The Canadian Armed Forces Requirements

[CaptainCrunch]

People often over romanticize the Arrow and the made in Canada solution.

While there were a lot of governmental issues, the Arrow took 6 years to get to pre-production and to get prototypes out and probably would have taken another 5 to 10 years to deploy.

On top of that the expected initial cost of $5 million dollars per bird in original budgeted numbers (=$44 million today using inflation calculations) was expected to spiral upwards due to cost over runs on the original design.

As a high speed interceptor it was designed to straight line to Russian Bomber formations for missile attacks(sparrow long range missiles, Genie nuclear tipped unguided anti-air rockets), it was a single concept interceptor and Canada would have had to invest in a ground attack fighter, or a multi-role figher.

Within a few years the Arrow interceptor concept would have become obsolete as the counter to the arrow would have been to escort Bombers with planes with better in close capabilities, plus Russia began to look at lower insertion bombing which lead to the development of the TU-22 Blinder and then later the TU-22M Backfire.

[Maccalus]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

People often over romanticize the Arrow and the made in Canada solution.

While there were a lot of governmental issues, the Arrow took 6 years to get to pre-production and to get prototypes out and probably would have taken another 5 to 10 years to deploy.

On top of that the expected initial cost of $5 million dollars per bird in original budgeted numbers (=$44 million today using inflation calculations) was expected to spiral upwards due to cost over runs on the original design.

As a high speed interceptor it was designed to straight line to Russian Bomber formations for missile attacks(sparrow long range missiles, Genie nuclear tipped unguided anti-air rockets), it was a single concept interceptor and Canada would have had to invest in a ground attack fighter, or a multi-role figher.

Within a few years the Arrow interceptor concept would have become obsolete as the counter to the arrow would have been to escort Bombers with planes with better in close capabilities, plus Russia began to look at lower insertion bombing which lead to the development of the TU-22 Blinder and then later the TU-22M Backfire.

I am more annoyed at the cancellation of the Avro Jetliner so that they could focus on production for the Korean War. Avro was several years ahead of the boeing and other competitors at medium range passenger jets before that cancellation and shift of company focus.

[Zulu29]

Originally Posted by Baron von Kriterium

I'm not sure what you're trying to state here. Are you stating that you would like to see our aerospace industry develop remotely piloted vehicles for the future or are you stating that our industry should develop/manufacture a fighter for right now(as opposed to buying F35)? Or are you asking if industry should build Rafales right now?

As far as I know, Dassault won't allow the Rafale to be manufactured outside of France. They will guarantee, however, that the plane will be supported if purchased. By that I take it to mean any upgradeable software, avionics, etc will be sent to Canada for integration (Or, more likely, the plane would fly to France and be updated).

The only other plane that was under consideration that would accept manufacturing in Canada is the SAAB Gripen. But, Canadian industry is not even close to being able to do that.

Whether the Canadian aerospace industry wants to develop drones/RPVs likely hinges on significant government backing. I'm not sure there is any stomach for that, from either the government or industry. Ditto for a domestically-produced fighter. That ship sailed a long, long time ago with the Arrow. Back in the days of the Arrow, the Air Force ate up a good 1/2 of the Defence budget. Good for the Air Force, but not anyone else.

Replying from a cellphone so bear with me.

1- the F35 is being billed as an aircraft that will last us 40 years, I'm saying I don't think that is likely the case, I think drones or other remote craft will be doing the heavy lifting. Therefore, having a piloted aircraft for 40 years should not be such a big requirement.

2- I am stating that I would like to see our aerospace sector produce aircraft with the ability to produce drones or other such craft in the future. Dassault is offering full technology transfer complete with source code AND offering to build some of the planes in Canada. It's much easier to develop a drone when you already have the knowledge and platform to build off of (Rafale). At this exact time you are correct that we as a nation do not posses the ability to produce these aircraft, however we do produce commercial jet liners (bombardier) and those facilities and expertise could be used to produce the Rafale.

3- this is not similar to the Arrow project at all other than the fact that the plane would be physically built in Canada. The R&D portion of the Rafale is done, it is operational and battle tested. R&D is the major expense of any new aircraft. Canada would receive everything they need to produce and modify their own aircraft with no extra expense. In fact, the government already used this strategy with our new surface combatant ships (Danish frigate) and our supply ships (German supply ship). If it's good enough for the Navy, why not airforce?

4- Lockheed has threatened to pull contracts from Canadian firms if we decide against the F35, while a top pentagon official has dismissed that outright as the supply chain is too fragile and important to mess with. Will Canadian firms be offered new contracts? Probably not, however existing ones will likely be honoured. Why not create jobs and acquire the technological know how by choosing the Rafale, while still maintaining existing Lockheed contracts?

[undercoverbrother]

CC, how about finishing what you started.

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm working on it but having some real struggles in terms of breaking down Land Service.

In terms of what I'm looking at

Individual Kit

Training

Man Power

Logistics and Transport

Combat Vehicles

Artillary and anti aircraft protection

its coming, just slower then I thought sorry

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I'm working on it but having some real struggles in terms of breaking down Land Service.

In terms of what I'm looking at

Individual Kit

Training

Man Power

Logistics and Transport

Combat Vehicles

Artillary and anti aircraft protection

its coming, just slower then I thought sorry

We all know what excuses are like..

[CaptainCrunch]

Yeah, I've heard that one before

Should be up by Sunday, my bantam football team has had a stretch of three games in 7 days ending this Saturday, so I should be good with Sunday.

[speede5]

I have many fighter pilot friends, one of whom has flown the Rafale, eurofighter and several other jets and the concensus of the fighter community is the F-35 is the aircraft for Canada. This decision was made by people with a lot more inside information than anyone in the public is privy too.

I have worked within DND's pilot training system my entire career including over 10 yrs reg force, and it is so frustrating having civilians decide what are the best tools for you to do your job. DND knows what it is expected to do, they know what is available, and they know what they need to do it. All delays do is put people in harms way, for what, some political posturing?

Government provides the budget and should provide oversight to ensure the purchase process is not tainted, other than that they need to butt out.

[LChoy]

Just a comment about the use of drones
Right now, drones do a good job of remaining in the air for long periods of time and can deliver ordinances. In fact, I agree that drones can do a lot of things better than manned jets. However, currently and for conceivable future, there will always be a need for a pilots eyeball and on the spot decision making. A drone can do the same things as manned jets can from long range, but in short range situations, such as investigating a suspicious radar return, assisting and escorting a damaged aircraft back to base, drones don't have the dynamic decision making that a pilot can.

My 2 cents

LChoy

[Zulu29]

Originally Posted by Lchoy

Just a comment about the use of drones
Right now, drones do a good job of remaining in the air for long periods of time and can deliver ordinances. In fact, I agree that drones can do a lot of things better than manned jets. However, currently and for conceivable future, there will always be a need for a pilots eyeball and on the spot decision making. A drone can do the same things as manned jets can from long range, but in short range situations, such as investigating a suspicious radar return, assisting and escorting a damaged aircraft back to base, drones don't have the dynamic decision making that a pilot can.

My 2 cents

LChoy

In today's world, no question but get back to me in 20-30 years.

[Zulu29]

Originally Posted by speede5

I have many fighter pilot friends, one of whom has flown the Rafale, eurofighter and several other jets and the concensus of the fighter community is the F-35 is the aircraft for Canada. This decision was made by people with a lot more inside information than anyone in the public is privy too.

I have worked within DND's pilot training system my entire career including over 10 yrs reg force, and it is so frustrating having civilians decide what are the best tools for you to do your job. DND knows what it is expected to do, they know what is available, and they know what they need to do it. All delays do is put people in harms way, for what, some political posturing?

Government provides the budget and should provide oversight to ensure the purchase process is not tainted, other than that they need to butt out.

Well, DND did say that 65 aircraft was the minimum for a new fleet. The government has stood firm that 9 billion is the budget. So with the current dollar, the F35 has priced itself out of contention anyway.

[CaptainCrunch]

With the current dollar pretty well anything worth buying is out of contention, the budget will have to be amended.

[Hammertime]

At some point they will apply some basic decision making in the autonomous drones to make dynamic decisions in real-time. At that point F-35's will be obsolete and we can just rely on the machines to protect us.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Hammertime

At some point they will apply some basic decision making in the autonomous drones to make dynamic decisions in real-time. At that point F-35's will be obsolete and we can just rely on the machines to protect us.

that's probably a long ways down the road and probably by the time that works we'll have moved on to our next procurement after the F-35.

Frankly my biggest fear with drones is that they still require ground control especially if your thinking of using them as an intercept or air control option. So the smart counter is to either track, triangulate and destroy ground control, or jam the data links.

In other words it would be easier to deny the sky or ground an entire airforce.

There's also the delay in communication that adds to reaction time.

[CaptainCrunch]

Alright, I thought that I would continue the discussion on Canadian Forces requirements, I wanted to shift my focus to the Land Services or Army. As it stands the Army itself has vast requirements that go from vehicles to personal kit to specialized vehicles to weapons systems. I won't be covering that all today obviously, but will spread it out over the next while as time permits. I wanted to start the discussion today with a focus on vehicles as its the biggest monster in the closet in terms of requirements. I'll move on to the other areas in the upcoming weeks, and then I want to have a quick discussion around veteran care and overall moral. I also think it would be wise to conclude this exercise around future missions and Canada's expected place in the world in terms of global mission statements.

Before I start with breaking down specific vehicles, I want to talk about mission.
It would be easy to say that the mission of the Canadian Armed Forces is a simple one, the defense of our vast nation and the people within it and the ability to respond to natural or man made disasters. However in the 21st century world we have seen an acceleration of global strategic agreements and alliances, because of that we've seen missions in Afghanistan where Canada took a major role, Libya and in Iraq and Syria where Canada has taken a secondary world. It's not hard to envision that global roles involving the Army, Navy and Airforce will continue to accelerate in the face of emboldened asymmetrical terrorist organizations such as ISIS and the various Al Qaeda splinter groups. When combined with the primary mission of defending our nation, the rise in requirements for arctic defense contingency plans and the requirements to be able to react to multiple simultaneous disasters it becomes clear that the Canadian Forces has to have a flexible, well supported and responsive military.

In terms of overall visibility the army isn't as much defined by the individual troops as much as the vehicles they arrive in. Canada was forced to do crash upgrades and purchases to support our mission in Afghanistan, and while it looks good on paper, the long deployments in the harsh environment of Afghanistan actually accelerated the dreaded rust out of the Canadian Forces Land Services.


So let's breakdown Canada's military vehicles


Combat Vehicles


Main Battle Tanks



While some people felt that the high speed assault of Iraq by the American Army and Marines spelt the end of the Main Battle Tank as a front line vehicle, it actually demonstrated the overall effectiveness of the Main Battle Tank. The expected replacements such as the poorly conceived Stryker Mobile Gun System which married the wheeled utility of a armored fighting vehicle with the main gun power of a main battle tank proved to be a failure. The Wheeled Vehicle proved to be fairly easy prey for IED's and the difficulty in terms of transportation and rough terrain abilities exposed wheeled vehicles as a poor choice.

For Canada their contingent of various Leopard 2 tanks proved their worth in Afghanistan due to their ability to traverse difficult terrain with speed, their improved protection against IED and the superior main cannon which was far more effective against thick walled buildings in Afghanistan then the lighter armament on Canada's Light Armored fighting vehicle. As well the main battle tank and especially the newer 2A4 and 2a6m have superior protection against man portable anti-tanks weapons such as the various RPG's that Middle Eastern Groups seem to favor. While on paper Canada tends to look good in terms of main battle tanks with 59 deploy-able however only 16 of them can be considered to be true Modern Battle Tanks and those are the 2A6M variant which have the improved 120mm smooth bore gun, and improved survivability and improved armor to protect the crew especially against Belly damaged caused by road mines and IEDs. The rest of the Canadian Forces Tanks are made up of the older 2A+ and 2A4+ which feature significant gun, fire control and armor then the mainstay C2's they are a step back from the 2A6M. The smart move for Canada would be to either lease or purchase additional 2A6M tanks to replace the 2A+ and 2A4 series and create a common force strategy or look into the Leopard upgrade program of bringing the 2A4's up to the 2A6 standard.
The common question is why do we need these, wouldn't fast moving Light Armored Vehicles suffice? The answer is fairly simple, Light armored vehicles don't have the survivability in a heavy fire zone or ambush zone as a tank has. LAV were designed to deploy troops and support tanks but often do poorly on their own. The other advantage of the tank is the extreme range and punching power of the Main Cannon which far outstrips the 30 mm cannon and missiles featured on a light Armored Vehicle.
Light Armored Vehicles.

Recce



Coyote Recon vehicle. The Coyote was bought in to replace the old Lynx armored patrol call. The Coyote is designed to sniff out the enemy and provide battlefield information to the main strike force and does it very well. These vehicles were deployed in 1999 and saw service in Afghanistan. There are three variants of the Coyote, Mast, Command and Remote, they are designed to work in conjunction with each other to give a commander a clear picture of the battlefield. Canada currently has 300 of these indispensable vehicle, however Afghanistan and their rugged environment use are hard on these vehicles and Canada is moving to the Textron Tactical patrol vehicle, we are expected to start seeing delivery of 500 of these vehicles to replace the Coyote and Nayala in 2016 after delays to delivery.

More to follow later today

[CaptainCrunch]

Combat Support Vehicle


LAV III - This vehicle really represents the backbone of Canadian Battlefield Strategies. The LAV III allows Canada to move troops to the battlefield while providing in close fire support. The LAV III is lightly armed with the 25mm Bushmaster chain gun and 75 mm grenade launchers, but the major weakness is that the LAV III has no intermediate range anti tank weapons. Canada currently shows an inventory of 650 vehicles, however due to the tough deployment in Afghanistan nearly a third of them require extensive repairs and upgrading, the LAV III was originally going to be replaced by the Puma LAV however this program was cut and Canada decided to spend $1.1 billion dollars on a armor, electronics and engine replacement program.



The primary concern is two fold, the LAV III isn't an effective vehicle in terms of taking on enemy armor, its designed to be an effective weapon against unmounted infantry and doesn't have a dedicated anti tank weapon like the Bradley FV, it also showed in Afghanistan that it struggled against IED's as 159 vehicles were damaged by road side explosives. While I agree that the purchase of a new weapons system would be too costly at this point of time, proper care needs to be taken to extend the life of the vehicles by 10 to 16 years.

Personal Transport


The G-Wagon. Canada was forced by years of improper and stupid spending to replace the terrible Iltis Jeep with the G Wagon, when it was found that the thinly armoured Iltis and underpowered was completely inadequate for military usage. The G-Wagon was an excellent purchase by the sitting Conservative Government even though we ended up paying a premium price to quickly get them deployed.

Specialized Vehicles

Battleground Mine Clearing Vehicles

Currently Canada has several mine clearing vehicles, they purchased the Cougar JEERV rapid response vehicle which has heavy belly armor for protection against IEDs, however this isn't as much an anti-mine vehicle as its designed to be able to go into heavily mined areas and survive. Canada also purchased the Buffalo A2 ordinance disposal vehicle which combines an infrared camera system and a robotic arm for IED disposal, but they only have 19 of these vehicles. The other vehicles are the JSFU which uses a flail system and 2 of the Husky mine removal systems.

While Canada has done a decent job of updating their anti-mine inventory system, the smart recommendation would be to combine the money spend of hardening our standard combat vehicles and expand the fleet of specialized vehicles, especially the Buffalo, Husky and JSFU.


Area Suppression Vehicles.

These are specialized vehicles that are designed to provide either mobile anti-air defenses or long range standoff anti-tank defense. Canada currently has a small fleet of 34 of the ADATS anti-air/anti-tank short range. This vehicle is built around the old M-113 chassis and mounts 8 dual purpose ADATS missiles with a range of 10 kms and a ceiling of 7000 meters. While this was an excellent system when it came out its starting to show its age, and the small number means that if they are needed on the main battlefield that outside of main battle tanks Canada's anti-Armour ability is woefully short and the low ceiling and limited range means that it's a poor match for most modern close support aircraft. In terms of speed and armor protection the M-113 chassis is a poor survivor in the modern battlefield.
Canada needs to look at finding a new option for anti-air operations in conjunction with its Tanks and armored vehicles, its crucial to find a missile system with a higher range and higher ceiling to deal with most modern ground to air aircraft. As well Canada needs to find more utility in its anti-armour operations, refitting the LAV III with the Tow anti-tank system would probably be a good starting point and give the LAV III a more well balanced weapons system

Logistics vehicles


I won't get into super detail here, but an army marches on its stomach and fights with its amunition. Canada currently has a fleet of about 7000 support and logistics vehicles, however only 1300 of those vehicles were built post 1990 and an order for 1300 additional MSVS medium support logistics vehicles was canceled. Basically these logistics vehicles allow the army to move troops and supplies and more importantly respond quickly to a natural disaster. For the most part Canada's logistics fleet is stretched beyond reason and rusting out, Canada really needs to purchase the additional 1300 vehicles and sent the venerable MLVW to the museums where they belong.

Long range artillary support

Currently Canada relies heavily on towed artillery, while Canada's long range 155 M777 howitzer and C3 medium range 105 mm field gun are excellent, Canada needs to look at some kind of mobile artillery system which allows a more effective and quicker shoot and scoot strategy. Whether Canada looks at self propelled Mortar, howitzer or MLRS is up for debate, however if Canada is going to deploy into the field again whether domestically or internationally, it would be nice to be able to not outstrip your artillery support.

Coming up next Personal Field Kit and manpower

[btimbit]

Do we still operate any Leo C2's or are they all gone now?

[CaptainCrunch]

From my understanding the straight C2's are pretty much warehoused.

The 59 active tanks that we have are a combination of the A4's the + and the a6M's

[kerriffic]

If I'm not mistaken we currently have no air defence capacity as the Adats was mothballed in 2012 with the Conservative defence cut backs.

Also the 20mm Oerlikon sky guard system and the Jaevelin shoulder fired SAMs have been removed from service over the last few years. All air defence regiments have been re-classified as artillery regiments.

As of right now we have ZERO anti air defence capacity in the forces!

Don't worry though, I'm sure that we can ask for help from allies for protection!

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blo...g-to-meet-cuts

[CaptainCrunch]

I was still showing a few of the Adats in active inventory, my bad, thanks for the correction.

I might have been working from older information.

I now feel shame.