# Canadien Army Size?



## cash881 (20 Jul 2004)

Hey, this probably seems like a dumb question, but what is Canada's army size compared to the U.S?  The reason I ask is I met someone who was making fun of the 9/11 attacks and was saying how Canada had a way bigger army than the U.S and had way more money.  I figure that people at a website would know if that is true or not.


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## cash881 (20 Jul 2004)

Sorry about just spelling "Canadian" wrong.


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## AntiArmour Guy (20 Jul 2004)

The effective strength of the ENTIRE CF stands at approx 55 000 pers, with a budget of approx 8.2 Billion USD.   That is not even as big as the Marine Corps, let alone the US Army.   So this person posting on that site is quite possibly smoking crack. lol.

EDIT - Whooops...wrote million, meant billion... tks.


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## Scoobie Newbie (20 Jul 2004)

That includes sick, lame, and lazy.


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## PhilipJFry (20 Jul 2004)

AntiArmour Guy said:
			
		

> The effective strength of the ENTIRE CF stands at approx 55 000 pers, with a budget of approx 8.2 Million USD.  That is not even as big as the Marine Corps, let alone the US Army.  So this person posting on that site is quite possibly smoking crack. lol.



I think you meant billions of dollars.
With 8.2 Million $, each soldier in the CF would get at most 150$ per year.


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## Sundborg (20 Jul 2004)

Doesn't the Americans have something like 2 Million Regular and Reservists in all of their forces put together?


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## CDNBlackhawk (20 Jul 2004)

i think i read some where that they were 2.65 million, that included every one in every division and branch.


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## jmackenzie_15 (20 Jul 2004)

put it this way... ever seen star wars? the United States is the Empire.
they have enough troops to fight two wars like the one in iraq, and still defend the country from a major attack at the same time, and still have more left to counterattack.Their Military is gigantic, if they wanted to conquer the world and economy wasnt a factor , im sure they could take a good crack at it.

The Canadian army is outnumbered by the new york police department.The entire country is only the same population size of that city in the first place.
MARTIN! EXPAND THE MILITARY!!!!

we have the capacity to support a 100,000 man army, we have around 50,000 i think.On a brighter note:

A corporal in the canadian military could go to the US , and be in special forces.They have so many troops, they dont need to train them to as high of a standard as we do.It would take forever, and cost tons of money, and again, you dont need to because you can ovverrun everybody with the army they have, further training isnt necessary.Its all about numbers.

But, Canada has the second best trained infantry in the world.Number one is Israel if im not mistaken.


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## AntiArmour Guy (20 Jul 2004)

jmackenzie_15 said:
			
		

> But, Canada has the second best trained infantry in the world.Number one is Israel if im not mistaken.



I dunno mate... I'd lean towards the Aussies as being a bit better...


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## belkin81 (20 Jul 2004)

maybe the canadian infantry of 10 years ago, I roll my eyes when I hear from people our infantry is equal to special forces in the states or other countries.


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## Jarnhamar (20 Jul 2004)

the CF is 55'000 strong with our without the reserves?


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## AntiArmour Guy (20 Jul 2004)

Just checked my figures...  (all figures are rounded down)

Regular Force total - 61 500
Trained Eff Str - 52 500 (approx 1000 unaval for a variety of reasons)

Reserve Str - 21 000


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## Ex-Dragoon (20 Jul 2004)

jmmackenzie what do you base this statement on??

*A corporal in the canadian military could go to the US , and be in special forces.*

If you believe that you are listening to too many war stories.


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## Jarnhamar (20 Jul 2004)

I agree with Ex-Dragoon.
What?

Are you trying to imply canadian "corporals" in the army are so well trained they would easily be able to serve in the special forces of the US?
Or maybe you mean if a corporal doesn't like the job here they can go south and find more work?  I have a feeling it's the former to which i would say i've seen some corporals that i wouldn't trust lighting a stove.  I'm not trying to burn the CF and i'm as proud as the next guy about our soldiers but lets be realistic.


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## brneil (20 Jul 2004)

I happened to take leave at Christmas and went down to Disneyworld.  It was interesting to learn that there are 3000 more employees for Disneyworld than we have in the Forces.  Gives a twisted kind of perspective.


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## ags281 (20 Jul 2004)

> I met someone who was making fun of the 9/11 attacks and was saying how Canada had a way bigger army than the U.S and had way more money.



Congrats, you met an idiot.



> But, Canada has the second best trained infantry in the world



Pardon? Maybe back in the day this argument could be made. You know, back before all our experienced troops were paid to bail out, when not only were training standards higher but training actually happened. 

I'd be surprised if we're even in the top ten nowadays. If by some fluke we still are, don't hold your breath because we won't be for long. We are now beginning to see the full price of decades of mismanagement and neglect. Even if the government pulls a sharp 180 and actually puts some strong support behind the forces, it will still take a couple decades to put things right.


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## PARAMEDIC (20 Jul 2004)

;D ;D yeah the states are gonna need all their army if they try poking some bs up china's rear ;D ;D weapons of mass distraction
they'll get messed up bad...we have had that experince going againt chinese forces.remember the whistles and charges...
'yeah the only thing they can do is drop the bomb ...like all the wars or engaments they got into..personally i think our armed forces are and have always been 10 times more disciplined than the states...HOW THE HELL U DISOBEY A DIRECT ORDER AND KILL OUR TROOPS <<WHAT WAS HE FLYING AT 100FEET OFF THE GROUND THAT HE WAS AFRAID OF SMALL ARMS FIRE...pppshh please grow a bain and come up with a better excuse...i doubt any infantry or ground unit can target a supersonic jet with AK or any other damn small arms fire!! thought those planes were built so that they can take hits from AA guns and still make it back..or at least in they old days thats how they were built.

OH BTW the French Foreign Legion (legionaires) are the best trained infantry in the world (they make the seals look like puppies ;D )
thats what i feel
why i flew off the handle back there is i'm going infantry and if i ever get smoked by friendly fire...I'm gonna come back from the dead and haunt their ass!!
cheers


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## Scoobie Newbie (20 Jul 2004)

^^^^
Is this guy for real.  Hey dude put down SOCOM for PS2.


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## Jarnhamar (20 Jul 2004)

SAS beat the legion but the JTF would kill them if they have guns from the navy seals but probably not the GS9


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## Infanteer (20 Jul 2004)

This thread is an abortion.  If no one has anything meanful to say, then I'll lock it.


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## Sundborg (20 Jul 2004)

Let's look at population size and military size of both countries.

With Reg and Res force, Canada has roughly 80,000 troops.
The same with the USA, 2,500,000 troops. (just a rough figure)

Now, Canada has about 32 Million people, the USA has about 310 million.
The percentage of the population in the forces for Canada is 0.0025%
The percentage of the Population for the forces in USA is 0.0081%

With those #'s, that is about 3 times the amount per capita.  If we had the same amount per capita in the forces here in Canada, we would have 250,000 + - troops serving.  I doubt our country would ever get to that; if we had another 30,000 troops, that would be great.  I'm just hoping Martin will do a few things for the forces, but it's unlikely he will do much.


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## Gunnerlove (20 Jul 2004)

The question that we should be asking is how many combat ready troops does Canada have? If we put all the combat arms together what size force would we have. That is the number that counts. Strip away the two other branches from that 52 000 and what are we left with? Now take away the CSS trades and NDHQ, how big a sharp end do we have?

I bet it is about 10% of the Forces.

Anyone out there with the "real" numbers?


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## Lance Wiebe (20 Jul 2004)

The Armour is running around 2,000 all ranks.  Take away the officers on ERE and we have about 1,600.

I thought That the Infantry were running somewhere around 6,000, but I'm not 100% sure.

I really don't want to hazard a guess for the Artillery or Engineers.......


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## Firepower (20 Jul 2004)

http://www.armee.forces.gc.ca/lf/English/1_6_3.asp

Direct from the Army site, although it hasn't been updated in over a year.

Approximate strength of Army (Regular Force):  	19, 500
Approximate strength of Army (Reserve Force): 	15, 500
Approximate number of civilians employed by the Army: 	4, 200

The numbers seem small, but they are probably better then some of the guesses here.

It's hard to find out because of this damned combined elements, so the numbers are skewed.



US Army (info from http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june04/army_1-13.html)

Currently, there are 499,000 active duty Army troops, backed up by 700,000 National Guard and Army reservists.

Taken from a news site so take it with a grain of salt. An of course that doesn't even begin to touch the Navy(an their Marines) an the Air Force.


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## shaboing (21 Jul 2004)

brneil said:
			
		

> I happened to take leave at Christmas and went down to Disneyworld.   It was interesting to learn that there are 3000 more employees for Disneyworld than we have in the Forces.   Gives a twisted kind of perspective.





			
				CFL said:
			
		

> ^^^^
> Is this guy for real.  Hey dude put down SOCOM for PS2.


first, that is insane about the disney numbers, i'm been there quite a few times and i never thought there would be that many people working there, haha. 
and second, socom is a great game, haha. owning them americans is what i do best, WOO

ok, i'm done


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## mista_mo (23 Jul 2004)

damn..I had no ideawe had so few people in the armed forces..I thought it was around 66,000 without reserves..idiot friend of mine said we have 33,000 with reserves and the U.S. has 30 million people in it's armed forces..yea..


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## Gunner (23 Jul 2004)

> Canadian Army Size?



Geez, don't you know by now that size doesn't matter?   ;D


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## ags281 (24 Jul 2004)

Gunner said:
			
		

> Geez, don't you know by now that size doesn't matter?     ;D



You're right, but what you do with it does matter, and we're not getting many points on that front recently either


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## Long in the tooth (26 Jul 2004)

A good indicator of the dominance of the US military is what they expect of their navy:

1)  Fight an intensive naval campain against one major power and win decisively;
2)  Engage and aggressively push back two other powers; and
3)  Conduct operations to deny free naval access against four other powers.

ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY

Before the 80s (when there army was reduced from 24 to 12 divisions) they were prepared to fight 2 1/2 high intensity wars (ie, Soviets in Germany and N Korea on the peninsula).  I guess they're only capable of 1 1/2 or 2, now....


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