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Just rotations? What the hell do you think we are doing in Afghanistan? Dropping of troops for the duration? Again, I welcome you to enter a recruiting center to help "beef up" our limited manpower.

   

Well France has 36,000 troops deployed overseas at the moment. They also took on a numerous amount of peacekeeping and missions abroad. As for Germany well then had a little conquest of Europe and weren’t allowed much after that. Germany was permitted to rearm in the 1950's but was mostly used as a defensive force against the Soviet Union. Wasn't really until unification of East and West Germany did they start deploying in more international affairs.

   

France Also has a population of 60,656,178, much easier to have a large Military. Though it did not do them much good in the "little conquest of Europe" that you ignorantly refer too that caused 56,125,262 deaths.

Don't forget, you were the guy who mentioned his disbelief that we could not deploy something like 20 000 or so Canadian Soldiers right now because you referenced CF troop numbers from google without realizing what it takes support wise to deploy "combat" troops. Believe me a technician is not going to be employed on "the pointy end". He may end up there either by accident or as a result of unusual circumstances, but not to be employed to do grunt work.

   

Well if your going to pull out a number of 40,000 it is not like we sent those all at once. We maybe had what 2,000 - 3,000 stationed there at a time maybe making up 6%-8% of the total forces? Sure we have contributed to things but we haven’t been a main player put it that way. I guess we could say Canada is a small country and blah blah we are limited to what we can do but maybe that attitude should change and maybe we should step up and say we can do things instead of making up 10% of a force maybe try to supply 20% of it? Instead of worrying what the other guy is doing we should forge our own policy and have the strength to back it up. So when a country needs our help or when we want to go to the U.N. or NATO and ask them to contribute we will look a lot better and people may actually take us a little more seriously. Canada can do more and we should do more and we shouldn’t let politics of our country or others get in the way of doing what is right.

   

With no insult meant to the techs as I realise we do need them, they are the LAST troops I want beside me in the middle of a fire-fight!

Just to pre-empt any flamers, I would much prefer the techs to being employed as a tradesmen doing their job in order that I can do my job. They can protect themselves if the need arises but I would prefer them to concentrate on keeping radios, vehicles and weapons in top notch condition!

   

Yes I was and still am. I just don't think having 20,000 actual soldiers in unreasonable with all the technicians, medics, engineers, and other professionals to back it up.

   

Our force breakdown was close to 6000 troops and 12 squadrons of fighters until 1968 when Trudeau changed it to the 4th CMBG. That worked out to almost 10,000 Canadians stationed abroad. Keep in mind, they had already been in Europe for almost 2 decades at this point. Then they were reduced to about 3,000 troops and 3 squadrons, making it about 5,000 people we kept stationed there. The only other NATO nations to station such numbers abroad for an extended term were the Brits and the Americans.

The French might have/had large numbers of troops stationed in former colonies, like Vietnam, Chad, Algeria, but for the most part, they're NATO tasked troops were stationed in France, not another country.

Keep in mind, those tanks you deride, were very good when we bought them. The Leopard was only introduced in 1965, and we bought them a decade later to replace 50s era Chieftains.

As for the "we haven't done a whole lot", I'll pretend I didn't hear anything so ignorant. Out of roughly 750,000 UN peacekeepers deployed abroad, 125,000 were Canadians. Hmmm, 1 in 6, yeah that's not a whole lot at all. Whether or not you like peacekeeping, it was a large part of our foreign policy in the 1960s and 70s and we helped out in a lot of places. The biggest part of it is that unlike most peacekeeping nations these days (Fiji, Bangladesh, etc) we paid and equipped our troops ourselves, and didn't use them as a way to get foreign currency rolling through our nation's economy.

Just because we didn't maintain 100,000 peacetime military, we've done plenty. BTW, the small CF that everyone bitches about these days is about 15 times bigger than other most peacetime CF (before WW1 and WW2 for example). Yes, it's a step down from the 60 ship navy and 100,000 personnel we had at the height of the Cold War, but it still larger than peacetime forces we've had for most of Canada's existence.

   

I am going to have to agree with alot of the posters here. Canada hasn't been sitting on its ass doing nothing. By all means they have fullfilled their obligation to NATO. Can't say the same to some of the European nations(obviously not the UK).

   

A nit picky clarification to help add to the knowledge base:

The technicians, medics, etc, are actual soldiers too. The shooters are the Combat Arms (Inf, Armd, Arty, Cbt Engr) usually shortened to "the Arms".




+1

Them are the guys that help the teeth concentrate on the job.

   

For anyone that has lost cell phone coverage, think about what would happen if you were trying to radio in an airstrike.

Communications, logistics, and maintenance are vital to any fighting force. A tank is a 60 tonne roadblock if it has no ammunition and a broken down engine. And if they can't call home it will stay that way.

   

That's when it changes into a death trap.

   

I find this whole topic so ambivilent that it hurts. Canada and all Canadians should take pride in our armed forces. Think about it folks...We have never had a draft so, our army, navy and air force are voluntary. We go in, do our job and get out..No Glory, no whatever. Look at what brave Canadians did in WWII..Does anyone other than Canadians remember? Except those who Canadians liberated in Europe. Have there been any grandious Hollywood style movies been made about the heroics of Canadians during WWI, WWII or Korea ever been made..Can't think of one. Why is that? Is it perhaps because Canadians don't relish the ideals? NOT...We all love heroes.

Canadians are and will be in Afghanistan doing what we do and doing it proudly. If those that we helped before are reluctant to help us now then perhaps we won't be there to help them the next time they need it but, I doubt it because that is not in our nature.

   

How Britain and Germany compare

Manpower


Army

Britain - 151,000 (including TA)
Germany - 124,000 (including Reserve)
----------------

Airforce

RAF - 79,000
Luftwaffe - 44,000
---------------

Navy

Royal Navy - 52,000
German Navy - 20,000

   

When was the last time either Germany or France won a war, on their own?????? Yea right, big time looser's all around. Kick the bums out of Afganistan, build up the Canadian Army to 300,000 and then ask the Turks for some help..... we'll get the job done then!!

   

We have had conscription.

   

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