C3 Howitzer Replacement

[IKnowNothing]

The Light elements validate down here. No reason it couldn’t be a Bde validation instead of a LIB one.

What I'm asking is if a Bde can successfully validate with it's Bn's each at a different stage of MRP.

 

[GR66]

Meanwhile in Spain...

Spain to acquire 145 advanced self-propelled howitzers

The Spanish Ministry of Defense has announced an ambitious plan to procure 145 self-propelled howitzers, aiming to modernize the country’s artillery capabilities and enhance its military readiness. This acquisition is set to replace the aging M109 howitzers, which have been in service for over...

defence-blog.com

Spain adding additional AD Artillery as well...

Spain to acquire PAC-3 missiles from Lockheed Martin

Spain has formalized an agreement with the United States to purchase Lockheed Martin’s Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) missiles and related support equipment. This agreement marks Spain as the 16th nation to partner with Lockheed Martin for the advanced...

defence-blog.com

 

[Fabius]

What I'm asking is if a Bde can successfully validate with it's Bn's each at a different stage of MRP.

Couple thoughts.
First, most all Bde validation is done via CAX. Having units at different levels of readiness inside the Bde doesn’t preclude the Bde staff from being validated.

Second, we have been validating all our CS and CSS units via CAX as well. Allowing those units to actually specialize in supporting a specific type of manoeuvre units would likely be good. We also need to actually start validating them as units in actual FTXs I believe.

Third, readiness at the Bde level can likely look different than at the unit levels due to the size of force Canada typically commits quickly. Aligning Bde CT events with the Army Posting Season and Command tour lengths along with equipment fielding so that personnel, commanders and equipment come together for a three year cycle would likely lead to as much readiness at the Bde level as now, likely better.

Having Bde formations trained and used to working together in their respective role, armoured, mech, airmobile etc. would likely offer more readiness to the Army in more scenarios on the same timeline as today even though we may have to rapidly shift resources to spool up a needed Bde type that was not validated.

The validation at Bde level would not necessarily be for a specific timeframe or msn but rather a tool to maintain proficiency in the army overall.

Key question is how long do we need to train a new Bde Comd and Staff? Likely 4 months, but if we adopted some of the items above the baseline readiness would likely be better for specific roles.

 

[quadrapiper]

Like this?

Exactly that. Is it handier to have a 105 and an extra ~2000 kg of capacity to do other things with, or a 155?

 

[markppcli]

What I'm asking is if a Bde can successfully validate with it's Bn's each at a different stage of MRP.

Having each Bde running their Bns through MRP would drive the army into the ground in all likelihood. WRT to the Light Bn readiness, we essentially already do rotate them through readiness so I don’t really know what would be achieved.

 

[Fabius]

There would be no need for a Bde to run the CT validation for their Bns. CMTC should do that still, but the CA could adjust the model to adopt the US CTC model in that they rotate multiple Bdes though a year. We could rotate 4 Bns through each year, three reg and one reserve.

A Light Bde might not offer much change to the three Inf Bns but it offers a very very significant amount to the Bde Staff, HQ and Sigs Sqn, the CER, the Arty Regt, the Svc Bn, the aviation Sqns as well as the Field Amb. Those elements are being pulled in conflicting directions by having the Light Bns inside the Mech Bns with the mech and light elements being on different cycles.

 

[FJAG]

Exactly that. Is it handier to have a 105 and an extra ~2000 kg of capacity to do other things with, or a 155?

Range and terminal effects matter.

The former makes a very important difference as to what you are able to do in any given tactical scenario. Range becomes even more important when you think in terms of the size of an AO rather than just a linear distance. We couldn't have provided the fire support needed in Afghanistan - especially the early years - with 105s unless we had deployed three or four times the number of guns. A 105mm with a range of 17 kilometres covers an area of 908 square kilometres. A 155mm with a range of 30 kilometres covers an area of 2,827 sq km or three times the area of a 105mm.

In airmobile operations this gives you the ability to position your guns further away from the operational area providing a higher degree of security - and therefore availability - of the guns. In counter insurgency type of operations it means that the guns can settle into an FOB and provide a high degree of 360 degree availability to the force throughout its AO.

The 155mm is now the Western go-to round. It's a bigger round and type for type - ie HE v HE, WP v WP etc - you can deliver a bigger effect. In addition, there is not much development going into improving 105mm types as compared to 155mm. Newer 155mm rounds are significantly more effective than the Cold War standard rounds and development - particularly n the nature of precision munitions - is ongoing.

So this -

Having each Bde running their Bns through MRP would drive the army into the ground in all likelihood.

I doubt that there would be a significant difference. I'm of the view that MRPs in and of themselves are a sign/symptom of an army already run into the ground. The MRP system is used to compensate for understrength units and insufficient equipment which is serviceable. Reorganizing into a light brigade and two mech brigades would not change that.

WRT to the Light Bn readiness, we essentially already do rotate them through readiness so I don’t really know what would be achieved.

The entire structure of the army at present is designed to facilitate brigade by brigade rotational battle group generation. Canadian brigade groups, in and of themselves, are not doctrinal tactical elements. Under the concepts created by Advancing with Purpose, they are flexible structures that are designed to be ad hoc organized for a mission using a building block system. It goes back to that old trope that when you are a jack of all trades then you are a master of none.

Reorganizing into a light brigade and two mech brigades would simplify logistics and training within each brigade. More importantly the brigades themselves would be able to develop their own expertise in either light or mech operations and become entities that could be deployed as an doctrinal entity without reconfiguration.

In our current mission set, the light brigade would generate the fly-over light battalion required for Latvia and be responsible for having a constantly ready Global Response Task Force.

The two mech brigades would have the responsibility for generating the mech components of the Latvia-based brigade.

I'm of the view that there should be no rotation of the brigade headquarters into Latvia. That should be a new brigade headquarters staffed by the posting in of the core of both the brigade headquarters and core signals squadron and logistics staff, supported by either rotational augmentees or, IMHO preferably, fly-over surge personnel.

It's not changing the Canadian brigade structure that will burn out the Canadian army. It is Latvia and continuing on with the current structure that will burn it out and prevent our brigades from becoming efficient tactical entities rather than just force generators.

 

[quadrapiper]

Range and terminal effects matter.

The former makes a very important difference as to what you are able to do in any given tactical scenario. Range becomes even more important when you think in terms of the size of an AO rather than just a linear distance. We couldn't have provided the fire support needed in Afghanistan - especially the early years - with 105s unless we had deployed three or four times the number of guns. A 105mm with a range of 17 kilometres covers an area of 908 square kilometres. A 155mm with a range of 30 kilometres covers an area of 2,827 sq km or three times the area of a 105mm.

In airmobile operations this gives you the ability to position your guns further away from the operational area providing a higher degree of security - and therefore availability - of the guns. In counter insurgency type of operations it means that the guns can settle into an FOB and provide a high degree of 360 degree availability to the force throughout its AO.

The 155mm is now the Western go-to round. It's a bigger round and type for type - ie HE v HE, WP v WP etc - you can deliver a bigger effect. In addition, there is not much development going into improving 105mm types as compared to 155mm. Newer 155mm rounds are significantly more effective than the Cold War standard rounds and development - particularly n the nature of precision munitions - is ongoing.

So this -

Thank you for that!

 

[OldSolduer]

So invest in the 155 for all Gun Regiments?

 

[childs56]

If you have fewer guns because they have longer range means it is easier for the enemy to take out those targets. Smaller guns more dispersed means harder target for the enemy.
A blended force of 105, 155, various mortars and the potential 120 coming out might be better for the overall missions.

But if everyone is on the 155 bandwagon then I guess we follow along. Even though they all operate various systems.

 

[FJAG]

If you have fewer guns because they have longer range means it is easier for the enemy to take out those targets. Smaller guns more dispersed means harder target for the enemy.

The fact that they cover more area and you can have fewer guns in a counter-insurgency type operation does not mean that you will have fewer guns. Doctrine for us is still a six gun battery and three gun batteries per regiment plus an STA battery and a tactical battery for the FOOs/JTACs.

(If I had my druthers, I'd change the establishment by grouping the FOOs/JTACs with STA in one battery as combined they are the sense function. I'd also add a general support launcher battery to provide for all brigade-level precision missile/armed UAV handling - bns should have their own UAVs)

A blended force of 105, 155, various mortars and the potential 120 coming out might be better for the overall missions.

I'm a great fan of mortars - both 81 and 120 but as battalion resources. Giving mortars to the artillery back in the 00s was one of those finance/PY cutback compromises that we've grown use to. IMHO this is more than a mere cap badge issue as to who mans the mortars. For me there is a very real difference between guns and mortars. Bns need their own guaranteed fire support. Mortars give them that. Artillery needs to mass fires across a broad front. Guns with their longer ranges and comms networking provide that. Yes, some 120mm can range out to 13,000 metres but that is still far short of what a 155 (even with an L39 barrel) will do. If you think adaptive dispersed operations then the ranges all need to match the task. Mortars are still more suited to a bn while guns are suited to the division (regardless of how small our army is, combat support systems must fit into a NATO structure)

But if everyone is on the 155 bandwagon then I guess we follow along. Even though they all operate various systems.

They do and most ammunition is interchangeable as long as your computers have the right firing tables. Different systems do have issues. Some of the newer longer range rounds have charges that are more powerful than what older barrels are stressed for. The proliferation of different rounds can be problematic for what is already a complex logistics system for NATO. The fewer different natures that you have the easier logistics get. 105s, while not without their uses, are an unnecessary complication and while we still train on them, no one realistically sees an operational role for them.

The Americans still have 105mm M119s in their light divisions (2 x M119 batteries & 1 x M777 battery per battalion) That's not about to change for a long while until they get an SP for their Stryker BCTs and thus freeing up around 160 x M777s (I'm not sure what they did with all their Marine ones. They had 481 guns, gave around a 108 to the Ukraine and retain around 50-60 or so in use. There should still be some 850 or so in the combined army and marine M777s inventory either in use or storage - that's enough to equip 50 battalions. The Marines equip 2 or 3 battalions with M777s and the army only has 20 battalions in 20 IBCTs (i.e. 120 x M777s total) and 9 battalions in 9 BCTs (162 x M777 in total) and a few battalions in arty brigades so there are plenty to go around.

 

[FJAG]

Interesting:

Britain rebuilding ability to manufacture large-calibre guns

After a 20 year gap, the United Kingdom intends to regenerate the ability to build gun barrels of the type used by tanks and artillery.

ukdefencejournal.org.uk

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Interesting:

Canada should be following suit.

 

[FJAG]

I think I just saw why Disney is successful while a lot of what gets done by military projects takes forever.

I was watching a show on Disney building the "Pirates of the Caribbean" attraction in Shanghai. They had invented a new screen projection process that had a "moving eye-point" concept that followed the guests traveling in their boat that created much more movement and realism in the projected image. The problem was that previous "Pirates" attractions had free floating boats that varied in speed with the water flow. To compensate for that the new attraction would have boats with the speed and location completely controlled by magnets in the floor of the water trough. The problem was that this technology was still being developed and untested. However, the Imagineers went ahead and developed the attraction with the "assumption that the technology will work" by the time they needed it. It did.

 

[PrairieFella]

I know troop strength is tough these days but would a new regiment of AD make sense dispersing different batteries around the CMBGs? I agree with Marckppcli that having ten thousand capabilities under 4GS doesn't really make sense.

 

[PrairieFella]

That's semantics. If 1 PPCLI is deployed in combat and becomes combat ineffective due to casualties/equipment losses then it will be replaced by another Battalion. You're right technically that PPCLI as a Regiment does not exist to explicitly replace casualties from it's component Battalions in the field but the reality is that you need multiple Battalions (or AD Batteries) in the ORBAT in order to replace combat losses. The most logical way to organize those additional Battalions/AD Batteries is in Regiments.

The Ukrainians are regularly using FPV drones to take out armoured vehicles as in the video below (even in the face of Russian EW and AD systems). They could do the same to an aircraft on the ground. Good luck counting on our fighters or Navy to take them out.

So the entirety of Canada's AD assets to support a single Brigade-sized deployment with extremely limited depth for replacing losses.

The same way @FJAG and others have been suggesting for various missing/understrength CA capabilities - hybrid Reg Force/Reserve units. Make better use of the part-time PY's we have available and give them the equipment they need to be effective. We need a variety of AD systems from C-UAS to SHORAD to MRAD (and possibly even LRAD) and that requires more that two Batteries devoted to the role.

I stand by my statement that the CA doesn't take AD seriously and is not adapting rapidly enough to the impacts that unmanned systems are having on the battlefield.

Equip and train the reserves on new kit to do a good job? Is that some sort of toon joke? Best we can do is a second world war gun per battery /s

 

[markppcli]

I know troop strength is tough these days but would a new regiment of AD make sense dispersing different batteries around the CMBGs? I agree with Marckppcli that having ten thousand capabilities under 4GS doesn't really make sense.

Shooting is one half of it, coordinating is the other.

 

[FJAG]

I know troop strength is tough these days but would a new regiment of AD make sense dispersing different batteries around the CMBGs? I agree with Marckppcli that having ten thousand capabilities under 4GS doesn't really make sense.

You have to put things into perspective from the current operational concept of the Canadian army v available resources. We won't be deploying a division as was the concept back in the 1980s (1 Cdn Div with 4 CMBG and 5 CMBG) when 4 AD Regt was formed (not to mention the airfield AD component).

Currently we do not expect to deploy more than a bde(-) and, perhaps, a second BG. GBAD was stood up as a project before we committed a bde HQ to Latvia. The CMBGs operate rotationally to force generate these elements. There are insufficient funds allocated to equip each brigade properly with AD and in fact there is no need for a force generating CMBG to have its own AD. It is sufficient under this operating concept if there is an agency that can force generate the necessary AD elements for each deployment.

4 GS Regt already force generates all the ASCCs and MRRs for Latvia. Adding the "shooter" AD elements to their establishment makes complete sense.

The same applies to the SUAS battery and eventually the LRPR capability.

As long as there isn't a requirement to force generate a division, 4 GS Regt is adequate as a generator of AD and GS batteries for a CMBG(-).

In the event that Canada gets to the point where it tasks the army to generate the better part of a division then I would completely agree that 4 GS Regt should be split into two entities: an AD Regt (with an enhanced GBAD capability) and a GS Regt (with an enhanced SUAS, OWUAV, and LRPR capability.

 

[KevinB]

In the event that Canada gets to the point where it tasks the army to generate the better part of a division then I would completely agree that 4 GS Regt should be split into two entities: an AD Regt (with an enhanced GBAD capability) and a GS Regt (with an enhanced SUAS, OWUAV, and LRPR capability.

If Canada never expects to deploy a Division, I’d suggest it should give out a lot of pink slips.
Furthermore I think that anyone thinking that in this day and age Canada shouldn’t have the ability to deploy a DIV with its current PY should remove their head from their posterior.

 

[FJAG]

If Canada never expects to deploy a Division, I’d suggest it should give out a lot of pink slips.
Furthermore I think that anyone thinking that in this day and age Canada shouldn’t have the ability to deploy a DIV with its current PY should remove their head from their posterior.

I totally agree. I've said over and over again that the size of the Canadian army as it is (RegF and ResF combined) is sufficient to create two full divisions which can be logically grouped into a primarily ResF expeditionary one and a primarily RegF one for homeland defence and as the backbone for generating sustainment forces for the first one. What is needed is 1) equipment to round out missing capabilities; 2) a reorganization; 3) a viable training system for both RegF and ResF that matches the required throughput; and 4) a defence industry that continuously supplies the requisite equipment, munitions and other supplies needed.

I see the Navy similar to the army as to a RegF and ResF ratio. There needs to be enough RegF to keep, let's say, rotationally keep 30-50% our existing ships at sea during peacetime and to man the training system and hold a core in place to surge the rest of the ships together with ResF augmentees. I think there is not the same need for additional ResF because the attrition rate will lose both crews and ships at the same rate and ship replacement is not really in the cards. Yes we need submarines and IMHO these should be nuclear with under-ice capabilities.

Air Force? I think we have enough fighters and transport. What we need is an integrated missile air defence system run by the RCAF for the defence of Canada. Add some additional unmanned homeland defence surveillance and strike systems. Leave the expeditionary force to the army and whatever allied air support exists there.

Incidentally, we need much more in the way of defence systems against missile and drone attacks of all natures. That means both launchers and reloads. We're overmatched by offensive systems and will lose billion dollar ships to million dollar or less weapon systems if we can't knock them out of the skies. Skimping on munitions and the means to produce them locally is to invite defeat. Producing them is easily done domestically and on a long-term continuous production cycle if we foster it.

IMHO we could and should start on that immediately, if necessary banking some of the initial 2% funding until the systems are ramped up to a steady state.