I took some quotes form an discusion on the future of the armoured corps on an official forum on LFRR. Just figured i could add some fuel to this fire. It is not so much LAV III yes/no? as it is a look at the tactical, doctrinal, and other such philosophical aspects that are relavent to deciding IF we should go all LAV or pursue other options. They bring up some good points, and some we have already seen.
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WO S MacDougall, 8CH
We can train for war with whatever we are given. It has always been so. The only question is how well we will be trained. In addition to training, we must also be equipped for war. An armoured cav veh does not miraculously turn itself into a tank when needed. A future conflict requiring a tank regiment needs a tank regts worth of kit prior to any commitment of forces. Three of four widely separated sqns of tanks, in different regts don‘t give us the ability to put a regt into the field when required. A battle group going up against an armour equipped enemy must have tanks, not ACVs. One tank sqn per brigade severely limits the brigade commanders options.
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One more thing I must mention..the idea of anyone in the Army actually suggesting that we do more with less as if it were a policy upsets me greatly. Certainly, as soldiers we must persevere and work through whatever shortages we encounter. However, we should not be telling our political masters that in the future we can pretend that this or that will suffice as a bandaid for the real stuff. This only places another nail in the coffin of our effectiveness. I do not believe that pulling our punches when we talk about roles, tasks, capabilites or equipment is in the best interest of the nation. The Army needs a sufficient quantity of modern equipment to train for war, and to conduct operations in the future as part of any allianace or international force in which we are involved. This means that the Reserves must hold a certain amount of the same equipment and have access to more, in order to be prepared to do our part in any future operation or conflict.
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Just answer (to yourself) this one question..who predicted any of the wars, police actions, conflicts or operations that this nation‘s military has participated in, over the last 100+ years, with enough lead time to create policy, doctrine and a budget to fit it? You continually preach the lesser prepared format because we don‘t know what we will be up against. That is the reason we must be prepared to participate in a broad spectrum of operations and tasks..we just don‘t know what will be next.
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G.M. Towhey
. . . Defence of Canada scenarios inevitably reduce to protracted guerilla-style defence in depth, demanding significantly increased anti-armour capabilities pre-positioned throughout the country.
Clearly, Canadian Forces also require the ability to project force abroad and in this role there is a definite need for armour in order to succeed. However, this suggests relatively modest numbers of ally-compatible, readily transportable, light or medium tanks. Again, anti-armour capabilities must also be improved.
Another truism is that Canadian Forces will not have a window of opportunity to buy new armoured vehicles once the decision has been made to commit to battle. The next shooting engagement will be a "come as you are war". Such was the case in Korea, Cyprus, the Gulf War, Medac, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and it will be the case next time.
The idea of training regular or reserve "tankers" in "tank trainers" a la Cougars is, was, and always will be simply ludicrous. How much of my infantry career was spent lining up my Grizzlies behind Cougars on the final assault? As if the Cougars offered any more protection than my own armoured shell.
Here was the Cougar: definitely not a tank, but rather a lightly armoured, relatively low-maintenance, low-cost vehicle, with an acceptable direct fire weapon system against soft-skin targets, capable of rapid deployment at up to 100Km/h on paved roads. A relatively decent direct fire support vehicle for infantry.
Did anyone ever develop a single comma of doctrine or tactical procedure that made any use whatsoever of the vehicle‘s capabilities? No. Never.
Instead, we pretended it was a heavy tank and taught blackhatters to lumber around the battlefield in swift, light vehicles as if they were 60 tonne behemoths going "toe to toe" with T-80‘s.
Whatever the weapon system assigned to future regular or reserve armour units, please God, let them have the sense to use it wisely.
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Maj BD Sallows, 12 Med Coy
I note the US Army is not completely moving to a more rapidly deployable structure in lieu of heavy armour. They are hedging by retaining heavy weight forces while they develop medium weight forces and the tank of the future. Perhaps it is appropriate, useful, and affordable for Canada to focus on a medium weight force, particularly the Regular Force - and this does not exclude armoured, tracked, turreted vehicles.
Having raised the question of whether tank trainers are of use, I agree they do not serve well in the "come as you are war", nor should we assume that in any future "struggle for national survival war" that we will have the luxury of being the only nation making demands on the industries of Canada and its allies. Whatever weapons required by our doctrine and force structure, we should always have some on hand.
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LCol Tom Burns
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One of the themes that has emerged is the contention that, as we cannot accurately forecast the scope of future operations, we should re-focus our doctrine, training & equipping to be more "realistic" & affordable. The thinking goes like this: There is an operational continuum that starts at Humanitarian Assistance operations and extends all the way up to High Intensity(HI)war. We have not been involved in HI ops since Korea. We are pinched for funds. Therefore we would be wise to focus on, say, the mid 80% of the operational continuum. With such a focus, we can rationalize an Army that does not require the capability to conduct HI combat ops. Supporters of this line of thought cite the Revolution in Military Affairs(RMA) and the assymetrical nature of war in the 21st century as reasons we should cast aside HI capabilities in favour of lighter, more projectable forces tailored to the "niche" operations falling in the mid 80% of the Operational Continuum that we will undertake.This estimate is badly flawed for two reasons.
Firstly, the reason we have an Army is because, in a country like ours, the Army alone has the ability to respond to situations in which no other organizations can be effective. Situations like Op Abacus, Oka, Gustavson Lake, the Medak Pocket come to mind. These situations are put in that order because they span the Operational Continuum from low to high. In addition, they are all situations which started off as relatively minor issues and, through Assymetry, quickly escalated into major undertakings which strained Army capabilities.
The second flaw derives from the first. Why was the Army effective in dealing with those situations? It was effective because we are trained for HI ops. Because of that we retain the C3 capabilities to deal with any situation and the combat power to deal with a shooting war, however unforseen & undesired. If we ever lose our capapility to undertake HI ops, we will soon thereafter see the corresponding C3 capabilities deteriorate to the point of uselessness.
Given the Assymetry of War in the 21st Century, what do we see that provides comfort that HI ops will not be required? Nothing. What can undertake HI ops other than the well trained, well equipped & well led combined arms team? Nothing. Has the RMA rendered tanks, guns, engrs, sigs & inf supported by CSS obsolete? No.
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Sgt A Stagg
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‘Trainer‘ vehicles are a next to useless cost savings. In Mob 1 deployments, the pers need to be completely re-trained to use the ‘real‘ vehicle. In 2/3/4 deployments, the required depth of vehs to actually deploy the tps simply doesn‘t exist. (Remember that UNIMOG took Rad Vans from almost every Sig Res unit in Canada to meet the op reqr. Image if it had been Leopards, SP Howitzers, or Coyotes that were required!!) Just as impotantly, a trainer veh has completely different logistics requirements. How much fuel does a track burn in moving 250km? How about a ‘trainer‘? Will the Res Officer who can‘t be trusted to lead the tps in battle know how much fuel is actually required when preparing the Log plan? (OK, trainers can be used to great advantage but it is essential the the actual kit be abvailable, assigned, and frequently used to ensure that pers are actually abnle to operate it. After that, we can work on saving money.)
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G.M. Towhey
. . . that the Army must train for worst case scenarios. I have often talked about the "myth of peacekeeping" in presentations I give here and there. The great myth is that peacekeeping is "nicer" than fighting. That peacekeepers are kinder than soldiers. The reality, even in Cyprus, was often more like: the best peacekeepers are the toughest SOB‘s on the block. Only combat-trained soldiers can effectively keep the peace, even in classic Cyprus style situations. In the new era where everything is called "peace" this or "peace" that, thinly disguised euphemisms for warfare, combat skills are even more important. The great irony is that the Canadian Forces all but invented the Myth of Peacekeeping, and it may prove to be their undoing. Alas, another discussion for another time.
. . . There never was a war where the soldiers crossed the start line with all the kit they wanted. There never will be such a war. The "give me tanks" or send me home argument doesn‘t really wash. I say, better to contribute a force that can win, than a force that looks good on an overhead slide. This means, tailoring the force structure to the likely missions. . .
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Canada should equip its forces with the best available equipment to meets its strategic needs. Because they may ultimately have to defend Canada, we should equip our forces with the best equipment for this task. We should then look for opportunites to contribute in a meaningful way to our collective defence allies within the scope of our domestic defence abilities.
Tanks are the best weapon system to destroy other tanks. There is, however, no heavy armour threat to Canada . . .
To meet our own domestic deployment requirements as well as our strategy of forward action, our forces must be easily transportable. If the role we choose to fill as part of our collective defence agreements is light or medium armour, then we should offer that in force to NATO. If it‘s artillery, let‘s do that. If it‘s highly transportable, highly trained combat forces, as I believe it probably should be, let‘s do that.
Whatever it is, let‘s do it better than anyone else. Being perfect isn‘t necessary. Being better is.
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WO S MacDougall
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I am CAVALRY. I will always be CAVALRY and I strongly believe that this army and the Armoured Corps need a light armoured, highly mobile, well armed vehicle, to be used in formations such as a Cav Btl Gp. I agree that we will never go to war, except as part of an alliance. I agree that we should use North American built equipment. Most of all, I agree that a specialization for our army, within the framework of our alliances would be best. However I think that we should not put all our eggs in one basket. One of our problems seems to be that we want all our formations to look the same.
Why does each Armoured Regt have to be the same. Why can‘t 1 Brigade be "heavy" and 5 Brigade be "medium" and 2 Brigade be "light". Why not have one Reg Force unit specialize in tanks, while the others specialize in light armour, while maintaining a small tank capability (1/2 sqn?). The Reserve units in the applicable area would train to augment the Reg Force brigade as required. Some units (Reg and Res) should have "national tasks" (especially in LFAA since there is no Reg Force formation).
I am not a proponent of busting the bank to outfit three full regts with M1 tanks. I am suggesting that the same number of tanks we have now, distributed differently, might be the plan. As for light armoured vehicles..first we would have to make up our (collective) min/motorized unit, the CAR was sent because it was "fair." So, we stripped a mech unit of vehicles and drivers (thus disabling a battalion) and re-trained the airborne in mech ops so they could be sent overseas. Would it not have made more sense to send the mech unit in the first place? Oh, yeah, sorry. It wasn‘t their "turn".
You‘ve identified a key structural design principle: Build to task.
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If you want to read through the whole thing it (and several other discusions on LFRR) is at:
http://www.army.dnd.ca/cgi-bin/forum/ultraboard.pl
Yard Ape
Now if we could get a LAV III for TSM/BSM‘s veh and a SP version for the 105 now your talking and don‘t forget a CP version. (that would be our best recruiting tool you could find.)
and to top it off it‘d be nice to happen before I pull the pin. Ah well wishful thinking
