Just putting on my tin foil and flame retarding suit here before I get set on fire for my thoughts.
LEO 2, was born in the 1970s, service life was 1979 to present day. With upgrades and mods etc, it is fairly new on the tank market and very new to the used Tank market. 44 old year tank
M1A1 was born in 1970s, 1972 design date , service history of 1980. With upgrades etc, it is the newer beast on the market, not really on the used market as much. 43 year old tank
Challenger 2 was born in 1986, service life after 1993, upgrades to Challenger 3 status 2027
LEO 2 is just gaining combat experience, till the Ukraine I could not find any tank on tank work for the LEO History ( maybe some one here has details pre Ukraine ) but lots or reported damage and abandoned tanks but crews were alive. ( This could be chalked up to not enough time for training and operating the LEO before going on the battlefield )
M1A1 and newer models have been proven and improved upon after every engagement.
Canada and tank history is never good. Post Second World War, we have not maintained a tank fleet that could go to war or taken our own tanks.
Korea came a long and instead of using Tanks already owned by Canada, ( 294 Sherman M4A2E8 in country surplus Lend / Lease Russia from end of war, ) we arranged to use 20 M4A3E8 tanks acquired from US stocks already in Korea for Korean War service in 1951.
Afghanistan comes along and the tanks we have in stock are worn out, not fit for combat use, so we borrow equipment again this time from Germany and buy used tanks and replace the German stock from those used tanks after paying to upgrade them. ( upgrade the bare minimum of Canadian Tanks for training)
So here is my thought and this why I need the fire proof suit on.
Canada forgets about owning tanks, since there a combined 12 408 tanks of various models in NATO and the report I read shows Canada has 82 of those tanks. ( Canada is number 12 on the list ).
Instead of operating a tank regiment or regiments, we ally our tank regiments with another NATO country and we train and man their tanks for them on NATO Operations.
Save costs on training, maintaining, storing ( we do a lot of storing of tanks) and offer up one of the Western Canadian training areas as the NATO tank school.
The UK has come to Canada for years and trained their tankers and soldiers in Western Canada because the training area is almost as big all their training bases (CFB Suffield is 2700 square KM or just over 1000 square miles, Catterick Garrison is 10 square km or 2400 acres. Salisbury Plain Training area The MoD now own 150 square miles (390 km2) of land, making it the largest military training area in the United Kingdom. Much of this land is let to farmers or grazed under licence, while around 47 square miles (120 km2) (12,000 ha) are used for live firing, where public access is greatly restricted or permanently closed.)
My plan would be scrap or sell off the Canadian tank fleet, train Canadian soldiers to operate a fleet of NATO supplied tanks, LEO2, Challenger2 and the latest M1 tank so that if Canada joins NATO on an operations they are trained of vast number of tank models and can effective operate them professionally . Canadian tanker become the home team at the training center providing enemy force , this way Canadians are training as attacking and on the defense. The equipment is funded by the NATO group and Canada gets next to free training. Our Tank commanders get training at leading a larger tank force, maintaniners get to maintain operational tanks and support vehicles. Our troops get training and some one else helps pay for it.
Think of it a lot like the British Commonwealth Aircrew Training Plan from the Second World War and this time it is tanks
hiding now before Canadian tankers find me and burn me out
