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Well, I do see the transportation problem as a concern however there are ways around that too.
Canada "rented" ships to transport the Bn to Bosnia in '92, and we "rented" the Antilov to transport 4x LAV's to Haiti in '04. This was on top of other vehicles too.

As I have heard that the specs for the new CDN transport have been changed over and over to pretty much makes the C130J as the only option we can get let alone what we can afford.

I really would hate to put my life on the line with a veh that was bought not for its capabilities but only because we could transport it in a Herc.

The LAV is an excellant vehicle with the firepower/speed/crew-troop comforts etc. The 113 was underpowered and with every conceivable turret on the top made it that much slower not to mention uncofortable to travel in due to its suspension etc.

   

Well, Harper did promise during the election that he would buy at least three heavy lift aircraft. With both the Brits and Aussies getting the C-17, I don't see a way around us getting them too. My guess is though, that we'll lease rather than buy them, like the Brits did. It might cost more in the long run but would be more affordable on an annual basis.

And I agree that I'd rather have a more capable vehicle rather than one than can be carried by the airlift we currently have. The Coyote and Bison are far better than the old M-113s, even the ones with the turreted TOW launchers.

   

Aww muffin. I remember falling to sleep in the back of M113's during maneuvers. Fuck comfort, if it comes between begging other countries to get our kit to point and being able to do it ourselves then the LAV loses.

The LAV is great, for a wheeled vehicle, but you need track to move off the road and clear roadblocks and sadly the LAV is nothing more than an expensive taxi with a machine gun and the last time a LAV when up against a real taxi, the taxi won.

   

OUCH, game point.!

The 113/LAV is a glorified taxi comment is waaaay wrong.
Having riden in both, and with the capabilities of the LAV, the LAV wins. Even as an ex-driver of the 113 (not the LAV) I would vote for the LAV.

I have been stuck in both the LAV and the 113, so the 113 does not go through all as some might think.
Whatever minor victory the 113 might have over the LAV in mobility on rough terrain the LAV wins overall in everything else.

   

You give too much weight to the 'everything else' bit. The LAV is not fast air, it is not a tank and it is not artillery. So what is the 'everything else' your talking about? The heaters for the hard rats? The cannon good kit but can't it fit on an M113? The power plant are what was needed to be replaced on the M113, instead we got the LAV that are nearly ten times the cost and we can't get them where we need them without begging another country for strat air.

   

True, tracks give you better mobility, but the combination of wheels and the sloped hull gives the crew much better protection against mine strikes.

In Yugo during the 90', a number of Canadian troops suffered pretty horrific injuries when the 113's struck mines. Yet in Somalia, the Airborne was outfitted with Grizzlys. We had 9 mine strikes during the deployment, and the worst anyone came away with was ringing ears and cuts and bruises.

It's a trade off to be sure, but in theatres where Canadians are serving these days, I'd say increased mine protection is more important than better mobility.

   

And the:

1. Track

2. Armour

3. Heater/Ventilation

4. Hydraulic system

5. Night Vision System/Periscopes

6. Storage

7. Hatches

IMO, we screwed the pooch on the 113 Upgrade. The costs got to great on even what was done and we blew the opportunity to make them MBT/LAV comparable in mobility by keeping the slack track. We should have put return rollers on it and tightened the thing to allow us better speed and power. Eveyone is pretty well versed in the armour weaknesses, so I'll leave that. Heater/Ventilation. Spend time in winter in that beast and it's a feast or famine situation. Most likely famine. Spend time buttoned up as in a NBC enviroment in summer and yeouch! Hummy isn't the word for it. The hydraulic system is frankly stone age. That big tank of hot fluid in the crew compartment, waiting for the RPG shot isn't comforting. Especially if you have to sit beside it after a prolonged bout of dozing. NVS is again stone age and inadequate by today's standards. That active system is visible to anyone with a passive IR viewer. Storage is a nightmare. Try living out of that thing fully bombed up. Not just exercise bombed up, but operational. There isn't room for shit. I'm not talking about room for luxuries or nice to have shit, just the stuff you need to do your job. The hatches (CC/Dvr/Rear Door) need to be altered to allow a fully kitted troop to exit them.

So yeah, lots of points about the 113. Lots too WRT the LAV, but at least you can fight from it. Some one mentioned earlier that it was all a trade off, and that's true. The LAV will complement the Stryker MGS (which is another mistake IMO) something we should have done when we got the Leo's.

My choice? Replace the 113 with a Marder and get Leo 2's.

   

Nice.....

You can keep upgrading the 113 all you want but in the end all you have is one hell of a heavy vehicle that does not move well in any terrain.

As for the transport problem.....anywhere Canada goes or has went we "rented" what was needed to get the vehicles there and then constantly rotate the Bns through. Then when the tour was over we "rented" what was needed and returned them to Canada. Not sure what the problem is with that. Not the most economical I will admit but it does get the job completed.

I have seen the after effects of mine strikes to both LAV and 113 and well, the LAV wins!



The fact that I will be able to make it to the battle with no breakdowns and then have the vehicle fire me into what ever situation that arrives. Do not underestimate the cannon of the LAV. It will be pretty hard to sell me on not having the LAV having been in both LAV and 113 for both operations and trg.

   

Taiwan's Cloud Leopard

This 'home made' APC is Taiwan's answer to an invasion. It suits their needs very well and will be able to rapidly deploy using the roads. This is ideally suited for the mission they will face should they ever be called upon.

However, as I have stated before I would prefer that we have a tracked version of the LAV. Although it is important to have mobility, if you are dependent upon roads then your patrols become strategically predictable. This is a major consideration when it comes to determining where and when patrols are to go out. Without track, the limits on what is consider drivable terrain drop dramatically and the chance of an easily predicable bottle neck in patrol rises accordingly. Also, without track the ability to bypass ad hoc barriers is gone without engineers. This also makes herding the APC that much easier to do into a preselected kill zone. The claim is that LAV-III can move faster than a tracked vehicle is true along hard roads, but on soft ground, the laws of physics still favor a tracked vehicle with its lower ground pressure. The result is, the LAV-III needs the extra speed to take the long way around and in the process be channeled through predictable defiles, increasing its vulnerability.

I could argue that the per unit cost of the LAV as compared to the M113 is somewhere between 4 to ten times as much and that means simply you can have 1 LAV-III or 4-10 M113's (and that is the upgraded version we have already invested hard taxpayer money into) but like I said I would rather have an LAV with track. The M113's are old warhorses and the design, no matter how much we refit and upgrade, is old as well. We could do as Taiwan and make our own and I see no reason why we shouldn't.

The air lift is not critical now but it should be considered and eventually we should have units with organic lift to make self sufficiency possible. The LAV III at 105 inches is too wide to fit into the 105 inch floor width of a C-130. The bottom line is, the LAV III is not C-130 transportable in a practical way and is too heavy for helicopter transport or C-130 transport to dirt airfields. So we will require either we get huge C-17's (and we should) or work with our existing lift that was designed for the M113. Either way we are left currently with our pants down and that will be more than just embarrassing and should be amended with expediency.

WHEELED ARMORED CARS: FAILURES NOT THE "FUTURE" OF WARFARE

   

Amen.

   

Regardless, I would still take the extra protection offered by wheels and sloped armour over improved mobility any day. Alot more Canadian soldiers have been killed and injured over the past decade from mine-strikes and IED's than have been due to the inability of a Lav or Griz to go off-roading.

   

Here's our "HotRod" from 2003 - I was not active at the time.

   

Sloped armor isn't exclusive to the LAV. As for the tires and moblity this too is a fallacy, as the lack of pivot steering capability, when compared with tracks, severely reduces its maneuverability in tight areas. The vulnerability of the tires due to the thin sidewalls required for the Central Tire Inflation System means these are an Achilles heel, particularly against any adversary who is aware of this weakness.

   

You're doing it again Scape, trying to refute me without reading my posts. You'll find it's a lot easier to avoid seeing your arguments ripped apart if you'd actually take the time to do so before responding.

One more time for Scape.

True, tracks give you better mobility, but the combination of wheels and the sloped hull gives the crew much better protection against mine strikes than a 113 can ever hope to offer..

In Yugo during the 90', a number of Canadian troops suffered pretty horrific injuries when the 113's struck mines. Yet in Somalia, the Airborne was outfitted with Grizzlys. We had 9 mine strikes during the deployment, and the worst anyone came away with was ringing ears and cuts and bruises.

It's a trade off to be sure, but in theatres where Canadians are serving these days, I'd say increased mine protection is more important than better mobility.

And while sloped armour isn't exclusive to the LAV, it's not a characteristic of the 113 at all.

As for the argument that the 113 is cheaper, that's just nonsense. We're not fighting massive armour campaigns in the Fulda Gap these days. We don't need huge numbers of mech forces to achieve our military goals. We send limited size units to low intensity conflicts around the world. Much better to ensure they have small numbers of the best kit available rather then throwing mass quantities of antiquated museum pieces at them.

   

Dear Lord, what the world coming to? I actually agree with MCB! Just kidding...

But this is a very good point. It sounds like Scape is planning on fighting WW2, not the current round of low-intensity, counter-insurgency conflicts the world will be faced with for the foreseeable future. Until a rival to the USA develops, this will remain the way wars will be fought.

Besides, short of buying Bradleys for our troops (far more expensive and heavy than the LAV III), we aren't going to get tracked vehicles. In case we haven't noticed, almost every nation in the world is moving from tracked APCs to wheeled APCs. I could understand the concern if Canada was the only one doing it (like unifying all three armed services -- damned Hellyer), but the US, the Germans, the French, the Russians, pretty much everyone is moving to wheeled transport.

   

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