a thought

[space_sldr]

I was totally shocked the other day when I read that Canada has only around 20,000 soldier not including the reserves to defend the second largest country in the world. Doesn‘t this bother anyone beside me?

 

[dannybou]

Out of those 20,000, alot are presently deployed in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Haiti to name a few places.

 

[BF Hawkeye Pierce]

Yeah 20,000 isn‘t alot... but more and more people are signing up or taking a intrest in the Army

 

[Gayson]

What I think is really scary is that only 20,000 out of nearly 30 million Canadians actually make our safety their personal responcibility.

 

[jutes85]

Most Canadians have the mindset that the US will protect us, I think its time for a wake-up call.

 

[Bert]

Numbers don't really mean much without context.

I don't have numbers or facts right with me now, but I THINK the target of personnel for the CDN Forces for 2004
is something like 58,000 +/- a few thousand.  You have to break this figure down into the army, navy, air
force elements.  Within those elements, only a fraction are directly combat,  I believe the army is somewheres
between 20,00 and 30,000 and a fraction of that makes up the combat arms.  The rest are the support and
infrastruture to keep it all going.

Your comment about the numbers may be accurate.  Yet, relatively speaking, how many personnel do you think
should or could defend Canada?  Look at the personnel structure of the US Armed Forces, the Russian or Chinese
Armed Forces.  They may have at least 12X more than Canada but how well could they defend their countries?
Though alot comes down to numbers and equipment, the militaries are about the focused use of manpower and
equipment.  As an example, the Iraqi forces in the recent conflict by numbers should have given the Americans
greater trouble yet the US Apaches helicopters and battlefield IS integration made short work of Iraqi armour.
On the flip side, Iraqi guerrilla (hehe funny I kept imagine Homer Simpson in a guerrilla suit) and insurgients are
causing problems for the Americans now.

To figure it out, you have to read public articles on Canadian defense and understand Canadian force structure.
You'd be surprised what the Canadian Armed Forces can do with army navy, and air force together and the
integration of NORAD.  Its not necessarily about numbers.

 

[Korus]

You also can't forget how many of our bitter enemies currently have massive troop buildups at our borders, just itching to invade us.

 

[AlphaCharlie]

Canada relies many on reservists for a lot of things. The reg force is pretty small but we have lots of reserves...

And as RoKo said... it's not like Canada has many (if any) enemies....

 

[MJP]

The reserve force is even smaller that the Reg Force.  Or were you trying to say that the CF uses the Reserves to bolster their numbers for operations or certains tasks within an operation(CIMIC)?

 

[AlphaCharlie]

Well I know the PLF is trying to get 400 new recruits this year (or was it 300? I can't remember), but I find we're relying on reserves more and more for oversea ops...

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Considering the Federal freeze on hiring at the moment, I doubt any Reserve unit will be allowed to recruit 300 pers. Even if the freeze doesn't affect the military, 300 is an outrageous number to even consider. Most Units across Canada will be allowed 30 - 50 tops for the year, and that's a maybe. Consider most Res Units have an average active strength of between 80 - 130 pers and you can see how ridiculous the figure of 300 - 400 is. Show me some substantial facts on the info you posted and I'll eat my words, then I'll question LFCA HQ as to why the PLF are so special to the amount of recruits they're allowed to induct.

 

[MJP]

An increase of 300 or 400 won't get the reserves(even if they all go to one unit) close to Reg Force numbers but, we have been relying on reserves in fairly large numbers since the Early/mid nineties.   The second Bn battlegroup that fought in the Medak pocket was comprised of large numbers of reservists.   The last few ROTOs to Bosnia have seen the Reserves send complete reserve companies to augment the BG.   Not to mention that reserves are now the leading the charge in CIMIC operations.   I can forsee that reserve will be used for many years to come to augment our forces on Operations, especially if they get rerolled into specialists type organisations(CIMIC, NBCW etc etc)

I have trouble believing your unit recruit need numbers as well...I think you've got the numbers for the entire CF reserve system.

 

[jswift872]

:soldier:i think that numbers have less meaning then the training, i think we are trained very well, so the numbers we do have, can/ will protect us.

 

[AlphaCharlie]

Considering the Federal freeze on hiring at the moment, I doubt any Reserve unit will be allowed to recruit 300 pers. Even if the freeze doesn't affect the military, 300 is an outrageous number to even consider. Most Units across Canada will be allowed 30 - 50 tops for the year, and that's a maybe. Consider most Res Units have an average active strength of between 80 - 130 pers and you can see how ridiculous the figure of 300 - 400 is. Show me some substantial facts on the info you posted and I'll eat my words, then I'll question LFCA HQ as to why the PLF are so special to the amount of recruits they're allowed to induct.

It was a while ago... he may have been talking about the whole reserves trying to get 400 new guys in total. I'm not totally sure, as I said it was a while ago.

Also, do we really need to have the excessive smilies?

 

[SFontaine]

Canada relies many on reservists for a lot of things. The reg force is pretty small but we have lots of reserves...

And as RoKo said... it's not like Canada has many (if any) enemies....

Yup Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al-Fatah, Al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya etc etc sure  don't hate us. Because you know  we're all so Muslim and devoted to Mohammad and Allah.

 

[AlphaCharlie]

Canada relies many on reservists for a lot of things. The reg force is pretty small but we have lots of reserves...

And as RoKo said... it's not like Canada has many (if any) enemies....

Yup Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Al-Fatah, Al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya etc etc sure   don't hate us. Because you know   we're all so Muslim and devoted to Mohammad and Allah.

They don't hate us... well not as much as the Americans i'd assume.