Justin Trudeau hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Kirkhill]

Money. Mostly.

There's institutional resistance as well. But the CAF is literally led by generations of leaders who have spent their entire career about Lt scrounging for every penny they can. Ever work at a higher HQ? New fiscal year starts and two months in, they are already canvassing on what funds can be returned. If you were raised in that kind of environment, organizational flexibility can be seen as expensive frivolity.

Mindset?

Every dollar needs to go to a pointy end FTE?

....

Take the whole MILCOTS / SMP debate.

The argument against the MILCOTS was that it wasn't as rugged as the SMP. Fair enough in my opinion.

The Regs then started using the MILCOTS because their rugged SMPs were in the never never as specifications were developed.

Meanwhile if the MILCOTS had been held in the Reserves, even if destined just for highway duties in Canada, then that fleet could have been managed in two parts - one part to support Reserve training and admin and one part managed more like the UK's Green Goddess fleet of pump trucks that spent most of their existence gathering dust, waiting for the call. Much like Reserve soldiers themselves.

An old, serviceable truck when you need one is still better than no truck at all.

If every reserve infantry unit was charged with a full platoon of green civilian transports, more than they needed for daily operations but capable of being deployed to the next town over in a disaster, then that platoon could also be tasked as part of the national supply system in support of the regular force.

And you don't need to buy the top of the line gear or specialty gear. Buy the stuff that is being used every day to support businesses and the economy.

Same for helicopters and heavy equipment.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Mindset?

Every dollar needs to go to a pointy end FTE?

....

Take the whole MILCOTS / SMP debate.

The argument against the MILCOTS was that it wasn't as rugged as the SMP. Fair enough in my opinion.

The Regs then started using the MILCOTS because their rugged SMPs were in the never never as specifications were developed.

Meanwhile if the MILCOTS had been held in the Reserves, even if destined just for highway duties in Canada, then that fleet could have been managed in two parts - one part to support Reserve training and admin and one part managed more like the UK's Green Goddess fleet of pump trucks that spent most of their existence gathering dust, waiting for the call. Much like Reserve soldiers themselves.

An old, serviceable truck when you need one is still better than no truck at all.

If every reserve infantry unit was charged with a full platoon of green civilian transports, more than they needed for daily operations but capable of being deployed to the next town over in a disaster, then that platoon could also be tasked as part of the national supply system in support of the regular force.

And you don't need to buy the top of the line gear or specialty gear. Buy the stuff that is being used every day to support businesses and the economy.

Same for helicopters and heavy equipment.

This is the prime mover for most Reserve units... rent-a-lift

 

[KevinB]

This is just trite now.

Well perhaps tripe from your end…

You must not have read the document. The figure literally includes a share of overhead, which is the support that goes in to enabling that combat unit.

No shit, something I pointed out. My point was when you wanted to hand wave away the PY numbers and costs, I pointed out that while the CAF may have salary already cut out vice the CBO US DOD numbers that the loaded data provided both costing, but the unit numbers, direct and indirect support required.

This is just silly now. You want to whine and be right. That's fine. But it's absolutely silly to argue that a 50% increase in the defence budget today would somehow be insufficient to field 6-7 fully equipped and trained worth of equipment and brigades (with supports) while also proceeding with current plans for the other services.

You said 2%, I said 2% wasn’t enough.

I think you meant a 100% increase? as a 50% increase won’t bring you to 2%, and in fact you’d be a 58.5B Cdn.


So if you get your 100% increase, and you get a 78B Cdn Budget.
Your salaries are still taking a big bite.

But the 20% for Capital Equipment works out to 15.6B / year.

Out of that 15.6B (let’s skip inflation for this phase). You have a bunch of already allocated programs eating those dollars.
F-35
CSC
JSS
MRTT
P-8A
RPAS
GBAD

Then a goal of a new patrol submarine fleet, a Naval Corvette/Frigate

And it's particularly ridiculous that your argument is based on you not understanding the figures/document that you posted.

Pot this is kettle over.

Will also add that none of this even includes a consideration of whether that many brigades are actually useful. It's an army centric forum so lots of you daydream about being able to keep a division deployed for years. There hasn't been a defence policy in literally generations that has ever committed to something like that.

So tell me you haven’t read (or perhaps understood) any of your recent Def Policies without saying that.

You don't need several divisions worth of personnel and kit to comfortably sustain one brigade in Europe continuously.

Well if you posted a Bde there, I’d argue that outside of combat losses you don’t need anything more. Just run it like 4CMBG was done.
But the Army’s Managed Readiness Plan is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory…

1.5 divisions is probably enough.

Rather random asspull of a number. Geez and you accuse me of not understanding what data is.

But I think you would be surprised when I note that I think the CA is poorly structured and should be much heavier leaning on the reserves.

And guess what? The more Arctic focused the defence policy becomes, the less it's going to be about sending armoured brigades overseas and the more it will focus on the navy, air force, space, cyber, EW, etc.

Which is good because Canada doesn’t have any Armored (or Armoured) Brigades

 

[FJAG]

I’m not saying that the CBO documents, are 100% transferable to the CAF without adjusting for other factors. My point is that you criticized me for hand waving things away, but you are the one ignoring so many missing capabilities and requirements from the CAF that are major $ sink items.

I find the various CBO documents very informative. Unlike the few open source Canadian ones, they come with enough information to allow understanding of the structures and comparative analysis. In particular, the force structure ones allow for an excellent analysis of orbats as well as an operating cost analysis with respect to the operating costs of one BCT to another and of the Active Duty BCT to a comparable ARNG BCT. That should be an eye opener for everyone.

I find the "indirect" costs and "overhead" costs to be of little value because of the almost nonexistence of Canadian units that support the major combat units (AD bdes, engr bdes, sustainment bdes, arty bdes, MI bdes, etc, etc) The one CCSB that we have would add only a fraction of the personnel and costs as indirect costs to each of the three CMBGs. Further the overhead costs are blurred because only a part of that comes through army infrastructure while the remainder is a slice of the CAF "overhead."

True, there is not much information as to capital costs of the equipment, which would be helpful, but then much of that is past acquisitions. You can generally get CBO figures respecting ongoing projects and future acquisitions in other CBO publications.

All in all, as long as one understands the purpose and limitation of CBO documents vis a vis Canadian institutions, one can still get a lot of use out of them. Wish we had as useful a set of tools to use.

 

[KevinB]

@FJAG one aspect about the CBO documents and costing between Active units, ARNG and USARES. Obviously salaries will be a big portion, but the other aspect is that the equipment/munitions/consumables usage is generally 1/10 the Regular value.

So while from a cost perspective the USARES and ARNG are good value for the money (other than basically the same upfront cost) and equipment generally last longer (to a point) you are getting 1/10th the availability unless activated (and then costs become a wash).


Biggest part of the CBO that to me is relevant to Canada is how much of the CA really should really be a reserve structure - especially compared to the RCN and RCAF

 

[Halifax Tar]

Biggest part of the CBO that to me is relevant to Canada is how much of the CA really should really be a reserve structure - especially compared to the RCN and RCAF

Stop teasing me

 

[KevinB]

Stop teasing me

It’s simple math.

Let’s peg the CA at a 2 DIV formation
If you have a 30/70 (Reg/Res) breakdown of personnel it’s infinitely more affordable* than trying to have a 1 DIV force now.

Most of your combat arms personnel can be Reserve.

The Army is more uniquely positioned for the Res mixture, whereas the Navy and Air Force need to be doing stuff to do their job, the Army can kind of just sit around.

 

[Cloud Cover]

Before we all get a wet dream out of this lets remember Canada has a recruiting and retention problem.

Still on the recruiting? CFLRS is apparently at max capacity right now. It has to be retention and retirement…

https://twitter.com/x/status/1858559356477821362

 

[Halifax Tar]

It’s simple math.

Let’s peg the CA at a 2 DIV formation
If you have a 30/70 (Reg/Res) breakdown of personnel it’s infinitely more affordable* than trying to have a 1 DIV force now.

Most of your combat arms personnel can be Reserve.

The Army is more uniquely positioned for the Res mixture, whereas the Navy and Air Force need to be doing stuff to do their job, the Army can kind of just sit around.

You wont get an argument from me.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Still on the recruiting? CFLRS is apparently at max capacity right now. It has to be retention and retirement…

https://twitter.com/x/status/1858559356477821362

The recruiting surge is indeed occurring.

 

[FJAG]

Will also add that none of this even includes a consideration of whether that many brigades are actually useful. It's an army centric forum so lots of you daydream about being able to keep a division deployed for years. There hasn't been a defence policy in literally generations that has ever committed to something like that. You don't need several divisions worth of personnel and kit to comfortably sustain one brigade in Europe continuously. 1.5 divisions is probably enough. And guess what? The more Arctic focused the defence policy becomes, the less it's going to be about sending armoured brigades overseas and the more it will focus on the navy, air force, space, cyber, EW, etc.

I'll leave it to you and @KevinB to have at it but I thought I'd throw in my $0.02 on this one.

Canada's army already has two divisions' worth of personnel authorized. The RegF personnel are sufficient for one and the ResF personnel for another. That's not the same as saying that there should be a RegF and a ResF division. I'm simply talking authorized numbers.

I'm of the view that one division (of mixed RegF and ResF members with three mechanized/armoured brigades, an artillery bde, a CCSB and a sustainment bde) could comfortably sustain a partial brigade in Latvia as we currently deploy it (One brigade headquarters, an artillery headquarters and bty and AD, a battlegroup headquarters and combat team deployed and a battle group on flyover). In the case of major conflict that could grow to a deployed division of two mech bdes, an arty bde, a CCSB and a sustainment bde and still be sustained. Why would we have that type of commitment? Because the threat is there and we are part of an alliance and want to be seen at the table as a contributor. Canada is one of the world's largest economies and for decades now we've been acting worse than a third world power when important decisions are made. We have stopped being a serious country. More importantly, we are not being seen as a serious country by anyone. Our continued unsuccessful attempts to whine our way into a seat on the UN Security Council couldn't be amore graphic example of that. If we don't want to become part of an isolated continent we need to be where our greatest allies and trading partners feel threatened.

We have the ability to build and maintain a heavy division for use by the alliance. It's arguably the easiest defence problem to solve.

What then of the defence of Canada and the continent? While I would see nuclear weapons play a role in that, I doubt it will ever happen so let's talk conventionally. The navy and air force must play the major role in this, naturally. Unfortunately, both have given up any serious role in either air or missile defence or defence against airborne or seaborne incursions. (Remember when we had an Air Defence Command with over a dozen squadrons with radars, Bomarcs, a variety of fighters including Voodoos with nuclear missiles?). Those dropped to just using CF-5 fighter as multi-purpose jokes. The navy is marginally better but the systems are more designed to protect the fleet than the nation. We need to greatly strengthen both services considerably if we want to be part of a truly integrated defence of the continent system. Where are the ABM and anti-cruise missile defences? Where are our icebreaking ships? Where are our submarines?

But, you are right, this is an army forum so lets get back to that second division. It shouldn't look anything like the one targeted on Europe. It should be organized and equipped to deal with known and anticipated threats to the homeland as well as to provide some general purpose forces that can be employed in a variety of short duration missions abroad (including UN missions). I would include air and missile defence systems (the air force should have long range ABM capabilities, the army shorter range aerial denial ones), shore based anti-ship missiles, and sufficient engineering and defence forces to build and defend instillations including on coastlines and the far north. Add to that robust communications, EW, fires, medical, and MI resources - and still a healthy dose of infantry, especially light airborne or air mobile ones. We can debate for months on end what these units should contain and look like but I'll leave it to @Kirkhill to expand the discussions on it. But to answer your question, it won't be another armoured division. It will be far from it but approximately divisional in strength and in the number of bdes and units.

Long story short; IMHO we already have most of the numbers of people required in the CAF - as long as we raise the capability of our reservists and we repurpose them appropriately. That means that the pay and benefits envelope stays roughly the same (subject to the usual civil service level of inflation). What the army needs is the equipment to fill out a realistic defence policy. It doesn't have to all come today, but it should start coming today and it should come quickly rather than over decades. IMHO, again, we need 2% starting today and every penny of that over the CAF's current budget needs to go to equipment and infrastructure to support that equipment. Canada needs to think in bold strokes.

 

[Czech_pivo]

The recruiting surge is indeed occurring.

The next step, at least to me, is to increase the current throughput - if that chap is saying 1,440 means they are full up, then this needs to increase by X%. I'm not saying that I know what 'X' is, be it 5, 8, 10, 15, 20%, but in order to begin to close the gap in a meaningful way (meaning 5-7yrs, not 12-15yrs), 'X' needs to be well north of 10.

 

[FJAG]

@FJAG one aspect about the CBO documents and costing between Active units, ARNG and USARES. Obviously salaries will be a big portion, but the other aspect is that the equipment/munitions/consumables usage is generally 1/10 the Regular value.

One thing is that with the reduced equipment usage by reservists, equipment which does not require critical functional upgrades - such as B vehicles, small arms, etc can last significantly longer and requires less replacing.

So while from a cost perspective the USARES and ARNG are good value for the money (other than basically the same upfront cost) and equipment generally last longer (to a point) you are getting 1/10th the availability unless activated (and then costs become a wash).

And stocks of ammunition and other consumables for activation training should be built into any mobilization plan.

Biggest part of the CBO that to me is relevant to Canada is how much of the CA really should really be a reserve structure - especially compared to the RCN and RCAF

I think much of the aviation component of the RCAF should be reservist. I think that the RCN should have a stronger reserve component and plan to surge ships with reservists. Just spitballing here, but if one third of the ships are manned and operational, while another third is tied up for training and minor servicing and the last third in major overhaul then you should have sufficient reservists to surge the whole fleet.

It’s simple math.

Let’s peg the CA at a 2 DIV formation
If you have a 30/70 (Reg/Res) breakdown of personnel it’s infinitely more affordable* than trying to have a 1 DIV force now.

I start at a 50/50 mix until the reserves become competent and capable at operating a hybrid battalion. From that point forward the force can move to 30/70. In my two div structure I have a higher RegF ratio in the domestic div and a higher ResF ratio in the European oriented div

Most of your combat arms personnel can be Reserve.

Agreed

The Army is more uniquely positioned for the Res mixture, whereas the Navy and Air Force need to be doing stuff to do their job, the Army can kind of just sit around.

Yeah - subject to what I said above.

 

[KevinB]

I’m not sold on the ARNG model of Aviation.
Mainly as currency requirements for LL/NOD work is tough, and the learning curve is unforgiving.

 

[Cloud Cover]

The next step, at least to me, is to increase the current throughput - if that chap is saying 1,440 means they are full up, then this needs to increase by X%. I'm not saying that I know what 'X' is, be it 5, 8, 10, 15, 20%, but in order to begin to close the gap in a meaningful way (meaning 5-7yrs, not 12-15yrs), 'X' needs to be well north of 10.

I’d they cut basic training down to 3 weeks they could nearly triple the output

 

[Czech_pivo]

I’d they cut basic training down to 3 weeks they could nearly triple the output

I thought they already had done this for the Officer's training?

 

[FJAG]

The next step, at least to me, is to increase the current throughput - if that chap is saying 1,440 means they are full up, then this needs to increase by X%. I'm not saying that I know what 'X' is, be it 5, 8, 10, 15, 20%, but in order to begin to close the gap in a meaningful way (meaning 5-7yrs, not 12-15yrs), 'X' needs to be well north of 10.

Move part of it to the tent city at Valcartier. Summer's coming. You'd still need instructors, though and the availability of downstream DP 1 training.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

This is somewhat micro-tactical, but BMQ is nine weeks long and BMOQ is twelve weeks long. I assume from the upside-down emoticon that Cloud Cover is being facetious, but there are limits to what should be cut to increase throughput.

BMQ/BMOQ is only the start of the journey to being trained to the point of being able to join a unit. There are ways and plans to increase throughput, but this needs to be extended all the way through the training system. There are limiting factors to include instructors, facilities and equipment. This is not to admire the problem, and I have been party to planning to increase the capacity on the army side at least. This tends to involve, however, the temporary reallocation of resources (such as field force units).

All that being said, the marked success in recruiting is great news.

 

[dapaterson]

The next step, at least to me, is to increase the current throughput - if that chap is saying 1,440 means they are full up, then this needs to increase by X%. I'm not saying that I know what 'X' is, be it 5, 8, 10, 15, 20%, but in order to begin to close the gap in a meaningful way (meaning 5-7yrs, not 12-15yrs), 'X' needs to be well north of 10.

Capacity constraints are known, and are being addressed, but have to be viewed with an enterprise view to avoid PAT battalions getting BMQ and then no trade training before their first contract runs out.

 

[FJAG]

I’m not sold on the ARNG model of Aviation.
Mainly as currency requirements for LL/NOD work is tough, and the learning curve is unforgiving.

I've never really had a good handle on the ARNG aviation concept (or even more so the air national guard flying F35s ). They can't all be ex active force pilots and mechs. But I do see it as a potential cost saving and even retention measure. The ARNG aviation units in Afghanistan seem to have proven their worth. Again, like most trades, there is the benefit of a well-run pre-deployment training phase for any reserve or hybrid unit.