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Few links to info on the Royal Navy's Sea King fleet

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/2875307.stm
http://www.royal-navy.mod.uk/server.php?show=nav.2372

And EyeBrock's vision of a Canadian expeditionary capability is very sweet! But big money would be needed. The current British defence budget is £30bn, about C$60bn. In the 2003 Defence White Paper, it was fully laid out that Britain, while retaining an expeditionary capability, would not be able to project force against 'state adversaries' without the full participation of the United States. In fact, the vision is one where Britain would only be able to run one 'medium' sized conflict or two 'small' ones in conjunction with the US, or one 'small' conflict alone (something between a Sierra Leone and a Falklands). The direction Britain appears to be taking is one of interoperability.

   

Canada could keep a few SeaKings and Refubish them for Special Forces Purpose. Removing the Sonar and Side facing Console would make this bird perfect to transport troops.

   

Royal Navy runs a 'commando' version for that very purpose

   

I should have mentioned that I was using them as a reference. The Brits are in the process to upgrade/modify a few of their Seakings for their Special Forces.

http://www.global-defence.com/2006/Air_ ... php?id=566

   

Still, that's pretty good for a country of 60 million. I think the Canadians should be looking towards the Aussies for the model of a fighting force that has an expeditionary capability instead of the US and UK. The defence budget is about the same.

The Canadians really seem to get bad value for money with the military.
I applaud the big ideas for icebreakers etc but I think tac airlift and choppers should be the first priority.

We already have CF18's.
Let get these fat gits from air Command to start thinking outside the box and start deploying air assets with the pongoes.

I can't think of a RAF fighter sqn that hasn't been deployed to Goose Bay or Cyprus, as well as in support of the Army worldwide. It's time we demanded the CF did the same.

Can you imagine the outcry in the UK if the air support in Sierra Leone had been provided by the yanks instead of the RAF/RN Harriers?

This is what my old lot have on the go in the Afganistan/Iraq theatre.



Now I don't expect the CF to deploy the same, but a proportional chunk of CF18's should be doing CAP's and ground support in Afghanistan.
It's beyond me why the media don't whine about it.
But then I remembered.
The Canadian media couldn't give a toss about its military.

   

In regards to grippen it was designed to be both cheap to acquire and easy to maintain, but i'd agree with you.



I'd say the problem is the exact reverse. Is canada going to need an extremely strong dog fighting aircraft? A strike fighter allows them to support their peacekeeping troops readily while relying on the larger nations to provide air superiority, with the far more expensive Eurofighters and F-22s.

Now if conditions change, for example if China does more then simple saber rattling then a air-superiority fighter would be reasonable but in the current environment Air Wars tend not to last that long

   

F-22 are way too expensive, plus the Americans will not export it. The F-35 is a single engine. Not a great bying feature for Canada. That is the main reason why we have F-18 vice F-16.

I am with eyebrock on the Pongo side of the fence. Canada's role in Afghanistan has opened our eyes on our Airforce capability. Not even a few days ago, we had to retire a C-130 Hercules transport plane. There was no hours left on it. It could fly again if... and only if we spent big bucks on a refurbisment. We are in a great need of a replacement. As of right now, Canada is looking at replacing the SAR Hercs with either the C-27J or the C-295. For the rest of the Hercs. They will need to be replaced soon and no term of proposal in sight.

The other one they found out the hard way is our lack of Heavy lift... Right now, Canada is relying on the Netherlands to do our Heavy lift. The kicker in this one... is that these are same Chinook Helicopter that Mulroney sold to the Netherland. Our boys are flying in our formely Canadian birds.

Plus the Seaking should be replaced now not 2008, not expecting any delays.

Our CP-140 Auroras will need to be replaced soon. Americans P-3s are being retrofited with new wings at 20M a piece. Canada should be looking at replacing the Auroras instead of upgrading in small chunks over the next 6 to 10 years.

Our CF-18 don't look too bad if you look at our Airforce as a whole. In 2000, our Airforce had shrunk to half the planes with half the maintainers. I don't know about the aircrew side of the fence.

But if we had left over money and the chance to purchase a new fighter... my money would be on the Typhoon. I believe that it would be the best bird for our continent.

   

I see...that would make a difference

   

You've obviously forgotten Gulf War 1. We had an air support role there. Oh wait, yeah, I forgot. We didn't have any troops on the ground for them to support in that one!

I think the 18's did take out an Iraqi fishing boat though. Or at least tried to!



And then we had the gall to charge them money for using CFB Goose Bay!



Good suggestion. Not likely to happen though. The Aussies know they're alone in a hostile part of the world, so they take defence seriously. New Zealand knows they can rely on the Aussies for protection no matter what. So they take the easy route and do so.

Sort of like Canada with the US.

   

It looks like the Americans might change their mind about this...

Japan to buy F-22s

BTW, I agree that the Typhoon might be a better fit than the JSF, due to its dual engine configuration (like you said, that's why we bought the CF-18 and not the F-16). But knowing our government, we're not likely to throw away our investment in the JSF program. Oops, forgot about the EH-101s!

   

I stand corrected...

   

< already posted >

   

We'll be getting the F35 Joint Strike Fighter when the time comes to replace the CF188 Hornets; mainly because we've invested so much money in the program to date already (level 3 or 4 partner in the program - level 1 being the US, level 2 the UK). Personally I would like to see us get some STOVL variants of the JSF for the fleet, though I suspect we'll just be getting the regular old variant. If we did get STOVL, they'd be very useful through the country in terms of rapid reaction as they could be based practically anywhere whether it is up north, or further south.

As someone previously said, the Harrier was a great innovation. Now I wouldn't want to buy the damned things given that they're being phased out through the JSF program and are one of the most unstable and unsafe aircraft ever made (through their engineering - as well as how difficult it is for the pilot to properly control the things; if you've seen the cockpit of one, you know what I'm talking about).

I can see upwards of ~80 JSF being procured around 2020 to replace the CF188, perhaps even more. Given that they'll be in mass production for about 10 years before we submit our order, the price per unit may be small enough to allow more than 80 to be purchased. If we have a pro-military govt at that time, we'd likely see more purchased than that.

As for the European and Russian fighers in the poll, forget it. Canada goes through all pains possible to avoid buying equipment from across the Atlantic. Part of the reason is that with American buy we generally get better industrial spin-offs, and given the horrible experience of our military in WW2, we learned our lesson to not buy things from a place where we have to cross an ocean in war time to get whatever limited spare parts they might have. Last thing the military or government will do is sign a contract which requires us to go overseas for spare parts, when there is a contender in the project which would allow us to walk over the border to the US for those same parts.

   

No doubt about it the F-22 is a sweet aircraft but unfourtunatley the U.S. goverment has put a ban on exporting the raptor, as everybody know the canadian military budget is much to small to buy an effective number of the F-22 units.

   

Send in the drones.

   

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