Recent content by Ostrozac

And sometimes that battalion was actually called a Commando from the Canadian Airborne Regiment. We have a rich tradition of unusual naming conventions — some of which make little sense. Even today, the term ‘Group’ is being used for formations in the joint world — but it isn’t an indication...

There is — the Australians (among other nations) use the C-27 Spartan in that role.

Canada absolutely doesn’t need another regular infantry capbadge to be activated unless maybe if the new Light Infantry Formation/Regiment/Brigade-that-isn’t-a-Brigade decides that light Infantryman needs to be a separate MOSID from Infantryman 00010. But that’s probably not in the cards...

A crackdown on bilingualism seems very odd, unless it’s a ploy to attract resources to boost up second language training capacity that has been gutted over the years. Of course, that’s what Accommodation 2020 was supposed to do to modernize single and married quarters (spoiler alert — very few...

I just did a ten second search of a single gun shop in Quebec that shows more than 20 SKS rifles currently in stock and for sale. Which does suggest that the Quebec firearms registry doesn’t have good comms with the RCMP.

To be entirely pedantic, UK Phantoms have also integrated and operated from the Nimitz-class. The Nimitz-class has been in service since the 70’s, dating all the way back to when the Royal Navy was still in the tail hook game.

There are urban legends about more recent cases. Word was that as part of the late Cold War reorg of 1 Div (which was abandoned upon the collapse of the Warsaw Pact) they started to build a skeleton of what was intended to be the Divisional Recce Regiment (a 5th Reg Force Armour regiment) and...

To be fair, we also had a fairly hard time mobilizing the population in both world wars — we were slow out of the gate both times, and we did have two full-on conscription crises.

Having a whole of nation mobilization plan, sitting on the shelf, with regular updates, makes perfect sense. It should include everything from legal advice on conscription and internment to estimates of which civilian industrial sectors are vital to the war effort and which can be expected to be...

If that’s what you’re looking for, you can already get all of that as a civil servant. What’s the extra incentive to put on a uniform? And quite possibly a metaphorical uniform, as we don’t even budget for uniforms for our current Supplementary Reservists, Maybe it’s as simple as that one week a...

The Canadian civil service more than doubled in size between 1939 and 1945. As it turns out, national mobilization makes government more, not less, busy. In a worst case scenario, the civil service will have their hands full handling what the Emergencies Act calls a “War Emergency”, they...

The CAF Retention Strategy (2022) quoted some numbers which suggested that the typical Regular Force member serves for 12.2 years. Now, that’s a median, and the release rate isn’t constant as it spikes at various lengths of service — but we are hardly the Roman Legions with their 25 year oaths...

Post-JCSP types are probably too senior to be Brigade G5s, and as Jarmy as CJOC can feel sometimes, that isn’t the right place to employ experts in land warfare. This seems specifically designed to produce staff for the manoeuvre division headquarters in Edmonton — and for those over in CADTC...

Having a reserve force many times larger than the regular force would be uncharted waters. I’m not saying we couldn’t do it, but I’m not sure any country has successfully implemented such a system without conscription in the modern era. Even the US, which has a bit of a tradition of...

The CAF has been using a wide variety of solutions, including new builds, legacy/heritage buildings, and buildings abandoned by the Reg Force (NDMC is one). All are expensive options. There’s also been an experiment in using modular FOB-style buildings - 30 Fd Regt RCA moved into this when their...