I was wrong regarding Marcel Masse's home riding, however he became Minister of National defence in 1991 and the Griffons were ordered in 1992.
There was little research done prior to purchasing the Griffon. I do not even recall hearing about a formal Twin Huey replacement programme, let alone anything about "specs" and "bids", just a sudden announcement that the Twins would be replaced by Bell 412s.
From what I remember, the original hasty plan was for fifty of them to replace the Twins, which were definitely showing signs of aging. The minister was the one who doubled the size of the purchase.
Commonly-heard phrases: "It's an off-the-shelf purchase, of course it will work", "There is no need for user trials" and "We won't need to stock spare parts as Bell will get them to us within twenty-four hours anywhere on the planet".
The Army's preference was Black Hawk. The number that could have been purchased within the budget limit was far too small, however.
Regardless, the purchase was doctrinally unjustifiable.
Our doctrine of the time stated that:
At Brigade level, there was a continual requirement for light helicopters for reconnaissance and fire direction (which included Close Air Support), and occasional requirement for utility and attack helicopters.
At Division level, there was a continual requirement for utility and attack helicopters and an occasional requirement for medium transport helicopters (Chinook).
At Corps level, there was a continual requirement for medium transport helicopters.
We had no plan at the time for deploying anything larger than a Brigade, yet we gave up something for which we had a stated continual requirement in favour of something for which we had a stated occasional requirement.
Not that this was the first time that the CF had ever bought something contrary to doctrinal necessity and forced it to "fit", or artificially rewritten doctrine around a piece of kit after purchasing it.
Early, illogical, Griffon "doctrine" put a Squadron of three flights of eight in each Brigade whereas there had previously been a Squadron of two flights of eight Kiowas.
What were they supposed to do? There was no capability to conduct recce or Air OP or FAC, and training for those things ceased.
My initial prediction when the purchase was announced was that we would all get great suntans on major exercises because we would all be horrendously under-employed, unless those exercises were all written as airmobile ones (conveniently forgetting that we had no escort or other protective capability, which effectively limited us to administrative moves on our side of the FEBA).
A common term was Griffon/Reality Doctrine Line, where "Requirements" were listed down one side of the page/whiteboard and Griffon capabilities/characteristics were written down the other, on wither side of a prominent vertical line. No items from either side matched any on the other.
Yes, "Simplification" was a claimed benefit. It included a claim that we would save money by reducing Pilot training programmes from two (Kiowa and Twin Huey - Chinook had already been killed off due to operating and upgrading costs) to one. Not mentioned, however, was the fact that Kiowa was a single-Pilot machine while Griffon required two, burned one-quarter of the fuel that Griffon does, and ate up a lot fewer spare parts.
"Simplification" isn't always simplification, and is not necessarily even cost-effective; as for operationally-effective, well, fat chance.
