Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

As far as transporting different variations of goods in the same containers/trucks... I deal with this all the time in my current line of work. It's called Marshalling and it can be done safely by applying certain principles that could be adapted to the Military sphere.

 

[KevinB]

As far as I am concerned, all our logistics should be palletized and containerized. A standardized intermodal container is a proven method of doing this.

I'd agree to a point, especially at Bde and Higher levels - but while for deployment it works at the Unit and below level - for sustainment it doesn't.
Imagine a Arty Bty dropping off a CONEX Box from the truck and driving off - that is a bunch of 155mm that then needs to be hand bombed out to the guns and their limbers.

They come in many variations and one exists for all the applications above. All our trucks we buy should be capable of carrying or towing an intermodal container.

All of the parts we use should be standardized as well with simplicity and commonality being the primary concern. This greatly simplifies repair and maintenance. It also allows for the stockpile of large numbers of replacement parts.

The CAF is way behind the 8-Ball in this regard and our Armed Forces ways of satisfying its logistics requirements is positively archaic.

Another beautiful thing about palletized containers is they can all be tracked relatively simply with scanner tags on every single container. A truck picks up a container and when it leaves the depot, it is detected by a scanner that automatically updates a database so we know automatically, where and when containers are leaving and what our volume is. Individual shipments can also be tracked and prioritized accordingly using classification systems and modern technology like SAP based databases.

You mean the Paul Bunion and cardboard TriWall isn't the 21st Cent Logistics method to strive for?

 

[KevinB]

O/T alert:

C-130s were there too. I had one spicy landing into Khar where the aircraft captain thought he was still on an ERE posting to the Snowbirds. Folks were puking in the back it was so violent. Ironically, when we landed, and I was walking through ops, a RAF C-130 pilot pulled me aside and asked “what was all that then? I chuckled a bit and told him the guy had done a non-Op tour in the Snowbirds…he laughed and told me they had a guy like that too, one short tour on the Red Arrows and he flew like an ass thereafter.

Yes I had a guy like that too -- however they still had some pretty jack ass rules about what could and couldn't go with troops.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

I'd agree to a point, especially at Bde and Higher levels - but while for deployment it works at the Unit and below level - for sustainment it doesn't.
Imagine a Arty Bty dropping off a CONEX Box from the truck and driving off - that is a bunch of 155mm that then needs to be hand bombed out to the guns and their limbers.


You mean the Paul Bunion and cardboard TriWall isn't the 21st Cent Logistics method to strive for?

Well, how it's packaged also matters and modifying the containers so they are fit for purpose:

Palletization and containerization works at every level.

An Artillery Battery is still dozens of vehicles and hauls around large numbers of equipment it will probably rarely use.... you'd think someone would maybe make room for a small off-road forklift?

 

[Halifax Tar]

As far as I am concerned, all our logistics should be palletized and containerized. A standardized intermodal container is a proven method of doing this.

They come in many variations and one exists for all the applications above. All our trucks we buy should be capable of carrying or towing an intermodal container.

All of the parts we use should be standardized as well with simplicity and commonality being the primary concern. This greatly simplifies repair and maintenance. It also allows for the stockpile of large numbers of replacement parts.

The CAF is way behind the 8-Ball in this regard and our Armed Forces ways of satisfying its logistics requirements is positively archaic.

Another beautiful thing about palletized containers is they can all be tracked relatively simply with scanner tags on every single container. A truck picks up a container and when it leaves the depot, it is detected by a scanner that automatically updates a database so we know automatically, where and when containers are leaving and what our volume is. Individual shipments can also be tracked and prioritized accordingly using classification systems and modern technology like SAP based databases.

Well, how it's packaged also matters and modifying the containers so they are fit for purpose:

Palletization and containerization works at every level.

An Artillery Battery is still dozens of vehicles and hauls around large numbers of equipment it will probably rarely use.... you'd think someone would maybe make room for a small off-road forklift?

I would love if we took Logistics and movements seriously enough to get the kind of capability you're talking about.

Even at the tactical level My Storemen on CHA should all be using zap guns or tablets to do everything. No more of this trying to save papers from weather and greedy hands, and processing transactions hours if not days later. ZAP issued... ZAP returned ect ect ect

 

[dapaterson]

There is a project to bring the CAF supply chain into the 1980s by introducing bar codes ..

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

I would love if we took Logistics and movements seriously enough to get the kind of capability you're talking about.

Even at the tactical level My Storemen on CHA should all be using zap guns or tablets to do everything. No more of this trying to save papers from weather and greedy hands, and processing transactions hours if not days later. ZAP issued... ZAP returned ect ect ect

Oh boy... the stuff I work with now and the tools at my disposal would blow your mind.

I get automatic notifications to my iphone when a good that is required by someone is priority. A lot of specialty products are required by factories and critical infrastructure that will shutdown if they don't receive a certain chemical or part.

An Urgent Shipping Notice (USN) is automatically assigned by the system and I receive orders to get the good to them as quickly as possible. This often involves re-orienting crews that were doing something else or trying to anticipate these requirements.

We do this with an incredibly complex system that automatically assigns what's called a "baseline trip plan" to every single shipment. Every single shipment has a date/time assigned to it which is based on customer need, resources, planned truck/ship connections, and... how much someone is willing to pay us for the service. Deviations from the plan require escalation and a reason/explanation.

If a mistake happens the system will automatically adjust the trip plan. Every single shipment is individually tracked by location in real-time and every shipment that sits idle (dwells) for 24 hours requires a plan and explanation on how we are going to get it moving. We employ complex surveillance tools to track all of these shipments: cameras, sensors, GPS, mark I eyeballs, etc.

It's a whole different way of operating but there are a lot of Military Applications that could be derived from this system.

 

[FJAG]

Going back to Afghanistan - and little has changed - ammo comes from the factory packaged like this in pallets - propellant and fuzes come separately




To send out in useful lots on helicopters they had to be repackaged onto kicker pallets like this with a mixture of rounds, propellent and fuzes.




This was during Medusa. These guys are taking the dropped kicker pallets apart and unpacking everything so it can be transported in the Bison to the gun platforms.

@Kirkhill - This is why batteries need more than 3 guys per gun. This is light to moderate ammo handling.

For artillery ammunition, bulk transport is possible up to a point, but somewhere along the chain there is a need to break-bulk and reconfigure into tactical loads for final distribution.

Oh boy... the stuff I work with now and the tools at my disposal would blow your mind.

There are so many things that the military could learn from the railroads and Amazon.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Going back to Afghanistan - and little has changed - ammo comes from the factory packaged like this in pallets - propellant and fuzes come separately


View attachment 82348

To send out in useful lots on helicopters they had to be repackaged onto kicker pallets like this with a mixture of rounds, propellent and fuzes.


View attachment 82349

This was during Medusa. These guys are taking the dropped kicker pallets apart and unpacking everything so it can be transported in the Bison to the gun platforms.

@Kirkhill - This is why batteries need more than 3 guys per gun. This is light to moderate ammo handling.

For artillery ammunition, bulk transport is possible up to a point, but somewhere along the chain there is a need to break-bulk and reconfigure into tactical loads for final distribution.


There are so many things that the military could learn from the railroads and Amazon.

As I said, packaging matters. You could modify the kicker pallet to be configured to accept compartmentalized versions of the above.

You'll never completely eliminate the need for someone to unpackage it at some point but the less time you waste doing things like above, the greater volume of mass/combat power you will be able to sustain.

The Americans are very good at this and it's their logistics excellence that truly makes them a capable Military Force.

 

[Kirkhill]

Going back to Afghanistan - and little has changed - ammo comes from the factory packaged like this in pallets - propellant and fuzes come separately


View attachment 82348

To send out in useful lots on helicopters they had to be repackaged onto kicker pallets like this with a mixture of rounds, propellent and fuzes.


View attachment 82349

This was during Medusa. These guys are taking the dropped kicker pallets apart and unpacking everything so it can be transported in the Bison to the gun platforms.

@Kirkhill - This is why batteries need more than 3 guys per gun. This is light to moderate ammo handling.

For artillery ammunition, bulk transport is possible up to a point, but somewhere along the chain there is a need to break-bulk and reconfigure into tactical loads for final distribution.


There are so many things that the military could learn from the railroads and Amazon.

@FJAG

I have never said you don't need ammunition handlers. I question whether you need ammunition handlers on every gun for every mission.
I also question how long that cache would last in the open like that in Ukraine.

Also, if I want to put 6 rounds on target for effect, do I need to emplace 6 guns and have them fire one round apiece?
Or can I transmit the co-ordinates to an Archer with a crew of 3, on the move, and have them drive to a firing position, down spades, pump out 6 rounds from their 21 round magazine for simultaneous impact, lash up and stow and relocate within 2 minutes of launching the first round?

 

[daftandbarmy]

The Americans are very good at this and it's their logistics excellence that truly makes them a capable Military Force.

Well it's clearly not got anything to do with the way they wear their berets

Why do some people in the military who wear berets have the beret covering part of their face or wear a beret that looks to big on them?

Answer (1 of 9): For the old timers it’s BS. I wore my Green Beret the same way our instructors wore theirs’. The extreme flap almost covering one eye is stupid. It’s just a hat and doesn’t make you a badass. In Special Forces your rank only determines your pay. What counts on an ODA is your repu...

www.quora.com

 

[Kirkhill]

As far as transporting different variations of goods in the same containers/trucks... I deal with this all the time in my current line of work. It's called Marshalling and it can be done safely by applying certain principles that could be adapted to the Military sphere.

Is it really any different than "bombing up" a section prior to a mission? Dividing up what you receive from the CQ and distributing among the troops. Hopefully, on any given soldier, you would find food, water, fuel, ammo, batteries and stores.

 

[Kirkhill]

Well, how it's packaged also matters and modifying the containers so they are fit for purpose:

Palletization and containerization works at every level.

An Artillery Battery is still dozens of vehicles and hauls around large numbers of equipment it will probably rarely use.... you'd think someone would maybe make room for a small off-road forklift?

You mean some variant of this?

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Is it really any different than "bombing up" a section prior to a mission? Dividing up what you receive from the CQ and distributing among the troops. Hopefully, on any given soldier, you would find food, water, fuel, ammo, batteries and stores.

It's not as efficient for one. You're adding extra layers of re-distribution that don't need to exist.

The less time you spend on repackaging and re-distribution... the better.

You mean some variant of this?

View attachment 82352

Exactly.

 

[Kirkhill]

Oh boy... the stuff I work with now and the tools at my disposal would blow your mind.

I get automatic notifications to my iphone when a good that is required by someone is priority. A lot of specialty products are required by factories and critical infrastructure that will shutdown if they don't receive a certain chemical or part.

An Urgent Shipping Notice (USN) is automatically assigned by the system and I receive orders to get the good to them as quickly as possible. This often involves re-orienting crews that were doing something else or trying to anticipate these requirements.

We do this with an incredibly complex system that automatically assigns what's called a "baseline trip plan" to every single shipment. Every single shipment has a date/time assigned to it which is based on customer need, resources, planned truck/ship connections, and... how much someone is willing to pay us for the service. Deviations from the plan require escalation and a reason/explanation.

If a mistake happens the system will automatically adjust the trip plan. Every single shipment is individually tracked by location in real-time and every shipment that sits idle (dwells) for 24 hours requires a plan and explanation on how we are going to get it moving. We employ complex surveillance tools to track all of these shipments: cameras, sensors, GPS, mark I eyeballs, etc.

It's a whole different way of operating but there are a lot of Military Applications that could be derived from this system.

How far forward could CP or CN or Air Canada deliver? Latvia for example? Mali?

 

[Kirkhill]

It's not as efficient for one. You're adding extra layers of re-distribution that don't need to exist.

The less time you spend on repackaging and re-distribution... the better.

I take your point but at some point goods have to be distributed to the individual.

I suppose that you could expand ration packs to include fuel and water as well as a standardized load of ball, tracer, link, grenades, smoke, LAWs etc. but you would always have a need to top up high usage items. Or else the troop in the field finds herself having to dispose of all the unconsumed stuff that came along with the stuff she ordered.

 

[FJAG]

As I said, packaging matters. You could modify the kicker pallet to be configured to accept compartmentalized versions of the above.

You'll never completely eliminate the need for someone to unpackage it at some point but the less time you waste doing things like above, the greater volume of mass/combat power you will be able to sustain.

The Americans are very good at this and it's their logistics excellence that truly makes them a capable Military Force.

I agree entirely. The chain needs to be set up to deal with an end to end factory to gun position system. Currently we don't. We're using much of the same procedures our grandfathers used in WW2 (or even 1). Those become labour intensive at some point and that all to often is at the gun position.

The problem comes about for two major reasons. 1 - we hardly ever need to deal with arty ammo at war time scales. Its dead simple to pick up a hundred rounds for an exercise. As a result we do not train or plan for large rates of usage. 2 - doctrinally ammo handling falls outside the brigade service battalion and instead went from the DISGP via the DISGP's ammunition transport company to the division's CS and GS regiments. Not having a DISGP or an ammunition transport company we are left with, once again, cobbling together a non doctrinal ad hoc agency (like an NSE) to do work which should be done by a dedicated organization trained in the process.

Our peacetime experiences will kill us in wartime.

I have never said you don't need ammunition handlers. I question whether you need ammunition handlers on every gun for every mission.

But you allude to the fact that an Archer with a three man detachment saves manpower. My point is simply that it doesn't. That manpower needs to be somewhere.

I also question how long that cache would last in the open like that in Ukraine.

Luckily, Taliban rockets weren't that accurate. Still. You do need to have ammo dumps somewhere. Ones like the KAF one won't survive. Again that needs manpower to manage breaking it into smaller areas and hiding it.

Also, if I want to put 6 rounds on target for effect, do I need to emplace 6 guns and have them fire one round apiece?

We haven't emplaced six guns in one position in an awful long time. We were running disbursed gun positions back in the 70s before we had GPS and other nifty tools. If the question is do we still need a six gun battery (regardless how it deploys) to support a battlegroup, then the answer is yes.

Or can I transmit the co-ordinates to an Archer with a crew of 3, on the move, and have them drive to a firing position, down spades, pump out 6 rounds from their 21 round magazine for simultaneous impact, lash up and stow and relocate within 2 minutes of launching the first round?

Things that move, die. Things that don't move, die. It's a delicate balance of concealment, protection, relocation, alternate guns providing cover while some are moving. You cannot keep cruising around waiting for a fire mission. Three man crews tire out easily and aren't very 24/7 capable without some rest or shift change.

Are SP guns like Archer and improvement over an M777? - in my view yes except for airmobile operations. Do we need to rethink or fine tune artillery tactics in light of widespread drones and EW and and weapons locating systems and counterfire? - absolutely, but its a complex issue that the CAF hasn't thought about much for 30 or 40 years. We're only digesting that now, and IMHO, in a haphazard manner.

 

[Kirkhill]

I agree entirely. The chain needs to be set up to deal with an end to end factory to gun position system. Currently we don't. We're using much of the same procedures our grandfathers used in WW2 (or even 1). Those become labour intensive at some point and that all to often is at the gun position.

The problem comes about for two major reasons. 1 - we hardly ever need to deal with arty ammo at war time scales. Its dead simple to pick up a hundred rounds for an exercise. As a result we do not train or plan for large rates of usage. 2 - doctrinally ammo handling falls outside the brigade service battalion and instead went from the DISGP via the DISGP's ammunition transport company to the division's CS and GS regiments. Not having a DISGP or an ammunition transport company we are left with, once again, cobbling together a non doctrinal ad hoc agency (like an NSE) to do work which should be done by a dedicated organization trained in the process.

Our peacetime experiences will kill us in wartime.


But you allude to the fact that an Archer with a three man detachment saves manpower. My point is simply that it doesn't. That manpower needs to be somewhere.

Luckily, Taliban rockets weren't that accurate. Still. You do need to have ammo dumps somewhere. Ones like the KAF one won't survive. Again that needs manpower to manage breaking it into smaller areas and hiding it.

We haven't emplaced six guns in one position in an awful long time. We were running disbursed gun positions back in the 70s before we had GPS and other nifty tools. If the question is do we still need a six gun battery (regardless how it deploys) to support a battlegroup, then the answer is yes.

Things that move, die. Things that don't move, die. It's a delicate balance of concealment, protection, relocation, alternate guns providing cover while some are moving. You cannot keep cruising around waiting for a fire mission. Three man crews tire out easily and aren't very 24/7 capable without some rest or shift change.

Are SP guns like Archer and improvement over an M777? - in my view yes except for airmobile operations. Do we need to rethink or fine tune artillery tactics in light of widespread drones and EW and and weapons locating systems and counterfire? - absolutely, but its a complex issue that the CAF hasn't thought about much for 30 or 40 years. We're only digesting that now, and IMHO, in a haphazard manner.

I'm not arguing for fewer gunners.

I am wondering about putting fewer gunners at risk. Fewer gunners on the gun and more in the rear getting rest and handling ammunition.

In terms of an Artillery Reserve I am suggesting that a small town, or even a village, could supply a pair of guns and half a dozen gunners. And picking up on what @Humphrey Bogart has been laying down, moving ammunition forwards should not have to be a specialized trade with specialized equipment. It should be designed so that any loggie with standard loggie kit could move it.

Inspecting and prepping rounds are a separate issue.


Kind of related....

Somebody recently posted a Matsimus video about the Patria NEMO and it noted that the turret was an autonomous turret but then it showed a loader in the back of the vehicle hand bombing rounds into a caged carousel. I can only assume that that gives the vehicle the ability to pre-load 5 or 6 rounds for a fire mission and then get out of Dodge or, alternately, to load and fire one round at a time in a more conventional application.

 

[FJAG]

Somebody recently posted a Matsimus video about the Patria NEMO and it noted that the turret was an autonomous turret but then it showed a loader in the back of the vehicle hand bombing rounds into a caged carousel. I can only assume that that gives the vehicle the ability to pre-load 5 or 6 rounds for a fire mission and then get out of Dodge or, alternately, to load and fire one round at a time in a more conventional application.

I saw that video and it looked to me like it was the loading of a single round and that after a round is fired, the turret and tube had to get back into a very restricted "reload" position that looks to be oriented straight forward and at a roughly 45* angle. It struck me as a very inelegant system from what I could see of it. It is preferable to have a system that allows reloads while the tube stays laid on the target to allow a much more rapid rate of fire.

 

[Kirkhill]

I saw that video and it looked to me like it was the loading of a single round and that after a round is fired, the turret and tube had to get back into a very restricted "reload" position that looks to be oriented straight forward and at a roughly 45* angle. It struck me as a very inelegant system from what I could see of it. It is preferable to have a system that allows reloads while the tube stays laid on the target to allow a much more rapid rate of fire.

Seen. Taking another look at that video I believe you are right. Again.