Canada's navy cuts coast patrol fleet in half

[worth]

A shortage of money and sailors is forcing Canada's navy to mothball half of its fleet of coastal patrol vessels.
Canada's 12 Kingston-class ships, based in Halifax and Esquimalt, B.C., are operated by the navy reserve. The 55-metre vessels are used to patrol the Arctic, Atlantic and Pacific ocean coasts.
In a statement to CBC News, the navy says it made the tough choice to leave several ships at dock and strip them of their crews because it doesn't have the resources to operate all 12.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/nova-scotia...socialcomments

Thoughts?

[Knut]

and Prayers?

[worth]

/thread

[mykalberta]

Every department needs money, sadly coast guard money is being reallocated to more needed defence costs.

[CaptainCrunch]

Well I'm never happy about it, but there are several good reasons why this is probably not a bad idea.

The Navy is just massively undersized, especially the reserve element, and its really tough to recruit for that in the praries since your deployment would take you far from home, realistically it would be tough to get enough sailors from the coast to fill reserve slots. Plus recruiting is really focused on land forces.

The Kingston Class patrol boats just aren't very good boats. They're lightly armed with 2 .50 cals, and they have a vintage WWII main gun, they're slow and they don't maneuver very well. Its time to mothball them.

In terms of spending priorities. The Halifax class Frigates that form the backbone of our Navy are a few years overdue for their half life refits, and those are scheduled to start this year and take 18 months per ships. While the Halifax Frigates are excellent ships, they are hitting their 20 year anniversary and at some point we need to look at the next generation of ships. We still don't have effective command and control Destroyers that we can form task groups around, and that needs to be looked at.

Our fleet replenishment ships that carry fuel, food, parts and weapons are dangerously out of date, the Navy needs to either buy or build new ones, but Canada doesn't have the ship building capabilities anymore.

The Victoria Class Submarines are coming into play and can probably take over some of the patrol duties of the Kingston class patrol boat. An article on what Canada's subs have been up to since the fire.

http://www.cdfai.org/bergenarticles/...al%20force.pdf

Canada still needs to move forward on the replacement of the Sea King Helicopters for the Halifax class frigates and our remaining destroyer, we also need to upgrade our land based naval search and rescue.

Our CP-140 patrol and antisubmarine aircraft are hitting their obsolences factor, and are losing their ability to patrol the coast.

Combine these issues with the war in Afghanistan, the need to upgrade or replace our AFV's, and the need to start replacing the CF-18 and there are greater monetary and personal priorities then the coastal defense vessels.

[IliketoPuck]

So basically, if someone was interested in Canada, they could use a strong gust of wind and knock over our defenses?

[CaptainCrunch]

The Kingston's wouldn't make a difference anyways. They aren't good combat vessels, they really don't work in required tasks like mine sweeping or interdictions.

Canada can work on defending their coast through the use of the frigates with destroyers, the submarines, and patrol aircraft, they shold also focus on placing their own sonar systems instead of using Nato's.

All the patrol craft would be really good for is screaming out a warning before being taken out.

And I'm not sure with their lack of good radar and weapontry that they could even do that.

[IliketoPuck]

Canada has never been big on military spending outside of wartime though have they?

And their track record with new equipment hasn't been the best IIRC. There was a infantry vehicle that is basically an unarmored death trap that they sent over to Afghanistan right?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

Canada has never been big on military spending outside of wartime though have they?

And their track record with new equipment hasn't been the best IIRC. There was a infantry vehicle that is basically an unarmored death trap that they sent over to Afghanistan right?

Nope the Military has always been sacrificed by the governments during peacetime. Thats why the Military has such a rust out concern. At the end of WWII we had the third largest Navy in the World, up until the late 60's we had an aircraft carrier in our Navy.

I think in terms of vehicles you were thinking of the Iltis which was a jeep. It had no armor whatsoever wasn't well defended and you could push a screwdriver through the floor. They've replaced that with the G-Wagon which is far more capable and has some armor protection.

The LAV's have been in Afghanistan since the beginning as have the Coyote recon vehicles and both are excellent. We recently had to lease used Leopard II tanks as our own Leopard 1 tanks were a poor match in Afghanistan (no airconditioning for example)

Things are looking much better, but there's a huge list of things that are just plain too old, or too beatup to last much longer.

[IliketoPuck]

Yes, I was thinking of the Iltis. There was an article about it in Macleans awhile back. I actually find Canadian military history fascinating, and took a few courses in university about WWI and WWII involvement.

I think personally that unless Canada is forced into another situation like WWI or WWII that we will just rely on the US for the most part as our de-facto defense measure. Spending on the military just doesn't seem to rustle up the same type of support in Canada as it does in the States.

[mikey_the_redneck]

Maybe we can have a navy if we scrap the gun registry??

[mikey_the_redneck]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

I think personally that unless Canada is forced into another situation like WWI or WWII that we will just rely on the US for the most part as our de-facto defense measure. Spending on the military just doesn't seem to rustle up the same type of support in Canada as it does in the States.

That is because there is a ton of industry/manufacturing behind the military in the U.S.

Some call it the military industrial complex...

[tjinaz]

If some foreign invader tried set foot on Canadian soil?

The US would vaporize them before they got within 100mi. While they are different countries I believe the US would view any foreign threat against Canada as a national security concern and act accordingly. The rest of the world knows this and would never do it unless they wanted to directly challenge the US. Maybe they put one Canadian officer on the Task Force flagship and call it a "joint operation".

[Komskies]

We could always get a kit and grow our own sea men.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by tjinaz

If some foreign invader tried set foot on Canadian soil?

The US would vaporize them before they got within 100mi. While they are different countries I believe the US would view any foreign threat against Canada as a national security concern and act accordingly. The rest of the world knows this and would never do it unless they wanted to directly challenge the US. Maybe they put one Canadian officer on the Task Force flagship and call it a "joint operation".

Except the minute that we start really sluffing our responsibilities to be able to at least contribute to our own defense, and live up to our treaty obligation, we will have absolutely no say in our own defense policies.

Do we as an independant nation really want to have the U.S. dictating our defense policies?

There is an excellent book by J.L Granenstein (sp) called "Who killed the Canadian Military, I would recommend it as good reading material as it discusses North American Defense Policy.

[Rerun]

Looks like its time to call IRON MAN!!!

[IliketoPuck]

I agree it is a thin line between being and ally with a voice at the table, and a puppet.

[Cactus Jack]

I'd prefer to spend my money on health care and other social programs

[Azure]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Except the minute that we start really sluffing our responsibilities to be able to at least contribute to our own defense, and live up to our treaty obligation, we will have absolutely no say in our own defense policies.

Do we as an independant nation really want to have the U.S. dictating our defense policies?

There is an excellent book by J.L Granenstein (sp) called "Who killed the Canadian Military, I would recommend it as good reading material as it discusses North American Defense Policy.

Yep. Good book.

While we do obviously want to be an independent nation, I still think you have to seriously consider that the US will blow the crap out of anyone that comes within 10 miles of invading Canada.

Because of that I don't think its necessary to load up on equipment that we don't really need. And I would start getting rid of equipment that is out of date and falling apart.

I don't think we need a military that has aircraft carriers, although one would be pretty damn cool. Nor do we need a large amount of tanks, fighter jets etc, etc.

Instead we should go for the lean and mean approach. Make sure that our infantry has more than enough resources to do its job, and make a stronger effort and perhaps pour even more money into JTF-2, and maybe even a different special forces unit.

I'm not saying to totally get rid of all our fighter jets, just saying that we don't need so many of them. The US would scramble their whole airforce for us if Canada were to be invaded.

We have something good going with JTF-2 and other infantry units that have preformed remarkably well in Afghanistan. We should focus on doing that better than anyone else in the world.

[SebC]

IMO:

If we want strategic power / deterrent to invasion by a sovereign country, it's simple: get nukes.

Then you build your military to deal with rogue states, terrorists, and foreign/peacekeeping deployments.