti-aircraft shouldn't be too hard, or too expensive, to accomplish. Combine it with a couple dozen heavy lift aircraft to get them into a hot spot in a short amount of time and a country has on hand something that can give an enemy a swift & vicious bloody nose almost immediately. It gives a military an effective immediate-response force and is far less likely to turn into a catastrophically-expensive boondoggle the way these endless & poorly thought-out aircraft purchases and ship building typically does.

With what Ukraine has shown can be done with some relatively inexpensive drones has also changed the game completely. There's no need for expensive manned aircraft to be patrolling the Canadian north. But several bases servicing anywhere from fifty to a hundred drones would bring a presence back to our far northern territories. And they don't have to be wandering around fully armed either, just patrolling as required.

There's ways out of this mess we've put ourselves into. All it takes is the will and money to do it. Whether or not that will exists in Canada right now, or ever will in the future, is the great question that keeps going unanswered.

   

When our airborne unit was disbanded (and understandably so given the horrible hazing that became public), we lost aloud quick response ability. Maybe it’s time to bring it back; this time with less gratuitous hazing.

   

Yeah, it's been nearly 30 years, I think it's safe to revive the Airborne.

   

NDP against Canada increasing defence spending to hit 'arbitrary' NATO target

A real white paper taken seriously would be nice for a change.

   

Throughout their history, the NDP has been pretty anti-military, so yeah maybe.

In the 1980s, Broadbent and the NDP wanted to pull us out of NATO completely and become neutral, even though the Cold War was raging and Canada was stuck in the middle between the US and USSR, each of whom had tens of thousands of nukes.

After the Cold War ended, they called for us to close our bases in Germany, which Chretien did because it saved over a Billion dollars a year. They were not in favour of Canada going to Afghanistan or Iraq, and thought that the West could negotiate with the Taliban.

The LEAP Manifesto, popular with most NDP members in central and eastern Canada, calls for slashing the defence budget to almost nothing to fund green initiatives, If LEAP goes forward, the armed forces will become a weak coast guard and handful of peacekeepers, even though peacekeeping has been dead for a long time.

At their last national convention, the NDP voted on whether or not to completely abolish the armed forces. It was defeated, but as I said, it shows there are strong anti-military elements in the NDP party.

Granted Singh isn't as anti-military (outwardly anyways) as Layton, McDonough or Broadbent were, but elements of the party base is.

So would they balk if Trudeau really ramped up spending? I'd guess almost certainly.

What will likely happen is that Trudeau will increase defence spending modestly and then intimate that he actually wants to raise it to 2%, but the NDP won't let him. That of course is BS, because he's just like his father and does not regard the armed forces as a vital part of our presence on the international stage.

   

The Airborne Regiment was disbanded because several members tortured and murdered a Somali civilians who was looking for food, not because of hazing. The hazing was just the final nail in the coffin. The sad reality is that hazing was common throughout the military back in those days. I'm not saying it is okay to haze new trainees, but it was fairly commonplace in the 1980s and 1990s.

Ultimately, I blame the Mulroney government, which sent the wrong troops on a peacekeeping mission.

IMHO, you don't send gung-ho elite commando types to hand out food to starving kids in Africa - that role should have gone to one of the Reg Force regiments. The Airborne guys trained with Delta Force, the SEALS, SAS, etc. and were the best of the best in the CAF - JTF 2 was formed in 1993 after the CAR was deployed to Somalia.

Those paratroopers expected to go in and kick some Somali warlord ass and instead got stuck on guard duty in a fenced compound and spent their days and nights watching for thieves who were looking for a can of beans. Tack on the new anti-malaria drugs which caused all sorts of bad side effects, and you had a situation where it was just a matter of time before something bad happened.





I think that role is now filled by the Canadian Special Operations Regiment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_ ... s_Regiment

   

https://www.cp24.com/news/canada-choose ... -1.5837644

Canada chooses to buy F-35 fighter jet: CP sources
OTTAWA -- The Liberal government is expected to announce today that it will enter into final negotiations on purchasing the F-35 fighter jet.

Government and industry sources have told The Canadian Press the negotiations with manufacturer Lockheed Martin will be announced at a news conference this afternoon.

The sources spoke on the condition they not be named because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

   

Shocked! Shocked, I tell you. How can a contest designed for a specific fighter to win, be won by that fighter?

But I'm sure it will be a good fighter, if it ever begins actual service.

   

That’s right. I totally forgot about what happened with the Airborne in Somalia.

   

Sigh...the Liberals should have started this procurement process right after they got elected, instead of waiting four years.

Instead they kept juggling this political hot potato and now we're 7 years later into the process and if we're lucky, it'll be only a couple years before we actually get any.

Exasperated sigh...

And I'm still not convinced that single engine fighters over the Canadian Arctic are a good idea.

   

I'm not convinced a very expensive single engine fighter is a good choice for us, when cheaper dual engine fighters are out there.

They can still be fitted with modern electronic and control systems we need to integrate with our allies.

   

Canadian Forces in desperate need of new spending, procurement follow-through, experts say

This podcast interview (a little longer than 8 minutes) halfway down the page is a good listen on our current defence predicament.

   

Delaying the F-35 by a few years, even up to a full decade, was probably the unintentional wise thing to do, given the endless reports about what a turkey it was in the first block to come off the production line. I always believed that it would eventually become a great plane, a status it's now inching towards, but that the first few years of it would be too troublesome to be worth the purchase. Lockheed-Martin needed time to get their shit together, and the ongoing reports from the US, Britain, Japan, and others that already have it in service are indicating that it's performance has vastly improved.

There's worse things than being late to get in on an initial "deal". LM promised too much for the first roll-out. Those promises are coming true in later production. Not jumping in feet-first at full price was clearly the correct thing to do IMO.

   

Previous  1  2  3  Next