Yep and it was Feb 1968 it came effective although it was a done deal in 67. It was a sad day for all 3 services. Turdeau Sr. came later on.
Picture of the day
- Thread starter jwhc
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Yep and it was Feb 1968 it came effective although it was a done deal in 67. It was a sad day for all 3 services. Turdeau Sr. came later on.
Spending the day strolling through The Military Museums of Calgary on Monday, it was hard not to notice the long tradition of the Liberal Party's failures in military leadership. The Lord Stratcona's Light Horse was an entirely privately funded regiment, because Laurier didn't feel the pressing need to support England in the Boer War...
Between the World Wars, our "armoured" units built plywood mockup tanks on commercial vehicle chassis, because the McKenzie King government wouldn't fund actual armored vehicles.
Force unification in the late 60's... De-funding in the 70's... Base closures in the 90s...
Almost every major setback in the organization and structure of the CAF can be traced to a Liberal government.
I was serving then and NOTHING could have been more damaging to the morale of the three services than the unification. It was callous and done with malice aforethought.
Sailors and Airmen in GREEN uniforms? Traditional rank structures gone? Brilliant thinking .....
Sailors and Airmen in GREEN uniforms? Traditional rank structures gone? Brilliant thinking .....
I knew a pilot at 400Sqn who flew 104's in Germany. He provided a number of personal observations: in the nuke role the tactic was to fly in low and fast and to "throw or toss" the bomb while climbing rapidly then to roll back down to low level for the 'return' trip (if there was one) like horseshoes: close counted when the bomb was tossed. He mentioned that during the period he was flying them nothing else with a man in it could catch it a low level and had an incident where he was tracked by a Warsaw pact aircraft that he lost relatively easily when he dropped to low altitude. We discussed the unusual incidence of Luftwaffe 104's that speared the ground and it was his theory that the additional navigational avionics that they carried made the aircraft 'more' unstable. He had nothing but good memories flying that aircraft. But back then there were so few rides that nobody #####ed when got a turn!
Malice for sure..the military had the lions share of the budget and public attention (and admiration) for too long and so the long daggers came out...courtesy of all the jealous Mandarins in Ottawa. It also saw the resignation and termination of many of the 'lions' we had developed during WWll and those trained by lions post war!
The Wizard
CGN Regular
- Location
- Colorado Springs, Colorado USA
I read in my home town paper that Canada is reviewing its military. Any comments?
Eaglelord17
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Sault Ste. Marie
You can just as easily blame the Conservative governments. AVRO Arrow, continuous weakening under Maloney, Campbell, Harper (yes he has weakened the military, he left it at the same spending point we were at in the decade of darkness). At least the last Trudeau was forced to buy all the kit we currently use. Actually thinking on it, most of our major procurements were actually done by the Liberals.
Reality is all the political parties don't care about the military. Blaming one side is just a biased way to look at it.
Look at it this way. Everything Trudeau senior put in place for tge CF, Mulroney financed and procured. Everything Mulrony put in place, Cretian cancelled. Harper inherited a military with zero capital projects in place. We bought like crazy during the war, used it up like crazy too. What no one figured was that wars wear gear out and it all needs to be replaced at the end of the war.
Eaglelord17
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Sault Ste. Marie
Having been on the subs, and knowing the history and why they don't work, it is actually Canadas fault they are in repair, not the UKs.
First off, when it was offered to us, we took a long time to make up our minds to accept them. The Brits weren't expecting this long wait, and were more or less lead on to believing we would except them quickly. Because we didn't, they sat in salt water, stationary without repair or maintenance for over a year.
The next part of the saga, was the fact we decided to 'Canadianize' them, by ripping out the British systems in the subs and replacing them with American systems so we could use the Mk. 48 torpedos we had in stock instead of buying the British torpedos, and sub-harpoons they had (it likely cost us much more to replace the systems than it simply would have cost to buy the British armaments). Basically it is like deciding you want a Toyota engine in your Ford (or any other engine in any other vehicle), it can be done, however once you are done it would have been cheaper to leave it alone, and it is questionable if it added anything to the table.
The third part of the saga is since they are constantly sitting in drydock being repaired, they are not capable of sailing, and are only now starting to come online again. That being said, when they do sail, they are actually really good submarines. We did a exercise in Hawaii a couple years ago (RIMPAC) where we brought a sub along. That one sub succeeded in destroying the Aircraft Carrier in the middle of the ring of steel, and all the ships around it, as they never were even able to detect them.
Its easy to try and point blame, but the reality is that all the political parties are antipathetic to our military. None of them really give a damn, and saying one side does and the other side doesn't is complete ignorance. The military has been mismanaged and funded for years, but no one wants to fix it, as that means altering the status quo and the amount of effort required for that to succeed would be enormous (likely much more political pressure than any party is willing to spend). Instead they all claim they are helping, and by doing things that have little cost and effect (like renaming units), try to make it seem that they do care.
So that can explain all the sub standard welds that had to be cut out and rewelded or the fire and death of a sailor trying to get one over to Canada ?? Sorry if I do not buy into the reasoning as to why the subs are a fail. As for your point that all the equipment used today was Liberal purchased, well they did not buy the CC117s/Chinooks/Leo2/Umpteen flavours of MRAPs/Stand up CSOR/CC130Js/LAVs/M777.......
Eaglelord17
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Sault Ste. Marie
I never said all equipment, I said most major equipment (CF-18s, the whole Canadian Navy, etc.). I also don't solely blame one side for the state our military is in. You might not be able to see past your political blinders, however I can simply because I don't follow any political party blindly (as a classical Liberal, there is no political party which represents all my values, they are all sprinkled in most parties). Even in your examples, some of the things were done by Liberals, not Conservatives (CSOR, the LAVs, the M777s were done under the Liberals not the Conservatives). The Conservatives had there chance to fix the military, but instead the ball keeps getting kicked down the road. All political parties are equally to blame for the state of our military, blaming one side over the other will not solve the problem. Instead looking at what we need we focus on who to blame.
If you would like to read about the subs, here is a good article. Yes there were some issues, that being said the price we paid for 4 very good submarines couldn't be beat anywhere else. We did a fair bit of it ourselves as mentioned above.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/sub-support-contract-creating-canadian-controversy-04563/
Also since this is the picture of the day thread, not a debate the military thread, here is a photo.
I guess the great savings in those very good submarines allowed the Liberals to buy the correct uniforms for Afghanistan and something other then a Iltis with a Kevlar mat on the floor. And fear naught I will freely admit the CPC dropped the ball a couple times but between the two I would rather have a Conservative calling the shots then some Liberal tool.
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- Location
- WMU247 near Edmonton
I concure. Having lived thru the 90's and half way between CD1 and CD2 now.
Eaglelord17
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Sault Ste. Marie
I never said the Liberals did nothing wrong, just saying the blame is on both sides of the fence. I do agree that I would rather see a Conservative government at the moment (especially once the budget comes out, a estimated 25-30 billion deficit, plus the only things Trudeau has actually done so far is remove accountability from Unions and the Natives, which is unacceptable). Even the Iltis wasn't a bad piece of kit, provided your using it as it was intended, not as it ended up being used.
