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The prisoners and prison staff all ate the same food, prepared in the same kitchen. Which no doubt helped in keeping the quality at a decent standard.

YTEP were trade qualified. This is something else — non-trade qualified pers that can go to sea in order to… go to sea. Doesn‘t fix the technical trades, but I suppose a generic able hand is better than an empty rack.

Canadians as a whole weren’t exactly enthusiastic about the two World Wars. Canadians certainly did volunteer, but there was a limit to their enthusiasm, otherwise we wouldn’t have had two conscription crises. While there seems to be a pattern of Canadian public interest in volunteering for...

The CAF has largely lost the ability or desire to build and operate Single Quarters for trained personnel. The CAF struggles to do so even for untrained personnel. This puts us out of synch with our closest partners, the UK and the US, who still believe in the value of barracks and mess halls...

That’s a hard question to answer, since CFHA hasn’t published an ‘annual’ report in 3 years — but in fiscal year 2019/20 , the last year for which a report is available, they constructed 12 units and demolished 21, for a net loss of 9 units. The year before was much busier, with 41 new builds...

The 7-year limit in a geographical area seems, on the face of it, to be incompatible with the RCN’s whole concept of home-porting. My initial look at what the numbers mean suggests major damage to the hard sea trades, especially on the west coast. Have we paid for CSC yet? Because we might not...

It also means a pay cut to Cpls and above in Edmonton — who were previously collecting 684 a month in PLD. Now clearly the economy of Edmonton isn’t exactly what it used to be — but the 1CMBG units in Edmonton used to be notorious for high attrition to the oil patch. This allowance risks...

Cubicle dwellers in Ottawa started at 0 under the old (PLD) system — so at least they won’t see an immediate pay cut. But this does seem harsh to MS, POs and CPOs on the coasts, who are exactly the sort of people that would be expected to put down roots and who were previously eligible for PLD.

Is skill fade really an issue, though? The US employs IRR Reservists that haven’t done their job for years. Our own Supp Reserve seems to believe that a trained soldier doesn’t suffer significant skill fade until 5 years off the job. I myself haven’t been in a field unit for over 10 years now...

The Snowbirds don’t charge the taxpayer $100 million a year for something they might be able to get for free (through DEO). The reserve units point is a valid one, though. Heritage buildings don’t maintain themselves.

I crunched the numbers once, and by my count 10 of the 19 Chiefs of Defence Staff were MilCol grads. That’s hardly a monopoly over 50 years. What I found even more interesting is that 8 out of the last 12, and 5 out of the last 5 CDS, have been MilCol. Conversely, the military college system...

The Transpennine Express will do that trip in under an hour, which isn’t too bad, as it’s faster than driving. That’s probably never going to improve — no one’s laying high speed rail through the Peak District. Looks reasonably priced, too, by British standards.

We know how to train infantry, both regulars and reserves. But without sufficient quantities of specialists, and I’m thinking especially RCEME, RCCS, C Int C, RCLS and RCMS — the army is a hollow shell. And those specialist capabilities are some of our most broken, and most difficult to generate...

The Australian Army, maybe, but the Australian Army is their lowest-priority service, and has been for decades. Both the RAAF and the RAN field high-end capabilities that really push Australia to the next level, given their relatively small population.

But would that actually work? Something like half of Canada’s population lives in our 10 largest cities. If we can’t attract urban Canadians, then we can’t attract Canadians. Not that I’m saying that Thunder Bay and Windsor shouldn’t have recruiting centres — it’s just that it shouldn’t be seen...

Roger Cyr wasn’t a GOFO. He was a three-ringer (Commander, a salt-water LCol-equivalent)

On that topic, did we ever get the FCS on the C16 CASW Automatic Grenade Launcher to work? When I left the field force it was still incapable of registering targets — a bracket for a C2 sight would have been an upgrade.

A single large regiment with two squadrons of tank and two squadrons of LRSS is certainly an option — two small regiments might be more likely. Those two regiments (units) could still be in the same brigade (formation) — probably 1 brigade, although there is an argument that scarce resources...

I thought that everyone was united in hating 5 Wing Goose Bay — the locals (who protest it), the CAF (whose families hate living there) and our Allies (who hate the bad press from the protests). Everyone except one person. Former MND O’Connor wanted to revitalize it and put a light infantry...

According to an estimate published in the Norwegian media — 5600 litres an hour. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/next-threat-stealth-f-35-global-warming-92931