Government hints at boosting Canada’s military spending

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Part of the briefing note should include:

"The food is better in Korea"

Of the top of my head I had some amazing food from India, Nepal and the Carribean in the UK, to be fair.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Of the top of my head I had some amazing food from India, Nepal and the Carribean in the UK, to be fair.

The British national dish: Vin da loo

 

[dapaterson]

The old question:

Is British cuisine really so bad?

If prepared properly, yes.

 

[PrairieFella]

Does this vision call for three symmetrical tank regiments?

From what I've seen, no. Not necessarily a bad thing. If we go into a divisional-centric system like the rumors suggest, two tanks regiments should be stationed in the West. LdSH in Edmonton with Wainwright as their primary training area and a newly stood up tank regiment in Shilo, either pull an old unit name such the 1st Fort Garry Horse, 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards, etc or make a new one entirely.

I'd then make the RCDs a medium cav regiment for a medium division. No change in location or strength.

12RBC would be reformed into a divisional recce regiment which can be shipped off to either Div to support training or operations. No change in location but I'd beef them up in terms of number of squadrons to enable that floating aspect.

My two cents.

No clue what any third division would look like so can't comment on what type of regiment would be useful. Maybe some sort of light division could use a British-style Deep Reconnaissance Strike regiment? Unsure.

 

[Halifax Tar]

It would be great to expand FLS again, especially for the RAMPs so that there is on the ground tech staff to assist in planning and contracting before the ship shows up. When you have a 2 week RAMP, having to spend the first 4 or 5 days working out the contract and technical details leads to a lot of lost time.

Outside of pump wash pumps the technical work is all done by fly in crews from FMF or NATO employees and of course ships crew members.

What contracts were guys try to do that couldn't be done using proper deployed contracting methods and utilizing the ships agent and FLS ?

For my money for the heavies I would get rid of FLS with the exception of RAMPs. And keep them for Subs and Minor Vessels like AOPs.

But I've never been a part of an FLS, I've only been in reception of the varying degrees of productivity.

Yes they did. FLS is a great gig to be on. All the tax free and benefits, the money made on R&Q, and a medal to boot. More than likely all part of the large maintenance team that follows the subs from port to port. That's a great go as well.

You'd be surprised how hard a time we have to get people on FLS.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Outside of pump wash pumps the technical work is all done by fly in crews from FMF or NATO employees and of course ships crew members.

What contracts were guys try to do that couldn't be done using proper deployed contracting methods and utilizing the ships agent and FLS ?

For my money for the heavies I would get rid of FLS with the exception of RAMPs. And keep them for Subs and Minor Vessels like AOPs.

But I've never been a part of an FLS, I've only been in reception of the varying degrees of productivity.

It was through the ship agent, but still needed to set up a contract with technical specs for things like high pressure welding, black water pipe repair, painting, and some other things where we didn't have FMF support. Was pretty straightforward after contracting DWPs in Canada, as well as knowing who to ask for things like comparable EU standards for welding procedures etc, but not something most MSEOs know.

We spent a lot of time though going back and forth with FLS and ship agent for things like part substitutions, fuel fittings etc that always made our port visits much longer, so having someone on the FLS to do that for us would be a lot easier (especially when you don't have good connectivity). Some of it could have been done remotely, but some things required you to be on site, so having one person figure out what fuel standards they can meet, how they will hook up to ship, fuel booms etc would save a department half a day of messing around every two weeks figuring that out, and also be a big QoL improvement for the people that have been doing 12+ hour days for a few weeks straight and want to get it done so they can get some time off.

FOr the RAMPs, doesn't need to be a permanent FLS, but someone on the ground ahead of time to figure out all that stuff and coordinate things like RADHAZ, diving precautions, hot work, fueling, power hookups, etc etc would again mean we could start work a lot sooner, and also offload work SS is trying to do from sea, and may not have the experience to do either.

I'd happily go with a few people ahead of a RAMP and run the whole thing for them, as it would also give the EO a break and opportunity for downtime, but then get the work done sooner (and get more done). SS would still need to supply things like escort, hot work sentries and some tech SME for specific jobs, but would be easier than them organizing and running it each day on top of it.

 

[Stoker]

I'd happily go with a few people ahead of a RAMP and run the whole thing for them, as it would also give the EO a break and opportunity for downtime, but then get the work done sooner (and get more done). SS would still need to supply things like escort, hot work sentries and some tech SME for specific jobs, but would be easier than them organizing and running it each day on top of it.

If you need a Chief let me know LOL

 

[ytz]

Already on their way. MQ9, Switchblade, etc. A bunch of GPUAS are coming too. Doesn't mean we have enough in the pipe but it's a start.

And ALEs. That's probably where a lot of LMs will end up for a small military like us.

 

[Kirkhill]

Sorry, South Korea, not Saskatchewan. Believe it was the last two on the Tide class.

But expect if South Korea was delivering subs, we'd do a lot of trianing in South Korea, same as we did with the Vic class in the UK. Similar things would apply for Spain and other countries in the running.

The RCN is pretty shit at thinking about personnel, training and required infrastructure for ships and people to operate whatever shiny toys they are looking at.

Consider your chain yanked. 'Pologies.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Remember this comes from a place of love lol

It was through the ship agent, but still needed to set up a contract with technical specs for things like high pressure welding, black water pipe repair, painting, and some other things where we didn't have FMF support. Was pretty straightforward after contracting DWPs in Canada, as well as knowing who to ask for things like comparable EU standards for welding procedures etc, but not something most MSEOs know.

1) The TA portion of contracting is your job.

2) Expecting the same contracting processes and smoothness as you get in Canada shows a lack of deployed understanding.

We spent a lot of time though going back and forth with FLS and ship agent for things like part substitutions, fuel fittings etc that always made our port visits much longer, so having someone on the FLS to do that for us would be a lot easier (especially when you don't have good connectivity). Some of it could have been done remotely, but some things required you to be on site, so having one person figure out what fuel standards they can meet, how they will hook up to ship, fuel booms etc would save a department half a day of messing around every two weeks figuring that out, and also be a big QoL improvement for the people that have been doing 12+ hour days for a few weeks straight and want to get it done so they can get some time off.

1) Again that's the TA portion of your job. You need to properly specify your requirements, and you need to take into account where you are in the world when you do that.

2) Expecting fuel booms from country's that don't use fuel booms is silly. And that all goes on the LOGREQ.

FOr the RAMPs, doesn't need to be a permanent FLS, but someone on the ground ahead of time to figure out all that stuff and coordinate things like RADHAZ, diving precautions, hot work, fueling, power hookups, etc etc would again mean we could start work a lot sooner, and also offload work SS is trying to do from sea, and may not have the experience to do either.

1) That's all done in the port recce pack. And 99% of all our ports, east coast anyways, have historical data as well from previous visits.

2) The largest slow down for the MSE Dept is fueling, its not repair maint work. Its either a slow process or we are asking for a ton of fuel from a place that doesn't carry it and we are also trying to bogart both of the only 2 fuel trucks on the island.

I'd happily go with a few people ahead of a RAMP and run the whole thing for them, as it would also give the EO a break and opportunity for downtime, but then get the work done sooner (and get more done). SS would still need to supply things like escort, hot work sentries and some tech SME for specific jobs, but would be easier than them organizing and running it each day on top of it.

Not required. RAMP is a Log heavy evolution moving people and kit into place. Inclusive of FMF and their tools. And its almost always done in a port of established history like Souda Bay or Toulon ect ect.

I think Engineers and NWOs need to understand in the world of global shipping support we are small ass potatoes. And port services will always cater to cruise and shipping lines before us.

What we need is the GoC to invest in projected, permanent, crewed and fitted out support hubs and operate from them mostly.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Remember this comes from a place of love lol



1) The TA portion of contracting is your job.

2) Expecting the same contracting processes and smoothness as you get in Canada shows a lack of deployed understanding.

Disagree it's the responsibility of the MSEO; it's a 2nd/3rd line work period, done oversees, and MSEOs don't have the experience/training to know that level of detail (and why you have PLs/spec writers in the FMFs and in 3rd line DWPs, and TAs working in Ottawa).

MSEO's responsibility is to identify the work needs done, and coordinate SS support, which is no different then SWPs and DWPs (to some extent).

I did both the TSOR, QC and coordinated the work; LogO/FLS/Agent did the contracting, and I did the verification of the work for the section 34, but I had experience that a lot of current and future MSEOs won't that let me do that. I wouldn't have had a clue how to do any of that if I had differnet postings before that, and had already written the tech specs for DWPs for that kind of work (and then PMd the jobs)

Don't forget the minim number of sea days to get MSEO qual is something like 90 days total or less (with waivers), so some people will have deployment experience as trainees, but others may have barely sailed so it's a bit of a crapshoot based on what ships they get posted to.

1) Again that's the TA portion of your job. You need to properly specify your requirements, and you need to take into account where you are in the world when you do that.

2) Expecting fuel booms from country's that don't use fuel booms is silly. And that all goes on the LOGREQ.

Again, that requirement is pretty clearly the EO responsibility to figure out, as per SEMs, and just because it goes in the log req doesn't mean it's set up or figured out by the time the ship does fueling, and the RCN or CAF doesn't stand behind people that have a spill when they ignored the fleet orders.

YMMV, but mine was that stuff in the logreq is just stuff in the logreq, and what FLS and the agent say don't mean much when you roll up.

1) That's all done in the port recce pack. And 99% of all our ports, east coast anyways, have historical data as well from previous visits.

2) The largest slow down for the MSE Dept is fueling, its not repair maint work. Its either a slow process or we are asking for a ton of fuel from a place that doesn't carry it and we are also trying to bogart both of the only 2 fuel trucks on the island.

Some ports have an up to date recce, some have an old one or one that doesn't exist. A few weird spots we went had log reqs from the 90s.

The biggest slowdown on fueling in a lot of cases is figuring out how to adapt from the connections we have to the fittings the fuel supplier has. Last deployment I did we ended up making a binder of the fittings we have with dimensions and pictures to show the fuel supplier, but still resulted in slowdowns of hours, and fittings made up of about 8 adapters in some places. Sure, some places it was by truck, but even pulling up to a fueling jetty in Italy took about 6 hours to set up because we had to figure out everything once we got there, and realized nothing on the logreq for fittings or fuel booms was in place.

Not required. RAMP is a Log heavy evolution moving people and kit into place. Inclusive of FMF and their tools. And its almost always done in a port of established history like Souda Bay or Toulon ect ect.

I think Engineers and NWOs need to understand in the world of global shipping support we are small ass potatoes. And port services will always cater to cruise and shipping lines before us.

What we need is the GoC to invest in projected, permanent, crewed and fitted out support hubs and operate from them mostly.

We did our RAMP in Toulon; there was a big FMF job (replacing one of the shaft A bracket bearings), that needed some FMF support, as well as divers. That was a job known months ahead, but the logistics and coordination were done entirely by SS, a lot of it once we got there, so the critical job that massively limited our operations, and took about a week to do, started day 5 into our 2 week visit and ran up until a day or two before we had to leave.

That was mostly due to (again) delays in getting the support requirements clearly understood and arranging for some critical things to be provided locally, as well as deconflicting dive operations with the French Navy operations. We did it, but absolutely no reason someone could have come early, and been PL/PM to manage all that stuff. We also did a few thousand hours of repairs to a bunch of other stuff with CJOC money, so any given day there were 20-30 contractors running around onboard. That was stuff that FMF normally does (that the PL coordinates and FMF plans).

When we used to do bigger RAMPs and actually dock the ship, the departments were much bigger and people had more experience onboard, but the FLS had a cert 3 and we used to send extra staff just to do the PL function as a TAV. There are plenty of support hubs, so no need to create our own, we just need to figure out a few things like how to push things like parts for routine PM to ships and POLs on top of what is needed for CM. Pretty easy to look at a BOM for something like HVAC filter PM, realize you can't carry enough for more than 1 month onboard for the 1M, and do that proactively, but we suck at that.

For context, getting to support the mission in Latvia now in a purple job, and they TAV over all kinds of routine inspections and support instead of do a constant forward deployment. So instead of having someone there all the time, they will just bring someone for a week or two as needed, so absolutely no reason why the RCN couldn't just TAV a few people to plan/orgranize/support a RAMP, but they treat TAV money like you are taking food from their kids. That would probably be way more use than FLS in most cases, as they just seem to be extra hands for the LogO and also run the shuttle to get people in and out.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

No. We have Naval Warfare Officers. We have Maritime Technicians. We have Naval Communicators. We have Sonar Operators. We have cooks. And every other trade needed to operate and fight the platform.

When selected for submarine service they undergo additional training, but they remain in their parent occupation.

So is that methodology helping or hindering getting people for the subs?

 

[dapaterson]

So is that methodology helping or hindering getting people for the subs?

Neither nor.

"Submariner" isn't a thing. It's an add on to other occupations.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Disagree it's the responsibility of the MSEO; it's a 2nd/3rd line work period, done oversees, and MSEOs don't have the experience/training to know that level of detail (and why you have PLs/spec writers in the FMFs and in 3rd line DWPs, and TAs working in Ottawa).

MSEO's responsibility is to identify the work needs done, and coordinate SS support, which is no different then SWPs and DWPs (to some extent).

I did both the TSOR, QC and coordinated the work; LogO/FLS/Agent did the contracting, and I did the verification of the work for the section 34, but I had experience that a lot of current and future MSEOs won't that let me do that. I wouldn't have had a clue how to do any of that if I had differnet postings before that, and had already written the tech specs for DWPs for that kind of work (and then PMd the jobs)

Don't forget the minim number of sea days to get MSEO qual is something like 90 days total or less (with waivers), so some people will have deployment experience as trainees, but others may have barely sailed so it's a bit of a crapshoot based on what ships they get posted to.

All you're telling me here is EOs are woefully inexperienced and we need to slow down their career progression so they spend more time on deck plates.

Because doing something simple like a SOR or SOW and realizing you're not in Canada shouldn't be beyond them.

Again, that requirement is pretty clearly the EO responsibility to figure out, as per SEMs, and just because it goes in the log req doesn't mean it's set up or figured out by the time the ship does fueling, and the RCN or CAF doesn't stand behind people that have a spill when they ignored the fleet orders.

YMMV, but mine was that stuff in the logreq is just stuff in the logreq, and what FLS and the agent say don't mean much when you roll up.

SEMs doesn't live in reality. Ask the Mediterranean Navies what they do with their garbage at sea for example.

LOGREQs give all kinds of info. But if the port you're pulling into doesn't have a fuel boom. You expect them to make one.

Or has one boom and it's already in use tough luck, we wait. Maybe we shouldn't go to shit hole ports.

Some ports have an up to date recce, some have an old one or one that doesn't exist. A few weird spots we went had log reqs from the 90s.

The biggest slowdown on fueling in a lot of cases is figuring out how to adapt from the connections we have to the fittings the fuel supplier has. Last deployment I did we ended up making a binder of the fittings we have with dimensions and pictures to show the fuel supplier, but still resulted in slowdowns of hours, and fittings made up of about 8 adapters in some places. Sure, some places it was by truck, but even pulling up to a fueling jetty in Italy took about 6 hours to set up because we had to figure out everything once we got there, and realized nothing on the logreq for fittings or fuel booms was in place.

This is all stuff that needs to be covered in the planning phases. Once you're inbound to the port it's too late. And no amount of FLS or Agent will change that.

I find it strange you had a problem in Italy, Augusta I presume ? As they should be running NATO connections. They have every time iv been there.

Our connection issues always come in places like Tunisia or Morocco.

We did our RAMP in Toulon; there was a big FMF job (replacing one of the shaft A bracket bearings), that needed some FMF support, as well as divers. That was a job known months ahead, but the logistics and coordination were done entirely by SS, a lot of it once we got there, so the critical job that massively limited our operations, and took about a week to do, started day 5 into our 2 week visit and ran up until a day or two before we had to leave.

Thats the ships staff job. To coordinate the logistics of getting people and stuff into place. FLS is a reactive section that goes to the airport when we tell them too.

I was knee deep in pers movements from Jan to Mar and Jun to Dec last year.

You lost a shaft bracket, it was either something that was discovered while underway on deployment and there for the fix for that is going to get messy, or it knew about it before you left and no one planned out the fix.

It's just that simple

That was mostly due to (again) delays in getting the support requirements clearly understood and arranging for some critical things to be provided locally, as well as deconflicting dive operations with the French Navy operations. We did it, but absolutely no reason someone could have come early, and been PL/PM to manage all that stuff. We also did a few thousand hours of repairs to a bunch of other stuff with CJOC money, so any given day there were 20-30 contractors running around onboard. That was stuff that FMF normally does (that the PL coordinates and FMF plans).

Thats life on operations. Again when was OPDEF identified and published I relation to when your RAML was that will tell me everything about where it went sideways.

When we used to do bigger RAMPs and actually dock the ship, the departments were much bigger and people had more experience onboard, but the FLS had a cert 3 and we used to send extra staff just to do the PL function as a TAV. There are plenty of support hubs, so no need to create our own, we just need to figure out a few things like how to push things like parts for routine PM to ships and POLs on top of what is needed for CM. Pretty easy to look at a BOM for something like HVAC filter PM, realize you can't carry enough for more than 1 month onboard for the 1M, and do that proactively, but we suck at that.

We've had very few FLS with a MARTECH and they were more disruptive than they were worth when we did have them.

Its also not worth the cost to have them fly around and look at jetty fittings.

Ya your right it would be a terrible idea to have that PM, CM material and POL forward deployed and ready. eyeroll

For context, getting to support the mission in Latvia now in a purple job, and they TAV over all kinds of routine inspections and support instead of do a constant forward deployment. So instead of having someone there all the time, they will just bring someone for a week or two as needed, so absolutely no reason why the RCN couldn't just TAV a few people to plan/orgranize/support a RAMP, but they treat TAV money like you are taking food from their kids. That would probably be way more use than FLS in most cases, as they just seem to be extra hands for the LogO and also run the shuttle to get people in and out.

The Army has an NSE that's forward deployed there with material and people to support.

Theres that pesky forward deployed craziness again.

Anyways, we do TAV people in the workers from FMF. The planning and organizing are on the Ships EO and LogO.

But I agree FLS is a waste of resources outside of the RAMP. The composition of that FLS sounds like it might make for some fun whiskey and camp fire chat for the two of us

 

[Navy_Pete]

@Halifax Tar, see where you are coming from, I guess maybe there is a big difference between a simple SOW and doing up 2nd and 3rd line repair specs. That's the kind of thing we have specialists for that scope jobs, figure out the repair requirements, and QC stuff needed to fix it. Those are way beyond simple specs (buy 2 widgets, a barrel of POL to meet spec B, etc), and where FMF, LCMMs and others get involved.

Would definitely be fun to have a camp side chat, those are great places to fix the Navy's problems and tell funny stories.

 

[Halifax Tar]

@Halifax Tar, see where you are coming from, I guess maybe there is a big difference between a simple SOW and doing up 2nd and 3rd line repair specs. That's the kind of thing we have specialists for that scope jobs, figure out the repair requirements, and QC stuff needed to fix it. Those are way beyond simple specs (buy 2 widgets, a barrel of POL to meet spec B, etc), and where FMF, LCMMs and others get involved.

Would definitely be fun to have a camp side chat, those are great places to fix the Navy's problems and tell funny stories.

We fly people over for that kind of work, in fact we call them TAVs. We had them both in 2020 and 2024 (X2).

The key is planning and lead time. The less of those you have the worse things go.

There are not shortage of Navy problems to fix lol.

 

[Navy_Pete]

We fly people over for that kind of work, in fact we call them TAVs. We had them both in 2020 and 2024 (X2).

The key is planning and lead time. The less of those you have the worse things go.

There are not shortage of Navy problems to fix lol.

Yeah, I think that's high value TAVs/FLS type activity. Costs are relatively minimal, especially for military personnel, and generally for RAMPs a lot of the work is known well ahead of time so easy to plan.

We spent a bunch of CJOC money, but was a tonne of extra work that a TAV could have managed and planned a lot easier, if we could get MCC to pull their thumb out. Not sure if they have gotten better, but it was pulling teeth and they would sit on approvals for weeks while we were working aroudn a lot of broken stuff, which would could have easily fixed with some parts and the odd assist.

Some of that was probably due to the stupid way we do travel approvals, so clearing out a lot of that arbitrary caps and approval gates for travel would be a huge efficiency gain.