Alan Williams Makes Procurement Suggestion

[cplcaldwell]

Well I6, you're right.  Beatty's White Paper was something that really motivated me to the CF (yes, I am that old). It was visionary. Did it require temporing? to be sure, and hindsight is 20/20, but it dreamed the big dream...

The vision comes from the people, and the people are stuck in a Frank magazine/Taliban Jack vision. How sad.

The pols, and I mean as far back as PET (and farther...much), will do what they need to do to get re-elected. In DND/CF terms they (the Cdn public) take the easy way out. A beer commercial and a five dollar bill makes them think they are a world leader.

A very parochial viewpoint, I fear.

 

[Rodahn]

There is a bit of a hijack happening on this thread.

We are off on naval procurement.

I don't believe that the intent was to hijack the topic to "Naval Procurement" I utilized somebody else's idea and pointed out flaws with the concept, based upon today's problems.... Will or can those problems be solved.. Who know's... However budget's being budgets, those personell in the puzzle palace also have priorities. Case in point, I was the QA Manager on a navel vessel that had, had refits  defered for a total of 10 years.... Normal cycle for a steel hull vessel for a major refit is 5 years.... Guess what happened? Costs where over twice what the original estimate/budget was for. Why? Lack of maintenance, due to other priorities...

The solution? God only knows.... I can remember a time when I as the diving storeman for the dive team in 4CER couldn't even get straps for our flippers.....


...

 

[KevinB]

true

BUT hindsight being 20/20 IF the White paper had been followed thru we'd be in amuch better spot now..

Sadly the Canadian public is a fickle master

 

[cplcaldwell]

Rodahn gives us first hand knowledge.

I6  renews the point.

Naval procurement is instructive as it has such long, and thus, strategic, implications.

IMHO.speeding up the process does not answer the question.  To wit, what is the strategy?

Frankly, I don't  give a shite if we create 1000 jobs in Cape Breton or not. We need to capitalize our defence procurement dollars. What is the big picture? Thus, whither Canada?(I know you all know this. But what is the 'rubber the road' factor?)

Mr Williams point is well taken, but how do we build for our role?

Bahhh must sleep...more to follow

 

[STONEY]

I noticed that the Aussies announced intensions to procure C-17's just a few short months ago and just last week the first one came off the production line to begin testing.

Canada announced a few short months ago its intention to procure C-17's  . Care to guess how long it will be before we see one. Will it be months or years(many) .

Cheers.

 

[KevinB]

I recall the US and allies shuttling thigns for the Aussies -- and IIRC us as well.

As long as we are a coalition of the willing the US and allies will allow the middle allied powers (us and Australia) to fit into things

 

[Loachman]

Canada announced a few short months ago its intention to procure C-17's  . Care to guess how long it will be before we see one. Will it be months or years(many) .

Months.

 

[warrickdll]

Regional Development isn't the new profanity. The problem for the CF and Regional Development is that the CF has such a large capability deficiency.

For a military that has been focused almost completely on expeditionary deployment since the end of the Second World War, the CF somehow ends up with absolutely no sealift and only limited airlift. Add to this the fact that ships, aircraft, MBTs and other vehicles, that will need to be replaced should have had their replacements already designed and long since started.

None of the current deficiencies should be corrected by anything but fast tracked purchases. But that shouldn't stop Canada from being able to better plan a way to produce and repair some major items locally in the future. Local design and production should, as much as possible, be done exclusively for long term projects (ship building/refitting being the example of choice).

An awareness of the Regional Development aspect of local production should be made visible to Canadians by having the DND side of the budgeting reflect what would have been the Off The Shelf Cost, and then have the rest budgeted from the Regional Development Agencies. We should also abandon the fantasy of offsetting costs by predicting phantom overseas sales; these seldom happen in quantity (if they even happen at all).

We don't need everything built in Canada, and many foreign purchases will already have Canadian components, but it would be a mistake to allow all of our military design and production capacity to just disappear. But yes, the process does need fixed.

...
In the end it's not IMHO about putting a Bty of triple 7's in the 'Ghan in a couple of months, it's about what is Canada to do?

I fear that if we do not establish ourselves as something, for instance, a land force middle power, or a naval middle power, or an air middle power we are lost. Further I think that we must decide, and the issue has been forced on the Army, what sort of middle power are to be? A LIB commitment? A BG commitment? When the phone rings what've we got? 
...

For the most part, Canada should be a middle power capable of independent global expeditionary deployment. This leaves little room for missing capabilities, everything needs to be able to move quickly by sea or by air and be combat capable when it gets there. This serves almost every situation that the CF is used for overseas, and it is the best way to attend to any domestic issues due to the extreme expanse of our nation.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Its not the vision of the Gov't -- remember Perrin Betty's White Paper
the Liberals killed it -- and undre pressure the BM PC's axed a lot just after it was announced
its the Canadian public appetite to cut defence...

Actually, I6, three parties got together to kill Beatty’s White Paper.  In reverse (chronological order) they were:

3. Chrétien – who delighted in pleasing Canadians by undoing anything and everything with Mulroney’s name on it;

2. Mulroney – who understood that Canadians were unmoved, to put it mildly, by a programme to rearm Canada when even the US was talking peace dividend.  Mulroney understood, as did Beatty, that we Canadians had already taken one or two peace dividends – in 1968 and again in the late ‘70s – but he understood that they felt entitled to another; and

1. DND – because Beatty had freelanced the WP, ignoring DND’s strategic assessment (the Cold War is almost over, USSR is verging on collapse, at least major change, etc) and because he ignored financial realities.  There was, as I recall, $10B earmarked, in the WP, for nuclear subs but the Navy and ADM(Mat) agreed that $20B++ was required, at least.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I am of the view, and have been since the ‘70s, that Regional Development (using the defence procurement budget), Regional Industrial Benefits and Offsets are all chimaeras (defined as: grotesque products of the imagination).

I am prepared to concede that the very first offset programme may have worked – it was, I believe, invented in the Netherlands during their scandal plagued Long Range Patrol Aircraft procurement, Canada followed suit on our version of the same project but ours didn’t work very well because there was no (useful) competitor for LocheeLockheed-140 – our AF wanted a North American made propeller driven aircraft, the (UK) Nimrod was offered but was effectively, in the competition for show only.

I am convinced that:

We pay, 100% and often (usually?) more, for every dollar we describe as benefits; and

Defence related jobs, especially in Canada but – as I think the marketplace reveals - in the US, too, are not ‘good’ long term, high flow through jobs which build communities.  They tend to be short(er) term – GMDD/General Dynamics (London) being one of the exceptions which proves the rule.  The more evident rule, exemplified by Boeing and GD, is that the defence industry chews up companies, and jobs and investments, from the inside out.

I, personally, would favour a lowest fully compliant bid wins process – then spend some money on supporting (subsidizing) companies which make goods (and services) we sell in the world market.  Some of those companies, sometimes will be defence related companies – viz GMDD/GD(London)’s LAVIII.  I am happy to make a few exceptions to the general rule, for example:

• I have no problem with a Canadian maritime construction strategy which aims to keep X Canadians yards open, up-to-date and productive by building Canadian ships in Canadian yards against a made-in-Canada requirement/schedule – IF such a monster can be created; and

• I believe that major, long-life cycle systems (aircraft and helicopters come to mind) should be 100% supportable from within North America.  That means we can buy a European, Asian or Brazilian system IF the prime contractor established 3rd line support facilities here.

Otherwise. I say: establish and validate a military operational requirement, secure funding from cabinet, pass the SOR and money to an arm’s length (‘reformed’ and accountable Crown Corporation) procurement agency; and it buys a fully compliant product from the lowest (life cycle cost) bidder.

 

[GAP]

That makes good business sense. No politician in power will buy it for simply that reason. He/She will be slammed by the opposition on the Made in Canada fairy tale, etc.. What system of purchasing would give us the product and cut out the vote gathering/power brokering?

 

[geo]

I noticed that the Aussies announced intensions to procure C-17's just a few short months ago and just last week the first one came off the production line to begin testing.
Canada announced a few short months ago its intention to procure C-17's  . Care to guess how long it will be before we see one. Will it be months or years(many) .
Cheers.

Stoney,
Per a deal struck with the Aussie gov't we're to get one of their new C17s as it comes off the production line in exchange for one of ours that will come off the line slightly later.  Immaginative queue jumping to "share" scarce resources.

 

[Kirkhill]

Quote from Iterator:

For a military that has been focused almost completely on expeditionary deployment since the end of the Second World War, the CF somehow ends up with absolutely no sealift and only limited airlift.

Operationally that pigeon came home to roost with the CAST (Canadian Air Sea Transportable) Brigade in the 1970s that was supposed to go rescue Norway - aka Hong Kong North.  The government of the day, PET if I am not mistaken, agreed to task Canadian based troops to support NATO rather than bolstering/maintaining Germany, but neglected to find the means to get them there.  The position seems to have been "if you want us to come to the party, pick us up at the front door."

Quote from Edward:

I am prepared to concede that the very first offset programme may have worked – it was, I believe, invented in the Netherlands during their scandal plagued Long Range Patrol Aircraft procurement, Canada followed suit on our version of the same project but ours didn’t work very well because there was no (useful) competitor for LocheeLockheed-140 – our AF wanted a North American made propeller driven aircraft, the (UK) Nimrod was offered but was effectively, in the competition for show only.

I am convinced that:

We pay, 100% and often (usually?) more, for every dollar we describe as benefits;

I have been trying to find on the internet and buried on my hard-drive a Dutch study of about seven years ago.  Like Canada they had bought into the offsets bafflegab but being Dutch they decided to count their pennies and put it to the test.  They discovered that the average "benefit" Gilder cost the treasury 1.2 Gilders (IIRC).  The government of the day then revamped the purchase process.

(Proving that even the Dutch are not immune to politics I understand that subsequent minority parliaments have slowly been reinstating the "benefits".)

 

[MarkOttawa]

A bit of heresy.  Although most of the major military actions Canadian governments have engaged in are "interventionary" (in one way or another) since the end of the Cold War, we have never equipped the CF as a whole with that type of mission as their main focus overall.  Instead Canada has tried (for reasons that are obvious) to maintain three services, each with a wide spectrum of modern capabilities.  And ending up short-changing all of them, a situation I fear will not change much in the future.

The logical thing is the reconfigure the CF as primarily an expeditionary force along the lines of the USMC--BHSs, CAS, etc.

Make the Navy an effective sovereignty protection force (including the Arctic if that makes people happy and gets votes) with ships much better than the MCDVs, maybe a few frigates to support the BHS--but the latter would always operate as part of a combined force with naval and air support from others.  No subs.  JSSs to support whole navy but not as fancy if we have the BHS--AORs.

Air Force: Enough fighters to do sovereignty protection, sufficient maritime patrol, transport and attack helos, whatever is the most cost-efficient fixed-wing CAS/interdiction plane, tactical and strategic lift.  Get out of SAR which should be a civilian role.

Shoot me for the quick thoughts.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[warrickdll]

...
Operationally that pigeon came home to roost with the CAST (Canadian Air Sea Transportable) Brigade in the 1970s that was supposed to go rescue Norway - aka Hong Kong North.  The government of the day, PET if I am not mistaken, agreed to task Canadian based troops to support NATO rather than bolstering/maintaining Germany, but neglected to find the means to get them there.
...

Yes. And if the need became real then the Canadian Government would use the usual "we'd like to help but we're just not capable", "don't have the means", "don't have the troops", and yet somehow that lack of capability is (was?) never addressed.

...
The logical thing is the reconfigure the CF as primarily an expeditionary force along the lines of the USMC--BHSs, CAS, etc.
...

Not that the USMC organization is the be-all-and-end-all, but I would completely agree, except I find none of our current capabilities superfluous to this.

Some major items are missing, but even without them it is the extremely disjointed (and thus - ironic) nature of the CF that seems to be the problem. And for emphasis: this is what the CF should have been for more than half a century.



But back to procurement: I don't believe that our current lack of capabilities (and thus the need to acquire them quickly) should be viewed as the natural state of affairs. If the capability gap was closed, and the National procurement policy fixed, then we should be able to have some Regional Development projects.

 

[civmick]

The Aussies ordered the -17s a good while before CF did, hence the deal struck between best buds Howard and Harper. 

They also have a A330K in the shop (in Madrid I think) for fit-out while the RAF, who started before them, are still wrapped up in knots with PFI nonsense while their already ageing AT fleet is being flogged up and down to Iraq and Afg.