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CAN Enhanced (Permanent?) Fwd Presence in Latvia

At NATO summit presser Anand made clear no immediate increase in CAF presence for Latvia--1,400 personnel mentioned is total of those now committed to Op REASSURANCE including RCAF and RCAF. Did say we would be increasing numbers in Latvia (when?). Also said increasing eFP Latvia to brigade strength will depend on other participating countries--more Canadian Army troops to be committed as allies up their commitments., i.e. no increase soon, lots of negotiating and convening to do. Bah! Humbug! Never never land.

Meanwhile it would seem that US Army airborne battalion from Italy to Latvia is outside the Canadian-led eFP:

Mark
Ottawa
 
At NATO summit presser Anand made clear no immediate increase in CAF presence for Latvia--1,400 personnel mentioned is total of those now committed to Op REASSURANCE including RCAF and RCAF. Did say we would be increasing numbers in Latvia (when?). Also said increasing eFP Latvia to brigade strength will depend on other participating countries--more Canadian Army troops to be committed as allies up their commitments., i.e. no increase soon, lots of negotiating and convening to do. Bah! Humbug! Never never land.

Meanwhile it would seem that US Army airborne battalion from Italy to Latvia is outside the Canadian-led eFP:
Promising to pay for the meal then hitting the loo when the check comes. Disgraceful.
 
How allies can continue to take us at all seriously beats me:

Canada to lead upgraded NATO combat force in Latvia​


...the government says it's too early to say whether that will entail deploying additional Canadian troops...
They've have lots of time to come up with something if they really wanted to. They don't.

Mark
Ottawa
 
If I'm interpreting this right then:

1. Canada will form a Multinational brigade headquarters;

2. Canada will keep a mech battalion headquarters and its company;

3. the brigade will be multinational which means CS and CSS elements can come from anywhere;

4. the brigade is not necessarily fully forward deployed but may end up having designated multi-national rapid reinforcement elements (which to me means prepositioned stocks of equipment and materiel);

5. Canada is adding 600 pers to our commitment which will include elements of the brigade HQ, possibly additional elements for the battalion and possibly CS and CSS depending upon multinational commitments (edited to add - the battlegroup is already fairly robust and its not a stretch to build it into three battalions - the CS and especially the CSS will be the challenge);

6. Not sure if all of the 600 are forward deployed, rotational, or rapid reinforcement.

Since I'm a proponent of prepositioned equipment manned by rapid reinforcement I think that this may turn into a good plan but as usual I will wait to peruse the devil in the details before I crap all over it. I see numerous ways that this could be done well without stressing the system so long as we adapted the system a bit.

🍻
 
Haven't seen it as a news release yet, but it's in the media:

Can someone please explain this:

"However, the government says it's too early to say whether that will entail deploying additional Canadian troops."

How can Canada lead a new Brigade if we don't deploy a significant number of additional troops - it's not possible.
 
We may end up annexing you shortly if your government backs out of their commitments…
You've already got two screwed up factions making a shithole mess down there. Why would you even consider adding a third? And remember - we'd swing things to the socialist side.

:ROFLMAO:
Can someone please explain this:

"However, the government says it's too early to say whether that will entail deploying additional Canadian troops."

How can Canada lead a new Brigade if we don't deploy a significant number of additional troops - it's not possible.
A component of this brigade is rapid reinforcement which means that they are not forward deployed but on stand-by for deployment, hopefully onto prepositioned equipment.

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We may end up annexing you shortly if your government backs out of their commitments…
No you won't. 10 new states. 20 new Democratic Senators!

I have always laughed at this. In High School text books had a piece about the US "taking over" Canada. I have always maintained that it would never happen because of that one tiny fact. Even if Canada enters as 1 State or 3 states or more. The GOP would never go for it.

Conversely I have never understood why the Dems wouldn't love the idea. LOL

We have the most perfect defence of a country in the history of the world. The US defends us from everyone else. And the US constitution defends us against the US! It's beautiful.
 
No you won't. 10 new states. 20 new Democratic Senators!

I have always laughed at this. In High School text books had a piece about the US "taking over" Canada. I have always maintained that it would never happen because of that one tiny fact. Even if Canada enters as 1 State or 3 states or more. The GOP would never go for it.

Conversely I have never understood why the Dems wouldn't love the idea. LOL

We have the most perfect defence of a country in the history of the world. The US defends us from everyone else. And the US constitution defends us against the US! It's beautiful.
But who defends us from ourselves???
 
No you won't. 10 new states. 20 new Democratic Senators!

I have always laughed at this. In High School text books had a piece about the US "taking over" Canada. I have always maintained that it would never happen because of that one tiny fact. Even if Canada enters as 1 State or 3 states or more. The GOP would never go for it.

Conversely I have never understood why the Dems wouldn't love the idea. LOL

We have the most perfect defence of a country in the history of the world. The US defends us from everyone else. And the US constitution defends us against the US! It's beautiful.
Protectorates don’t get to vote or representation…

You've already got two screwed up factions making a shithole mess down there. Why would you even consider adding a third? And remember - we'd swing things to the socialist side.

:ROFLMAO:

A component of this brigade is rapid reinforcement which means that they are not forward deployed but on stand-by for deployment, hopefully onto prepositioned equipment.

🍻
Everyone is supposed to pony up both more RRF and troops forward deployed.
For Canada that should br 1 Forward deployed CMBG and 2 for RRF.

Everyone paying Canadian taxes should be wondering WTF the CAF does with its money if it can’t do that easily.
 
5. Canada is adding 600 pers to our commitment which will include elements of the brigade HQ, possibly additional elements for the battalion and possibly CS and CSS depending upon multinational commitments (edited to add - the battlegroup is already fairly robust and its not a stretch to build it into three battalions - the CS and especially the CSS will be the challenge);

6. Not sure if all of the 600 are forward deployed, rotational, or rapid reinforcement.
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The number quoted previously upthread suggests that we're only upping our commitment from 800 troops to 1400 troops...and increase of 600. That's certainly not a Mech Battalion, Artillery Regiment (-), Engineer Regiment (-) and a Service Battalion.

By the numbers to me it sounds more like expanding our LAV Company to a full Battalion and a Brigade HQ (possibly plus some enablers) at most.
There are other parts of a brigade that are some of the hardest to force generate — the signals squadron, the intelligence company, and the Role 2 capable Field Ambulance.
 
Everyone is supposed to pony up both more RRF and troops forward deployed.
For Canada that should br 1 Forward deployed CMBG and 2 for RRF.

Everyone paying Canadian taxes should be wondering WTF the CAF does with its money if it can’t do that easily.
Let me take a kick at how this could work. I'll number my thoughts for easy reference.

1. Canada is already the battlegroup leading nation and needs to fill an additional slot as the brigade group headquarters. The most difficult job they will have is developing a CSS structure that will work for a multinational brigade, within a multinational division context, facing high intensity combat and to get away from the NSE concept of all singing all dancing support. Step one is to throw out everything regarding logistics that Canada has done sine 2000 and all the bad lessons learned in Afghanistan and to dust off the cold war logistics doctrine while appointing the smartest guy in the logistics branch to oversee tall of this.

2. Canada needs to lock up the regimental cap badge mafias and structure itself to properly sustain the brigade indefinitely.

3. The most efficient brigade structure (considering its multinational nature) is one of an Armoured BCT using combined arms battalions. The multinational nature makes regroupings on the fly difficult and therefore as much as possible each combined arms battalion should have all the necessary armour, infantry and anti-armour it should need. My own view is that two battalions should tilt infantry heavy (because we are primarily defenders) but one should tilt tank heavy.

4. Canada should form one complete combined arms battalion consisting of one squadron of a squadron of Leo2A4M and two companies of LAV6. There also needs to be a battalion headquarters, a combat support company with recce and mortars and a combat service support company. Of these, the battalion HQ, one rifle company, one tank troop and one half of the combat service support company should be a rotational forward deployed element as it is now. The rest of the battalion's equipment will be propositioned in Latvia while the troops remain as rapid reinforcements in Canada but attend on regular exercise schedules which concurrently exercise the RCAF on the deployment plan.

5. Two additional combined arms battalions are required. Each of Italy and Spain already provide fairly large contingents of a rotational predeployed mech company supported by a half company of tanks. They should be persuaded to double their force through a similar prepositioning of equipment with a rapid redeployment manning.

6. Artillery may be an easy issue. Latvia has enough M109s for two battalions but only one mechanized brigade. It should be convinced to put one of those battalions in direct support of the new multinational brigade.

7. Brigade recce/cavalry is required. Poland already commits a company of tanks and Slovenia a recce platoon. Slovakia has a mechanized company. Between these three nations their commitments could be restructured into a cavalry battalion.

8. Engineers are problematic in that there are only two small platoons there. One should have an engineer battalion with at least two companies. This is a role where perhaps Canada should put another hundred personnel forward deployed and a further one hundred as rapid reaction to form the core to which the two multinational platoons can be joined.

9. The Danes have also recently brought a fairly large contingent in. I'm not sure where they are although indications are they might be with the Latvian Mechanized brigade and as such their availability to the Canadian -led multinational brigade is probably zero.

10. As far as a brigade headquarters is concerned, I'm of the view that this should be a three year posting for the key staff - say around 50. This becomes a major commitment and should not be subject to the usual rotational turbulence. On top of that the brigade staffs in Canada need to be kept intact to continue to run their own brigades. 50 is not a large number and if we can't find 50 decent staff officers and NCOs within the Army then we're not trying hard enough. The remainder of the brigade HQ is primarily signals which do not need a large deployed forward presence but can be filled as rapid reinforcement elements.

11. Now we get to the hardest part. Logistics. As a starter, because of the diversity of equipment, each battalion sized element needs its own robust first line of support, especially for maintenance while supply and transport can be partially rapid reinforcement. The same is true for second line support at the brigade service battalion. Maintenance is a challenge and needs very detailed analysis and a very detailed organizational structure that can work forward with the national contingents and backward to the national theatre sustainment agencies. Supply also needs some tight control and a forward deployed presence while transportation services can be more generic and largely dependent on rapid reinforcement troops so long as the predeployed equipment handling capabilities are capable of multinational cargo handling. Again, IMHO this is one of those places where we should seriously think of making it a three-year posting for roughly 50 key personnel while another 100-150 or so could be rotational predeployment and the remainder - say 4-500 could be multinational rapid reinforcement troops. I'll leave aside the question of how the brigade ties into the multinational division's logistics plan/system because, quite frankly, I have no idea how well developed that system is.

12. I would think that the rapid reinforcement personnel would not be required often. I would think two very short exercises a year aimed at fly-in reinforcement, deployment to a an assembly area followed by redeployment, equipment maintenance and return home. In addition at least one major exercise per year of three to four weeks duration to test the deployment and to exercise the battalions and the brigade in full. The three combined arms battalions could conduct further independent battalion exercises as part of the reinforcement exercises.

13. As for Canada, I see the realignment of the three domestic brigades so that 1 CMBG has one armoured and three mechanized battalions whose responsibility is as the primary provider of the combined arms battalion headquarters and the two rifle and one tank company. With nine rifle companies and three tank squadrons it should not be difficult to generate one full time rifle company and one tank platoon for rotational forward deployment. More difficult will be the battalion headquarters and the rotational maintainers. Consideration should be given to having the key battalion command and maintainer positions to also be three year postings - say 50 PYs. As for 2 and 5 CMBG, my view is 2 needs to become light and rapid reaction and Northern oriented while 5 becomes fully mechanized as a medium multipurpose force.

It's clear to me that one cannot keep a commitment like a brigade in Latvia based solely on rotational elements. There are continuity issues that require a full-time long term posted-in element, other positions that provide a rotational full-time presence and yet others that can easily be filled by rapid reinforcement troops that are designated for the task, trained for it and DAGed ready to go as part of a Joint Fly-over plan. All of that works best if concentrated in one brigade with as little as possible scattered around the country.

My $0.02 (I'll probably throw in an extra penny or two later)

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You had me up until you lowballed the Sig Support element. Having worked on many a NATO connectivity ex, it's not 1970 4CMBG here. We have many different sensors and systems that interconnect and need competent signallers to make the voodoo and wizardry happen.

I would honestly say if we are turning this into an MN Bde, we need to stand up another NATO Sigs Bn to support it. Canada can take the lead as the Bde HQ, but definitely need people that can interconnect systems so we all get the same message at the same time on the same systems.
 
I fail to see the issue with just doing a 4 CMBG redo and opting for forward deployed.

Don’t treat it as a tour, treat it like Germany was, and rotate units out every few years.

The NATO language clearly specifies that the RRF plus up and the increase posture forwards, means more than just a Cdn Bde in total.
Right now this is an absolute mockery of an attempt to look credible but falls exceedingly flat.
 
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