Late Cold War Canadian Army
- Thread starter markppcli
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Yup. 36 in the Brigade. Executing the Anti-Armour plan was just plain awesome. Real Estate just to site them all became tricky.
daftandbarmy
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In 45 CDO we had 16 x MILAN firing posts in the (large) anti-tank troop.
All man-portable as required.
Halifax Tar
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In 1968 a section had one FNC2 and the .30cal MG mounted on the M113 with a dismount kit. Cloth belt ammo.
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Early to mid 70s each rifle pl had 3 x GPMGs (reworked .30 cal M1950 rings a bell) and 1 x M2 plus 60 mor, 84 mm .
daftandbarmy
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Correct, they were old 30-06 guns rebarreled led to 7.62NATO, technically C5A1 at that point. I had it on my first MG course as the Arty had then still after the C6 came to the Inf. It was a medium MG, and issued theoretically 1/platoon for the Infantry. However in Canada it was used on the M113 and Grizzly (until the mounts were changed in the AVGP to the C6), M548 and M109 ( W Bty in Gagetown in 1988 had 4 C5 and 2 M2 on the 6 M109’s). From what I’ve managed to piece together is the C5 that was maybe technically allocated to a Rifle Platoon by TO&E was used on the non M2 .50 equipped vehicles with mounts — Germany got more M2’s than the in Canada vehicles so most had M2’s as opposed to in Canada where they had a mix of M2 and C5.
As @ueo notes the in Canada forces had only 1xM2 and 3x C5x while Germany had more M2 (by TO&E all had M2 for the M113 in Germany — I’m not sure if that was true in actual practice though)
@markppcli the CO of the RCR BSL in 93/94 had been the Project Officer for Eryx just prior to that. When I left 1VP in 1997 we didn’t have them, when I returned in 2002 they had them.
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The images above are the "doctrinal answer" to the original question. For any information on 4 CMBG's organization and concept of employment (and "reality" with organization) Sean Maloney's book mentioned above is the definitive source, and is actually quite good.
OldSolduer
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The C6 came into service in the 1986/87 time frame under SARP. It definitely was about seventeen steps up from the C5.
In the Regular Force the C5s disappeared about that time.
This is dated to the mid-sixties, so it may be too early for your needs, but. . . As a lieutenant, I served on the 4 CIBG ops staff from roughly mid-1965 to early 1967. Among my responsibilities were new equipment introduction, operational equipment readiness (with priority to the nuclear delivery kit in 1 SSM Bty RCA), and anything else that anybody on the staff more senior didn't want. As such I oversaw the M113A1 family introduction, the Centurion upgrade, and the VRC12 family of radios introductions.
The brigade was an extremely professional organization with an orbat straight out of the book, almost. During this period our CSS also converted from a bevy of independent specialized units to the service battalion, plus meds, dental, etc. We had three infantry battalions each with four rifle companies and a support company, an armoured regiment of three tank squadrons, an artillery regiment of three gun batteries - first three 105 C1s batteries, then two C1 and one 155 mm towed batteries and an AOP tp, the SSM Battery with four launchers, a field squadron of three field troops and a field park troop including an armoured bridging section, and a strong CSS tail.
By 1968 it was completely mechanized and the guns, for example had three btys of M109s, an AOP Tp, and a counter-mortar radar section. And 1 SSM had earned the reputation as the best land nuclear delivery unit in NATO. It was a really good time to be a Canadian soldier.
The brigade was an extremely professional organization with an orbat straight out of the book, almost. During this period our CSS also converted from a bevy of independent specialized units to the service battalion, plus meds, dental, etc. We had three infantry battalions each with four rifle companies and a support company, an armoured regiment of three tank squadrons, an artillery regiment of three gun batteries - first three 105 C1s batteries, then two C1 and one 155 mm towed batteries and an AOP tp, the SSM Battery with four launchers, a field squadron of three field troops and a field park troop including an armoured bridging section, and a strong CSS tail.
By 1968 it was completely mechanized and the guns, for example had three btys of M109s, an AOP Tp, and a counter-mortar radar section. And 1 SSM had earned the reputation as the best land nuclear delivery unit in NATO. It was a really good time to be a Canadian soldier.
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Bingo! Each Mech Inf Bn had a strength of about 950, all ranks: 4 X Mech Coys; 8 X 81MM more; ATk went from 8 X 106mm to a mix of ATGMs; 4 X .50 cal HMGs; Pnr Pl with dozer APCs; 12 X Recce Des - 6 X Pat and 6 X Obsn w/ IR devices.
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Correction Reg Force Infantry. The C5 was still bumbling about Reg Force units (other than Armour and Inf) into the early 90’s. In fact Reserve Infantry got C6’s before most Reg Force Arty units. E Bty Para had some C6’s much earlier than other 2RCHA units.
The C6 interestingly was a ‘snuck’ program. The Leo 1’s came with them in the 70’s. While SARP had no GPMG mandate yet some enterprising Lt Col managed to get Diemaco production rights with the C9 from FN Herstal, and C6’s started being delivered.
The C5 didn’t entitely disappear in the Reg Force, it still stayed around in niche roles. In Canada-based Armoured units it was the coax machine gun in the Cougar AVGP — I think that switching out that coax from C5 to C6 in Cougar didn’t happen until the Bosnia days.
Canadian Leopard 1s were introduced years before SARP — did they always have an FN MAG as the coax? And was it always called the C6?
daftandbarmy
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I thought that was a great video. We should have more vids like that.... or even better, this
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Yes and Yes.
It became C6 simple because they came after the C5, which was why the SARP weapons became C7, C8 and C9.
The MAG-58 has a history of being snuck into service from Armor vehicles USMC did a similar scheme with the M240, as the 240 (Mag-58) was the co-ax on the M1 tank. Lt Col Dave Lutz was the USMC Weapons Program Commander, and introduced the M240G as the dismount version for the 0311’s - with G being for Ground. The US Army then replaced the M60 with the M240B which became the USMC standard gun too (polymer buttstock as opposed to Wood).
The original coax gun’s opposite feed brother the C (for Bradley’s and LAV’s , the Helicopter door gun versions was the H…
FJAG
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Strangely I've never heard the term C1 or C5 etc at the time. When I first started it was simply the MMG (like the term M2 was hardly ever used, just HMG)
Then one day we woke up and it had magically become the GPMG. We thought that it was more of a cynical effort by the CA to copy the terminology of the Brits who'd been rocking the L7 "Gimpy" and the Americans who had the M60 GPMG for some time. None of us thought the Canadian GPMG could ever be used the way the Brits and Americans used their GPMGs.
Wheeled gun batteries in the 70s and early 80s came with four GPMGs and four CarlGs for local defence (over and above personal small arms). Tracked SP batteries had masses of machine guns. Each M109 battery gun line in 3 RCHA had 9 x vehicle mounted GPMG and six x M2s. (I think we actually had a seventh M2 for the M578 recovery vehicle but I don't think I ever saw our RCEME guys ever actually mount it) There were another three GPMGs on the BC and FOOs tracks.
G and J in 1981 had an M2 on each of their 12 M109s. All M113s and M548s had GPMGs. The M777s were weaponless. Again each gunline also had 4 CarlGs. The last practice camp I was part of with the 3rd had a three day defensive exercise that included digging the battery in and siting all our machine guns and CarlGs and M72s and flares and Elsie practice mines in a full out local defence role with dozens of pop up and moving targets and expending our annual supply of small arms ammo. We went well out of our way to teach everyone the proper employment of machine guns and defensive stores. Quite an eye opener for everyone including the two detachments from our affiliated G Bty 7 RHA (Mercer's Troop) who augmented the battery for two weeks.
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They mostly disappeared. They were being used in the early 1990s, mounted on the M113s and if I'm not mistaken, still in Grizzly turrets.
But certainly gone as a dismounted MG.
OldSolduer
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I recall in 1977 a bipod and a shoulder stock attachment for the C5 was procured somehow so it could be employed without the tripod aka the "light" role.
It was a freakishly horrible idea.
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