Canadian Military News

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

Aren't they made of a composite material? Makes welding more challenging so I'm not sure any idiot could do it.

You are wrong sir!

An idiot is precisely the man for this job!

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

With the Liberal's deep pockets Bombadier can make anything happen. They just need a little bit of positive support and a blank cheque.

That blank check would be massive.

If you look at the F-18 the total costs of production was about 40.9 billion dollars to build 500 of them.

Probably the majority of those costs were accrued during a lengthy and grueling development and design phase, where there were no assurancees that the plane would be accepted. The first time around the F-18 which was designated YF-17 lost to the YF-16 which later was designated as the F-16. the only thing that saved the F-18 was that the Navy was looking for a plane to compliment the F-14 in the fleet.

Even after they went through a redesign, billions were burned just on the design and competition and then redesign.

Then once that was accepted a whole production line had to be built from the ground up and 500 were built.

Now we're talking about a Canadian Airforce built around 65 to 70 fighters, not 500.

Now, there's a chance that you could build a model for export, but Boeing, MD, Saab, the french german consortium and the Russians and Chinese pretty much own those markets and set the standards, and would probably crush Bombardier.

We don't have the in place industry to build a Canadian only fighter, we're struggling badly enough with the new ship building for the Navy.

Even the lauded Avro Arrow has create some exaggeration in a desparate effort to over romanticize that plane.

The Arrow if built today based on its 12.4 million dollar per plane cost back in 1958 would have been $105,000,000 per plane and that's before they had even created a proper production line.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Byrns

Technically a VW but still garbage either way.

Except that Bombardier bought the design for the Iltis from the Germans and then charged the Canadian Government something like 5x more per jeep then the Germans would have, mainly because of the Liberal ties to bombardiers management group.

And then they found a way to build a worse version of a bad design.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

I see your Iltis and raise you:




In snow and mud the vehicle had to be backed up hills, otherwise it would get no traction.

Yeah you win, those things were horrific pieces of garbage that were just coming into play when I "retired"

[btimbit]

Oh good. So now we'll maybe, eventually, get new jets after ours are literally falling out of the sky. Makes sense though, why purchase the best machine for the job now when we can push it off for another decade or two then eventually buy something half as good that probably won't arrive on time.

Anyone else getting deja vu?

[CaptainCrunch]

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Locke

....

What?

+



=

[automaton 3]

This is a punt, no real surprise.

Will be interesting to see the models and kit that is contemplated. It is a pipe dream but hopefully some G models included.

I'm guessing all garden variety E's with conversion training done with USN though.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by Barnes

+



=

Perfect, except the pic of the Nimrod has it deploying a torpedo, during the Falklands war they actually mounted Sidewinder missiles on wing hardpoints for defense against Argentinian aircraft:

The Nimrod could also be fitted with two detachable pylons mounted underneath the wings to be used with missiles such as the Martel;[35] two specialised pylons were later added to enable the equipping of Sidewinder missiles, used for self-defence purposes from hostile aircraft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker..._and_equipment

[Baron von Kriterium]

The current government is doing what previous governments did so well: namely, kick the can further down the road and let some other government deal with it.

An apropos sports analogy is that Trudeau has decided to punt on 4th down. The problem is this is the CFL...

Oh, did I see LSVW pics? Believe it or not, we have spent the last couple of years or so divesting the hangar queens by sending them off to disposal. Unfortunately, there isn't anything to replace them and now, all of a sudden, there isn't much hurry to divest them. FFS, we can't even buy trucks in a timely manner.

[Baron von Kriterium]

Here is an interesting paper on the F-35 procurement:
http://www.cdainstitute.ca/images/Vi...y_Paper_33.pdf

[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

Perfect, except the pic of the Nimrod has it deploying a torpedo, during the Falklands war they actually mounted Sidewinder missiles on wing hardpoints for defense against Argentinian aircraft:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker..._and_equipment

All my Nimrods with sidewinder pics are on my other computer. Locke won't know the difference.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Baron von Kriterium

Here is an interesting paper on the F-35 procurement:
http://www.cdainstitute.ca/images/Vi...y_Paper_33.pdf

Thanks for this, I hadn't seen it before.

This paper is pretty critical of how the PBO reached the costs per aircraft that they did.

It was also highly critical of the 2012 OAG report which is interesting, because the PBO report and the OAG report are what the opposition focused on when it came to the sole source purchase of the F-35.

It sounds like the PBO didn't calculate the per cost of the plane with any concept of the sliding production cost in the 4000 plane production run. On top of that the OAG was a bit disingenuous when they claimed that the government couldn't produce the documentation around the purchase program. It sounds like the government offered to do it and the OAG refused the documents because they decided that they couldn't meet the deadline of the report because they'd have to review the documents.

I believe at the end of the day that the Conservatives did screw up the procurement of this jet, but more importantly screwed up the communication with the media and public and didn't fight hard enough over their decision.

Going forward I believe that once again the government is going to screw up any military purchase that happens, they can't help it, its in their nature.

I beleive that they are buying these semi obsolete super hornets, and at some point they're going to say good enough and push off a proper fleet replacement until we start grounding the F-18's that we do have.

Meanwhile I believe that the so called $75 million per plane cost budget is gone.

The Rafale B which is a 16 year old airframe has a flyaway cost of about 75 million euro's per copy which comes out to $106 million Canadian. The Typhoon is about 90 million euros or 126 million CAD, the Saab Gripen is about 60 million bucks US a copy or about 80 million bucks but lags behind the other jets in terms of capability.

At the same time, just merely buying the Super hornet merely creates a larger capability gap and communication gap between our allies and ourselves, something that was key in the selections requirements.

In terms of the world moving forward into the fifth generation fighter. The Chinese have announced that the J-20 Dragon is now in production. They are also producing a J-31 variant for export. The Russians are pushing through with the PAK FA and Sukhoi is also working with the Indians on their 5th generation fighters. Turkey and Japan are also in a development track of their own.

We are rapidly not only getting left behind. But we're once again ignoring the problem and being agreeable to a rust out strategy for the Armed Forces which will cause even greater expense later when we have to do a crash emergency replacement.

[undercoverbrother]

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...va-scotia.html

The Canadian Armed Forces is rife with sexual misconduct and harassment of women, according to a proposed class action lawsuit that claims systemic gender- and sexual orientation-based discrimination.

“Sexual misconduct and harassment is a deep-rooted problem in Canadian military culture,” Halifax-based lawyer Ray Wagner said Monday after filing a statement of claim against Ottawa with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court.

“The accounts of rampant, routine sexual discrimination, bullying and unwanted sexual advances against female members are astonishing,” he said. “This frequent misconduct is part of a troubling and deeply embedded culture that female members have been forced to endure. It’s time to step back, acknowledge how wrong it is, and take a stand against it.”

The plaintiff in the case is Glynis Rogers, a 29-year-old former member of the Canadian Armed Forces from Nova Scotia, but if the case proceeds, the class could include any women who claim similar treatment.

According to her statement of claim, Rogers joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 2006, and says she was subjected to persistent and systemic gender and sexual-orientation-based discrimination, bullying and harassment by male members, particularly during training.

[CaptainCrunch]

This is a leadership problem right from the top on down and its disgusting and wrong and needs to be cleaned out.

There's an entire mindshift that has to happen in the forces that woman are in combat roles to stay, and we're going to need woman to be willing and want to pursue a career in the military to ensure its survival.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Bombadier needs to pull up their socks and design/manufacture some jets for our military. It will be a win-win situation.

Maybe they should start with building their trains right.

[Stealth22]

Originally Posted by automaton 3

This is a punt, no real surprise.

It absolutely is.

If they go ahead and buy Super Hornets, that basically guarantees that we never purchase the F-35, or anything else, until they're falling apart. At least in this government's lifetime, anyway.

Trudeau doesn't have the stones to go back on his "no F-35" promise, so this is just a way of buying time until he's no longer the PM.

I'm not saying Super Hornets are bad, but if you have to replace the entire fleet, you might as well go with the latest technology. Why spend the money twice?

[Fuzz]

Sorry, why doesn't he have the stones to go back on his promise? He's a politician, that's their specialty. Wouldn't be the first broken promise.

[worth]

It is a punt, but there is a need for fighters immediately (from what the govt is saying). Even if we agreed to purchase F-35 tomorrow, when would we see them? 2020? 2025? The UK is scheduled to get their first 24 aircraft by 2023, so I highly doubt it would be any time before then.

We could be flying Super Hornets in 3-5 years, which buys time to select a fighter that will not be inservice until 2030 probably.

Don't see why this selection process needs to take 5 years. They've been going over this ####e for the past 6 or 7 years.

Ultimately I don't have a problem with the Super Hornet purchase. Get that going and then expedite the selection for the fighter that best meets our needs for the 2030's.

[Byrns]

Exactly. We need something now before they start crashing like Sea Kings.

I don't even think we've finished replacing those and we were expected to start taking delivery of them in 2008.