National Post, July 25, 2005
New guns sent back with cracked barrels
FRENCH-BUILT HOWITZERS
Army forced to use `obsolete' weapons first used in 1957
BY CHRIS WATTIE
More than half of the newest howitzers in the Canadian army's arsenal have been sidelined by cracks in their steel barrels, while the rest of the artillery branch has been reduced to using moth-balled Vietnam-era guns. All but 10 of Canada's 28 French-built LG1 howitzers, bought in 1997 as light artillery to support the army's infantry bat-talions, were found to have devel-oped the potentially dangerous cracks, an army spokesman said yesterday. "Out of 28 guns we managed to find 10 that were not cracked," said Major Bruno Di Ilio, of the army's directorate of land requirements.
Maj. Di Ilio said that as soon as the problem was detected late last year the Canadian Forces called in Giat, the French manu-facturer of the LG1 Mark II. "They came out and took a look at it and determined that it was a problem in the manufacturing process:" The firm quickly corrected the flaw in the 10 guns with un-cracked barrels, but is still work-ing on a fix for the remaining 18 howitzers. "I was hoping to have it done by now, frankly;" said Maj. Di Ilio.
Meanwhile, the army's ar-tillery regiments have been forced to press a 48-year-old gun back into service long after it was retired to fill a gap left by the re-tirement of their M109 self-pro-pelled guns. The C1 howitzer, which first came into service in 1957, is now being used by some gun batteries for training, Maj. Di Ilio said.
Critics called it "scandalous" that the army was reduced to us-ing five-decade-old equipment.
Colonel Brian MacDonald, a for-mer artillery officer who is now a researcher with the Royal Canadian Military Institute, said the C1 howitzer was a good weapon in its day, but that day is long past. "It's obsolete," he said. "We're replacing a medium howitzer' that can throw a bullet 19 kilome-tres with an older, short-range one that can only throw one 11 kilometres. "And if we have to go up against more modern artillery with longer range, we're dead meat:' Col. MacDonald said the C1 was actually built based on an even older design. "These guns were designed be-fore World War Two for heaven's sake.... They are the oldest piece of equipment in the entire Cana-dian Forces:'
Gordon O'Connor, the Con-servative defence critic, said the artillery branch has suffered particularly from government neglect of the Canadian Forces because of the warlike nature of the guns. -'They're oriented around indi-rect firepower," he said. "They're a combat arm - it's hard to use artillery for peacekeeping or peacemaking, and that's all the Liberal government's been inter-ested in lately." "[So] their equipment has been allowed to just rust away." Mr. O'Connor said that there are no active plans to replace the army's self-propelled guns, mean-ing the artillery might be stuck with the antique C1 howitzers for some time. "They're older than the Sea Kings [maritime helicopters] and will probably be around even longer," he said. "That's how bad a state the artillery branch is in - and they're way down the list for replacing their capital equip-ment:'
Maj. Di Ilio acknowledged that there are no immediate plans for ' new self-propelled guns that the C1 howitzers are replacing "as an interim measure," but said there are proposals "on the drawing board:"
There is no immediate word on when the LG1's cracked bar-rels will be fixed, but Maj. Di Ilio said the work will be done at the company's expense.
The LG1 is usually towed be-hind a truck or armoured vehicle, but, at a total weight of 1.5 tonnes, was designed to be light enough to be lifted by helicopter, dropped by parachute and trans-ported by air.
It has a crew of between three and seven gunners, depending on the mission, and with its "ex-tended range" shells, it can fire' at targets up to 19 kilometres away.
A battery of four LG1s 'was sent to Kabul in 2003 with the first Canadian battle group de-ployed to the Afghan capital as part of the International Security Assistance Force.
Military spokesmen said it has not yet been decided whether the guns will accompany a Canadian battle group to Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, early next year.
National Post czeattie@nationalpost.com