Re-establishing a Canadian Armoured Brigade in Europe

[Weinie]

Not to mention Africa is a tinder box, Greece and Turkey are escalating over turkeys illegal oil and gas exploration, and Belarus is falling apart.

Yup, just to mention some of today's problems. The glass half-empty part of me says "Wait for it."

 

[FJAG]

Just for the fun of it let's assume the Liberals stay in power another four years (whether as a majority or as a minority with NDP support).

Does anyone really believe that their government will run a surplus budget by cutting military spending and use the surplus to pay back debt? Or will they just keep on running more deficit budgets in order to pay for the vanity projects they've already started calling "recovery" spending and just forget about paying off the deficit?

Pick one.

;D

 

[Colin Parkinson]

They plan to run a massive deficit with the vain hope that a new green economy and social justice will create a magical unicorn economy to pay for it. When the unicorn fails to show up, expect them to rape and pillage "unnecessary budgets" like defense, expect intentional delays on fighters, CSC and all sorts of other kit not showing up. The CCG might get some of the ships they need.

 

[CBH99]

Their 'recovery spending' should be on things like the pipelines from Alberta to the west coast, and the LNG pipelines running along southern Ontario and Quebec.

It should coincide with bringing Tekk back to the table, and developing their world-class, extremely environmentally friendly oil & gas projects that they've had planned for years, that would employ more than 8,000 families just in Alberta alone.

It should start up a lean & mean version of the Canadian Wheat Board to develop, encourage market growth, etc etc of Canadian agriculture.  (We sold the majority of controlling shares to the Saudi's a while back.)

Infrastructure spending?  Great.  Infrastructure that will generate large sums of money once completed?  Even better.



I'm guessing though, FJAG, that if I had to choose one... I'd go with Option 2 from your available choices 

 

[daftandbarmy]

Just for the fun of it let's assume the Liberals stay in power another four years (whether as a majority or as a minority with NDP support).

Does anyone really believe that their government will run a surplus budget by cutting military spending and use the surplus to pay back debt? Or will they just keep on running more deficit budgets in order to pay for the vanity projects they've already started calling "recovery" spending and just forget about paying off the deficit?

Pick one.

;D

I think we saw the extent of their 'maximum support to the CAF' with OP FAIRLYMINORPRESENCE in Mali.

Since they didn't get the Security Council seat at the UN as a result of that weak commitment, I'm guessing they'll pick both your Option 1 and 2 while gutting the military - or just showing it some traditional Liberal party benign neglect.

So I guess that's Option 3.

But now we're well off on a tangent, as per SOP

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Budget realities are on tangent, any hope of renewal/ new kit/operations is circling the drain, the defense department budget is the Liberals favorite chew toy.

 

[FJAG]

My guess is that if we cancel the Navy and the Air Force, there'll be plenty of money for the Army. Good thing we got those Australian F-18s and a few AOPS. That'll see us through another decade.

Now if we could only get the Americans to lend us a prepositioned brigade in Poland.

;D

 

[reveng]

Their 'recovery spending' should be on things like the pipelines from Alberta to the west coast, and the LNG pipelines running along southern Ontario and Quebec.

It should coincide with bringing Tekk back to the table, and developing their world-class, extremely environmentally friendly oil & gas projects that they've had planned for years, that would employ more than 8,000 families just in Alberta alone.

It should start up a lean & mean version of the Canadian Wheat Board to develop, encourage market growth, etc etc of Canadian agriculture.  (We sold the majority of controlling shares to the Saudi's a while back.)

Infrastructure spending?  Great.  Infrastructure that will generate large sums of money once completed?  Even better.



I'm guessing though, FJAG, that if I had to choose one... I'd go with Option 2 from your available choices 

As far as I'm concerned, every "green" job should end up out West or in NFLD. Every solar panel, wind turbine etc should be developed and built in these places. I'd go one step further, and let them take the lead on the R&D and production of SMRs. You know, since we actually want to have power and not live in huts.

If we are really going green, let's do it in a way that will actually benefit the country and those who have had their livelihoods stomped out. Not just another gravy train for ON/QC Liberals & friends to ride at the expense of taxpayers and those who actually work for a living...

For another thread though, I suppose.

And FJAG - hate to disagree, but if we are going to drastically cut anything, it should be the Army. 

 

[FJAG]

As far as I'm concerned, every "green" job should end up out West or in NFLD. Every solar panel, wind turbine etc should be developed and built in these places. I'd go one step further, and let them take the lead on the R&D and production of SMRs. You know, since we actually want to have power and not live in huts.

If we are really going green, let's do it in a way that will actually benefit the country and those who have had their livelihoods stomped out. Not just another gravy train for ON/QC Liberals & friends to ride at the expense of taxpayers and those who actually work for a living...

For another thread though, I suppose.

I lived in Manitoba and now in SW Ontario, home of mighty forests of wind turbines which are universally hated down here.

The only folks on any gravy train down here are the foreign companies who built the damn things and had contracts through the last Liberal government to offload their power to the grid at ten times the price that it costs for other generating sources which is well reflected on our energy costs.

I wouldn't wish the green energy industry on my friends out west.

And FJAG - hate to disagree, but if we are going to drastically cut anything, it should be the Army. 

I guess I should have used the sarcasm emoji. ;D

But to get back on my hobby horse, if we keep all the equipment and reservists we currently have and fire two thirds of the Reg F and civilian bureaucracy and restructure our system we could actually save a lot of money and keep a fair bit of our capabilities (albeit at a lesser level of readiness and expertise). The worst thing we could do is divest ourselves of already paid for equipment that's still operationally sound. That'll never come back. Realistically, it's personnel costs that recur and grow annually. If we need to cut anything, there's really only one option.

Also don't forget: MacKay ran on a platform during COVID to tie the defence budget to 2% of GDP while O'Toole had that position in 2017 and hinted at it in the more recent campaign.

Just saying: Desperate times call for desperate measures.

:cheers:

 

[reveng]

I lived in Manitoba and now in SW Ontario, home of mighty forests of wind turbines which are universally hated down here.

The only folks on any gravy train down here are the foreign companies who built the damn things and had contracts through the last Liberal government to offload their power to the grid at ten times the price that it costs for other generating sources which is well reflected on our energy costs.

I wouldn't wish the green energy industry on my friends out west.

I've seen some of them in SW Ontario and can imagine they wouldn't be too popular with the locals. But that pretty much validates my assumptions...Liberal elite and foreign companies happy, at the expense of the taxpayer.

I'd much rather live in a society that doesn't demonize nuclear or natural gas so much. We can all dream. Speaking of dreaming, I'll let this topic get back on track...  ;D

 

[quadrapiper]

nuclear... Speaking of dreaming, I'll let this topic get back on track...  ;D

Derailing enthusiastically: I'd be very happy with a BC Atomic or what-have-you, versus more massive dams.

 

[GK .Dundas]

I have question do we still have the corporate knowledge to fight a armoured brigade ?
Come to think of it,when was the last time we conducted a brigade level exercise ?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

We should rename this thread to "How do we keep a viable Armoured force alive in the coming darkness?"

 

[daftandbarmy]

We should rename this thread to "How do we keep a viable Armoured force CAF alive in the coming darkness?"

FTFY

 

[FJAG]

I have question do we still have the corporate knowledge to fight a armoured brigade ?
Come to think of it,when was the last time we conducted a brigade level exercise ?

I think the answer is yes to an extent.

The Maple Resolve series of exercises is specifically to test a brigade's readiness at the Canadian Maneouvre Training Centre in Wainwright. One brigade per year goes through this validation. The last one was the spring of 2019 and this year's was cancelled due to Covid.

See here.

My time-in predates these exercises (my last one was Ex Rendezvous 81) so I can't speak for how good this exercise is but considering it runs under the overall evaluation management of CMTC, I assume that it's pretty good.

While we may be loosing some of the expertise that came with having a full mechanized (really armoured by today's definition of the word) brigade exercising within full divisional and higher frameworks as we had in Europe with 4 CMBG we do still teach the necessary skills to our officers and many serve on postings with the US and UK military where they participate in brigade level and above training.

So, IMHO, the skill levels needed at the brigade group level are still being taught and exercised in general. What I fear we may be loosing out on is the logistic and combat support skills that exist at levels above brigade (and several key capabilities within the brigade due to equipment shortages and unavailability e.g. massed artillery, air defence, anti-armour). Quite honestly, I think we were hit and miss with some of those as far back as the sixties.

There are a few folks on this site with much more recent Army, and particularly CMTC, training experience who could answer this question far better than I.

:cheers:

 

[GR66]

Since the original suggestion of re-establishing an Armoured Brigade in Europe appears to be less and less likely under the current economic circumstances, how about a more budget friendly option?

As part of the proposals for Reserve Restructuring in another thread one of the common suggestions is consolidation units and elimination of several Brigade HQ's.

What if one of those Brigade HQ's was kept to re-establish 4 CMBG HQ and manned with a mix of Reg Force and Reserve personnel.  Perhaps it could be stationed in Kingston along with 1 Division. 

Politically it would signal to both our allies and the Russians that we take seriously our commitment to the defence of Europe.  It could be tasked with the planning for the deployment of forces to Europe and could hold annual exercises with units from the domestic Brigade Groups to practice air and sea transport loading, fly-overs for exercises in Europe, maintain contacts with civilian shipping companies, and provide liason personnel to work with units from other NATO countries.  It could also provide the HQ staff for the Enhanced Forward Presence Battalion in Latvia.  That would remove that burden from the Infantry Battalions so that they would only have to focus on providing a single Mech Company for each rotation.

Not what was originally envisioned, but at least it would send the right political signals and hopefully maintain a particular skill set - preparing for a large scale overseas deployment overseas.

 

[MilEME09]

While I like the idea, having a permanent  reserve commitment means you need to be able to guarantee those troops will be there. We have no such mechanism as of right now. Unless that is solved you won't get any consistent force put of the reserves.

 

[FJAG]

In essence that is what my suggestion is when you combine the article I wrote with the book, "Unsustainable at any Price".

The purpose behind 1 CABG (Reg F) and the two reserve armoured brigades (which I formed on 32 and 41 brigades) is to constantly have one brigade capable of immediate deployment to Europe. I decided 32 and 41 brigades as the more appropriate ones based on 41 bde's proximity to the best armoured training areas (Wainwright, Suffield and Shilo) and CMTC and 32 bde's being centered on Canada's most populous area (and still closer to the western bases than any other remaining province.

One further advantage of three brigades is that not only does it provide a rotation capability from year to year (and based on Guard4.0's concept of a reserve element four-year build/ready cycle - thus annual rotations responsible for fly-over readiness being something like 1CABG/32CABG/1CABG/41CABG/1CABG/etc but also provide for follow up rotas, reinforcements, casualty replacements, force expansion etc.

The weakness is equipment. While a brigade's worth of equipment in Europe could easily be used by the two reserve brigades for their annual collective exercises, you would still need a brigade's worth of equipment in Edmonton/Wainwright for 1CABG's regular training as well as the reserve brigades' evaluation exercises plus you would need sufficient equipment for individual training and low level collective training. At present if we mustered all of the equipment Canada owns, we would barely be able to equip two brigades (based on one armoured regiment and two mech infantry battalions per brigade - with significant artillery, anti-armour and air defence deficiencies). While that would not impact seriously on any light brigades we would form (like my recommended 2 CLBG) but would leave 5 CMBG unequipped. There's no two ways about it, we would need an additional brigade's worth of equipment as a minimum.

That leaves us with a question. If we have three armoured brigades with two brigades worth of equipment (one prepositioned, one in Canada) west of the Ottawa River (excluding Petawawa and Ottawa) all designed as our major deterrence force and for the extreme eventuality of major conflict and we have CANSOFCOM and one Reg F light brigade and a half dozen to ten Res F light infantry and light reconnaissance battalions in the east for all other tasks and as a quick reaction force, do we really need another Reg F Mech bde gp?

I know I'm talking heresy here, but quite frankly, our deployments are totally discretionary. I've been advocating cutting headquarters above brigade level by 10,000 full-time positions for some time now in order to free up over a billion per year for equipment and O&M. Maybe it's time to cut a full-time brigade as well and free up another half billion and transfer it's equipment and O&M funding to the remaining force. Incidentally, I'm not so worried about Eng/Fr language issues, Regtl affiliations and regional distribution. Those are all small details that can be worked out if the big decision is ever made (I do, however, feel very strongly that we should not give up any Reg F or Res F infrastructure. We need to be widely distributed to keep our relevance to Canadians.)

:stirpot: