12Alfa said:
WE have been told that this years Acron will be our last use of the Cougar.
This Army is goin to heck, and dam fast.
To spend that $, and now takin them out of service is just what we come to see from this goverement, and the army also.
The waste on this upgrade, and the Leo is unforgivable, but is expected after the long list of poor management of our $
s.
Why did we bother to upgrade if we were not keeping the equipment?
Someone got a contract and $.
If this were any other company, heads would roll.
If my employer upgraded our multi-million equipment, and then took it out of service, that manager would be gone in a flash.
If history tell us anything, in the forces he will be promoted!!!!
....ummm , sry ranting again....
12Alfa
I also found the Cougar CAT a good Har Har. ;D
Although I have to agree with 12Alfa. :rocket:
Also, Don't forget the following additional waste:
"Canada will continue to operate 289 Life-extended M-113 tracked APCs in a Combat Service Support [CSS] role." Unforrunately, the M-113 Life-extension ran a to-date C$95M cost-overrun (41% increase per vehicle) for a total cost of C$366M, a 29% vehicle reduction from originally planned 406 x M-113 Life-extension. Another recent pre-MGS 'Transformation' cost was the Leopard I C2 Thermal Sight project completed 11 September 2001 for C$139M, that included 18 Gunnery Trainer Simulators - under a C$14M sub-contract - that could inexpensively be re-roled to simulate the Leopard 2A4/5/6.
Or premature LSVW C$150M replacement - SCIP notes
"Light Vehicle Wheeled project proposes to provide the Army with light, highly mobile vehicles to support field units" within 6-10 years, C$150,000K within Subsequent years ("2008-2013"). :gunner:
The current Light Support Vehicle Wheeled (LSVW) fleet of 2,800 LSVW - just recently procured from 1992-96 for C$278M under politically driven circumstances, and ignored DND safety concerns after failing acceptance trials with over 200 major deficiencies, has seen numerous examples permanently parked outside army bases due to inherant reliability problems (as confirmed by Edmonton Garrison & LFWA unnamed officer sources), and somewhat useless for overseas missions due to shortsighted fuel type requirements.
As noted in a 2003 CFC NSSC 5 study paper,
'Not Fighting all the Fights', Col J.C. Collin shows that due to
"THE LACK OF TOP-DOWN, PRECISE, CONGRUENT DIRECTION" some of the above noted wastefull spending need not have occurred.
"Three anecdotal examples will serve to illustrate the importance of this precise guidance...or lack thereof. First, the CF's main battle tank, the Leopard, has just completed a refit program to obtain thermal imagery and greater accuracy [at a cost of $139 million]
just in time to be placed in preservation, based on the current belief that the Army should be a wheeled and light armoured force, (plus the discovery of serious hull deterioration on 38 tanks)
. Similarly, the Department is spending $366 million to life-extend the tracked armoured personnel carrier fleet â “ again whilst announcing a rapid transition to a wheeled fleet, (as at DNDs valuation of C$2M per LAV-III chassis, plus C$30M in NRE outfitting costs, some 289 LAV-III CSS variants could have been acquired for C$608M - for a mere C$242M more the Army would have had a wheeled CSS fleet that would be more interoperable with the current fleet and reduce logistics costs whilst enabling equivalent mobility to US Stryker brigades)
. This paper will not debate the merits of the 'wheeled' versus 'track' decision, but simply highlight that such a drastic change in equipping philosophy [and thus capability] has been done without a national security policy or Defence White Paper that clearly articulates what is expected of the Canadian land forces. Another example is the purchase of the Griffon helicopter which neither meets the needs of the White Paper, Strategy 2020, or the Army's requirements for the future battlefield. At a cost of $1.2 billion, the need for clear top-down guidance beginning with a national security policy is clear, (especially considering 13 of these relatively new platforms have been declared surplus to requirements - a C$156M waste)
. These arguably needless projects are examples where long-term policy would better focus acquisition. As one somewhat frustrated Lieutenant-Colonel in the Directorate of Land Requirements at National Defence Headquarters announced: 'From my own experience the greatest challenge the Army has faced in the past has been to sort out what we want given the available funding and not change the entire plan every second year... Buying equipment takes 5 to 10 years [or more!] on average and if you keep changing your mind all the time you do not get anything at the end of the day.' " To these examples must be added the 1990s ill-considered C$278M LSVW procurement, for a total of C$939M wasted on Army related procurements in just the past decade that could, for comparisons sake, have covered the procurement of 374 CSS LAV-III & 34 MMEV-ADATS LAV-III variants. :crybaby:
But I digress, the humor pic sometimes reflects reality all too closely.
