Yesterday Today
Published on 3 Jun 2017D-Day: Canada at Juno Beach
6 June 1944
Of the nearly 150,000 Allied troops who landed or parachuted onto the Normandy coast, 14,000 were Canadians. They assaulted a beachfront code-named “Juno”.
The Royal Canadian Navy contributed 110 ships & 10,000 sailors in support of the landings while the RCAF had helped prepare the invasion by bombing targets inland. On D-Day & during the ensuing campaign, 15 RCAF fighter & fighter-bomber squadrons helped control the skies over Normandy and attacked enemy targets. On D-Day, Canadians suffered 1074 casualties, including 359 killed.
June 6, 2018
D-Day: Canada at Juno Beach
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March 14, 2018
The navy we need versus the navy we’re willing to pay for
Ted Campbell recounts the ups and downs of the federal government’s plans for the Royal Canadian Navy over the last few decades:
A Chilean navy boarding team fast-ropes onto the flight deck of RCN Halifax-class frigate HMCS Calgary (FFH 335) during multinational training exercise Fuerzas Aliadas PANAMAX 2009.
US Navy photo via Wikimedia.
One of my old friends, commenting to another equally old friend on social media, said this: “Surely, the PM and his government must see the obvious — that as the oceans warm and the ice melts the Northwest Passage becomes navigable year round. He’s been sounding off about climate change ad nauseum so that would seem to be understood by him. As a teacher he must also know that European colonial powers sought a shortcut between east and west but were deterred by ice. That’s changed, which he acknowledges, and Canada’s claim of the.increasingly ice free Northwest Passage as sovereign territory is under threat. Absent Canada’s willingness, and any capability, to enforce it’s claim, Canada surrenders any legitimate right to ownership of the Northwest Passage and the resources in the territory it abuts. That a maritime nation bordered by three oceans needs a blue-water navy is axiomatic. And once the PM acknowledges that the Northwest Passage is about to become Canada’s Suez Canal he must recognize that it, too, needs to be protected and defended by the Royal Canadian Navy. But the navy can only do that if it has ships and sailors. If Canada doesn’t expend the effort to protect its shores and assert its claims someone else will.” Sound pretty sensible, doesn’t it? Climate change will, very possibly, open the Northwest Passage; it Canada cannot patrol and police those waters then others will exploit them; it’s the Navy’s job to patrol and police our waters … I have argued that the “constabulary fleet” that should do that ought not to be in the Navy, but that’s a different issue … for now.
[…]
Way back when ~ I’m working from memory and I’m happy to have these numbers corrected ~ the Royal Canadian Navy said, in a document called “Leadmark,” if my memory serves, that, in addition to infrastructure (headquarters, schools, dockyards, etc) it needed:
- A fleet with global “reach” which meant more than a dozen “major combatants” (destroyers and frigates) plus four support ships so that, at any time, it could have one combat-ready task group in each of any two of the world’s oceans;
- A coastal (three coasts) patrol fleet consisting of a mix of submarines and another dozen “minor combatants” (corvettes and mine hunters);
- Organic air elements for those fleets;
- Auxiliary and training vessels.
Circumstances changed over time but the Paul Martin government finally committed to new helicopters for the fleet and thanks to his decision and to the perseverance of the Harper government they are, finally, entering service, only 25 years after Jean Chrétien abruptly cancelled the Mulroney government’s signed contracts for (then) new shipborne helicopters.
[…]
What we, Canadians, do not have is a properly funded plan to build the real Navy that the country with the world’s longest coastline, that borders three oceans, needs and deserves.
Since I am pretty sure that, absent some catastrophic events, Prime Minister Trudeau has no interest in warships (or the Coast Guard) I can be fairly confident that while new ships will be built they will be too few in number for the jobs that need doing.
There are no votes in promising to rebuild the military. The Liberals will ignore it and the Conservatives would be wise to not make it much of a campaign issue … Canadians, an overwhelming majority of Canadians just don’t care. But the Conservatives need to get some first rate naval and shipbuilding people into a room and decide, for themselves, what the real costs are for what the Royal Canadian Navy really needs.
The expected warming of the Arctic Ocean and the potential opening of new shipping lanes through areas currently claimed by Canada should be a huge encouragement for the federal government to get serious about ensuring that the RCN, the Canadian Coast Guard and the RCMP are properly prepared and equipped to protect our sovereignty in this region. As in so many other climate change matters, however, the government loves to talk the talk but is manifestly uninterested in walking the walk. More new ships, submarines, helicopters, bases, and the military staff to crew/staff them would be a very expensive commitment that wouldn’t shore up votes in those critical marginal constituencies and would reduce the government’s ability so spend money in aid of getting re-elected (the Liberals are in power now, but the same sort of political calculus applies to the Tories as well).
Mr. Campbell is a Conservative and clearly harbours hopes that Admiral Andrew Scheer will be more willing to make the RCN a priority, but history does not support that hope. The last time (and possibly only time outside periods of declared war) that a Canadian government was serious about the military was before 1957. Canadians are hopelessly in love with the idea of being a peaceful nation and have never been willing to engage with that old Latin tag “Si vis pacem, para bellum“
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February 1, 2018
MV Asterix accepted by the Royal Canadian Navy
With the Queenston-class AOR ships still pinned to the drawing board, the Royal Canadian Navy has been reduced to borrowing support ships from allies and friendly nations to allow our combat ships to operate further from shore than a local fishing boat, the delivery and acceptance of the MV Asterix has to count as good news:
MV Asterix
Photo via Canadian Defence ReviewDavie Shipbuilding and Federal Fleet Services announced that following an intensive period of at-sea trials and testing, Asterix has been formally accepted by the Department of National Defence and has now entered full operational service with the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF).
As planned, Asterix performed daily replenishment-at-sea (RAS) exercises with the RCN and conducted extensive RCAF CH-148 Cyclone helicopter operations to prove and demonstrate the world-leading capabilities of the Resolve-Class Naval Support Ship. These exercises have included everything from dual RAS operations to helicopter landing, take-off and vertical replenishment trials.
Spencer Fraser, CEO of Federal Fleet Services commented “To deliver the first Canadian naval ship in over twenty years, the first supply ship in almost 50 years, and to reach FOC so efficiently and in such a short period of time is a testament to the hard work, dedication and dynamism of the teams at Davie and FFS. We are all very proud of our achievement and appreciative of the professional support we have received from DND and PSPC.”
Asterix has been leased by the government, and will be operated by a blend of merchant seamen and RCN/RCAF personnel as required for any given mission. She’ll remain an MV, not an HMCS and is not expected to be operated in “hot” environments where combat could occur. She will remain with the fleet at least until the planned-but-not-yet-started Queenston class ships are ready for service. Davie has offered to refit another ship for the RCN to lease (so we’d have one AOR for the East coast and one for the West), but so far the Trudeau government has resisted the offer.
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January 9, 2018
The ongoing financial catastrophe that is the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy
Ted Campbell rounds up recent discussions of the Canadian government’s farcical National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS):
There is a somewhat biased but still very useful look at the successes of the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy (NSPS) in the Ottawa Citizen by Howie Smith who is the Past President of the Naval Association of Canada. Mr Smith is a retired Canadian naval officer who has provided consultancy services to several firms pursuing opportunities within the projects of the National Shipbuilding Strategy, which is why his article is somewhat biased. Mr Smith is responding to a recent report by Professor Michael Byers of the University of British Columbia, who is also a biased commentator on defence issues, which said that the NSPS “was flawed from the outset” and “According to Byers, the Liberal government should open-up the non-contractually-binding umbrella agreements with Irving and Seaspan, then cancel and restart the Canadian Surface Combatant and the Joint Support Ship procurement programs with fixed-price competitions involving completely ‘off the shelf’ designs.”
It is important, I believe, to understand why Canada needed something like the NSPS in the first place. The notion came in about the middle of the Harper government’s term in office – in around 2010. I think that two problems confronted the government:
- The Canadian shipbuilding industry was, once again, “on the ropes;” Davie, Canada’s largest shipyard was in bankruptcy and the other yards were too reliant on government contracts; and
- Both of the major federal fleets (the Royal Canadian Navy and the Canadian Coast Guard) were approaching “rust out,” again.
The solution to the first problem was to modernize the yards and make them internationally competitive … but that would cost money and private investment money is scarce ~ especially for shipbuilding, plus under the international trade rules to which Canada has agreed direct government subsidies to commercial shipyards are prohibited. The solution to shipyards that are too reliant on government contracts was ~ wait for it ~ another big government contract that would allow them to modernize themselves.
That indirect government subsidy is perfectly legal if the contracts are for navy and coast guard ships because “national security” is a big loophole in international trade law.
Both Professor Byers and Mr Smith have some good points … but neither is 100% correct. The NSPS was and remains a sound idea … the costs, which is the real crux of Professor Byers’ complaint, are not relevant because the defence and coast guard budgets are being (mis)used for industrial development ~ those are not the real costs of warships: they are the real costs of warships PLUS the cost of yard modernization.
The new surface combatant project is, as Mr Smith says, the biggest and costliest peacetime military procurement ever … and the NSPS is working just about a well as any “system” would at bringing it to fruition. At some point in the future a government will have to decide if Canada gets fewer ships than it needs or spends more more money than it wants … or, most likely, both.
That last sentence has always been the most likely outcome: the RCN will get fewer ships than it needs, and those ships will be significantly more expensive per hull than they need to be. The need for modern naval vessels isn’t the top priority … it’s probably not even in the top three priorities as far as the government is concerned (directing money to the “right” recipients, pandering to provincial sensibilities, lots of photo ops, and then maybe the actual needs of the RCN and CCG).
Update: Of course, it’s not like Canada is unique in the problems we have in military procurement … Australia is also struggling in a similar way:
The [Royal Australian] Navy’s program to replace the Collins Class submarines is known as SEA 1000. It involves modification of a French Barracuda Class submarine from nuclear to diesel-electric propulsion, plus other changes specific to Australia.
The 12 new submarines, to be known as Shortfin Barracudas, are intended to begin entering service in the early 2030s with construction extending to 2050. The program is estimated to cost $50 billion and will be the largest and most complex defence acquisition project in Australian history.
[…]
Then there’s the decision to build them in Australia. The Abbott government’s 2016 Defence White Paper only committed to building them in Australia if it could be done without compromising capability, cost or project schedule. That changed because of South Australian politics, and the new submarines could now be more appropriately described as the Xenophon class.
Even if all goes well, the cost of building warships in Australia will be 30 to 40 per cent more than if they were built overseas. However, the plan to build them in Adelaide at the Australian Submarine Corporation, the same group currently building the Air Warfare Destroyer, years late and a billion dollars over budget, adds to a sense of foreboding.
This follows the prize fiasco of the Collins Class submarine project. Their construction by the Australian Submarine Corporation ran years behind schedule, many millions over budget, and finally delivered a platform that the Navy has struggled to even keep operational.
And then there is the question of whether the new submarines will arrive before the Collins Class subs are retired, scheduled for 2026 to 2033. Even if delivery occurs on schedule, the first will not enter service until 2033. At best there will be one new submarine in service and a nine year gap between the retirement of the Collins Class and the introduction into service of the first six of the twelve new submarines.
Given this, the government has apparently committed an additional $15 billion to keep the 30 year old Collins submarines bobbing in the water. It’s like refurbishing a World War 2 German U-Boat for the mid-1990s.
The elements are all there for the submarine replacement program to become the procurement scandal of the century. Our Shortfin Barracudas will probably be the most expensive submarines ever built anywhere in the world.
For a lot less money, we could achieve a far more potent submarine capability. For example, off-the-shelf Japanese Soryu submarines cost only US$540 million. Modified to meet additional Navy requirements, they were quoted as costing A$750 million. If we simply bought twelve of those, the total cost to the taxpayer would be less than A$10 billion.
Equally, the existing nuclear Barracudas only cost $2 billion each, so we could get twelve of those for $24 billion.
For such an important defence capability, the government’s failure to guarantee Australia is protected by submarines is nothing less than gross negligence.
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December 6, 2017
The RCN doesn’t need a second supply ship, says Transport Minister Garneau
David Pugliese on the latest military inanity from the federal government:
Pre-completion illustrations of the Resolve Class AOR conversion of MV Asterix
Politicians and unions in Quebec are turning up the heat on the Liberal government, questioning why Davie shipyards in the province isn’t getting any more work from the federal government. Davie converted a commercial container ship into a supply vessel for the Royal Canadian Navy. It was on time and on budget. The ship, the Asterix, goes into service early next year and under the agreement will be leased to the RCN.
Davie is ready to quickly convert another vessel into a supply ship.
But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has said thanks but no thanks.
Transport Minister, and former navy officer, Marc Garneau said the federal government doesn’t need another supply ship. ” We cannot artificially create a need for something that doesn’t exist,” he told reporters on the weekend.
An artificial need?
Seaspan shipyards in Vancouver and the Department of National Defence don’t project the first Joint Support Ship (being built by Seaspan) arriving until early 2021. But that ship would still have to undergo testing, etc. So, let’s say that the first JSS is ready for operations by the end of 2021.
That means that the RCN will have one supply ship to support its fleets operating on two coasts. How is that going to work?
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July 23, 2017
In military training, “similar” is not the same as “identical”
Ted Campbell looks at one of the legacies of the 1968 integration of the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and Royal Canadian Airforce as the unified Canadian Armed Forces:
Our problem, in Canada, goes back to a fairly simple mistake that former Defence Minister Paul Hellyer and his minions made in the mid 1960s. First I must declare that a lot of what Mr Hellyer proposed was good ~ the unification of the armed forces, creating proper joint commands in which Navy, Army and Air Force units and formations served together, under one single commander, just as history taught they they would fight together in war, made excellent sense. Some of what he introduced ~ like the integration of the military into a single service and introducing common occupation and training systems ~ made less, little or no sense at all.
The logical trap into which Mr Hellyer and his team fell and the consequential problem which still infects the Canadian Armed Forces today is that they failed to grasp that similar ≠ identical. Consider, for example, a Navy helicopter pilot and an Army attack helicopter pilot ~ both must fly rotary wing aircraft at a basic level, in that they are almost certainly identical, but, after that, the differences between landing a very big helicopter on the heaving deck of a very small warship and flying a small helicopter at high speeds at near treetop level are very large and the two pilots are very, very dissimilar. Does it make sense to train them together at the primary flying school level? Yes! Does it make sense to mix them together into one pool of “pilots” on the grounds that they are very much the same? No! The same applies to cooks and radar technicians and pay clerks and, and, and … they are, very often, similar but rarely nearly enough identical to merit having them in a single “trade” or group. But, Mr Hellyer was, valiantly, trying to solve a funding crisis and savings in personnel and training were seen as the equivalent of the brass ring on the old fashioned carnival carousel. For almost fifty years Mr Hellyer’s deeply flawed notion of integration has been sacrosanct even as his very good ideas about unification were pushed aside by empire building careerists in the most senior ranks of the Canadian Forces and by lazy superiors, including disengaged ministers and bureaucrats.
We can start the fix by recognizing that some things do work: there should be, just as an example, one, single, integrated primary flying school, where all helicopter pilots learn to fly a basic rotary wing aircraft. But Navy, Army and RCAF pilots (and, yes, each service should have its own) should, then, be trained in their specific specialities by their own service specialists. Similar things should apply to many skills ~ integrate the education and training when the similarities outweigh the differences, but train, usually, in single service, specialist centres, when the differences are dominant. Some training ~ staff training, for example, to produce officers who can serve in joint HQs ~ must be integrated, however, if we ever want to have a proper unified force.
Will it cost more? Yes … superficially. But the savings for which Mr Hellyer so fervently hoped, in 1968, never really materialized; instead the training system used, as it was directed to do, minimum common standards to achieve economies and, thereby, financially “burdened” the other commands with special to function training: teaching Army cooks to drive trucks and use field (gas) stoves, for example, and teaching Navy supply people how to work in a ship. It is possible, even likely, in my opinion, that Canadian military education and training could be reformed at low cost. Some education and training can be contracted out or done, as is the case now, using a kind of public-private partnership (P3) arrangement. I will return to this later with a thought on the the Royal Military College, the Staff Colleges and so on.
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July 21, 2017
Behind the Scenes of Naval Legends – HMCS Haida
Published on 19 Jul 2017
Curious about how the Naval Legends episodes are made? Want to know how the beauty shots are made? Then let me take you behind the scenes of Naval Legends HMCS Haida.
Filmed with the permission of Parks Canada, at HMCS Haida National Historic Site.
Special thanks to Nicholas Moran, WarGaming America.
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July 10, 2017
A Canadian Cold War innovation – “floppy” magnets as submarine detection tools
Steve Weintz on an experimental Canadian submarine detection device that was simple, effective, and too difficult to train with:
Desperate planners sought ways of making Soviet subs easier to hunt. Any technology that could speed up an undersea search was worth considering. “A submarine’s best defense is of course stealth, remaining quiet and undetected in the ocean deep,” Ballantyne notes. “Something that could rob the Soviets of that cloak of silence must have seemed irresistible and, at least initially, a stroke of genius.”
A Canadian scientist figured some kind of sticky undersea noisemaker would make a Soviet sub more detectable. He designed a simple hinged cluster of magnets that could attach to a submarine’s metal hull.
Movement would cause the flopping magnets to bang against the hull like a loose screen door, giving away the sub’s location to anyone listening. The simple devices would take time and effort to remove, thus also impairing the Soviet undersea fleet’s readiness.
At least that was the idea.
HMS Auriga against the New York City skyline in 1963. U.S. Navy photo.
In late 1962, the British Admiralty dispatched the A-class diesel submarine HMS Auriga to Nova Scotia for joint anti-submarine training with the Canadian navy. The British were helping Canada establish a submarine force, so Royal Navy subs routinely exercised with Canadian vessels.
Auriga had just returned to the submarine base at Faslane, Scotland after a combat patrol as part of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Other subs of the joint Canadian-British Submarine Squadron Six at Halifax had seen action during the crisis.
Did the device work? All too well:
As Auriga surfaced at the end of the exercise, the magnets made their way into holes and slots in the sub’s outer hull designed to let water flow. “They basically slid down the hull,” Ballantyne says of the magnets, “and remained firmly fixed inside the casing, on top of the ballast tanks, in various nooks and crannies.”
The floppy-magnets couldn’t be removed at sea. In fact, they couldn’t be removed at all until the submarine dry-docked back in Halifax weeks later.
In the meantime, one of Her Majesty’s submarines was about as stealthy as a mariachi band. No fighting, no training, no nothing until all those floppy little magnets were dug out of her skin at a cost of time, money and frustration.
The magnets worked on the Soviets with the same maddening results. The crews of several Foxtrots were driven bonkers by the noise and returned to port rather than complete their cruises.
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June 14, 2017
Canada’s Next Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment Ship – Episode 3
Published on Jun 9, 2017
The third episode in a series about the construction and operation of the Royal Canadian Navy’s next naval support ship.
June 9, 2017
The new Canadian defence policy – Strong, Secure, Engaged
Unlike all the other issues that might have moved the Canadian government to finally address the weaknesses of the Canadian Armed Forces (including the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the high-tempo troop deployments to Afghanistan, escalating tensions in Ukraine and eastern Europe, and the rather embarrassing ongoing rusting-out of the RCN’s ships), Donald Trump appears to have been the trigger … and the first visible result (after Chrystia Freeland’s rather … muscular speech the other day) is the publication of Strong, Secure, Engaged [PDF].
It certainly says a lot of the right things, from personnel to equipment to training and deployment, but as always with a big government announcement, the devil will be in the details. From Defence minister Harjit Sajjan’s introduction:
The pages that follow detail a new vision for the Defence team for the coming decades. It is about our contribution to a Canada that is strong at home, secure in North America, and engaged in the world. In a rapidly changing and less predictable world, we recognize that the distinction between domestic and international threats is becoming less relevant. Therefore, we cannot be strong at home unless we are also engaged in the world.
The policy also includes a new framework for how we will implement that vision. “Anticipate, Adapt and Act,” sets out a way of operating that addresses the challenges we face today, and the ones that will emerge tomorrow.
Canadians take pride in their Armed Forces, and its members serve their country admirably every day. Whether it is responding to natural disasters, providing expert search and rescue, defending our sovereignty, or contributing to greater peace and security in the world, our military answers the call wherever and whenever it occurs
So, along with all the verbiage, what is the new policy going to mean for the Canadian Forces?
This is the most rigorously costed Canadian defence policy ever developed. It is transparent and fully funded. To meet Canada’s defence needs at home and abroad, the Government will grow defence spending over the next 10 years from $18.9 billion in 2016-17 to $32.7 billion in 2026-27.
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January 17, 2017
Vice Chief of the Defence Staff relieved of duty
Vice Admiral Mark Norman, former head of the Royal Canadian Navy, was relieved of duty as Vice Chief of the Defence Staff on Monday. Details are sketchy, but Robert Fife and Steven Chase report on the highly unusual activity for the Globe and Mail:
Vice-Admiral Mark Norman was relieved of his duties as the Canadian military’s second-highest-ranking officer over alleged leaks of highly classified information, The Globe and Mail has learned.
A source said General Jonathan Vance, chief of the defence staff, ordered Mr. Norman’s removal after an investigation of “pretty high-level secret documents” that had allegedly been leaked.
The source would not provide further information on the nature of the sensitive leaks. It is unknown whether the alleged leaks were to journalists, business interests or another country.
The military is offering no explanation for this extreme measure which took place Monday morning.
Vice-Adm. Norman has served in the Forces for 36 years and was previously in charge of the Royal Canadian Navy. He commanded the Royal Canadian Navy for more than four-and-a-half years until General Vance appointed him as vice-chief in January 2016.
The use of the term “temporary” to describe Admiral Norman’s relief may indicate that further investigation is required (my speculation), but no official explanation has been provided yet.
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December 4, 2016
Canada’s Next Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment Ship – Episode 2
Published on Nov 28, 2016
The second installment of the documentary following the build of Canada’s new Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment Ship. Episode 2 follows the journey of Davie, its workers and partners from May to November 2016 as they build the largest ship that will operate in the Royal Canadian Navy fleet.
May 7, 2016
The Canadian Forces’ obesity problem
The Canadian military (all branches, but especially the reserve forces) have an obesity problem that needs drastic measures to address. Ted Campbell offers his prescription to trim down the bloat:
Command of the Armed Forces should flow from the Governor General, who is, by the Letters Patent of issued by King George VI in 1947, the Commander in Chief, through the Chief of the Defence Staff who should also, for clarity, be styled “Commander Canadian Armed Forces” (COMCAF) and to four regional joint commanders: Commanders of Pacific, Western, Eastern and Atlantic Commands. Each of those commanders should have subordinate and appropriately ranked Naval, Army and Air “component commanders.” (Appropriately means according to the size and scope of the forces in their commands. The Naval Component Commander in Western Command, which has only a handful of Naval Reserve Divisions, might be a Navy Captain while the Army Component Commander in each of Pacific and Atlantic Commands might be an Army colonel or, at best, a brigadier general.)
Staffs should be lower ranked and as [a] firm, absolutely inviolable rule no staff officer in any headquarters may outrank the principal commanders who are directly subordinate to the commander that staff officer serves. In some, rare, cases principal staff officers might be equal in rank to subordinate commanders so that the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff and the officer who heads the national Joint Staff might both be three star officers (vice admirals/lieutenant generals) as would be the commanders of the four Joint Commands. But in an army brigade group, which, given its size and combat power, ought to be commanded by a brigadier general (not by a colonel), where the principal subordinate commanders are lieutenant colonels, the principle operations and support staff officers ought to be majors.
In short almost every staff officer currently serving in almost every HQ, large and small, high and low, in the Canadian Armed Forces is, right now, one (in a few cases two) rank higher than (s)he needs to be. This (over-ranking) is a serious problem because it contributes to HQ bloat and it clouds what should be a very, very clear “chain of command.” It should change, soon. Change would be unpopular and moderately difficult but not, at all, impossible.
Fewer, smaller, leaner and meaner, and lower ranked HQs will, I am 99.99% certain, be more efficient and effective and they might be forced to actually understand the unique pressures that face reserve force members ~ most of whom have full time, civilian jobs (or are full time students) and who do their reserve force work after the “bankers’ hours” that almost all Canadian Armed Forces HQs work. (If I had a penny for every horror story I have heard about army staff officers who know far, far too little about the reserve force units in their areas and who give, sometimes just silly but often quite stupidly impossible
ordersguidance or tasks, that cannot possibly be met on time, if at all, I would be a wealthy man. Now, it may not be clear that lower ranks will solve that, but I believe that lower ranked officers are more likely to work harder (as all staff officers should) and, in an effort to impress their commanders (and his subordinate commanders, too), work smarter, too, which will alleviate many of the problems that are the result of useless HQ “busy work.”[…]
Less money spent on useless, over-ranked staff officers in redundant HQs would mean that equipment and support personnel could be found for the Army Reserve. Minister Harjit Sajjan knows the problem … all he needs to do is to push General Jon Vance in the right (unpopular but right) direction. They are both new enough on the job and each brings to it well known sense of “operational” soldiering that they could make unpopular decisions, give unpopular orders and shake up the comfortable, somnolent, entrenched uniformed bureaucracy, especially in the Canadian Army, and, thereby, reinvigorate the Canadian Army Reserve, using the Auditor General’s damning report as a catalyst for change.
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January 21, 2016
Roles for Canada’s armed forces
Ted Campbell outlines the most likely tasks and approximate organization of the Canadian Armed Forces, regardless of the political or ideological stripe of the government of the day:
Thus far, in two posts: Establishing Some Baselines and Defence of Canada I have developed four “baseline” roles or tasks for the Canadian Department of National Defence:
- To maintain active military forces to share in the continental defence of the North American homelands, of the maritime approaches to them and of the airspace over both.
- To maintain a global, blue water fleet, supported by air forces, that is able to, simultaneously, maintain a constant Canadian presence in at least two different theatres.
- To maintain trained, disciplined military units that can, on very short notice, give effective “aid to the civil power” here in Canada.
- To maintain combat naval, land and air forces and a full range of strategic and tactical support services, able to conduct low to mid intensity operations anywhere in Canada on short notice.
Those tasks, both explicitly and implicitly, call for:
- A surveillance and warning system ~ which, I think, to be really useful must cover all of the Canadian landmass, the maritimes approaches to it and the airspace over both and, probably, needs to have terrestrial, underwater, airborne (aircraft mounted) and space based (satellite) sensors.
- A command and control communications (C³) system to interconnect all those sensors and the various command agencies ~ Canadian, US and combined.
- A full fledged Navy able to operate in 9and under) coastal waters and anywhere in the world.
- A full fledged Air Force able to conduct air and joint operations in Canada and to conduct joint naval-air operations anywhere in the world.
- An Army for domestic, territorial defence of Canada.
- The full fledged Navy and Air Force and limited Army also, in their turn, call for medical, logistical, administrative and financial support systems: hospitals, supply depots and warehouses, and people working away in offices, far away from the action, keeping services flowing to the people who need them.
What about forces for the next Afghanistan or UN peacekeeping mission or Korea or, heaven forbid, another world war?
That would be an Expeditionary Force.
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December 27, 2015
The refit and modernization program for the RCN’s Halifax class frigates
In the Chronicle Herald, Andrea Gunn reports on the Royal Canadian Navy’s refit program for the twelve ships in the HMCS Halifax class, being done in Victoria and Halifax:
A $4.3-billion, decade-long life extension and modernization of Canada’s Halifax-class frigates has now been completed on more than half the fleet.
Work started in 2010 on the mid-life refit and modernization process, which has been concluded on HMCS Halifax, Fredericton, Montreal and Charlottetown at the Irving-owned Halifax Shipyard, and on HMCS Calgary, Winnipeg and Vancouver at Seaspan in Victoria.
The other five vessels, HMCS St. John’s, Ottawa, Ville de Quebec and Toronto, have all entered refit and are at various stages of completion and testing. All major work for the program, which is on schedule and on budget, is set to be finished by 2019.
The project’s aim is to extend the lifespan of the fleet to sustain Canada’s naval operations during the design and construction phase of the new fleet of Canadian surface combatants, set to be delivered by 2033. The Halifax-class frigates have been in operation since 1992, and planning and preparation for the modernization project began in 2002.
Royal Canadian Navy Commodore Craig Baines, commander of the Atlantic fleet, recently returned from two months of major multinational exercises that utilized three of the modernized vessels. HMCS Halifax, Montreal and Winnipeg participated in Joint Warrior, and Winnipeg and Halifax participated in Trident Juncture, the largest NATO military exercise since the Cold War.
“From where we were previously to where we are now, it’s like you have a brand new ship,” Baines told The Chronicle Herald.
The modernized vessels are equipped with a new radar suite and have had major upgrades to the communications and warfare systems. But it’s the $2-billion upgrade to the fleet’s combat management systems — a completely redesigned command and control centre with plenty of new features — that is largely responsible for that new ship feel.
Click image to see full-sized. H/T to @RUSI_NS for the link.
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