Defending Canadian Arctic Sovereignty

[Colin Parkinson]

the ice maybe was slow leaving so the delivery ships have been delayed. They don't leave UL until they know they have a reasonable chance of making their deliveries

I had figured that they would have had their supply runs done by now

 

[YZT580]

I had figured that they would have had their supply runs done by now

The approaches to Iqaluit were still blocked on July 31st. Al Gore not withstanding, the Arctic is definitely not ice free in the summer. The Western Arctic is still more than 50% blocked

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Interesting, back in the 90's we had most of the supply runs done by mid August in the Western Arctic.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

That's the usual window, Colin. But somehow lately (last five years) everything seems to have shifted later by two to three weeks.

On top of that, if you recall your priority list for CCG support of vessels in the Arctic, the delivery of oil for heating/electricity was the top priority, followed by food, then construction materials, followed then by transportation/aviation support supplies and finally, general merchandise, so they may not have gotten to that priority yet, but must be getting close.

You may also recall that some times, local weather conditions preclude ressuply on the planned date for village X, Y or Z and they then get pushed back to a later date even, on occasion, miss alltogether on the summer resupply, necessitating an air bridge to ensure the survival of the village fo one more year. BAd planning is not necessarily the culprit.

 

[Skysix]

"if any such depth transformation is to happen, it also means the non-Nordic NATO allies — particularly the US and Canada — need to rethink how they plan for operations to reinforce Nordic defense, while the Nordics themselves shape greater defense capacities to defend themselves against the Russians"

NATO expansion should be accompanied by a Nordic defense reset - Breaking Defense

Adding Sweden and Finland to the alliance should serve as a turning point in how the Nordic nations plan out their defense strategies, writes analyst Robbin Laird.

breakingdefense.com

 

[daftandbarmy]

"if any such depth transformation is to happen, it also means the non-Nordic NATO allies — particularly the US and Canada — need to rethink how they plan for operations to reinforce Nordic defense, while the Nordics themselves shape greater defense capacities to defend themselves against the Russians"

NATO expansion should be accompanied by a Nordic defense reset - Breaking Defense

Adding Sweden and Finland to the alliance should serve as a turning point in how the Nordic nations plan out their defense strategies, writes analyst Robbin Laird.

breakingdefense.com

The Arctic Response Company Group is still a thing, is it not?

I'm sure that commitment will help deter Putin and his evil henchmen

NOREX 20: Validating a sub-Arctic response | Canadian Army Today

canadianarmytoday.com

 

[Underway]

Nice little info blurb from Global News.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

I wish they would have expanded on the current and future arctic capabilities of adversary/potential adversary nations more. A 3 second clip of 50 Let Pobedy doesn't really capture it...

 

[Kirkhill]

Russia and Drones in the Arctic

Is Russia still thinking about the Arctic?
Is Russia as capable as it claims and we believed?

Will the Ukraine war slow Russia’s Arctic push?

Drones could offer the West an opening to catch up with Russia, bogged down in Ukraine, in establishing a foothold in the warming Arctic.

www.defensenews.com

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I bet an Arctic posting is looking pretty sweet to a lot of troopies now in the RUAF. I have no doubt that Arctic ops and rebuilding has slowed to a crawl, outside of some PR stunts to maintain an a illusion of otherwise.

 

[GR66]

Is there an identified military need to have permanently manned, dispersed air bases in the far North? These forums are usually very quick to have SMEs call out the CAF on its shortcomings/weaknesses but I don't recall hearing anyone from the fighter community saying how much more vulnerable we are due to the location of our current fighter bases and FOB locations.

Following up on my own post regarding forward deployment of fighters to the Arctic here to avoid further derails in the Ukraine thread.

I'm still trying to understand what military need is being met by permanent forward deployment of our fighter fleet in the high Arctic.

Let's be realistic. If Russian missiles come over the Arctic it will be thousands of strategic nuclear ballistic missiles and forward deployment of a few F-35's won't make a difference to that.

Please give me a plausible scenario where Russian missiles launched across the Arctic doesn't trigger a massive US nuclear counter strike. Any missile attack by Russia against continental North America will have to be seen by NORAD as a potential decapitation first strike and would trigger an American counter strike. The Russians know this which is what actually makes MAD work.

You can place all 88 of our F-35's in the high Arctic but what is that going to really do against approx. 5,900 Russian missiles? If anything we'd be better off both militarily and economically signing on to BMD with the US and building ABM sites around our major population centres/key infrastructure rather than forward basing our fighter force.

 

[Spencer100]

Following up on my own post regarding forward deployment of fighters to the Arctic here to avoid further derails in the Ukraine thread.

I'm still trying to understand what military need is being met by permanent forward deployment of our fighter fleet in the high Arctic.

Let's be realistic. If Russian missiles come over the Arctic it will be thousands of strategic nuclear ballistic missiles and forward deployment of a few F-35's won't make a difference to that.

Please give me a plausible scenario where Russian missiles launched across the Arctic doesn't trigger a massive US nuclear counter strike. Any missile attack by Russia against continental North America will have to be seen by NORAD as a potential decapitation first strike and would trigger an American counter strike. The Russians know this which is what actually makes MAD work.

You can place all 88 of our F-35's in the high Arctic but what is that going to really do against approx. 5,900 Russian missiles? If anything we'd be better off both militarily and economically signing on to BMD with the US and building ABM sites around our major population centres/key infrastructure rather than forward basing our fighter force.

The F-35's main job is the "Defence against help" and then second to be used if we go off "expeditioning" with friends. This gets us in at the kids table but its at least in the room. The current bases are fine for those rolls.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Following up on my own post regarding forward deployment of fighters to the Arctic here to avoid further derails in the Ukraine thread.

I'm still trying to understand what military need is being met by permanent forward deployment of our fighter fleet in the high Arctic.

I have no background in the forward deployment of fighter jets, but it seems to me that if we kept the essential logistics infrastructure up to speed 'North of 60' you could send anything (jets, troops, etc) from the south to the north at pretty short notice.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Following up on my own post regarding forward deployment of fighters to the Arctic here to avoid further derails in the Ukraine thread.

I'm still trying to understand what military need is being met by permanent forward deployment of our fighter fleet in the high Arctic.

Let's be realistic. If Russian missiles come over the Arctic it will be thousands of strategic nuclear ballistic missiles and forward deployment of a few F-35's won't make a difference to that.

Please give me a plausible scenario where Russian missiles launched across the Arctic doesn't trigger a massive US nuclear counter strike. Any missile attack by Russia against continental North America will have to be seen by NORAD as a potential decapitation first strike and would trigger an American counter strike. The Russians know this which is what actually makes MAD work.

You can place all 88 of our F-35's in the high Arctic but what is that going to really do against approx. 5,900 Russian missiles? If anything we'd be better off both militarily and economically signing on to BMD with the US and building ABM sites around our major population centres/key infrastructure rather than forward basing our fighter force.

So what about if the threat isn’t a land or sea based missile, but an airborne one?

If you have time, do some research into Russian naval aviation and what weapons they can carry.

FOLs are there for a reason; we should keep them. We should expand on them IMO.

 

[GR66]

So what about if the threat isn’t a land or sea based missile, but an airborne one?

If you have time, do some research into Russian naval aviation and what weapons they can carry.

FOLs are there for a reason; we should keep them. We should expand on them IMO.

I don't think anybody is suggesting that we get rid of the existing FOLs and I doubt many would argue against expanding the number and the quality of the facilities at them. What is being questioned is if the FOLs should be permanently manned 24/7/365 vs deployed to when the threat situation makes it appropriate.

Again, if a bunch of Russian bombers are detected by NORAD entering our airspace I'm betting that a whole bunch of ICBMs will be incoming at the same time (and US spy satellites will almost certainly have detected Russia moving its strategic forces to heightened readiness and we would have deployed our forces as appropriate).

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Are the current FOL's maintained by the locals? If not get the locals involved. Have a team going out to inspect them on a regular basis to ensure they are kept ready. Good local employment gets the place occupied continuously which means everything works and problems are fixed as they appear and not accumulate for a biannual inspection. Have a standing maintenance and repair budget for each site, so things can be fixed quickly, using as much local resources as possible. Do what the RCN is doing and build relations with the local communities.

 

[YZT580]

Are the current FOL's maintained by the locals? If not get the locals involved. Have a team going out to inspect them on a regular basis to ensure they are kept ready. Good local employment gets the place occupied continuously which means everything works and problems are fixed as they appear and not accumulate for a biannual inspection. Have a standing maintenance and repair budget for each site, so things can be fixed quickly, using as much local resources as possible. Do what the RCN is doing and build relations with the local communities.

and stand up a C295 as a flying mechanics bin that visits each FOL on a regular basis or more often as required by the local check

 

[Kirkhill]

I don't think anybody is suggesting that we get rid of the existing FOLs and I doubt many would argue against expanding the number and the quality of the facilities at them. What is being questioned is if the FOLs should be permanently manned 24/7/365 vs deployed to when the threat situation makes it appropriate.

Again, if a bunch of Russian bombers are detected by NORAD entering our airspace I'm betting that a whole bunch of ICBMs will be incoming at the same time (and US spy satellites will almost certainly have detected Russia moving its strategic forces to heightened readiness and we would have deployed our forces as appropriate).

I doubt if ICBMs are likely at all. Vlad may be inclined but his neighbours that lack his death wish might want to see their kids grow up. On the other hand even a few covertly launched cruise missiles arriving in Edmonton would be highly disruptive. And might not even trigger a US response at all. Exchange of diplomatic notes. Consideration if the West Edmonton Mall is worth WWIII etc.

As for the US - Joe Biden's caution and long decision processes are probably more indicative of real world responses in the event someone detected possible incoming. He has been slow from the get go and he continues to be slow - with Javelins, air defence, tanks, missiles, aircraft, .... Chinese balloons.

Step one is a blocking defence
Step two is a conventional response

Blocking defence means THAADs, SM6, SM3 etc - ship and ground-launched emplaced in Canadian territory.

They also work against cruise missiles but so do F35s with AIM-120 AMRAAMS and AIM-260 JATM.


I see Canada as a prize worth taking and consequently worth defending for its own intrinsic value. It is not just an avenue of approach from the North Pole to Washington DC. On the other hand, as far as the US is concerned, if it doesn't explode on US soil....."It just doesn't matter".

 

[GR66]

I doubt if ICBMs are likely at all. Vlad may be inclined but his neighbours that lack his death wish might want to see their kids grow up. On the other hand even a few covertly launched cruise missiles arriving in Edmonton would be highly disruptive. And might not even trigger a US response at all. Exchange of diplomatic notes. Consideration if the West Edmonton Mall is worth WWIII etc.

As for the US - Joe Biden's caution and long decision processes are probably more indicative of real world responses in the event someone detected possible incoming. He has been slow from the get go and he continues to be slow - with Javelins, air defence, tanks, missiles, aircraft, .... Chinese balloons.

Step one is a blocking defence
Step two is a conventional response

Blocking defence means THAADs, SM6, SM3 etc - ship and ground-launched emplaced in Canadian territory.

They also work against cruise missiles but so do F35s with AIM-120 AMRAAMS and AIM-260 JATM.


I see Canada as a prize worth taking and consequently worth defending for its own intrinsic value. It is not just an avenue of approach from the North Pole to Washington DC. On the other hand, as far as the US is concerned, if it doesn't explode on US soil....."It just doesn't matter".

The problem is that as the missiles are in flight you don't know where they are going to end up. Edmonton or the missile silos in Malmstrom AFB in Montana? When facing a possible pre-emptive strike against their nuclear arsenal I highly doubt that any US President will be considering "Exchange of diplomatic notes" as the likely response.

 

[Kirkhill]

The problem is that as the missiles are in flight you don't know where they are going to end up. Edmonton or the missile silos in Malmstrom AFB in Montana? When facing a possible pre-emptive strike against their nuclear arsenal I highly doubt that any US President will be considering "Exchange of diplomatic notes" as the likely response.

We can back track a mortar bomb in flight by radar but we can't predict the target of an ICBM in flight?

A warning shot in the wilds of Canada (Edmonton is pretty wild) would track with the slow motion escalation and threats that Vlad has been demonstrating. And I don't think a US President would retaliate until he saw a mushroom cloud on US soil.