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C3 Howitzer Replacement

Sounds like a business opportunity.
Yes and no.

Even setting up a small arms barrel line is a multiple million dollar event, and without SME’s to assist and a skilled workforce it’s going to take time to make right.

Watervliet Arsenal in NY is the only US Domestic cannon barrel manufacturer that I am aware of. (and it is a US Army Arsenal)

There is no domestic market for commercial howitzer or tank barrels (sadly). So it’s a niche that doesn’t have any real ROI unless you are the government and it’s simply a national security issue.
 
Making a barrel requires a lot more than a lathe. The lathe is the easiest and cheapest of the components needed to make a rifled barrel. It deals with external profile and (depending on setup type) possibly chambering.

You still need a barrel drill
Yup still sure the old set up is sitting in the warehouse. As the new requirement would be different a new one could be manufactured and or bought. Same as Australia is doing right now
Then either a broaching machine, a hammer forge, or a cut rifle setup.
We have Hammer forges across the country, the largest I believe are in Quebec. Again Australia is tooling up to do this same thing.
Then a polishing press, and an internal and external coating system.
We have some of the largest coating systems in the world here in Western Canada, depending on the coating required and the specs. If we don't have it guess what it can be built. Same as Australia is doing. I am pretty sure we already have capacity for this.
Plus a Heat Treatment, and the raw materials.
We actually have lots of heat treating systems across the country, wet and dry, inductive etc. As the requirement gets bigger so does the equipment. That's how all that fancy high pressure, specialty treated Oilfield/ industrial equipment gets manufactured. Some of the facilities are enormous. I walked into a heat treating building one time. They had different setups for different treatments, coatings etc inside with smaller ovens, dip bins. The building itself was built for heat treating metals flanges. It was big enough to put six tanks inside or maybe bigger.
Their other building was made to heat treat small vessels. They also had a cryo system.
None of those are cheap, small or easily acquired for a howitzer sized barrel.
Again Australia has started from scratch in 2017, building, buying and installing the equipment for their fleet of Abrams. last I looked we have more Leopards then they have Abrams.

All of this comes down more to political will and the Military understanding their requirements and pushing for them then the actual cost of the project. Just look at the shipbuilding scam going on. They are throwing money at the system when we could just buy from some where else that already has capacity.
We actually (can) have the capacity expertise and facilities in short to produce, build, forge and manufacture Heavy Armored vehicles. We could produce parts etc. We do for many of the electronic systems, engines etc for other Military projects around the world. It is a change of mindset required at various levels. ,
 
Many companies have actually put on multiple shifts and doubled if not tripled production. Few are admitting it publicly, as they don’t want a glut in the market and the price driven down for any negotiations.

No one wants to be beholding to anyone for basic artillery ammunition, one can see the export issues facing Germany with some of the Swiss components and complete munitions. You want to be able to do what you want with your munitions, not ask someone for permission to buy or give to someone else in need.
Kevin you are going to be see tons of on shoring and the like in more than just weapons all over the supply chain. You will like this.....I dont understand CAF/Gov buying European or other over the US option in most cases. One we won't be a position for the US to withhold something because they disagree with it. Canada is not going on a mission that pisses the US off and we won't be fighting the US. LOL and most of the time it will help logistics to have the US systems anyway.

That being said I do think if we can do a few things ourselves go for it. LAV, ships (but with US systems I get that ITAR is a pain) etc. Plus there is that rare time that than not looking like the US army is helpful. IE 80's and 90's peacekeeping. Fine buy a few European trucks.
 
US capacity is strained right now to replace what has been transferred to UKR and build more realistic stockpiles.

Anything Canada needs that's not immediately off the shelf from the US will be sourced elsewhere.
 
US capacity is strained right now to replace what has been transferred to UKR and build more realistic stockpiles.

Anything Canada needs that's not immediately off the shelf from the US will be sourced elsewhere.
I was meaning over the longer term. Not for stuff this minute. Like why did we buy a Renault truck sourced from the Russian plant from Mack Defence that came from the Arquus division of Volvo with a stop at Provost Car? When you could have just purchased the Oskosh with a stop at the London Mixers plant?
 
Because based on the SOR and related evaluation criteria, as written by CAF and DND, the Renault met the requirements better than Oskosh.
 
Even setting up a small arms barrel line is a multiple million dollar event, and without SME’s to assist and a skilled workforce it’s going to take time to make right.
For artillery barrels, I'm curious how many millions to get a plant set up, and what the minimum crew would be to keep it ticking over on a knowledge creation/preservation basis.

If there was ever a time to wave current events under the government's nose and encourage a National Armaments Strategy, it's now. There's likely also a vague. diffuse increase in public awareness of what various bits of kit can do, even if only from HIMARS and St Javelin memes.
 
For artillery barrels, I'm curious how many millions to get a plant set up, and what the minimum crew would be to keep it ticking over on a knowledge creation/preservation basis.
It all depends on how you are doing it.

But for a barrel drill, polish/honing station, cut rifle or button broach - all of those will be 225% the length of the longest barrel you want to do, and figured a good 10ft wide - and need to be properly shock isolated from each other.
A Hammer forge doesn't need to have as much length as the rotary hammer assembly travels down the length - and the mandrel is a short length and for longer barrels you can add push segments to the mandrel rod, larger capital cost than button broaching, or cut rifling - but generally a faster and more uniform barrel, as well as longer lasting due to the compacting of the material around the mandrel.

You could do it for a tad under 20M USD, but that would be a highly manual process and require a bunch of skilled machinists, as well additional laborers. You'd need about 5 master machinists / shift, 15 or so machinists, and probably near 45 laborers - plus 10-15 QA/QC folks

For around 120M USD you could get a fairly automated system that doesn't require a lot of manual work - and barrel blanks could be loaded into the feeder and a finished (chambered, profiled, polished, threaded both for muzzle break (if wanted) and bore evacuator etc) at the end of the station. You could get away with a much smaller team there - probably 12-20 folks/shift - and some QA/QC folks (4-5)

You then most likely need a heat treat vacuum oven that is large enough to take a lot of barrels - as you will want to machine the alloy in an annealed state - and heat treat it to a harder state.

Then add in coating - most are extremely hazardous so a separate area of the plant to internally coat the barrel - and an exterior coating application of a CARC etc type paint *another hazardous material that needs to be isolated - plus a drying oven to cure the paint


None of that account for the land/building. Hence why I think a Crown Corp would be the only viable way.
DND used to own the GFM's at Diemaco, I would assume nothing has changed there with the Colt acquisition, and rebranding to Colt Canada, then the CZ acquisition of Colt - none of those would do anything this size - but there does exist a precedent for the .Gov owning the machinery.
If there was ever a time to wave current events under the government's nose and encourage a National Armaments Strategy, it's now. There's likely also a vague. diffuse increase in public awareness of what various bits of kit can do, even if only from HIMARS and St Javelin memes.


Yup still sure the old set up is sitting in the warehouse. As the new requirement would be different a new one could be manufactured and or bought. Same as Australia is doing right now

We have Hammer forges across the country, the largest I believe are in Quebec. Again Australia is tooling up to do this same thing.

We have some of the largest coating systems in the world here in Western Canada, depending on the coating required and the specs. If we don't have it guess what it can be built. Same as Australia is doing. I am pretty sure we already have capacity for this.

We actually have lots of heat treating systems across the country, wet and dry, inductive etc. As the requirement gets bigger so does the equipment. That's how all that fancy high pressure, specialty treated Oilfield/ industrial equipment gets manufactured. Some of the facilities are enormous. I walked into a heat treating building one time. They had different setups for different treatments, coatings etc inside with smaller ovens, dip bins. The building itself was built for heat treating metals flanges. It was big enough to put six tanks inside or maybe bigger.
Their other building was made to heat treat small vessels. They also had a cryo system.

Again Australia has started from scratch in 2017, building, buying and installing the equipment for their fleet of Abrams. last I looked we have more Leopards then they have Abrams.

All of this comes down more to political will and the Military understanding their requirements and pushing for them then the actual cost of the project. Just look at the shipbuilding scam going on. They are throwing money at the system when we could just buy from some where else that already has capacity.
We actually (can) have the capacity expertise and facilities in short to produce, build, forge and manufacture Heavy Armored vehicles. We could produce parts etc. We do for many of the electronic systems, engines etc for other Military projects around the world. It is a change of mindset required at various levels. ,
There is a big difference between doing stuff under license with the support of the OEM and original host nation, and starting from zero.

I do not see a viable market for this in Canada, as there is no DND/GC buy in.
The key to your whole argue is your ending sentence - it does require a mindset change -- until then, I don't see Canada being a viable nation for any of that.
 
We could not even have a Canadian Company build a simple 4x4 jeep like vehicle and not screw it up for Canadian Content rules.

Building a barrel making company for Canadian use is crazy. Looking up Canadian Equipment, there 98 C3 in stock. ( how many need barrels I do not know) 28 LG 1 Mark II 105mm.
How many barrels a year would they be making? 10 maybe 15 a year if that?

Cheapest way ( and Canada is cheap ) would be a purchase thru the American Army to replace barrels. Not sure if they would be a direct fit or not.

Just time for the 105 to be replaced with a newer gun system which other NATO countries operate and we form a deal to buy guns and spares together.
 
1669151533287.png1669151567100.png

Roshel's Senator and EarthRoamer's LTi are both Ford F550s - as are these.

1669151664979.png1669151708996.png1669151805219.png

Logistics Vehicle Modernization (Light)

Ford F550
Chevrolet Silverado 5500 HD
Dodge Ram 5500

Locally available -
 
my point was the iltis, the CF paid to have it made and they sold it to other nations cheaper and could not move past.
Who else are they going to sell barrels to?

Sorry FHG - I was responding to the general tenor of the thread. Not to you particularly.

I take your point. Foreign military sales seems to be a bit of a mugs game. Kind of like buying insurance. You buy it cheap when you don't need it. Few guarantees it will be available when you do need it.

The only guarantee is the homegrown ability to produce the weapons you need at home yourself. Which is why I brought up the LVM(L) project.

I was taken by the fact the Roshel Senator is little more than a pimped out F550. There are lots of shops across Canada and the US engaged in precisely that business. And yet we don't seem to be able to come up with a Defence Industrial Strategy that parlays that capability.
 
Sorry FHG - I was responding to the general tenor of the thread. Not to you particularly.

I take your point. Foreign military sales seems to be a bit of a mugs game. Kind of like buying insurance. You buy it cheap when you don't need it. Few guarantees it will be available when you do need it.

The only guarantee is the homegrown ability to produce the weapons you need at home yourself. Which is why I brought up the LVM(L) project.

I was taken by the fact the Roshel Senator is little more than a pimped out F550. There are lots of shops across Canada and the US engaged in precisely that business. And yet we don't seem to be able to come up with a Defence Industrial Strategy that parlays that capability.
it is a cool truck, looks tough. I saw it this morning on facebook, Roshel Senator looks tough
 
I was taken by the fact the Roshel Senator is little more than a pimped out F550. There are lots of shops across Canada and the US engaged in precisely that business. And yet we don't seem to be able to come up with a Defence Industrial Strategy that parlays that capability.
Lots of good reasons why that is fine as an domestic armored car, but it isn't a viable overseas Expeditionary MIL vehicle
 
It is less the vehicle than knowing the vehicle's limitations.
 
We could not even have a Canadian Company build a simple 4x4 jeep like vehicle and not screw it up for Canadian Content rules.

Building a barrel making company for Canadian use is crazy. Looking up Canadian Equipment, there 98 C3 in stock. ( how many need barrels I do not know) 28 LG 1 Mark II 105mm.
How many barrels a year would they be making? 10 maybe 15 a year if that?

Cheapest way ( and Canada is cheap ) would be a purchase thru the American Army to replace barrels. Not sure if they would be a direct fit or not.

Just time for the 105 to be replaced with a newer gun system which other NATO countries operate and we form a deal to buy guns and spares together.
Your forgetting the 89 Tanks we have, the 12 CPFs we have. They have barrels that need replacement. Plus we are going to be buying more artillery in the near future.
We also kind of have a decent Naval Ship overhaul program that could entice more work for Canadian shipyards if we offered more services.
I am sure after this conflict in Ukraine is over countries will be rebuilding their Militaries.
Time will tell.
Australia built a facility for its tank barrels, now is being upgraded for their Artillery systems they are buying. They have close to the same numbers are we do.
 
JLTV is a purpose built armored vehicle.
Not a modified COTS item

ISV makes no bones about being a soft skin.

Armored COTS vehicles are decent VIP rides in low to medium threat environments. They aren’t a good solution for anyone in a high threat - we can take that to the Military Vehicle thread if need be and I can go into more detail tomorrow.
 
Your forgetting the 89 Tanks we have, the 12 CPFs we have. They have barrels that need replacement. Plus we are going to be buying more artillery in the near future.
We also kind of have a decent Naval Ship overhaul program that could entice more work for Canadian shipyards if we offered more services.
I am sure after this conflict in Ukraine is over countries will be rebuilding their Militaries.
Time will tell.
Australia built a facility for its tank barrels, now is being upgraded for their Artillery systems they are buying. They have close to the same numbers are we do.
They also live on the far side of the world from friendly nations...

Canada lives above the world's premier arms manufacturer, we don't have the same motivating factors, and no amount of wishful Australian thinking will change that.

That said, as someone mentioned earlier, a system like the Vampire could be a reasonable PRes capability that gives the PRes a modern and interesting system to train with that shouldn't break the bank. If killing low and slow UAVs is part of future wars, it's a capability the CAF could use...
 
For artillery barrels, I'm curious how many millions to get a plant set up, and what the minimum crew would be to keep it ticking over on a knowledge creation/preservation basis.

If there was ever a time to wave current events under the government's nose and encourage a National Armaments Strategy, it's now. There's likely also a vague. diffuse increase in public awareness of what various bits of kit can do, even if only from HIMARS and St Javelin memes.
I was trying to do a napkin costing on this yesterday to see what I thought it would be.

land and building 30,000,000.00
Machining 50,000,000.00
Forging (?) this one is hard 20,000,000.00
Presses 20,000,000.00
Heat treating 10,000,000.00
MHE Cranes, tow motors 10,000,000.00
Coating (CARC line) 2,000,000.00
Baths (10 stage?) 15,000,000.00
IT 5,000,000.00
other 5,000,000.00

167,000,000.00 Capital

I think I am very light on this. I have mostly purchased used machining, and press equipment in the past. My 40 foot 5 axis CNC rail mill was $5 million US. I have machined P&W engine nacelle autoclave moulds I have not done forging.

Labour per year 75 people at $125,000.00 per

So we are at 1.67 million per unit in just capital for the barrel and assembly plant. Add wages, material, overheads etc etc....plus I'm thinking I'm light here in costs.
 
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