Informing the Army’s Future Structure

[Kirkhill]

Come on, Kirkhill It stops them a lot less than it stops wheeled vehicles.

Simple physics based on ground pressure exerted by a tracked vehicle (low) over that of a wheeled (high). The BVs do really well because of lighter vehicle with wide tracks.

BVs do not do well in a straight up tank fight in open fields. Or for that matter in a BV v IFV fight.

We're not talking boreal forests but these kind of conditions:

Why would you want to go Marquis of Queensbury with the other guy's tanks?

Neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians are heading for the open fields, even when the going is good. They are moving round the edges, keeping to the valleys, the marshes, the treelines and the hedgerows.

And I fully agree Aviation is the answer -

But helicopters and jets aren't the only answers. One way UAVs or even the 9 day variety are more than just supplements.

 

[Kirkhill]

Tires - 25 to 50 psi?
Tanks - 11 to 16 psi
Bandvagons - 2 psi
Foot 2 to 4 psi


T-72 Main Battle Tank Gary's Combat Vehicle Reference Guide

GENERAL DATA
Ground Pressure	11.81 psi (0.83 kg/cm²)	12.8 psi (0.90 kg/cm²

Leopard 2 Main Battle Tank Gary's Combat Vehicle Reference Guide

GENERAL DATA
Ground Pressure	11.8 psi (0.83 kg/cm²)

	M1 / IPM1	M1A2
Specifications
Width	143.8 inches	144 inches
Ground Clearance	19 inches
Ground Pressure	13.1 PSI	15.4 PSI

Bv 206 Specific ground pressure Front/Rear car 11.6/13.6 kPa (1.68/1.97 PSI)

BvS10 VIKING - Army Guide​

The tracks are 620mm wide moulded rubber with chord. The mean maximum ground pressure is about the same as that of the Bv206 vehicle, which is 4t lighter.

 

[Kirkhill]

MT-LB Light Armored Multi-purpose Vehicle Gary's Combat Vehicle Reference Guide

GENERAL DATA
Ground Pressure	6.54 psi (0.46 kg/cm²) standard track. 3.98 psi (0.28 kg/cm²) wide track

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/zlp0p2

One third to one half of load of a T72 but 2 to 3 times the load of a Bv.

 

[markppcli]

Why would you want to go Marquis of Queensbury with the other guy's tanks?

Neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians are heading for the open fields, even when the going is good. They are moving round the edges, keeping to the valleys, the marshes, the treelines and the hedgerows.

And I fully agree Aviation is the answer -

But helicopters and jets aren't the only answers. One way UAVs or even the 9 day variety are more than just supplements.

That’s interesting because the Ukranians most effective offensive wa s through open ground. And their defensive lines on both sides extend through open fields. This isn’t a war fought in the “valleys, hedge rows and marshes” it’s a war fought everywhere with best use of terrain where possible.

 

[daftandbarmy]

That’s interesting because the Ukranians most effective offensive wa s through open ground. And their defensive lines on both sides extend through open fields. This isn’t a war fought in the “valleys, hedge rows and marshes” it’s a war fought everywhere with best use of terrain where possible.

And there's this new 'high ground' on the battlefield, which is emerging as the newest and most important dimension to master:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1607120005958881280

 

[Kirkhill]

And there's this new 'high ground' on the battlefield, which is emerging as the newest and most important dimension to master:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1607120005958881280

But that high ground is another variant of "air superiority" - and a version managed at the section level -

It tends to keep people out of open spaces and in places where you can dig holes without the holes being obvious

So firing positions and trenches are built where disturbed ground is less obvious - in tree lines and hedgerows.

Those Russian anti-tank ditches that can be seen from the moon only serve to tell the Ukrainians where the Russians are.


And I agree that the advances in Kharkiv were done with mad dashes over open ground - but open ground that was firm enough to permit light wheeled vehicles to move rapidly along roads as well as across open fields.

Tanks seem to be retained for the slug fests in places like Chernihiv, Balaklaia and Bakhmut. And both Chernihiv and Bakhmut were, and are defensive battles that write down heavy armour at a steady rate - a rate faster than the vehicles can be replaced. Even the Kharkiv offensive resulted in a large bag of Russian armour.

I'll continue to say that tanks have their place but that place is diminishing on the dispersed battlefield. I will also continue to argue for a light Canadian force.

Dundas and Howe? Prussians and Americans?

 

[markppcli]

But that high ground is another variant of "air superiority" - and a version managed at the section level -

It tends to keep people out of open spaces and in places where you can dig holes without the holes being obvious

So firing positions and trenches are built where disturbed ground is less obvious - in tree lines and hedgerows.

Those Russian anti-tank ditches that can be seen from the moon only serve to tell the Ukrainians where the Russians are.


And I agree that the advances in Kharkiv were done with mad dashes over open ground - but open ground that was firm enough to permit light wheeled vehicles to move rapidly along roads as well as across open fields.

Tanks seem to be retained for the slug fests in places like Chernihiv, Balaklaia and Bakhmut. And both Chernihiv and Bakhmut were, and are defensive battles that write down heavy armour at a steady rate - a rate faster than the vehicles can be replaced. Even the Kharkiv offensive resulted in a large bag of Russian armour.

I'll continue to say that tanks have their place but that place is diminishing on the dispersed battlefield. I will also continue to argue for a light Canadian force.

Dundas and Howe? Prussians and Americans?

Kharkiv was fought with vehicles , but spearheaded by tanks. If they had IFVs they’d have chosen them, they just don’t have enough. This is a critical factor that gets ignored by certain posters here. The Ukrainians are making due, but what they’re using is far from what they actually want to be using.

Kherson was fought with mechnized forces.
Bahkmut has largely been fought by light infantry. In trench lines crossing all sorts of terrain. They don’t hide the trenches, they just choose when the occupy them.

The “end of the tank” and the “dimished tank” is such an incredibly poor take from this conflict it can only be the result of looking for confirmation instead of drawing conclusions from evidence.

 

[ArmyRick]

Kharkiv was fought with vehicles , but spearheaded by tanks. If they had IFVs they’d have chosen them, they just don’t have enough. This is a critical factor that gets ignored by certain posters here. The Ukrainians are making due, but what they’re using is far from what they actually want to be using.

Kherson was fought with mechnized forces.
Bahkmut has largely been fought by light infantry. In trench lines crossing all sorts of terrain. They don’t hide the trenches, they just choose when the occupy them.

The “end of the tank” and the “dimished tank” is such an incredibly poor take from this conflict it can only be the result of looking for confirmation instead of drawing conclusions from evidence.

Maybe not the end of the tank, but most certainly an eye opening and forced modernization to tank technology and possibly tank tactics?

Something as simple as a Switchblade 600 kind of shakes things up.

 

[markppcli]

Maybe not the end of the tank, but most certainly an eye opening and forced modernization to tank technology and possibly tank tactics?

Something as simple as a Switchblade 600 kind of shakes things up.

You mean like adapting to operations in a diserpersed way? If only there was some kind of publication that touched in that…

I don’t think I’d call any of the loitering munitions “simple” myself; and we were talking about the “demise of the tank” several years ago when Armenia and Azerbaijan were squaring off. There are more tools but that’s just it, more tool. Is AD being show to have been something we in the west have ignored too long ? Absolutely. But Ukrainians and Russians and still relying on and armoured fist to lead their advances. Early losses by Russia being more about operational ineptitude than some revolution in military tactics.

 

[GR66]

I think much of what we're discussing here is heavily dependent on what signal Canada's government wants to show to NATO.

If we are seriously looking at a brigade for North Europe, whether a headquarters and one or more battlegroups, then eventually we will need to think heavy mechanized built around Leo 2s (or M1s) and something tracked IFV. That's pretty much what most others have and its for a reason. Northern and central Europe are generally the same or wetter than Ukraine and you can see what havoc the terrain there can play at certain times of the year.

I totally get the constant focus on NATO and heavy forces for the Canadian Army. It's in many ways our military heritage as a nation. WWI, WWII, the Cold War, even FRY. Ukraine of course is a modern reminder of that whole way of thinking about the Russian threats to our collective security and Canada's role in our alliances.

I do however think that it would really be worthwhile to step back and think hard about how our military can best serve our political interests as well as how to best contribute to our allies militarily.

Firstly, despite the war in Ukraine I think the likelihood of an actual Russian attack on NATO territory is quite low. Not just because of the generally poor performance of the Russian military, but simply because the balance of military, economic and demographic power has shifted so substantially against Russia and in favour of NATO.

Compare the split in European alliances at the start of World War I, World War II and the Cold War:


The European powers were fairly evenly split during all of those conflicts and as a result our Allies in Europe needed very significant support from Canada (and of course the United States and various colonial/former colonial powers) to tip the balance in our favour.

Compare that to the current split in Europe between NATO and Russia:


With modern armies being smaller in size than in the past due to the high cost of modern military equipment, so long as NATO remains politically united and maintains a reasonable level of military preparedness then realistically there is no way that Russia can defeat NATO in a conventional conflict. The numbers in terms of personnel, equipment and money simply aren't there for them.

I'm in no way suggesting complacency in NATO's European defence planning. The vast majority of non-American NATO nations (especially Canada) allowed their military forces to seriously atrophy since the end of the Cold War. Hopefully the renewed urgency resulting from the Ukraine war will stick and members will actually work to meet their 2% of GDP spending promises and work to make their Armies combat effective.

I honestly believe that if the above can be achieved (and I think it's important politically for Canada to lead by example on this if we wish to continue to have any influence within NATO) then European NATO with some limited, but important American and Canadian forward deployed support (and the ability of the US to massively surge additional forces) is enough for NATO to deter any Russian conventional aggression against NATO territory.

I'd go as far to say that i don't believe the United States really fears a Russian attack on NATO so much as it fears Russia tying down US forces during a conflict with China. My guess is that the push for beefing up NATO is in hopes of making European NATO strong enough to contain Russia in order to free up US military power against China. The request for Canada in increase it's NATO permanent presence I believe is largely political (to show the trans-Atlantic solidarity of the Alliance) but also party simply because Canada has nothing useful militarily to really contribute to a potential conflict against China.

In my opinion if Canada had forces that were better suited for conflict in the Pacific theatre you'd see much less push from the Americans for us to increase our NATO contribution and much more for us to work with them in the Pacific. That's where they see the greatest military threat.

So the question in my mind as we look at restructuring the Canadian Army for the future is how do we balance between looking Eastward toward Russia and what I believe may ultimately be the "secondary" theatre in any potential future conflict and looking to the West and figuring out what kind of forces we need to effectively contribute there?

Almost certainly we'll need a little of "Column A" and a little of "Column B", but often I get the impression that we're overly fixated on "Column A" and not thinking at all about "Column B".

 

[FJAG]

Not arguing with your rationale at all albeit that your balance of power chart is off as it does not take into consideration that a large part of the NATO power is not in Europe but in North America and that Russia has a military structure that is heavily tilted to a reserve (both personnel and equipment) that does not exist in NATO. True, that reserve looks particulalry poorly organized and maintained, but if there is one thing that I believe its that Russia will learn from its mistakes. Given time they will fix their problems.

I'm not so much worried that Russia will make another thrust across the German plains; its will it try to gather low hanging fruit by "rescuing" the ethnic Russians living in the Baltic States, the Balkans, Poland and elsewhere. Russia espouses a need to secure its borders from NATO through buffer states but it's definition of a buffer state is one that is wholly within Russia's sphere of influence. Russia will continue to nibble on the edges of NATO's smaller states and in the process keep trying to create little Donbases and Luhansks and Georgias and Chechnyas wherever it can (even if it destroys them in the doing) on the supposition that NATO will not risk full-out nuclear war over these tiny slivers. Its a policy of death by a thousand cuts.

I'm a firm believer that "The gold standard of deterrence and assurance is a defensive posture that confronts the adversary with the prospect of operational failure as the likely consequence of aggression."

For the time being that requires boots and gear on the ground. Maybe some day we'll be able to build an automated high tech Maginot line that secures our collective borders but until then we need a balanced force of conventional and nuclear capabilities. Those conventional forces include heavy armour and artillery and air defence and anti-armour etc.

IMHO, those forces need to be combat capable but also affordable. Affordability in a military like ours must first address personnel costs. Despite views inside the military we pay well compared to many other nations. Personnel costs consume half of our budget severely restricting capital and operations and maintenance expenditures. We need to change that by minimizing the number of people dedicated to simply administering the CAF and NDHQ. That requires changing those policies and require administration (regardless if they are internal or external to DND) and in reducing the number of full-time personnel down to the lowest number to ensure that all necessary day-to-day functions required for combat capabilities are carried out.

Canada desperately needs a revised system of part-time service which is designed to build a viable structure that is significantly less expensive during peacetime but has the capability of rapid mobilization for wartime needs. All heavy equipment, whether army tanks or IFVs or artillery, or ships or fighter aircraft are primarily a wartime resource. Certain amounts of it need to be manned day to day in peacetime for such things as training and routine career development and as quick reaction elements but most of it can be held in stand-by mode as long as an efficient training and mobilization system exists. That saves money which can be transferred to building and maintaining that equipment and war supplies.

My fear about the lessons learned from the Russia-Ukraine conflict is that western military leadership will draw the conclusion that Russia's failure to maintain and mobilize its reserves is directly transferable to them and will rely less on their own reserves in favour of seeking yet more full-time positions and their exorbitant year-to-year recurring costs. They'll gloss over the fact that much of the Ukraine's defence was built on a reserve force structure that had moderately trained people operating masses of moderately maintained equipment eventually bolstered by a hodge-podge of mostly modern NATO gear.

Back in the early 2000s we were writing off our heavy gear because it wasn't "transportable" or maintainable both of which are pure bull if you contemplate a proper system of prepositioning and reserve status. It kind of reminds e of Kennedy's "Moon speech".

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things (accomplishments and aspirations), not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.”

There comes a time when you need to do something which appears hard (and to some curmudgeons "impossible") because they have to be done to win.

The CAF desperately needs a paradigm shift that balances day-to-day full-timers with part-timers in an intelligent way and that demands that much of the heavy equipment that remains necessary for wartime use be put into the hands of a mobilizable, less expensive, part-time force. If our current RegF/ResF system can't provide that then it needs to be thrown under the bus and rebuilt from scratch.

 

[Kirkhill]

Not arguing with your rationale at all albeit that your balance of power chart is off as it does not take into consideration that a large part of the NATO power is not in Europe but in North America and that Russia has a military structure that is heavily tilted to a reserve (both personnel and equipment) that does not exist in NATO. True, that reserve looks particulalry poorly organized and maintained, but if there is one thing that I believe its that Russia will learn from its mistakes. Given time they will fix their problems.

I'm not so much worried that Russia will make another thrust across the German plains; its will it try to gather low hanging fruit by "rescuing" the ethnic Russians living in the Baltic States, the Balkans, Poland and elsewhere. Russia espouses a need to secure its borders from NATO through buffer states but it's definition of a buffer state is one that is wholly within Russia's sphere of influence. Russia will continue to nibble on the edges of NATO's smaller states and in the process keep trying to create little Donbases and Luhansks and Georgias and Chechnyas wherever it can (even if it destroys them in the doing) on the supposition that NATO will not risk full-out nuclear war over these tiny slivers. Its a policy of death by a thousand cuts.

I'm a firm believer that "The gold standard of deterrence and assurance is a defensive posture that confronts the adversary with the prospect of operational failure as the likely consequence of aggression."

For the time being that requires boots and gear on the ground. Maybe some day we'll be able to build an automated high tech Maginot line that secures our collective borders but until then we need a balanced force of conventional and nuclear capabilities. Those conventional forces include heavy armour and artillery and air defence and anti-armour etc.

IMHO, those forces need to be combat capable but also affordable. Affordability in a military like ours must first address personnel costs. Despite views inside the military we pay well compared to many other nations. Personnel costs consume half of our budget severely restricting capital and operations and maintenance expenditures. We need to change that by minimizing the number of people dedicated to simply administering the CAF and NDHQ. That requires changing those policies and require administration (regardless if they are internal or external to DND) and in reducing the number of full-time personnel down to the lowest number to ensure that all necessary day-to-day functions required for combat capabilities are carried out.

Canada desperately needs a revised system of part-time service which is designed to build a viable structure that is significantly less expensive during peacetime but has the capability of rapid mobilization for wartime needs. All heavy equipment, whether army tanks or IFVs or artillery, or ships or fighter aircraft are primarily a wartime resource. Certain amounts of it need to be manned day to day in peacetime for such things as training and routine career development and as quick reaction elements but most of it can be held in stand-by mode as long as an efficient training and mobilization system exists. That saves money which can be transferred to building and maintaining that equipment and war supplies.

My fear about the lessons learned from the Russia-Ukraine conflict is that western military leadership will draw the conclusion that Russia's failure to maintain and mobilize its reserves is directly transferable to them and will rely less on their own reserves in favour of seeking yet more full-time positions and their exorbitant year-to-year recurring costs. They'll gloss over the fact that much of the Ukraine's defence was built on a reserve force structure that had moderately trained people operating masses of moderately maintained equipment eventually bolstered by a hodge-podge of mostly modern NATO gear.

Back in the early 2000s we were writing off our heavy gear because it wasn't "transportable" or maintainable both of which are pure bull if you contemplate a proper system of prepositioning and reserve status. It kind of reminds e of Kennedy's "Moon speech".



There comes a time when you need to do something which appears hard (and to some curmudgeons "impossible") because they have to be done to win.

The CAF desperately needs a paradigm shift that balances day-to-day full-timers with part-timers in an intelligent way and that demands that much of the heavy equipment that remains necessary for wartime use be put into the hands of a mobilizable, less expensive, part-time force. If our current RegF/ResF system can't provide that then it needs to be thrown under the bus and rebuilt from scratch.

Anything is possible.....if cash.

 

[GR66]

I'm a firm believer that "The gold standard of deterrence and assurance is a defensive posture that confronts the adversary with the prospect of operational failure as the likely consequence of aggression."

I'll leave out the rest of your response because basically I agree with it 100% other than you have essentially proven my point by framing it in a completely Eurocentric framework.

Does not that "gold standard of deterrence" also apply to China? Which of China and Russia are likely the greatest long term threat to our Western way of life and thinking? A declining Russia with a population of around 146 million and a GDP of around $1,710 Billion USD or China with a population of 1.426 billion and a GDP of around $18,266 Billion USD?

What is the Canadian Army bringing to the table to help confront China "with the prospect of operational failure as the likely consequence of aggression"? Of course a Pacific War will be primarily fought in the air and sea domains, but at least the USMC is looking at how it can do its part in the conflict. And of course our tiny Army will only have a small impact on any overall conflict against China but frankly the same is true for any potential conflict with Russia.

Again, as I mentioned at the end of my posting we'll likely need to look to both the East and the West in how we decide to restructure our Army but almost everything I see proposed completely ignores the challenge of China and only looks at the challenge of Russia and I think that is fundamentally wrong.

 

[FJAG]

Anything is possible.....if cash.

Repurpose full-time pay cash.

Does not that "gold standard of deterrence" also apply to China?

Yes it does. Absolutely.

What is the Canadian Army bringing to the table to help confront China "with the prospect of operational failure as the likely consequence of aggression"?

At the moment, nothing of consequence.

It is a problem that needs confronting. Currently we have an active need in Europe and an alliance to work with that was initially built for that purpose.

I see nothing to build on re China at this time. There is no military alliance of consequence to work with and much political effort is needed before we even get to the question of what role Canada will play. We're not even a member of the dysfunctional SEATO. I note with some interest Australia which is much closer to the problem but has no forward looking policy (except maybe training grounds for the Indonesians and Americans). I note with more interest Japan's recent decision to ramp up. And then there is India. And of course the US.

It's a conundrum. My military solution is to work on what you can and need to and let the politicians work out what approach we need to what's on the other side of the Pacific and the internal security apparatus deal with incursions in our homeland.

 

[GR66]

Repurpose full-time pay cash.


Yes it does. Absolutely.


At the moment, nothing of consequence.

It is a problem that needs confronting. Currently we have an active need in Europe and an alliance to work with that was initially built for that purpose.

I see nothing to build on re China at this time. There is no military alliance of consequence to work with and much political effort is needed before we even get to the question of what role Canada will play. We're not even a member of the dysfunctional SEATO. I note with some interest Australia which is much closer to the problem but has no forward looking policy (except maybe training grounds for the Indonesians and Americans). I note with more interest Japan's recent decision to ramp up. And then there is India. And of course the US.

It's a conundrum. My military solution is to work on what you can and need to and let the politicians work out what approach we need to what's on the other side of the Pacific and the internal security apparatus deal with incursions in our homeland.

The US is there and it's a given that whatever alliances develop in the Indo-Pacific that it will be primarily American led (just as NATO is). We start with working with them.

We know that any Chinese aggression will have to cross water so that means anti-air and anti-ship capabilities will be required. AD systems like NASAMS and Land Ceptor (CAMM) are already in service and have proven capability. HIMARS and similar systems are already being looked at for launching Naval Strike Missiles in addition to their existing land attack missiles. We could prioritize a Regiment of each. Both these capabilities would be equally effective against Russia (and for homeland defence) but for some reason there seems to be an insistence that our NATO contribution MUST be in the form of heavy armour formations...no other type of contribution is seen as being acceptable.

This is the Eurocentric and Cold War focused mindset that I simply don't understand.

 

[Kirkhill]

Kharkiv was fought with vehicles , but spearheaded by tanks. If they had IFVs they’d have chosen them, they just don’t have enough. This is a critical factor that gets ignored by certain posters here. The Ukrainians are making due, but what they’re using is far from what they actually want to be using.

Kherson was fought with mechnized forces.
Bahkmut has largely been fought by light infantry. In trench lines crossing all sorts of terrain. They don’t hide the trenches, they just choose when the occupy them.

The “end of the tank” and the “dimished tank” is such an incredibly poor take from this conflict it can only be the result of looking for confirmation instead of drawing conclusions from evidence.

I admit to bias.

A couple of points:

"The Ukrainians are making due"
"looking for confirmation instead of drawing conclusions from evidence."

Every war is a matter of making do with what you have.
It is partly the corollary to the Rumsfeld observation that you go to war with the army you have and not the army you want.

It is partly the result of the enemy gets a vote.
They may choose to bypass your strengths and go for your weaknesses. They may develop a successful technique that neutralizes your strengths.

So the question then becomes: Do you give up and quit the field? Or do you do the other thing? And nobody knows what the other thing is until it is tried and found to be successful.

The USMC has it right: Adapt, Improvise and Overcome.

It is true that the Ukrainians don't have as many tanks and IFVs as they want. It is also true that Russians, through bad planning, bad luck or the actions of the Ukrainians, also find themselves short of tanks and IFVs. And both sides are short of shells and the guns to shoot them, missiles and planes, and ships and subs. Ukraine is short of the support it was guaranteed when it handed over its nuclear arsenal to Moscow. Both sides are challenged to Adapt, Improvise and Overcome. Every war ends with the tools available. Often the tools available at the end of the war are not the tools that were available at its start.

I flippantly responded to @FJAG that anything is possible if cash. - Cicero's sinews.

As in Cicero's day, in the days of Howe and Dundas, in Ukraine and Russia, Canada suffers from a lack of infinite money. So the money available has to be allocated. Bets must be placed. And the wheel spun....

My sense is that the biggest failing of NDHQ is not the inability to lobby effectively to for more money to buy the tools it thinks necessary to fight, it is the inability to successfully manage the funds they have to create an effective fighting force - one which can Adapt, Improvise and Overcome.

War is not about process. War is about outcome. And only winning matters.

FJAG points to Russia's militarized society as a strength in that it replaces cash with people. I am not convinced that a coerced people make for an effective army. Especially one that lacks effective weaponry.

Ukraine had an effective army that had held off the Russians for 8 years but even they had not fully embraced a military society until January of this year.

Canada is not a militarized society. There obviously are elements in society that are in sympathy with need for a military. Some of those are in uniform. Some just want to help anyway they can. Part of the failing, as far as I am concerned is the lack of outreach to those willing helpers and figure out how to best employ them

Strangely enough, me that is no fan of accountants, find myself in sympathy with the accountants. If NDHQ can't manage a budget in peacetime, can't adapt, improvise and overcome in peacetime, to create a useful force for the politicians to employ, then what evidence is there that their skills will magically improve on the day war breaks out?

Is it a matter of hope in NDHQ that they limp along until that day when the taps will open and all their problems will be solved?

One characteristic of that day throughout history is that all the crystal balls are broken. And you live with results of the roulette wheel's spin.



On the subject of confirmation bias.


I search the available evidence. I find evidence that suits my developing hypothesis. It convinces me.
You are free to search the available evidence to find that which suits your hypothesis. No doubt it convinces you. You argue well.

I don't know if I am right or wrong in my beliefs but as of this time I am not convinced of the general utility of a very expensive, heavily armoured force in the Canadian context.

 

[GR66]

My sense is that the biggest failing of NDHQ is not the inability to lobby effectively to for more money to buy the tools it thinks necessary to fight, it is the inability to successfully manage the funds they have to create an effective fighting force - one which can Adapt, Improvise and Overcome.

...

Strangely enough, me that is no fan of accountants, find myself in sympathy with the accountants. If NDHQ can't manage a budget in peacetime, can't adapt, improvise and overcome in peacetime, to create a useful force for the politicians to employ, then what evidence is there that their skills will magically improve on the day war breaks out?

Is it a matter of hope in NDHQ that they limp along until that day when the taps will open and all their problems will be solved?

These points here. 1,000%

 

[FJAG]

The US is there and it's a given that whatever alliances develop in the Indo-Pacific that it will be primarily American led (just as NATO is). We start with working with them.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't think enough about the China issue but for starters I would think that Canada's interest is minor in the Indo-Pacific and much more focused on the NW passage. Incidentally while my above discussion about Russia focuses on the ResF in a heavy role in Europe my focus for the RegF is primarily on the defence of Canada through quick and highly trained people air, land and sea, capable of securing our shores, including the North.

We know that any Chinese aggression will have to cross water so that means anti-air and anti-ship capabilities will be required. AD systems like NASAMS and Land Ceptor (CAMM) are already in service and have proven capability.

This is why we have an air force and navy. The army's role is secondary.

HIMARS and similar systems are already being looked at for launching Naval Strike Missiles in addition to their existing land attack missiles. We could prioritize a Regiment of each. Both these capabilities would be equally effective against Russia (and for homeland defence) but for some reason there seems to be an insistence that our NATO contribution MUST be in the form of heavy armour formations...no other type of contribution is seen as being acceptable.

Why is it that when you hear us talking about heavy forces you think that we only talk about tanks and IFVs. Heavy forces, like any other, need a variety of support systems from HIMARS to EW to UCAVs etc etc. I keep using the words "balanced force". That includes everything from unarmed int pers to light infantry, to .... at the far end nuclear strike. And while we won't use nuclear weapons ourselves anymore, we need to be allied with people who can and will as a proper deterrent.

Heavy is a category that has a place in a balanced inventory and should be prepositioned in a place where it is needed and be highly visible as part of our deterrence policy. If deterrence is done right it may never be needed (see the whole damn Cold War as a prime example). This is why IMHO it is a classic ResF task. There is absolutely zero value of having a heavy force within Canada manned by expensive full-timers with no ability to transport it anywhere in time of emergency. (You do need sufficient RegF pers to lead and train the ResF flyover users and to develop and upgrade the skill set)

This is the Eurocentric and Cold War focused mindset that I simply don't understand.

Yes it is. The problem facing us in the face is Europe. And I simply do not understand anyone who doesn't recognize that we are in fact in the middle of a Cold War that has warmed up considerably since 2014.

What you need to understand that what I'm defending is the need to keep an eye on Europe but not at the expense of other issues. We need a balanced force which includes a component that looks and is capable of mechanized warfare because for the time being, it still matters. That's why I continuously say to make Europe a primarily ResF responsibility (to sa ve costs) and target the majority of the RegF on those other issues that require very high skills or quick reaction. Equipment is a red herring. A properly trained and organized ResF with the right RegF leadership and support structure can handle heavy equipment including all those HIMARS and air defence systems you mention.

Our problem is that the RegF refuses to create a ResF capable of using heavy equipment and hoards the "good toys" for themselves. It unnecessarily increase the cost of defence and ties up too many full-time people in what is basically a very necessary but improperly manned stand-by deterrence force.

 

[FJAG]

My sense is that the biggest failing of NDHQ is not the inability to lobby effectively to for more money to buy the tools it thinks necessary to fight, it is the inability to successfully manage the funds they have to create an effective fighting force - one which can Adapt, Improvise and Overcome.

We agree on that

War is not about process. War is about outcome. And only winning matters.

And that requires capabilities. We measure $ inputs when we should be measuring defence capability outputs. Currently the latter do not equate to the former.

FJAG points to Russia's militarized society as a strength in that it replaces cash with people. I am not convinced that a coerced people make for an effective army. Especially one that lacks effective weaponry.

I don't think I ever said that, because I don't believe it. I agree that the Russians replace cash with people. I don't believe that this is a strength if the people are poorly trained and equipped.

I have the same reservations about the Canadian Army which has half of its field strength in an under-trained and under-equipped ResF. It's a wasted resource the way it is structured.

 

[Kirkhill]

I don't think I ever said that, because I don't believe it. I agree that the Russians replace cash with people. I don't believe that this is a strength if the people are poorly trained and equipped.

I apologize for the misinterpretation.