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My overall impression of the BASIC UP video collection is that it's a little disorganized. Instead of seeing the recruits undergo the whole process exactly step-by-step, you get a collection of vignettes. I was unimpressed by the PO who was attempting to do a beasting on one of his recruits. I...

No doubt, it has proved to be an amazingly versatile platform - sometimes simple things are the best. <snip> Considering how cheap the Bisons are, we ought to be buying them by the bazillion for reserve infantry units, with engineer, signals, CP and field ambulance variants for the support...

Jack Layton, in my not so humble opinion, behaves like a complete ars*hole when it comes to the military and its role in Afghanistan. If I wanted to be charitable, I'd say he's an ignoramus. He's like a lot of limousine leftists who think nothing about wearing Gucci suits while pontificating...

I know the subject of possible Leopard replacements is being discussed elsewhere in the army.ca forums. Let me at least say that it looks like Pte Shrubb might have been on to something when he made his initial post.

Thanks for the education, TCBF. The information I had was incorrect. I should have done my homework before posting. Speaking of the 'kid in the candy store' state the Germans were in post-1989, I understand the Swedish Army picked up some MT-LB and BMP-1 APC's from the former DDR at roughly...

No reason, other than failing to pay attention to the date of the post which started the thread!  :-[ My bad. Mea culpa maxima an alla that good stuff. Still, it was fun addressing the item anyway!  :blotto:

Agreed. The key word in your paragraph above is 'medium'. A medium brigade can cope with low-to-moderate intensity warfare, especially in a three-block-war setting where the vehicles don't get too close to insurgents with RPG7's sitting on their shoulders, or as follow-on forces after the...

Weren't the 1A1's leased from Germany until the Leopard C1's (which were actually 1A3 models) came on stream? You are correct - to a point. The C2 turrets are actually surplus 1A5 turrets we acquired from Germany. The 1A5 turrets are distinguished by better armour, the result of using...

I wouldn't rag on Pte Shrubb too much. He heard something from someone about the Leopards, and until we see something corroboratory from officialdom, what he heard is probably just one of a bazillion rumours that float around in the military every day. There may be a grain of truth of what he...

I'm not sure that what you're saying was universally true. An uncle of mine spent 23 years in the army. He joined in '61, did his basic training, and afterwards went directly into RCOC to become a storesman. He remained in Logistics, permanently attached to 1RCR, acquired many promotions, became...

Interesting to see the Leopard C2 which came off the plane has the armour upgrades installed. Of course, adding on the armour makes perfect sense in the Afghanistan theatre. The Leopards were originally designed with the idea of trading armour protection for speed, which the Germans felt would...

You are correct. However, the MOWAG designs Canada acquired in the mid-1970's were not designed in Canada. What happened with the MOWAG-based vehicles is that we took a foreign design and adapted them for Canadian needs in the form of the Grizzly, Cougar and later, the Bison, LAVIII and Coyote...

The answer to the dilemma is to build something worth exporting, and then develop Canada-centric designs from the export version. Don't give me the hoo-ha that Canada can't do something like this (you know, the usual shibboleths - small market, no prior experience, yadda yadda) because a...

AKA Magach 7a. Whoever said this tank was an M60A3 was close, because the Magach *is* an M60A3 with an uparmoured turret and other upgrades.

I favour the idea of having three (or four) Regular Force tank regiments with their own (that is to say, organic) recce squadrons. Since we seem to be moving gradually towards a model based on fighting for information (as the Germans and the US are known for), I would tend to think one recce...

Von Garvin, Your math seems about right to me. You ask, "Can we afford 225 tanks?" To which I would reply, "Can we afford $1 billion dollars to spend on new kit?" I base that $1bn on 225 new-build Leopard 2A6's, which seem to be selling for around $5 - 7 million each when German Euros are...

You've got a pretty good point there, George. Just the other day, as a thought exercise I wondered how many troops we'd need to support a fleet of 300 - 400 tanks (a country of Canada's wealth should be able to acquire that many). This is a minimal number which would allow for basic combat...

I was most impressed seeing Mr. O'Connor exiting a Herc wearing combat clothing. Here's a defence minister we can be genuinely proud of - someone with decades of military experience behind him,  so he can not only talk the walk, but walk the talk too. Beats seeing pictures of Cretch looking like...

The Liberal and NDP positions on the Afghanistan mission are completely unsurprising. The Liberal stance is quite hypocritical, considering that the party was the one that committed Canada to the mission in the first place. While at work today, I was listening to a radio phone-in show called...