Informing the Army’s Future Structure

[Kirkhill]

I worked closely with the individuals in the band that pushed this through, one of those projects that were a real win-win for everyone. Not every small community can do this, but the project was so successful that Yukon Energy asked them to expand their grid into the Yukon and BC Hydro pays them to provide power to Atlin. The profits after costs and maintenance gets plowed back into the community and BC Hydro saves money because it's not sending large quantities of diesel to the generators every week by truck. It also builds a sense of responsibility into the band and the people working at the plant. The Atlin hydro project – embodying First Nation principles - NS Energy

One of the reasons I like the home-fired micro CHP option is that it is both and individual and community advantage.

Every home with a wood-fired CHP system would have a dual incentive to maintain a fuel supply to their "furnace" and keep it in working order.

It would keep the house warm and bright and it would supply a steady income from the export of electricity to the community.
The community would benefit from the excess energy for community projects like offices, gyms, meeting halls, community pools, indoor rinks and small business opportunities like machine shops, and 3D printers, sewing, laundries, bakers, smokehouses.

And, if one house goes dark, there are a lot of others to pick up the slack.

 

[Kirkhill]

Official bits on SMR

Canada’s Small Modular Reactor Action Plan

Small Modular Reactors: the next wave of nuclear innovation

www.nrcan.gc.ca

Opposing view, one good point in this article is that the FN don't want to be the guinea pigs and I think it's a valid concern. So start with a remote but road connected non-FN community to build the first one and work the bugs out of it.
Is Canada betting big on small nuclear reactors? Here’s what you need to know | The Narwhal

The oilsands are one good option.

 

[KevinB]

Canada does have multiple satellites over the Arctic currently. They can be used to monitor ship traffic, among other things.

The government/DND does have the tools in place currently to observe above surface contacts. Those tools just aren’t visible or high profile.

MPA & RPA over the North sounds great. And it would be, absolutely. But is it duplicating a capability we already have, re identifying surface contacts?

True. We don’t have the ability to promptly respond to violations the way we could with a MPA. But our MPA can’t engage surface contacts anyway.

There are still significant gaps - gaps which adversaries have int eh past capitals to do nefarious things.

I would suggest the gaps are significantly larger than most know or understand the implications of.

 

[Good2Golf]

I am not sure propane is a reliable source of heat/power for Arctic communities, where the temperature routine
falls to the point where is becomes a liquid and therefore, unburnable.

I did some winter-time OJT in Cold Lake back in the 80s and remember seeing MSE ops outside bouncing on the bumpers of propane-powered vehicles to try and get some pressure in the tanks. Propane’s boiling point is -42°C, so when the temp drops below -42C (as is entirely possible in Cold Lake and other CAF bases, propane fuel systems didn’t work very well. CNG boils at -161°C so at least compressed natural gas could be considered, although it has less thermal energy/unit mass than propane.

 

[CBH99]

To me there is a difference between helping a friend during a short-term time of need and having others fill what just about every other serious nation considers sovereign responsibilities. (yes, I realize Iceland and New Zealand). If we get others to do stuff on our territory, I suppose we can't complain when they do it their way, on their terms, without asking. Why would they? We would have telegraphed the reality that we don't care.

Domestic security is a different discussion from how we can contribute internationally. I suppose we could farm out any number of functions; border control, fishery enforcement, coast guard, air navigation. Look at the money we would save.

I agree with you. And it absolutely begins what could potentially be a slippery slope.


However, I think we have to keep things in context:

- Yes, those were short term deployments used to fill capability gaps that our allies had at the time.

But that was also just a fluke. It could have taken the UK longer to replace their MPA than it did. It could have taken the USAF longer to clear the F-15C fleet for operations than it did.


Even if we did exactly as the Australians are doing, having a nuclear submarine capability would take years to obtain - at best.

We could sign a contract today, pay it out in full, and start integrating our members onto their boats tomorrow - and it would still take years, at best, to have our own similar capability.


So since generating that capability overnight can’t happen, but that capability is perhaps a solid requirement for Arctic naval operations - perhaps we should be open to at least discussing and exploring the matter?

Yes, it would be nice to operate in our own backyard without having to ask our allies. But we are where we are.

______


The other capabilities that you mention our capabilities that we already have and duties we already execute currently. Not so with nuclear submarines.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

One of the reasons I like the home-fired micro CHP option is that it is both and individual and community advantage.

Every home with a wood-fired CHP system would have a dual incentive to maintain a fuel supply to their "furnace" and keep it in working order.

It would keep the house warm and bright and it would supply a steady income from the export of electricity to the community.
The community would benefit from the excess energy for community projects like offices, gyms, meeting halls, community pools, indoor rinks and small business opportunities like machine shops, and 3D printers, sewing, laundries, bakers, smokehouses.

And, if one house goes dark, there are a lot of others to pick up the slack.

One of the challenges up north like the Yukon, is the slow growth of trees, you can find a lot of what we would consider as young trees that are actually 60 years old. They make excellent lumber due to the tight grain, but they are not 'renewable" in a economic sense.
Example all the trees in this picture are post gold rush, where the hills were stripped bare for wood;

 

[Kirkhill]

One of the challenges up north like the Yukon, is the slow growth of trees, you can find a lot of what we would consider as young trees that are actually 60 years old. They make excellent lumber due to the tight grain, but they are not 'renewable" in a economic sense.
Example all the trees in this picture are post gold rush, where the hills were stripped bare for wood;

Fair enough. Assume that each of 269 communities has an allotment of 30,000 km2. What is the sustainable yield of timber? Peat?

Assume also a community of 1000 in 250 households.

 

[Dale Denton]

Yet another useful LAV variant that we won't get.

This Is Our First Look At The Marines' Loitering Munition-Armed Light Armored Vehicle​

The 'suicide drones' will allow Marine light armored units to surveil the battlefield and strike targets with pinpoint precision from up above.​

BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK OCTOBER 11, 2021
This Is Our First Look At The Marines' Loitering Munition-Armed Light Armored Vehicle

Israeli firm UVision has shown off the first pictures of a U.S. Marine Corps 8x8 LAV-25-series wheeled armored vehicle with a multi-round launcher for loitering munitions, which are often described as "suicide drones." The company had announced earlier this year that the Marines had selected this launch system, together with a variant of the Hero-120 loitering munition, as the winning entry for its Organic Precision Fires-Mounted program.

UVision released the photographs of the modified LAV-M, which is the mortar carrier variant of the LAV-25, as part of its official unveiling of the Multi-Canister Launcher (MCL) at the Association of the U.S. Army's main annual conference in Washington, D.C., which opened today. A lower resolution image of the MCL by itself on the ground during a live-fire test had previously emerged.

 

[FJAG]

Yet another useful LAV variant that we won't get.

This Is Our First Look At The Marines' Loitering Munition-Armed Light Armored Vehicle​

The 'suicide drones' will allow Marine light armored units to surveil the battlefield and strike targets with pinpoint precision from up above.​

BY JOSEPH TREVITHICK OCTOBER 11, 2021
This Is Our First Look At The Marines' Loitering Munition-Armed Light Armored Vehicle

I actually don't like it all that much. It strikes me something on a chassis like the HIMARS but with two of those launcher pods on the back of the flatbed would be handier and offer twice the round delivery at one time. Then bugger off for reloads before the counterfire comes in. It would still be compatible with an existing vehicles system for maintenance and be lower to the ground - probably lighter, too.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

yet it's small enough to be mounted on smaller vehicles which would work with the Reserves. Most MRLS systems are to big for our reserves, I quite like some of the ex-Warsaw pact stuff, a lot of bang for very little buck.

 

[MilEME09]

yet it's small enough to be mounted on smaller vehicles which would work with the Reserves. Most MRLS systems are to big for our reserves, I quite like some of the ex-Warsaw pact stuff, a lot of bang for very little buck.

Our allies have proven any piece of kit can be manned by the reserves if the framework is there to support it. Until the CAF has the desire to make the reserves useful beyond individual augmentation, and it's two teir training system, we will never effectively use our entire force.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Our allies have proven any piece of kit can be manned by the reserves if the framework is there to support it. Until the CAF has the desire to make the reserves useful beyond individual augmentation, and it's two teir training system, we will never effectively use our entire force.

We've proved that too, throughout the years.

 

[KevinB]

Our allies have proven any piece of kit can be manned by the reserves if the framework is there to support it. Until the CAF has the desire to make the reserves useful beyond individual augmentation, and it's two teir training system, we will never effectively use our entire force.

I always found it interesting the Officer Corps didn't have a two tier training system - at least as the Phase Levels -
While the Res courses where always abridged versions of the Reg Force ones.

The NG down here has nearly all the same kit as the Regular Army - generally only lagging on the latest Night Operations Gear as it cascades down.

Which of course - combined with actual legislation to protect and empower them - allows the NG to be Federalized and active as whole units.

 

[Kirkhill]

More tangential wanderings I'm afraid but I honestly don't know where to put a lot of this stuff as, in my view, it all has a bearing on future structure and the world in which it will operate. And maybe my confusion is reflective of the current state of play. There is an awful lot of flux at the moment.

This article: Reserve operations? C3 Replacement? Loyal Wingman? RCAF? RCA? FSCC? ASCC? Expeditionary Wing? LRPF? UAS? Key West Agreement? Loitering Armed Munitions? Drones? RCN?

AUSA NEWS: Air Wolf Program May Give Army Unprecedented Battlefield Speed​

10/11/2021
By Stew Magnuson

Kratos photo

Aircraft manufacturer Kratos is under contract with the Army to evaluate the possibility of converting one of its target drones into a high-speed unmanned aerial vehicle.

The Air Wolf program has the potential to give the Army unprecedent control and speed on the battlefield with the platform reaching Mach 0.7, said Steve Fendley, president of Kratos Defense and Security Systems Inc.’s unmanned systems division.

“Yeah, it’s fast,”, Fendley said in a recent interview. “It’s a Shadow on steroids,” he added, referring to the Army’s tactical UAV. The only systems that the Army has that are faster are missiles.

For a comparison, a Shadow UAV’s top speed is about 100 mph, a Gray Eagle drone based on the Predator flies at about 192 mph and an Apache attack helicopter’s top speed is 227 miles per hour. The Air Wolf could fly over battlefields at about 538 mph with control and maneuverability that conventional missiles don’t possess.

The Air Wolf is based on the company’s MQM-178 Firejet air-to-air and surface-to-air aerial target.

Fendley said the drone’s speed and size would make it extraordinarily survivable. At about 10 feet long with a six-and-half foot wingspan, “it’s so small, it would be very, very hard for an offensive strike to take out that system.”

The Air Wolf takes off from a pneumatic launcher that can be towed by a tactical wheeled vehicle.

“It's a very low-cost approach. It allows you to have successive flights very, very quickly,” he added.

As for the mission, Fendley said: “It’s a tactical system that applies a specific autonomous mission with specific payloads that the Army has identified to satisfy some of their mission needs.” There is a strike mission and an intelligence-gathering mission, he added.

Army Futures Command has given Kratos a sole-source contract to provide the aircraft for evaluation. The company has moved from the digital engineering phase to flying the prototypes. In August, it completed a 100 percent successful flight at the Burns Flat, Oklahoma Range Facility.

While still in the research-and-development phase, Fendley said there are “several different exit ramps” for the project that could lead it to a program of record with a permanent spot in the Army arsenal.

Topics: Air Power, Robotics, Robotics and Autonomous Systems

Air Wolf Program May Give Army Unprecedented Battlefield Speed

Air Wolf Program May Give Army Unprecedented Battlefield Speed

www.nationaldefensemagazine.org

Disruption.

 

[Kirkhill]

Pratt & Whitney’s GatorWorks to 3D print entire jet engine

The first time Pratt & Whitney's GatorWorks attempted to 3D-print a combustor for the miniature TJ-150 jet engine, the results were anything but perfect. Lessons learned, the West Palm Beach, Florida-based outfit is now taking additive manufacturing one step further: attempting to produce a...

www.flightglobal.com

 

[Kirkhill]

But....

Russia says it launched and intercepted 10 missiles during drills near Japan

www.stripes.com

 

[CBH99]

I agree. There is a lot that can fall under a Army Force 2025 discussion - everything from force structure, which capabilities do we want, what equipment do we need to provide those capabilities, recruiting & retaining the force, etc.

We could (and the CAF probably should) do a Force 2030 document also. Force 2025 can be what we want the force to realistically look like in basically 3yrs, while 2030 could focus more on the final product.


But… I’m not sure Russia’s naval tech falls under either of those? (Just giving you a hard time)

______


Question about our country’s defense industrial base, as we had been chatting about earlier.

Does Canada produce any night-vision products intended for Army use?

(NVG for individuals, surveillance suite for Coyote, LAV 6.0 recce, TAPV, etc.)

I know we produce FLIR systems. What about modern Night Vision systems?

 

[KevinB]

I agree. There is a lot that can fall under a Army Force 2025 discussion - everything from force structure, which capabilities do we want, what equipment do we need to provide those capabilities, recruiting & retaining the force, etc.

We could (and the CAF probably should) do a Force 2030 document also. Force 2025 can be what we want the force to realistically look like in basically 3yrs, while 2030 could focus more on the final product.


But… I’m not sure Russia’s naval tech falls under either of those? (Just giving you a hard time)

______


Question about our country’s defense industrial base, as we had been chatting about earlier.

Does Canada produce any night-vision products intended for Army use?

Not that are modern

(NVG for individuals, surveillance suite for Coyote, LAV 6.0 recce, TAPV, etc.)

No

I know we produce FLIR systems. What about modern Night Vision systems?

Canada has no capability to produce either high end Thermal or II Tubes, or CMOS type systems, as well as neither in or out of band MFAL's.
By high end I mean above 2,200 FOM or 640x480 thermal resolution.

 

[CBH99]

Not that are modern

No


Canada has no capability to produce either high end Thermal or II Tubes, or CMOS type systems, as well as neither in or out of band MFAL's.
By high end I mean above 2,200 FOM or 640x480 thermal resolution.

So there I was googling “CMOS type systems, and MFAL’s the other night…”

I actually am going to learn me a thing or two about whatever the final part of your post meant



And that now makes sense, re not producing our own night vision equipment.

The reason I asked that is because I have a source at 1VP who told me the other night that the NVG’s issued to us for Afghanistan were on loan from the Americans…

I didn’t believe it at first. I remember taking them out of the box, and it was clear they were brand new.

Then another guy in 1VP said the same thing, as did someone else from 3VP.


If that is the case, part of industrial part of Force 2025 could/should be our own ability to produce FLIR and NV systems.

0.02

 

[KevinB]

So there I was googling “CMOS type systems, and MFAL’s the other night…”

I actually am going to learn me a thing or two about whatever the final part of your post meant



And that now makes sense, re not producing our own night vision equipment.

The reason I asked that is because I have a source at 1VP who told me the other night that the NVG’s issued to us for Afghanistan were on loan from the Americans…

I didn’t believe it at first. I remember taking them out of the box, and it was clear they were brand new.

Then another guy in 1VP said the same thing, as did someone else from 3VP.


If that is the case, part of industrial part of Force 2025 could/should be our own ability to produce FLIR and NV systems.

0.02

You can't do that reasonably.

NV churn is ridiculous - I remember my first experience in the CF with NODs, nasty honeycomb - dual tube goggles with very limited field of view the PVS-5 (which I think we called 604's?, and an old PVS-2 Starlight scope.
*The PVS-5 had a weird housing more akin to a diving mask - and you needed to constantly focus each eye piece to see at different ranges - it was incredibly disorientating to walk with.

That was well over 30 years ago.


I won't take a deep dive into NV - as the history is much better listed here C5ISR Center U.S.ARMY CCDC | History

For future force efforts - it appears (I am not involved with the program) that the Microsoft HoloLens as the frame work for IVAS will incorporate multiple sensors 'into' the lens - from 3k+ FOM WP tubes - to 1280+ Thermal and other features.



At the 2015 USASOC Sniper Comp - my partner and I ran WP PVS-31's for NOD's and where able to run the Night Stress Pistol CQB phase under full NOD's and beat a lot of teams using white light - we had dots on our pistols and only three teams inc us ran the course "dark" all three of those team did better than ones choosing (Needing) to use pistol lights and handhelds - as for us it was effectively daylight.


For the low light rifles phases - we ran a mix of II and Thermal - and I had a fused device for my spotting scope, and we had three Wilcox RAPTAR's as MFAL -
All of that gear we had 6 years ago that was cutting edge really just available to Tier 1 only then - is now effectively obsolete.
The two of us had over 750k of Night Vision Gear between us -- while some entities can afford to rotate though gear like that - larger ones cannot - and while it's not obsolete for the majority of users, this is how/why gear like this needs to cascade down.

White Phos Tubes are still tricking into the Vanilla side of SOCOM - but while still excellent NV - has about half the capability of the current highest end devices. The US Army is fielding E-BNVD - basically a regular Green Phos PVS-31, although I heard it is supposed to get WP tubes shortly.