Government hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I have long said that you could fund the CAF to 4 percent of GDP, but we would still lag behind in NATO and be much the same where we are.

It's never the money, it's politics. It's procedures. It's the pork-barreling in our defence spending that makes us a paper tiger in NATO.

My only hope in all of this for the CAF and the GoC, whatever the political stripe that may be, is that it will rouse them out of the "Peace Dividend" slumber. The world has been unstable since 1945. We have used geography, proximity, and association as a Defence Policy ever since. ICBMs don't care how close to the U.S. or how far from Russia/China we are.

Don't give us a dime more, but let us spend money on defence like it matters. The fact we follow the same rules for purchasing a fighter aircraft as we do for buying office furniture for a Service Canada office is disgraceful. Don't treat defense procurement as a stimulus package for Canadian Industry. There I said it.

We spend so much money, time, and effort trying to get that money to stay in Canada; be it by awarding contracts to companies with no capability to produce items without first "retooling" and"developing the production lines", or by hamstringing perfectly competent and competitive bidders by forcing the project to be made in St. Margaret de Poutain de Champignon, QC because the ruling government either lost the seat in the election, or won it with promises.

We spend so much money and staff hours jumping through TBS regulations that are great for other departments, but are terrible for defence procurement. Some items you have to sole source, because there are technologies and capabilities no one else makes. By doing the bid process, you get companies clamoring for a project they can't deliver on, but because they tick the bright boxes on the score sheet....

I truly and honestly belief we need to split from PSPC and legislate that its not beholden to TBS, only to the PBO/PCO. The guiding principles of this new Defence Procurement department should be "Off the shelf, from somewhere else" if there isn't an industry in Canada.

BOOTFORGEN has demonstrated how well we do when we are able to actually get what we need, instead of lining the pockets of a Canadian company that got lucky.

That, but with tanks, fighters, ships, weapons systems....

 

[Gunplumber]

I knew Australia was getting worse but not that bad. Saying that, how many tanks and aircraft do they have compared to us? A LOT MORE.

All militaries are doing this and all are getting bad, should it continue or should we get efficient?

 

[dimsum]

CUT ALL GENERALS POSITIONS! We do not have the manpower to need even one general. You reduce positions as the lower the rank of the CO is you reduce the number of underlings.

Nope. What you’ll end up with is the same number of people but of lower ranks (or not).

There will still be EAs, etc but they’ll be Capt or Maj EAs for a LCol. Maybe down rank them to Lt but if we’re going with the “most trades reach Capt in 4 years” guideline then those positions will be Capt.

You’ll just have a bunch of Capts working for someone one or two ranks higher.

Why do you need 1 Div HQ AND CJOC? Why do you need social media to be 100s of organizations when it should be one pyramid and not 30? All you are doing is creating jobs for hundreds of bureaucrats when it should be reduced by reducing the pyramids that these people want to fill.

Example. Fictional Canadian light brigade of 2000 WO/SGT/CPL/PTE is command by a LCol. and everyone below him/her is a Major/Capt/Lt. For 2000 troops why does it need to be commanded by a BGen? If the Brigade fills up to 10000 troops then you get to have a BGen.

How is this so hard to figure out? Reduce the number/rank of officers to how many troops you have.

Because, as I said before, rank doesn’t necessarily (or should) correlate only with how many troops are there.

 

[Gunplumber]

Last time i checked lower ranks mean lower pay. Use the extra money to buy bullets and gas. And yes, I know all about different budgets and all that but fu*k this if we cant fix it then disband the whole s**thole.

Because, as I said before, rank doesn’t necessarily (or should) correlate only with how many troops are there.

Thats how we get into this mess

Because, as I said before, rank doesn’t necessarily (or should) correlate only with how many troops are there.

Give me a good reason why?

 

[Good2Golf]

If you downgrade the CDS from General to Colonel you downgrade all ranks below that. Thats is getting rid of hundreds of LGens MGens and BGens. If there is no position, then there is no need for anyone to occupy it. You would reduce the amount of senior Officer postions by a thousand, How does that not reduce spending?

Accountability means not paying senior Officers to do jobs that dont need to be done. We have a lot of bureaucrats and officers who dont have real jobs. There is way too much "overhead" to blue collars. Show me any other military in the world that has as much officer to troop percentages as we do.

The awesome part of Canada being a democracy is that you are now free to run for federal office and become the MND and then eliminate all the generals.

 

[Gunplumber]

Slash and burn would be my motto, lol.

All I am saying is if we dont start to something concrete than it will just stay the same. No excuses.

 

[dimsum]

Last time i checked lower ranks mean lower pay. Use the extra money to buy bullets and gas. And yes, I know all about different budgets and all that but fu*k this if we cant fix it then disband the whole s**thole.

Hold on - we’re having enough problems keeping people in partially due to pay (whether or not CAF members are paid well is another discussion which we’ve had here so I’ll skip that), and you’re suggesting we downrank everyone and pay them less? That is not a winning strategy for retention or even recruiting.

Give me a good reason why?

As I said upthread:

That “X number of troops means Y number of officers” is a very Army-centric view.

A squadron of aircraft has about 200 people but the costs, budgets, and capabilities are very different than a few companies of infantry. So, the rank requirements would also be very different.

I remember when 3 Cdn Space Div was formed and people were wondering why 200 folks needed a BGen as Comd. Well, bc the job isn’t person-intensive but the effect and cost of those systems is orders of magnitude greater than the typical combat arms unit or ship’s company.

 

[Gunplumber]

Hold on - we’re having enough problems keeping people in partially due to pay (whether or not CAF members are paid well is another discussion which we’ve had here so I’ll skip that), and you’re suggesting we downrank everyone and pay them less? That is not a winning strategy for retention or even recruiting.

I only mean downrank senior Officers not everyone. We need Cpl/Ptes not Generals. Put the money where it needs to go.

 

[Gunplumber]

I was Army. I know very little about the Airforce so I defer to your opinion on that.

 

[markppcli]

We dont have real brigades, we have hollowed out ones that cannot do a brigades work. I am saying that we have to put the money into getting the brigades up to real numbers. Until a brigade is full strength you dont get a BGen to run it. If it only has enough troops to be a Company then its run by a Captain/Major. If a division only has troops to be a Regt then it can be commanded by a LCol. Why spend all the money on "managers" when there is nothing to manage. We have to have an incentive to have a quota of officers to what troops they have to command. No troops then no promotions.

The example I used is for a reserve Regt of 30 guys, no need for a LCol just a Lt. If you add 30 more troops then the OC can be a Capt. Do that for the whole Army.

We don’t have BGen’s running Bdes. We have Colonels commanding them?


What’s your solutions for a 450 person infantry Bn, probably a Lt Col I assume? And if we group several of those together surely a Col commands it? You’re taking your experiences from a small reserve unit and attempting to apply it globally across the CAF. That’s simply not the case.

 

[Gunplumber]

"I remember when 3 Cdn Space Div was formed and people were wondering why 200 folks needed a BGen as Comd. Well, bc the job isn’t person-intensive but the effect and cost of those systems is orders of magnitude greater than the typical combat arms unit or ship’s company."

I was a gunplumer with RCHA. Had 6 M-109s, hundreds of rifles and 20 or so machine guns. I was a Cpl, should I have been a Sgt?

 

[Loachman]

Figure it out yourselves didn't necessarily mean make your techs do it. It's piss poor planning to assume CA is going to force gen your security, those PYs already have tasks and are better employed elsewhere. What you need is PY growth that some smart bean counters will figure out where it'll come from.

Back to 444 Squadron in the Glory Days of the Cold War . . .

We had that problem, and more.

We had almost as many aircraft and vehicles as people, and some trades were only one person deep. Our single Safety Systems Tech (to use the terminology of the time) had to maintain helmets and survival vests etcetera, maintain his shop equipment, maintain his vehicle (MLVW SEV) and the second set of shop equipment, and carry out field tasks on ex as well.

Even aircrew stood sentry between flights, which meant being one TOPP/MOPP level higher than everybody else and completely unable to monitor the tactical situation and then suddenly scrambling. Bunny suits on, bunny suits off, bunny suits on, bunny suits off, sometimes every few minutes. Muddy boots ensured that flying suits and NBC suit interiors were coated with varying degrees of mud. We also had to keep a section (two Captain Pilots and two Sergeant Observers) in each flight location to man Flight Ops and be ready to rip everything down and pack it up for short-notice moves, then re-establish the follow-on location. We had a two-man Servicing Det - under-employed fully-trained Techs - which performed some aircraft servicing (the Kiowa was a very simple, robust, and reliable machine that seldom broke even when I wanted it to) and ran the Flight FARP.

That was a waste of expensive training and pay. We would have been much better off to cash those in for twice the number of Privates trained as local defence and minor servicing tasks.

The British Army Air Corps did it right. The basic NCM rank was/is Air Trooper - trained for simple yet absolutely essential tasks. They would be streamed off as either Aircrew or Techs after two years, which makes far more sense, saves money, provides bodies, and doesn't piss off people over-trained for the actual job that they do. And those who move(d) into the aircrew route start(ed) out as Corporals (the closest available font colour to the AAC beret).

And the RAF has its RAF Regiment to provide local air and ground defence.

We cannot count on bean counters - no matter how smart they may be, they cannot overcome systemic blindness and inertia plus military and civilian polytics ("poly" = many/"tics" = blood-sucking parasites).

There are always better, smarter, and cheaper ways to do things, but never enough actual incentive until things get really, really bad.

Once the Ukrainians have quashed the Soviet Army we should establish hundreds of exchange positions with them so that they can teach mental and tactical agility.

 

[dimsum]

I only mean downrank senior Officers not everyone. We need Cpl/Ptes not Generals. Put the money where it needs to go.

We are also short of procurement staffs, which is a major reason why our projects take so long. We literally do not have the pers to do that staff work. Those are normally Majors and LCols.

Also, our “rank requirement” (if that is a thing) is also influenced by our alliances and partnerships. NORAD, for example, has a Canadian 3* in Colorado Springs and 2x 1*s in Alaska and Florida. Those positions weren’t set by us, and the USAF / USSF is hard on the rank requirement because they have a US counterpart of the same rank.

If, for example, we downrank the CDS to a 1*, then we have a Col in Colorado Springs supposedly having the same duties of a US 3*. We might think it’s fine but the US certainly won’t.

 

[Loachman]

It is in our doctrine so from that sense, yes it should.

Creating the 2-3000 positions an RCAF Regiment would need is easy. Recruiting those would be impossible in the current climate.

Creating the positions is easy. Funding them is not.

As for recruiting, give them decent equipment (not a CF tradition, unfortunately) and the same hotel accommodations as your aircrew . . .

 

[Gunplumber]

"What’s your solutions for a 450 person infantry Bn, probably a Lt Col I assume? And if we group several of those together surely a Col commands it? You’re taking your experiences from a small reserve unit and attempting to apply it globally across the CAF. That’s simply not the case."

It was an example, and a very simple one.

You can command people of the same rank, its called seniority and position. ie. if an OC is a Capt, he can have Captains under him/her. Its been done for centuries.

 

[Loachman]

Only if you do a bad job at marketing the Air Force to teenagers...

.... which means you would really, really suck

I like the realism when Tom jerks forwards as he changes gears.

 

[Gunplumber]

We are also short of procurement staffs, which is a major reason why our projects take so long. We literally do not have the pers to do that staff work. Those are normally Majors and LCols.

Also, our “rank requirement” (if that is a thing) is also influenced by our alliances and partnerships. NORAD, for example, has a Canadian 3* in Colorado Springs and 2x 1*s in Alaska and Florida. Those positions weren’t set by us, and the USAF / USSF is hard on the rank requirement because they have a US counterpart of the same rank.

If, for example, we downrank the CDS to a 1*, then we have a Col in Colorado Springs supposedly having the same duties of a US 3*. We might think it’s fine but the US certainly won’t.

Again Brevet ranks. Its been done for a long time and it work. You dont have to permanent promote.

 

[Loachman]

Last time i checked lower ranks mean lower pay.

Yes - pay people even less to do more work.

Absolutely brilliant retention programme.

 

[Gunplumber]

Yes - pay people even less to do more work.

Absolutely brilliant retention programme.

Read my lips SENIOR OFFICERS

 

[markppcli]

"I remember when 3 Cdn Space Div was formed and people were wondering why 200 folks needed a BGen as Comd. Well, bc the job isn’t person-intensive but the effect and cost of those systems is orders of magnitude greater than the typical combat arms unit or ship’s company."

What?

I was a gunplumer with RCHA. Had 6 M-109s, hundreds of rifles and 20 or so machine guns. I was a Cpl, should I have been a Sgt?

You didn’t have 6 m109s, you fixed them. You didn’t command them.

 

[markppcli]

Read my lips SENIOR OFFICERS

And do you think junior officers don’t look at their career prospects?