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Back a million years ago, when I was in J3, I wrote a couple of contingency plans for NEOs. One, after I retired, was actually dusted off, albieit in a different context. Flexibility has to be a key factor, along with the realization that we are tap dancing with international law. The aim is to...

Hmmm, this is interesting and demonstrates that we are not afraid to think outside the box. I do have some difficulty with a "lots of little companies" concept, including the very real possibility of having to group them into big companies. Let me toss in being unable to have standard groupings...

TangoTwoBravo has raised an interesting point about fire support. I know I am light years out of date, but to my old gunner mind, the most important asset his FOO brings with him, besides his training and experience, is his radio. For a quick attack, the FOO using the DS battery and the...

Back in 1969, and I've posted this before, CF Training Command Headquarters (CFTCHQ) in Winnipeg owned all the schools, including the Combat Arms School in Borden and the School of Artillery in Shilo. The plan was that the following year these two schools would amalgamate in Gagetown as the...

Can you imagine the outcry if DND tried to build accommodation that underpriced the local civilian market. I seem to recall that there was firm direction that this was not allowed, and that the PMQ rents were tied to the local prevailing rates. When the annual (always upwards) adjustments were...

As I remember, the ear flaps were sewn inside the cap, so that if your cap fit properly, the flaps could not be folded down to cover the ears. Being the Canadian Army, the correct size in sergeant major land sizing protocol was perched on top of one's head, and with the bottom of the cap an inch...

I think Kirkhill is pretty close. For example, 2 RCR operated on an eight company establishment with captains commanding the companies for South Africa, along with two majors - one the DCO - and a basic support organization including machine gun and signals sections. The battalion could fight as...

I pretty well agree with Dangerboy. A little too much artistry, and not enough remembrance. Also, for the theme and the base colour, I would like too be reminded of the prevailing arid drabness, but maybe that is going too far. To my, long-retired military mind, the helmet on the butt of a...

Well done, Mark, I could almost smell the cordite. May I add an honourable mention to 16 Field Regiment, Royal New Zealand Artillery, for the support to both the Patricias and to the Australians during the duration of the battle? This, of course, includes answering the call for fire on their...

I was issued a M1 helmet in September 1960 for OCP Phase One. Interestingly, the army called in something like "Helmet, UN". Later on, I came across a reference that indicated that circa 1943 or 1944 the Brits and us had seriously considered adopting it, and we had purchased at least 100,000 of...

He spoke to my staff college course in Kingston in 1971 about counter-insurgency and low intensity operations. I recall very little about his talk, other that he did say specific tactics that worked in one operation are not automatically transferable to another in a different country and...

We used to say that we could stay back in the gun park and wear civvies to work.  :rofl: To get serious for a moment, I wonder what the time of flight for a range of 70 kms is. When I was at the school in the mid-seventies, the T&E section test fire an extended range full bore 155mm round using...

Could be, or he has just tuned out. I saw an interview a hour or so ago with Senator Angus King from Maine about the hacking. According to him, it started last winter, and was only discovered a short while ago by a private company. They are not sure, or are being very tight-lipped, about what...

I kid you not. At the time, mid-60s, when the Germans winter trialed Leos and a number of wheeled vehicles in Shilo, they acknowledged the same.

I think that it was picked up from the RAF, which apparently was doing this in the 1930s and later, to build up a pool of trained pilots available off the street in the even of war. Not 100% sure, but I developed this impression from reading credible histories.

If you will allow a superannuated brown job to intrude, aircrew retention has plagued the RCAF for just about as long as I can remember. As a lieutenant in a very junior staff job in HQ 4 CIBG in Germany in the mid-sixties, I remember our brigade commander's less-than-enthusiastic response when...

This is vaguely related to an event that happened in the 70s or 80s. Canada sold a number of our military snowshoes to  the Chinese army. A certain Canadian colonel, better known for later being fired as Commander of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, headed a delegation that hosted a Chinese visit...

At least he was not a member of the Legion of Frontiersmen.

A walking poster for gun control.

In the 50s we restructured the Reserves into a national survival force to conduct post-nuclear strike recovery operations. The military side, getting to train on war fighting equipment, was discarded in favour of what was derisively referred to as "snakes and ladders". Military training is...