Canadian Military News

[undercoverbrother]

I mean FFS. The GPMG (C6) was an excellent piece for kit, battle tested and excellent at killing people.

And now this.........


https://ottawacitizen.com/news/natio...y-machine-guns

The weapons are part of a $120-million deal with the firm in Kitchener, Ont., to build new C6A1 general purpose machine-guns. But the guns, based on a proven design in service with militaries in more than 80 nations, have faced a series of problems with defective parts and other technical issues, this newspaper reported last year.

342 defective weapons being returned to Colt Canada for repair.......But during the repairs........A little more than 1,000 guns will need to be repaired.

In total, the military has ordered 4,774 guns. So far, 3,331 guns have been delivered, of which 2,252 are in the field.

hahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahaha

The contract for the new guns was awarded to Colt Canada without competition under a federal government program to support Canada’s ability to produce military small arms domestically. Colt Canada has been deemed the country’s Small Arms Strategic Source and Centre of Excellence by the federal government.

[btimbit]

That's what you get for trying to upgrade a design that really isn't upgradable. Making it more lightweight sure but I never understand why they thought it needed more adjustable gas settings, and to then get Colt Canada to do it, who used to make fantastic rifles before Colt bought them, plus they have never made a medium machine gun before.

I'm guessing they're over drilling the gas block during the upgrade causing them to have to replace parts that they themselves broke, that were fine before.

Comedy of errors typical of Canadian procurement and upgrades

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by btimbit

That's what you get for trying to upgrade a design that really isn't upgradable. Making it more lightweight sure but I never understand why they thought it needed more adjustable gas settings, and to then get Colt Canada to do it, who used to make fantastic rifles before Colt bought them, plus they have never made a medium machine gun before.

I'm guessing they're over drilling the gas block during the upgrade causing them to have to replace parts that they themselves broke, that were fine before.

Comedy of errors typical of Canadian procurement and upgrades

a feed channel was built slightly out of specification, causing some weapons to perform inadequately during live-firing testing.

precision stuff.........

[btimbit]

lol that's even worse, I gave them the benefit of the doubt with wrecking something complicated, but nope.

At least they're paying for it I guess.

Colt quality control, gotta love it

[Zulu29]

Didn’t CZ buy Colt Canada?

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Zulu29

Didn’t CZ buy Colt Canada?

Yeah last year, all of Colt, not just Colt Canada. Probably a good thing, Colt really started to suck over the last two decades

[CaptainCrunch]

Forces readiness is pretty much at an all time low.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/fad...ters-1.6605961

Whatever the crisis of the moment happens to be, the military is supposed to be the force of last resort.
Increasingly, though, that word "last" is being replaced by "first" — and sometimes "only."
A former top national security adviser warned a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that successive federal governments have relied too much on the military to handle crises at home.
Richard Fadden's remarks were met with some nods of agreement around the table — and a slight wince from a representative from one the provinces that has been in the uncomfortable position of having to call for military-backed relief.

He said domestic emergency operations — such as cleaning up after storms and fighting forest fires — distract the military from the training it needs in an increasingly unstable world — a point the Conservatives have been hammering away on since the committee launched its study.

The problem, he added, is that in recent years the federal government has acted as if the military is the only tool it can turn to in a disaster.
"It is becoming too easy for prime ministers — not in particular this one, but prime ministers generally — to simply say, 'I'm going to send in the army,'" Fadden told the four-party committee, which is studying the military's domestic emergency preparedness.
"And we do this without talking to the provinces, municipalities and civil society about what they could and should do."
Fadden argued that the problem cannot be examined with a narrow focus on military response. He called on the federal government to undertake a thorough, independent review of all emergency response capacity across the country, both federal and provincial.

adden argued that disaster response robs the military of time it should spend training for international commitments during a period of heightened international tensions with Russia and, to a lesser extent, China."I am not a military person but I don't think you need to be ... the chief of the defence staff or the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs to realize that there is not enough operational training, there are not enough exercises right now," he told MPs.
"It is short of criminal to send our troops into potentially harm's way if they're not as trained as we can possibly make them. I don't think they're doing enough [training] today. And if they're chopping wood — which they may well need to do and do other things to fight forest fires and whatnot — they're not doing operational training."
It's the kind of talk that makes provincial government officials squirm in their seats.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/eyr...tive-1.6608107

The country's top military commander said Thursday that the Canadian Armed Forces' (CAF) problems with recruiting and retaining soldiers, sailors and air crew are going are get worse before they get better.
Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre issued a sweeping directive Thursday morning for what he described as the "reconstitution" of the CAF.
"The CAF will experience higher than normal attrition and lower than normal recruiting unless appropriate professional culture and personnel management modifications are implemented," the directive said. "As a result, CAF effective strength will likely continue to shrink over the very short term."

This has been a problem with Liberal and Conservative government, but the day and age that the Forces will always be there to execute their missions is coming to a close without a major boost in spending.

We're hitting rapid rust out, reduced capability, people aren't joining or staying, because our government puts them in harms danger without proper training or equipment.

There's poor leadership, bad optics.

Canada promised to adjust defense spending in terms of modernization and recruiting, but most of that never materialized, and Canada did the whole "But but we punch above our weight". Well the capability of that is pretty much fading into myth status.

We're non existent in peace keeping. We sent a wack of equipment to Ukraine (fine) but there's no strategy or spending to replace it.

Our ship building program is mired in scandal. The F-35 fighter jet replacement program is probably going to get punted down the road, and right now our forces really have no deployment capability.

Why would anyone sign up, yeah they're designing more unisex pajama like uniforms, and allowing long hair and beards etc. But at the heart of it, why would someone join an organization that's designed to put lives on the line, and has a government that doesn't ensure risk reduction.

Why would someone stay in and deal with awful senior leadership and a government that doesn't care, but deploys them out to the point of exhaustion?

We're non deploy-able, we're at the point where its questionable if we can deploy them for disasters, and Canada the country that liked to boast about fulfilling its peacekeeping duties is no where to be seen.

That sound you hear is the Canadian Forces smacking into the ground.

[CaptainCrunch]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1578475105176338432

https://twitter.com/user/status/1578429638866776065

[Envitro]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

https://twitter.com/user/status/1578475105176338432

https://twitter.com/user/status/1578429638866776065

This country is a disgrace when it comes to defence spending.

When will we take this seriously? When it's too late?

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Envitro

This country is a disgrace when it comes to defence spending.

When will we take this seriously? When it's too late?

Never, history tells me the answer is never.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Envitro

This country is a disgrace when it comes to defence spending.

When will we take this seriously? When it's too late?

Dude, its too late now.

I wrote a long and lengthy post a loooong time ago talking about rust out and a loss of capability, that I'm too lazy to find, because it was probably a decade.

But once you lose readiness, and once you achieve complete rust out, unless you do a monstrous capital investment, you never get it back.

At this point a bump in annual defense spending isn't going to do it, you need to do a re-investment and then increase your defense spending to at least maintain it.

There are equipment problems every where. I expect that the F-35 purchase will get kicked down the road with the prayer that F-18's don't start falling out of the sky. Besides we're so far down the manufacturing Queue that we won't see them for a while.

Our submarines are end of life. The ship building program is more about pork barrelling Government friends, and there are questions around the actual ships we are building.

Ground Forces has been sucking hind tit for a while.

Moral is low due to poor leadership. And people aren't signing up because frankly we're not paying properly, and why would you sign up for a service that the government doesn't give two craps about and yet uses them beyond their current capability. Why would you sign up for a combat trade and not only risk your life in deployment but risk your life using rusty and obsolete equipment.

They just announced today that after a decade they picked a pistol to buy. That's an outright joke.

JL Granetstein (sp?) wrote an excellent book a long time back called "Who killed the Canadian Armed Forces. Now we know.

Its dead or close to dead Jim.

When a chunk of cash is returned from the budget of a cash strapped military unspent its because the bump was for political purposes, but the back stage order was not to spend it. Our current defense minister Anita Anaud who I had great hopes for, mainly because she was replacing a complete incompetent dirt bag, hasn't fought very hard in her department.

Oh sure, we sent howitzers and a lot of ammunition and other equipment to the Ukraine, but we had no plans to replace it.

Its dead and nobody has the guts to take the necessary steps to fix it.

[browna]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63177891

Not sure if this was covered earlier, but Feds properly stepped in here.

Crickets, of course, it appears from the French government, leaving the small town itself to take on the developer, with Canada's help

[CaptainCrunch]

Consider me underwhelmed.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1583221058043203584

The forces returned 3 billion in unspent money this year alone. The Forces are rusted out and the CDS has basically said that the Canadian Forces really can't defend Canada anymore.

Also wonder how much of this money will go to Liberal friendly companies or supporters to contract out.

[CaptainCrunch]

https://nationalpost.com/news/vetera...mittee-hears?r

OTTAWA — Explosive testimony Monday before the Commons standing committee on veterans affairs by a retired member of the Canadian Armed Forces suggests a combat veteran was offered MAiD twice — despite repeatedly dismissing medically assisted suicide — and was told that Veterans Affairs had carried out the service for others.

The committee also heard that the Veterans Affairs caseworker suggested medical assistance in dying was a better option than “blowing your brains out.”

“He was told in his original phone call where he was offered MAiD, ‘we can do it for you, because we’ve done it before, and one veteran that we’ve done this for, after we completed MAiD, after we killed him, we now have supports in place for his wife and two children,'” Mark Meincke told the committee.

“That is what he told me transpired.”

Member of Parliament and committee member Luc Desilets described Meincke’s account as “shocking,” and asked if the veteran told him what prompted Veterans Affairs Canada to suggest suicide as an option.

“He asked that same question to the VAC manager, and she also said ‘I don’t know,'” Meincke said.

“He was asking for a completely separate service and supports for neurological injuries, and she said ‘oh by the way, if you have suicidal thoughts,’ and this is what he told me she said; ‘it’s better than blowing your brains out against the wall.'”

Committee member Blake Richards said the committee was assured by Veterans Affairs Canada officials last week that recordings of the call didn’t exist, who also implied to the committee that only one veteran had been offered MAiD.



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“We were told the conversation was only surrounding benefits that were available to the veteran, and that medical assistance in dying wasn’t pushed or proposed,” Richards said.

“You’ve indicated to us that it was pushed, and pushed numerous times despite insistence from the veteran that they weren’t interested.”

Deputy Veterans Affairs Minister Paul Ledwell told the committee last week that an internal investigation revealed no other veterans had been offered MAiD, and that they weren’t aware of any recordings of the particular phone call.

[CroFlames]

I have torn feelings on MAID because this is where I was worried it would lead.

Oh, your 66 and your hip is bugging you? Have you considered death?

Oh, you a 44 year old vet with PTSD and you want help? Have you considered asking the state to kill you instead?

Oh, you're going through a divorce and just need some support and therapy? Sounds expensive, we can off you much cheaper.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I have torn feelings on MAID because this is where I was worried it would lead.

Oh, your 66 and your hip is bugging you? Have you considered death?

Oh, you a 44 year old vet with PTSD and you want help? Have you considered asking the state to kill you instead?

Oh, you're going through a divorce and just need some support and therapy? Sounds expensive, we can off you much cheaper.

I don't think any reasonable human would jump to medically assisted suicide in any of the instances you mentioned.

[CroFlames]

Did you not read post 1754. A vet with PTSD was offered MAID. Twice.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Did you not read post 1754. A vet with PTSD was offered MAID. Twice.

yes, I did.

I would suggest that the individual that offered up that remedy wasn't a reasonable human.

[CaptainCrunch]

And more problems with our Military Procurement system as the Navy's surface combatants build program has spiraled out of control.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux has flagged a couple more torpedoes related to the Royal Canadian Navy’s problem-plagued project to buy new warships.

Taxpayers are now facing a price tag of more than $300 billion for the 15 ships, Giroux warned Thursday.

Giroux’s numbers are stark — the development and purchase of the 15 ships, which the government approved with a $26 billion price tag, will now cost Canadians $84.5 billion.

The cost of operating and maintaining the ships over the next 65 years will be $219.8 billion. That includes mid-life upgrades for the ships with additional technology.

That last figure is a significant leap in cost for taxpayers; in 2013 the Auditor General’s office noted that figure would be $64 billion over 30 years.

More costs for CSC could soon emerge over the coming months.

Irving’s Halifax shipyard was selected in 2011 as the winner to build new fleets of warships for the navy, including CSC. Among the requirements for winning the bid was that the yard had the capability to build the vessels and taxpayers wouldn’t need to contribute funding to outfit the facilities for the task.

But Irving is now asking the federal government for additional money so it can modernize its facilities to build the CSC. Industry sources say the Liberals are considering providing at least $300 million to the shipyard owned by one of Canada’s richest families.

Former National Defence procurement chief Alan Williams claimed it is now clear the CSC project is out of control.

He said the only good news is that a contract has yet to be signed and it is not too late for the Liberal government to take a different approach.

“I feel for the Royal Canadian Navy,” said Williams. “They need new ships but if they continue down the current path with CSC they might not get any.”

*no surprise that we're going to pump more money into the Irving family coffers, they are close friends of the Liberal Party.

[CaptainCrunch]

To put this stupidity into perspective. The 15 basically frigate class ships will cost 85 billion to build.

The USS Gerald Ford had a construction price tag of 12.8 billion.

The US Navy's new Constellation Class Frigate costs $1.2 billion to build.

The Seawolf class submarine would cost 5 billion per copy today.

There is something seriously off kilter with this whole program.