Where were some of the places the Canadian military did weapons R&D during the wars?

chofo said:
NRC Ottawa ... developed high explosives like RDX .
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RDX has been known for over 100 years, it certainly was not developed in Canada, although they may have done formulation work at some point, but then again who has not.
 
In fact, Gros. Ile in Quebec was used as a production site for anthrax spores for R&D programs that were going on between Canada Britain and U.S.A. during WWII. They even had an incident where spores were thought to have escaped and contaminated a small portion of the island.
There was a great eye opening book written on the subject of Canadas Bio and Chem experiments called Deadly Allies by John Bryden. I picked it up by chance in a used book store. It was a hell of a read.
Pales in comparison to the japanese unit 731 experiments though. Those may be the darkest depravities ever dreamt up by a human mind.
 
tokguy said:
I've worked in the Base at Suffield for a few years, seen some neat stuff out there. Arriving to work on the Graveyard shift in the South end. Passing Landrovers filling sandbags by headlights with a light tower in the distance... someone found a mustard gas round. Nice... and only a mile or two from the rig; hmmmm which way is the wind blowing? They were sandbagging it in and (if the man knew his story straight) incinerating where it lay , rather than risk moving it.
And the Bio-chem testing...spooky...
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it's not mustard gas- it's some of the "natural" gas left over from all the troops that passed through those gates- it got more dense when the brits came over with their stek and kidney pies and yorkshire pudding
 
osbourne head, nova scotia. naval gunner range. some odd stuff was shot out of there. highwater quebec- the home range of dr.gerald bull. he designed the longest range artillary in the world there.
 
Greenfields said:
Meaford ontario was rumoured to have been used for testing.
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Yes, as I under stand is the Navy use to use the area to bombard from the lake. When I was in the army, they fire 105mm arty's there. Areas used for Infantry training are littered with unexploded ordinance. Some of it is at the surface. We had to leave an area because of exposed shells...
 
Yogi05 said:
Ottawa/Orleans. DND owned a vehicle test site there for decades. I can't confirm this but I heard of testing of... I'll call them "cruise missles" in the late 60's (cold war) over this property and the surrounding area. Orleans was a fraction of the size it is now and the only substantial community was Blackburn Hamelet and this is where I heard the story from an old timer there. Said he saw them flying around.

RCMP currently owns the property for their post garage and I think the bomb disposal unit is there now. Huge place.
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When the Canadian Army operated LETE in Orleans, it should be no surpise that they would use it for trials when the larger bases would be inconvenient. Artillery surveillance drones are old technology, and Canadair had something shaped like a flying peanut. Canada never bought them, but they sold well in Europe.

LETE was the Land Engineering Test Establishment. That means vehicles. The incline ramps and driving loops are still there. It really isn't very big. Besides an operations centre, the RCMP's technical and protective services are located there. The national Emergency Response Team have their "man cave" there too, with climbing walls, weapons lockups, ready lockers, vehicle garages .... It is quite the place! But it is not the sort of place where you just go and hang out.
 
"the former" Uniroyal chemical in Elmira Ontario was a significant producer of agent orange during the cold war. Morons decided to bury thousands of steel drums on the town's east side. I remember the cleanup in the early '90s, water was undrinkable and their property was patrolled by military police (so i hear) who knows what exactly went on there... but I'm sure we didn't get the whole story.
 
roadblock 12x3 said:
"the former" Uniroyal chemical in Elmira Ontario was a significant producer of agent orange during the cold war. Morons decided to bury thousands of steel drums on the town's east side. I remember the cleanup in the early '90s, water was undrinkable and their property was patrolled by military police (so i hear) who knows what exactly went on there... but I'm sure we didn't get the whole story.
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They are still there, changed their name to Crompton, then to Chemtura. Same plant, same toxins (which are stored in a covered stage area on Church St next to the cemetery). The upper aquifer is polluted,... still, they say they are cleaning it up but it will take time. The Deep aquafer is very polluted and will not be able to be cleaned up. If you didn't' know, the aquifers are so polluted water is piped in to supply Elmira & area. What bites, is the pollution is heading south and will hit Guelph within then next few years...They have also just come out of bankruptcy protection so if they fail it's out tax dollars that will pay..

And I believe the police were there to keep collectors off of the property. See it's built on an old town dump site full of rare glass bottles..
 
The modern day version of LETE or what ever its called has a large group of buildings up against the airport. I saw a stryker there a couple years ago.

fugawi said:
The dark side of Canada's military efforts in WW2.
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To play defence you also needed to play offense and try to be ahead of the development curve on some of these things.

During ww2 we had a lancaster bomber filled with weaponized anthrax ready to be dropped over germany. I'm just happy it never came to that.
 
C.A.L. Longbranch did all kinds of R+D during ww2 and after ..they helped devolop the em2 and the FN ..many changes done to the FN cuz of work done at C.a.L. by both our team and H+R team sent up here by the U.S. to help develop the FN ..they did all kinds of work on the bren and developed several types of snipers and lightweight .303s/7.62
 
woodchopper said:
Suffield, AB - biochem weapons
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Actually in going through the old paperwork during the mustard/nerve agent disposal done in the late '80's, early '90's, a lot of ballistic work was carried out here on mortars and artillery. Medicine Hat also had a machine works that produced artillery projectiles during the war. Everybody just remembers the city for the Commonwealth Air Training Plan and the POW camp.
 
Robert0288 said:
The modern day version of LETE or what ever its called has a large group of buildings up against the airport. I saw a stryker there a couple years ago.
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You're not thinking of the buidlings between the Ottawa airport and Albion rd are you? That is a NRC facility. Center for Surface Transportation Technology. Testing trains, road vehicles and military vehicles like LAV's. They share the southeast fenceline of the airport (more or less).
 
"Dominion Rubber" at Cap de Madelaine, Quebec ( headstamp TR ) were trying to develop an aluminum 20mm Oerlikon shell late in the war, but gave it up because they were just too soft to feed well into the guns and jammed them up like hell. These aluminum rounds were tested just a few miles away at Nicolet, Quebec as well.

Cheaper and lighter for sure, but just no good. Apparenty, the anvil for the berdan primer was also too soft for reliable ignition... but it was mostly the jamming. Anyways, they worked on it a long time... I have a complete aluminum round that my Mom gave me ( empty, of course) a long, long time ago. She took it home after a night shift as a souvenir. They are dated 1944.

As far as the NRC goes, well, I wasn't around then so I don't have first hand information on the extent of their involvment with RDX, but my Old Man always said that RDX was perfected here in Canada at the NRC (?) ... well, who knows.

As a mechanical contractor around Ottawa, I've done quite a bit of work at the old lab at 100 Sussex Avenue and I swear there's a plaque somewhere that mentions this RDX explosive. I'll look for more info next time I'm in there.

Anyways...this from Wiki, for what it's worth..

>>>
>>The NRC itself helped develop radar, the proximity fuse, the explosive RDX, high velocity artillery, fire control computers and submarine detection equipment among other things. The NRC Examination Unit innovated in the field of cryptology. The NRC's Atomic Energy Project ushered in the Atomic Age with the development of the world's most powerful research reactor (NRX), as well as the start-up of the first reactor outside the United States (ZEEP), at its Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories (see below).[4]>>>
 
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