Recent content by whitehorse

Quite a few commentators on this post have referred to an article I wrote some time ago on the Reserves and AOPs and so I guess I should comment here as well. For some background I was for most of my 28 years in the Naval Reserve a 'traditional' reservist (i.e. a part timer). As a result of very...

I have a friend who in total may have accumulated about 400-500 sea days but has no formal records of the time as such. I suspect if he pushed he might get a gun metal (I like the name) SSI. Of course his sea time was between May 1943 and May 1945.  :salute: Its not about how long you did it...

In quotes: Just to review: The tasks assigned to the Naval Reserve are: . Manning the Kingston Class Ships - a challenge but it works . Naval Control of Shipping -- very good capability . Mine Countermeasures -- some cool stuff happening here. . Harbour Defence - doing a great job . Admin and...

My point is that that document purports to outline career progression for all naval officers while completely ignoring the reserve community. Before this was published CMS should have demanded that NR put before him their view of what career progression should be including ideas as to what a...

Not a single word on Reserve Officer Career progression. Typical. This is one of the more important reasons I left the navy. These twits seem to think that the fleet consists of DD, F, SSK, AORs and nothing else. So bloody typical.

Seaking Tacco: I understand the problem, and no I don't think UAVs are a replacement for SSKs. I also agree with the toolkit analogy. Here is the problem  - we cannot afford all the tools we want or need. We can buy the pricey all singing all dancing tool and not afford the ladder necessary...

CDN Aviator; Of course UAV's cant do ASW ... yet. My point was that for the piracy issue and for the MIO issue (which are the two real world missions the navy faces today) the submarines are of very limited utility (even if they were working) and we can probably achieve most of this utility...

"We will not see the all singing, all dancing, fully pimped out JSS that was the product of naval architect's wet dreams." What part of the words late small or inadequate were not understood? "Have you ever considered the fact they might be there gathering intelligence?" If they are they...

"To plan only for what is in front of us right now is a classic Canadian mistake." What alterrnative is there in the face of ever dwindling budgets and a real war on terror but to focus operational and capital budgets on a real world assessment of real threats. Our Navy is small and getting...

In framing the question the way you have then the answer is of course we need them. But let me ask the question in another way ... Given increasingly tight defence capital budgets and the nature of assymetric warfare (Alqaeda doesn't operate warships and therefore is invulnerable to...

Dapaterson: In case I haven't said it cearly enough - I hope I'm wrong. But I think JSS (as we understand it) is effectively dead - too expensive. There may be an AOR replacement but in any event it will take a long time and remember we have been talking (and talking and talking ....) about...

Ex-Dragoon: I am not dissing the helicopter carrying destroyer or frigate, I am simply pointing out that historically they were used (in part) by the RCN as a cheap replacement for the BONAVENTURE when she was scrapped for economic/political reasons. The reality is compared to a modernversion...

Cobbler: You're right and you're wrong. An AOPV will not be an ideal MCM in fact it may in a crunch prove to be useless at the task but it would probably do as well as an MCDV would be given that all of the limitations you mentioned apply just as much to MCDVs as they would to a hypothetical...

Re; MCDV and MCM: You are both right. The MCDVs were never intended to be 'full time' MCM platforms but were an amalgamation of several roles including sovereignty patrols, some limited MCM capability and of course training junior officers. As a result there are not ideally suited for any of...

Sailorwest: Actually in the RCN we were called the "executive branch', there were also 'engineering branch', pilots (back when we had a fleet air arm), paymasters, instructors, padres, medical branch and so forth. Each had its own coloured braid between the rank stripes. The RN later renamed...