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No offense booger, tell that to the Russians who used women in the feild all the time. Joesph Beyrle, a paratrooper from the 101 fought along side the Russians under the comand of a women Major. He and all her troops according to him, had the utmost repect for her capabilities. Read his book "Behind Hitlers Lines", its pretty good. If they are capable then I dont see a problem.



OK, get rid of the militia, then our really well trained and equiped army will never suffer casualties EVER, thus never needing a militia to draw reinforcements from. That makes sense. Thats freaking AWESOME infact!

Those "weekend warriors" were a large part of the Medak Pocket were they not? Those "weekend warriors" did pretty well from what I read and hear.

IMHO, the militia is a vital part of the military, and if women can, then let them.

Rick Mercer is funny as hell!

   

Well put Canadian1971, well put.

   

I spent ten years in the Reg Forces, five with the Canadian Airborne Regiment in the early to mid seventies. The Armed Forces numbered about 90 thousand and all the Battalions were up to full strength. There was no need to augment the Battalions with Militia as they do today.

Once in a while we would get a Militia type who would come along on an exercise. Usually some whiner that could not cut the mustard and carry his pack and walk on snow shoes. They were more of a hazard and a hindrance to us.

Another thing is Militia guys skipping basic training in the Reg Forces and coming straight into a Battalion. No way should that happen. They should be made to attend Basic and the Infantry course in Meaford or Wainright.

Unfortunately the Liberal Government has neglected and demoralized the Forces to the point that the Regs do need Milita to get back up to strength.

My point is that the Reg Forces should be brought back up to where it once was and to stop depending on Milita who in my humble opinion are no way qualified to be doing the job. Stop wasting money on Sunday soldiers who just want to impress the babes with their nice new paint by number uniforms..

Don't compare the Russian Women to the lard ass Canadian Women I have seen in our Forces. Two different species.

As far as the Medak pocket is concerned, that was the PPCLI with several militia guys attached.

   

**Atreyu backs away

   

Let's see. The 1970's was the time just after CAF was each a separate fiefdom that the minister of national defence the right Honorable Paul Hellyer had to break up the bureaucratic mess or it would just horde greater and greater piles of taxpayer money to enrich their prestige usually at the expense of the other departments. The army would steal from the navy, navy from the air force ect ect AND NOTHING GOT DONE. It was why the Bonnie got scrapped for Christ sakes!

Going back to that system is conventional thinking gone amuck, do you think Canada is going to be fighting WWII again? We need a modern and cost effective army that can be rapidly deployed at a moments notice any where anytime that can kill without fear, remorse or hesitation. NOT A PEACE KEEPING FORCE, that is secondary the army's job is to win wars 1st.

The weekend warriors need better training, they always need better training because of the nature of the deployment. I have seen a lot of reg force lug nuts that were paralyzed from the neck up too, thankfully most of them get shown the door or get put in management where they can do the least damage but they are there. Reg force troops are not cost effective compared to militia units and militia units still make as good a bullet catcher as anyone else.

A big problem with regular force and reserves is integration. You frequently hear that you should just join the reg force and not bother with the reserves at all. There is no integration and most reserve units who get good troops hold onto them for dear life and soon people who looked to the reserve as a part time job to get through college, pay the bills, for fun or do their duty find it a full time job without benefits. Some units are glued together with reg force rejects that can't hack it anymore and never going anywheres who can't hack the regs in the 1st place. Reserve units are given the scraps of the defence budget and make due with whatever they can get.

Even with all that they still perform and do what they are designed to do, provide a ready reserve of troops for national defence. Some of the troops are of high enough caliber (especially when the regular positions become scarce) that they are even ready, with a minimal of training, to be integrated into regular force formations as either individuals, sections, squads, platoons and even companies. They work better in homogeneous units that are separate that augment reg force units rather than just being thrown in the mix because reg and reserve just don't mix well. There is an ego problem as well as a training gap but professionals of either strip will suck it up and get the job done because that is what they are there to do.

   

At this time Canada could not fight a war due to the condition of our Combat trades. Most of them are working with one third of the men of what they should have.

There are a lot more commitments now than there were thirty years ago with an Army that is half the strength. Whether it be Peacekeeping or defence in the time of war, we need to build our Regular Force back up to about one hundred thousand. We should not be relying on half trained reservists. It's not fair to them and not fair to the Reg Forces that have to take them.

   

On that one, i tend to agree with you booger (think there might have been better names out there?). We need more troops to keep up with our expected commitments. And one of the ways that we can get more troops is by improving the equipment that we are using. Not too many people want to join up because of the helicopter crashes, and submarine problems that have became rather public. But the state of things is improving, we have fairly new fighter's, we are buying a bunch of brand new helicopters too i think, and if i am not mistaken, new APC's/recon vehicles. Things are looking up, but there is a long way to go.

   

The state of things are NOT improving! The CF-18's are only now getting the upgrades they needed 15 years ago. We are losing our tanks and getting armoured cars as a replacement. Our destroyers are at the end of their life, with no replacement in sight. Our replenisment ships are crapping out. Seathings will not be replaced for years yet, Our M109's are being mothballed. There is still no replacement for the Chinook hel. We can't attract enough recruits to keep existing units up to a reasonable strength let alone increase an extra 5000 men. Div HQ is virtually non-functional. The Brigade Groups have not conducted meaningful collective exercises in a decade. I could go on and on. The vast majority of troops serving now have no idea what it should be like. They have only the recent past to base their service on. Those that have been around the block a few times know how bad it has gotten.

FWIW: Canadians use the term recce, not recon. Damn Americanisms creeping in everywhere! lol

   

Perhaps i was misunderstood, as often occurs. I agree with what you are saying that the armed forces need much more than wha thtye are recieveng. In face it is nearly at the point where 'armed' forces is an oxymoron. I also think that our destroyers, or at least some of them, are amoung the best in the world, better than the American ones. My point was that we have some good equipment and there is more on the way, but we have so much more that is out of date that needs replacement.

   

WRT the destroyers. You're confusing them with the CPF (Canadian Patrol Frigates) a completely different bird.

Yes, we do have some good equipment (finally) and more is on the way, but look what it took to get it. That the real piss off. If we had replaced the Leo1's with say a Leo2 on time, that whole issue would have been years in the past, the vehicles paid for and we would still have modern vehicles. I'm curious as to what the cost comparison is with say a Leo2 bought in the 80's compared with a Stryker bought now.

   

Rebuilding Canada's Military

   

I don't think it is too much equipment that we need but more troops. I don't mean REMFS. Front line troops. Infantry. For the type of soldiering that we are involved in today. Whether it be Peacekeeping or Peace making

Lets say we did deploy to Iraq. We don't need Artillery, Tanks, Helicopters, Destroyers, Submarines or any other crap as we would be working with the Americans and I am sure George Dubya would gladly support us as after all we would be under his command.
All we need to do is provide Troops that are capable of fighting if need be.

I know it is important to have good equipment but the Liberals have let the Military disintegrate to the point where it would take Billions of Taxpayers Dollars and a miracle to get everything working again. ie: Hercs, F18s, Tanks, Submarines.
If you ask me these Submariens were a waste of money and the money would have been better spent on other equipment that we really need.
The problem is not going to get fixed overnight.

Concentrate on building the Combat trades back up and put the equipment on the back burner for now.
After all what does an Infantryman need to fight? A rifle and some rats.

   

The better the quality of the equipment, the more impact your limited manpower will have. Simple. Guys with bayonets are just that, guys with bayonets. LAV III equipped rifle section or troopies in a deuce and a half. Big difference. If I have to make do with twenty guys instead of thirty, I'd rather have the good stuff than just the bare-bones basic. Just "letting the Yanks equip us" is a cop out. It would only create a whole new set of incorrect perceptions, assumptions, and precedents. They offered the same in Gulf War 1. If we had our own decent equipment and our own ability to deploy it, then we don't have to take any shit from no one.

It isn't just the soldiering we do today that should be the focus, it's what we might have to do tommorrow that we need to prepare for. Peacekeeping or Peacemaking is not the primary mission !

   

Nope, I'm not kidding. In the scope of getting public support for more military spending, those three officers were essential because they openly critcized the government's funding in public. Defence associations played a role as well in drumming up public unrest about the state of the Canadian military; however, when the "horse's mouth" is publicly critical of the government and telling the public "we can't do anymore peacekeeping missions you think so highly of due ot funding problems", it's a lot more effective.

Every soldier in the Canadian Forces has contributed something to the public sentiment about the need to help our military more, but your run of the mill NCM or junior officer doesn't have the influence with the public that the Generals/Admirals have.

So yes, Gen Hillier, Gen Henault, and Vice-Admiral Buck, while I'm sure they're all hated by some (or most) of their subordinates, like most CF officers, they're the reason, in my opinion, why the government reacted to calls for increased defence spending this time around. Also got to factor in the United States which was another major factor.

   

Stop any citizen on the street in any city and ask them who those three are. You'll get a blank stare and a "Who?", guaranteed. Ask any soldier who VAdm Buck was. Nothing again. Ask any sailor about Gen Hillier prior to him becoming CDS and you'd have got the same reaction. Public criticism about military spending pre-dated those three by a long stretch. It was constant pressure by our Allies, the public via their MP's, and some decent press covering the operational problems that changed the political parties outlook. The inability to send the troops to East Timor generated more buzz than those three. Remember when Eggleton didn't fly in the Seathing to visit the Navy in that Ex off the coast of Hawaii? How about the Seathing (again!) that crashed on deck of the DD as it was deploying to the Middle East? CF-18's that couldn't talk to our Allies?

My point is, that outside of the machine, those people were basically unknown. All that embarrasing BS helped in the budget fight more than the quiet talks with bureaucrats.

On a personal note, hating officers/SNCO's is counter-productive and unprofessional. There is no room for it in the accomplishment of the mission.

   

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