Canada moves to 2% GDP end of FY25/26 - PMMC

[PuckChaser]

The politics tangent has been deleted.

- Milnet.ca Staff

 

[ytz]

Maybe. There is a long line of customers for their products. I have zero knowledge of their business plans or thoughts on this. I know several other Defense companies who view the CAF as a bad partner due to limited buying and various Canadianization policies. To the point one VP has said with CA GO’s around that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze with Canada.

You definitely haven't had that conversation recently. I have friends at LM over here. And they are looking at expanding in Canada. Particularly in domains where they perceive less competition domestically and high payoff. An LM space division in Canada would have a 50/50 chance on every contract against MDA. For example. The money that is coming in now, has substantially changed conversations. Unless you are actively working on Canadian projects, it's going to take time to see this. But the conversation has absolutely changed.

Honestly, I would be far more worried as a American defence contractor for loss of sales. It's not just Canada. The European and Asian markets will be lost or take large hits. And with that, will be dents to economies of scale that American OEMs usually take for granted. Sure the US is large. But if your total sales go from 3000 to 2000 on an airplane, that still hurts everything from upgrade development to unit sales costs, as the base over which you can amortize shrinks.

 

[ytz]

sounds about right as 1 RCHA will need to start conversion training, likely in the US, and 3 RCHA will need to be stood up to take the guns from 1

Will they all be based together. Or do they plan to put a battery of HIMARS in each region? Curious how this works with the recent reorg.

 

[MilEME09]

Will they all be based together. Or do they plan to put a battery of HIMARS in each region? Curious how this works with the recent reorg.

All in shilo is my understanding

 

[KevinB]

You definitely haven't had that conversation recently. I have friends at LM over here. And they are looking at expanding in Canada. Particularly in domains where they perceive less competition domestically and high payoff. An LM space division in Canada would have a 50/50 chance on every contract against MDA. For example. The money that is coming in now, has substantially changed conversations. Unless you are actively working on Canadian projects, it's going to take time to see this. But the conversation has absolutely changed.

I have zero insight into space.
It was Army green program related.

Honestly, I would be far more worried as a American defence contractor for loss of sales. It's not just Canada. The European and Asian markets will be lost or take large hits.

There is pretty much one reason for that. However it’s a political grenade at this point to place blame where it rightfully lies down here.

And with that, will be dents to economies of scale that American OEMs usually take for granted. Sure the US is large. But if your total sales go from 3000 to 2000 on an airplane, that still hurts everything from upgrade development to unit sales costs, as the base over which you can amortize shrinks.

Agreed 110%. POTUS and some other related people have caused more damage to the economy and specifically the Defense Industrial base in the last 11 months than one would ever think possible.

Programs are in utter upheaval weekly due to hare brained ideas being spewed. Which makes everyone jumpy, but some products are still without peer, and do offer some leverage.

 

[Kirkhill]

"the division’s new HIMARS rocket launchers shot down “enemy” drones."

How the Army’s most tech-forward units are practicing for war

A two-week exercise simulated island battles—and put some 75 new technologies to the test.

www.defenseone.com

Seeing as how HIMARS raised its head here ... my opening sentence in the attached article caught my eye. HIMARS as an Air Defense system.

I don't think they have got around to launching SAMs from HIMARS llaunchers yet.
But
The M30A1 rocket with Alternative Warhead disperses 182,000 tungsten steel balls at ranges of 15 to 92 km.
Might make an impact on a Swarm.
The multi-mode fuze does have a proximity airburst setting, apparently.

Come to that it might have an effect on helicopters and fast movers in flight.

 

[FJAG]

Will they all be based together. Or do they plan to put a battery of HIMARS in each region? Curious how this works with the recent reorg.

I might have a bit better understanding in a week's time as my information is about a year old before it was funded and people started looking at the issue as a supporting a division rather than just a single subunit. As far as I understand they'll both be in Shilo. The RegF artillery would be hard pressed to come up with the PYs for a rocket regiment - these are the folks who can only man 8 guns per regiment now and are looking at many more guns in the future.

There are options including more PYs or extensive use of reservists. Reservists man many of the HIMARS battalions in the US. It's not rocket science (pun intended) The 1st Battalion 147 Field Artillery out of Watertown South Dakota, the 1-121 out of Milwaukee are both ARNG battalions close at hand.

The easiest way to do this - and of course that negates the Cdn army doing it - is to stand 1 RCHA down from operational tours and leave those to 2 RCHA and 5 RALC. 1 RCHA would then split itself in two, get another LCol and RSM and a couple of IGs and AIGs and other folks posted in and start "train the trainers" training while the recruiting folks find several hundred new gunners and put them through basic training, and/or several reserve regiments (probably the Prairie ones) get selected to convert. Once the trainers are trained and the recruits run through basic the regiments get busy with system specific DP1 and 2 training across the board. All up and if well organized it can be done within about 12 - 18 months.

We did something similar to this in the mid 70s when we stood up the initial Blowpipe air defence batteries. 2 RCHA in Pet ran through several hundred newly recruited folks of TQ3 (basically the arty portion of DP1 at the time) and then a combination of the RCAS and trained unit trainers did the air defence specific TQ4 and above. In many cases the newly trained recruits went into the gun batteries and replaced more advanced, (drivers, communicators, JnrNCMs, etc) previously trained folks who went to the AD batteries.

 

[dapaterson]

The vital ground is the saluting HIMARS for 30 Fd.

 

[Kirkhill]

The vital ground is the saluting HIMARS for 30 Fd.

Think of the fireworks display!