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Re: Canadian Armed Force - Land

rommel said:

Well, Mr. Gauntlet, you have to understand Canada's need in defence, we have a very big land mass, I agree, but we are not threaten by any country except by a few fishers. Yes Canada only have 113 Leo 1 (it's 113 because 1 of them burnt during an exercise last year), but do we need more tank ??? We almost never deployed and with the new army reform which I'll explain later in a future post, is replacing them with Stryker. I'll explain why also.

The question is defend our country against ?? Polar Bear ?? We spend a lot on training to keep a good but force. We can react to any situation theoricaly and the major reason why the Canadian Army has been down-size since the 70's (we were around 200,000 in this time including reserve) is first of all, they's lot less threat (Soviet Union don't exist anymore)second, our big allied called USA is next door and third, we have good relation with almost every country on this earth and we are known to be very pacific. Why we need a big army to defend a land that nobody wish to attack ????

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the real reason canada has phased out main battle tanks is that it's not economically sound to keep them around

without strategic lift capabilities (canadian forces has no transport capacity for heavy equipment save the two aor ships), canadian tanks based on the north american continent cannot deploy rapidly or at all

canadians cannot stand to beg for rides with its allies all the time or have to deal with the ineffectiveness of civilian contractors

without any effcient means of transporting the tanks to where they're needed when they're needed, their continued existence became somewhat pointless

parts and maintenance for the aging fleet only presented more difficulties for the cash-strapped canadian army

because believe it or not, canada, one of the richer western nations, has the proportionally least adequately funded military in the world



the purpose of switching to the lighter, smaller wheeled armour vehicles is so that they are more likely to integrate into canada's new defence policy of a smaller, rapid deployable land force

however, the new LAVIIIs still can't fit into a CC-130

neither can the upcoming Mobile Gun System

so really, switching to LAVs have solved none of the problems faced by the tanks, but in any event have perhaps caused more problems for the canadians in terms of reduced armour protection and firepower



bottom line

buy some strategic lift

Re: Canadian Armed Force - Land

who would dare to attack us? we are the most pacifist nation on the planet after switzerland. any country that would want to attack us will face thousands of the best MBTs, we will just ask the americans to help us. and they would gladly do it too, they won't want a enemy just north of them with thousands of miles of unprotected border. we are surrounded on three sides by ocean, and the south is USA. unlike countries in europe where everyone borders like 5 countries, we only got 1.

Re: Canadian Armed Force - Land

PiSigma said:

who would dare to attack us? we are the most pacifist nation on the planet after switzerland. any country that would want to attack us will face thousands of the best MBTs, we will just ask the americans to help us. and they would gladly do it too, they won't want a enemy just north of them with thousands of miles of unprotected border. we are surrounded on three sides by ocean, and the south is USA. unlike countries in europe where everyone borders like 5 countries, we only got 1.

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situations can change

Re: Canadian Armed Force - Land

the real reason canada has phased out main battle tanks is that it's not economically sound to keep them around

without strategic lift capabilities (canadian forces has no transport capacity for heavy equipment save the two aor ships), canadian tanks based on the north american continent cannot deploy rapidly or at all

canadians cannot stand to beg for rides with its allies all the time or have to deal with the ineffectiveness of civilian contractors

without any effcient means of transporting the tanks to where they're needed when they're needed, their continued existence became somewhat pointless

parts and maintenance for the aging fleet only presented more difficulties for the cash-strapped canadian army

because believe it or not, canada, one of the richer western nations, has the proportionally least adequately funded military in the world



the purpose of switching to the lighter, smaller wheeled armour vehicles is so that they are more likely to integrate into canada's new defence policy of a smaller, rapid deployable land force

however, the new LAVIIIs still can't fit into a CC-130

neither can the upcoming Mobile Gun System

so really, switching to LAVs have solved none of the problems faced by the tanks, but in any event have perhaps caused more problems for the canadians in terms of reduced armour protection and firepower



bottom line

buy some strategic lift

Click to expand...

well, you are a little bit mistaken, it's not so costy to keep a Leo C2 active. The LAV-III and MGS are both air-liftable without crew, it's mean that we need 2 CC-130 to lift the fuel and the vehicule + crew + ammo. We only give about 1.1% of our GNP in defence (about 9,5 billions $), but in april 2005, the Martin governement annouced that the military budget will rise by 12 billions canadian dollars for the next 5 years. The armour of the LAV-III and MGS are made to resist up to .50 caliber MG, it's really enough for us, also, the tank don't give us a first strike ability since they slow down the speed of our unit. It's true that our don't have the lift-capability to move our Leo C2 (we rented some USAF C-5 in 95 to move them), but they will be possibly assign to our armored reserve unit. The miantenance our the Leo C2 is really easy, I talked to a former member of the 12th Armored Regiment of Canada, he said to me, that, the engine was very reliable, easy to maintain, well, the whole tank was easy to maintain and don't broke often, the only fragile part was the fire control system, but you can understand that electronics are always "fragile".

Re: Canadian Armed Force - Land

rommel said:

well, you are a little bit mistaken, it's not so costy to keep a Leo C2 active. The LAV-III and MGS are both air-liftable without crew, it's mean that we need 2 CC-130 to lift the fuel and the vehicule + crew + ammo. We only give about 1.1% of our GNP in defence (about 9,5 billions $), but in april 2005, the Martin governement annouced that the military budget will rise by 12 billions canadian dollars for the next 5 years. The armour of the LAV-III and MGS are made to resist up to .50 caliber MG, it's really enough for us, also, the tank don't give us a first strike ability since they slow down the speed of our unit. It's true that our don't have the lift-capability to move our Leo C2 (we rented some USAF C-5 in 95 to move them), but they will be possibly assign to our armored reserve unit. The miantenance our the Leo C2 is really easy, I talked to a former member of the 12th Armored Regiment of Canada, he said to me, that, the engine was very reliable, easy to maintain, well, the whole tank was easy to maintain and don't broke often, the only fragile part was the fire control system, but you can understand that electronics are always "fragile".

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no, you're mistaken. i didn't say it was costly to keep the tanks, i said it was not economically sound

the canadian forces wants to maximize its dollar, and there are other, more effective and useful ways to spend that money, other than using it on equipment that the canadian forces cannot deploy at will on time

had the canadian forces any strategic lift capabilities to move these tanks quickly, then that would be another story



12 billion dollars in terms of defence spending is pocket change



knowing that RPGs are cheap, effective and plentiful, would you prefer to go into combat knowing your vehicle can only take .50 cal?

Re: Canadian Armed Force - Land

Well, for the RPG, they have to hit us first....

Part III, Canadian Army Reform

The Army has to evolve from a force that was Cold War oriented and structured to face heavily mechanized forces in Nothern Europe to an agile, knowledge-based force, better suited for the asymmetric threats of the 21st century - terrorism and organized warlord militia.

To achieve transformation, the Army must change the way it generates forces, the way it trains and the way it fights. Through Army reform, the Army will emerge into a combat-capable, sustainable, rapidly-deployable and information-based Land Force capable of meeting the new threats to Canadian Security. This is a ongoing process that will continue along with advances in technology.

Experience form recent mission such as Afghanistan and Haiti, has reinforced the vision that Canada's Army must approach from 3 prespectives:

-Fight against the armies of failed or failing states
-Conduct stabilization or peace support operations
-Deliver humanitarian aid or assit others doing so


We are currelty changing our equipement to become a command centric institution capable of continuous adaptation to new and changing spectrum of conflits. We started to base our force on wheeled LAV's (LAV-III, MMEV, Stryker MGS, Coyote Recon Vehicule) Along with other western armies, we are transforming in a medium-weight force, replacing sheer mass with speed, agility and information dominance.

Re: Canadian Armed Force - Land

rommel said:

Well, for the RPG, they have to hit us first....

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that's an odd statement...why wouldn't they hit you?

if anything, thought LAVs were higher/taller than Leopards

Re: Canadian Armed Force - Land

rice said:

what an odd statement to make...you'd imagine that would be the purpose

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I don't know if you noticed, but since i've done done some AT training before, I know that's really hard to hit a LAV-III or a Coyote rolling at 60 or 80 km/h. Even with lot's of training this is hard since the rocket propellant is not accurate to maintain a exactly straigh course. And yeah, tell me ,when you said that we need lot more cash, in what you think that the Land Army can spend more ???

Re: Canadian Armed Force - Land

rommel said:

I don't know if you noticed, but since i've done done some AT training before, I know that's really hard to hit a LAV-III or a Coyote rolling at 60 or 80 km/h. Even with lot's of training this is hard since the rocket propellant is not accurate to maintain a exactly straigh course. And yeah, tell me ,when you said that we need lot more cash, in what you think that the Land Army can spend more ???

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and when exactly has any armour been able to maintain such speeds in the urban battles where armour losses from RPGs or home made explosives were greatest?


the canadian army can use money in a lot of places

the complete issue of the clothe the soldier program, for example

equipment wise, medium lift helicopters would do wonders. tho i'm sure you yourself have many propositions

Re: Canadian Armed Force - Land

rice said:

and when exactly has any armour been able to maintain such speeds in the urban battles where armour losses from RPGs or home made explosives were greatest?

the canadian army can use money in a lot of places

the complete issue of the clothe the soldier program, for example

equipment wise, medium lift helicopters would do wonders. tho i'm sure you yourself have many propositions

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we only use wheeled vehicule in operation, some LAV crew of my group-brigade told me that they maintain a minimum of 40 to 50 in urban zone and if the road are larger enough,they can go at 90. You were right, the LAV-III is higher than the Leo C2 by 18cm... The clothe the soldier program is entirely issued, I'm in the Canadian Army Reserve, Infantry, and all my gears are the newest execpt for my CADPAT BDU (I received it 2 years ago)... And the Griffon, which of chopper is that for you ?? Well, the only thing that I realized that we need was better food, but since we had some of the best MRE in the world, I cannot ask better...

-Just curious, do you have any military experiance ??