First to armour..., in nearly every Nato and UN mission that Canada has been involved in the antagonists have all had some tracked armour. While it would be easy to say that just because others have armour doesn't neccesarily mean the CF needs armour, the reality is that a heavily armoured mobile large gun platform Ie greater than a chaingun brings a real asset to the Battle Group. I think we are many years away from even coming close with wheeled technolgy. Our Leopard tanks do outstanding work and provide authority on Balkan missions or in combat team work with the Inf. Descaling the armour corps to a LAV violates our tactical doctrine and leaves us only open for police actions---not quite the general purpose combat capability we would need in time of crisis.

On the recce side of the house if reservists can gain access to reg f courses they will succeed. However the real issue is how do they hone these newly aquired skills? It seems to me we have two choices one we issue the same platform to both reg and reserve. Although costly initially this would solve the maintenace isssues that arise when trying to maintain dissimilar fleets of veh and we would have standardized training. Or second we go to different or specialized roles. Personally I would not want to be on a battlefield as Bde recce in a Lav. It is not designed to be a mobile stealthy veh and it doesn't have the armour or gun to fight for information. LUUVW should be designed and trialed on its stealth and mobility.

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Originally posted by Bill Green:

On the recce side of the house if reservists can gain access to reg f courses they will succeed. However the real issue is how do they hone these newly aquired skills? It seems to me we have two choices one we issue the same platform to both reg and reserve. Although costly initially this would solve the maintenace isssues that arise when trying to maintain dissimilar fleets of veh and we would have standardized training. Or second we go to different or specialized roles. Personally I would not want to be on a battlefield as Bde recce in a Lav. It is not designed to be a mobile stealthy veh and it doesn't have the armour or gun to fight for information. LUUVW should be designed and trialed on its stealth and mobility.

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I have heard rumours that our new veh will be a Gelandewagen from Mercedes at 175000$ per veh. Last year each unit was asked to respond with some features that a recce veh should have if it could be purchased off the shelf. I never heard of what features were trialed in the veh selection and am very interested in knowing if you have run into anyone who worked on the trials. Maybe they could give us an update.

Last point in this letter. We have received our allocation of the new TCCCS radios. Unfortunately we didn't get a one for one trade with the 524s. and as a result are short a troops worth of radios. Can you integrate the old 524 radios with the new TCCCS veh mtd radio system and if so how. If possible we were thinking of the Tp Ldr and Ptl Comd having Tcccs while other c/s in the troop had the older system. While our CP has TCCCS could it talk to everyone on the two systems. Appreciate your resonses.

The trouble with the army (reg and res) is an abundance of equipment that is squirrelled away in each sub unit/unit's QM. Eqpt pooling anyone? Everyone knows it doesn't exist if its not on the shelf. We've waited so long to get TCCCS let's wait a couple of months before the whining and complaining starts.

Cheers,

Yesterday the CP crew and BC attempted to work with mixed systems (analoque and digital). The comms were intermittant. Is there a way to sort this out?

I don't know on the arty side of the house but in the 70's and 80's we pooled our jeeps in Dundurn for all Sask units. The problem from the armour perspective is that the equipment becomes a bit of an orphan and nobody maintains it. We went back to an age old commandment of "one person one kit".The closer the kit is to an individual or unit the better it is maintained. It is also part of the training of new troopers to get them to look after and maintain their kit and we extend this to crew kit like vehs, wpns and comms. It increases the soldiers responsibility and that is a good thing.

I am very pleased with the new TCCCs equipment and the training that is being offered. If you want to hear me whine get me going on recruiting functions, budgeting and lack of decentralized decision making to the lowest command level.

Back to the comms issue is there a SME I could approach on this. Tried the closest comm sqn but everyone is on course or unsure if this can be done. Would appreciate your responses.

As for scale of issue. again we lose. Our arty CPs now only have two rad sets and with the new scale of LSVW CPs it is obvious the res arty are not eqpt to field more than a bty. Only our CPs and a couple of Iltis were converted so basicly we have CP to OP comms but nothing with recce or the ech. However our Reg F brethen have now made up their shortfall for CPs (theirs are in Bosnia, and will probably never be replaced) and every gun (tracked btys)or gun tractor (for the light btys) are now TCCCS eqpt.

Ubique

Your problems with pooled equipment came from incompetence not an unsound concept. Instead of fixing the problem, you (generic not personally) allowed a problem to destroy the solution, hence you still don't have enough kit. By the way the concept of "one soldier, one kit" is valid ... for the personal gear/wpns in which it was intended. Currently, there is more than enough kit for some of it to be on the armoury floor (which is a must, I agree). I'm not sure if having kit sitting on a shelf or a vehicle compound for the vast majority of it's life is a wise way to spend tax dollars. Res F recce units need about a tps worth on the ground and the flexibility to surge to a sqn strength as reqr. Easily accomplished by proper planning and coordination.

By the way, if you want to whine...start another thread, I'll enjoy the discussion.

Cheers,

We are running a QL2/3 high school 30 level credit course that we have 40 positions for and we have 200 pers who have expressed an interest. AT the current loss rate of 4 to 1 through the recruting process we should reach our 40 candidate level in FEB.

A.R.G.

A.R.G.

Ubique