Liberal Minority Government 2025 - ???

[Halifax Tar]

Interesting thought on buying them used - maybe the powers that be that read/contribute to this site can pass that idea back to the Government. Add buying a pair of used/in good shape, US AOR's to the trade agreement package, along with the announcing the HIMARS and F35's. That covers off the trifecta - Air Force, Army and Navy.

I all for buying more AORs. But I think what youre really talking about is more amphibs or ro-ros.

AORs can do material movement, but not at the same volume as the above other classes.

Have a look at the USNS Fleet:

File:MSC USNavyShips-2022-2.pdf - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Perhaps this class would interest you:

USNS Supply - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Rifleman62]

Regardless of anybody's feelings about Trump and his statements, we shouldn't start making poor kit choices just because the orange man hurt our feelings.

Canada has a magnificent track record of making poor kit choices for our military, let alone the above statement.

Best Bet IMHO.

Europe's Defense Crisis: Why Everyone's Buying South Korean Weapons？- 20 Jul 25​

 

[CBH99]

To all of you hoping we turn to South Korea for our kit I 100% agree

 

[Navy_Pete]

But the US is still very much the top dawg in any coalition military operations - even if that operation takes place in eastern Europe. If real war ever kicked off we would see more American troops & vehicles than we would anybody else (most likely) and using the same or similar kit as them also makes a lot of sense.


Regardless of anybody's feelings about Trump and his statements, we can't start making poor kit choices just because the orange man hurt our feelings.

To a large extent interoperability is a lot less dependent on specific kit, as some of the comms interfaces etc have been standardized, and performance wise lots of very good kit from other countries that doesn't come with the really restrictive ITAR and IP limits that a lot of US stuff does.

May be element specific, but USN has a very different manning/crewing philosophy then we do, and I don't think we can support some of the crewing intensive requirements you get from things like the AEGIS system with our significantly smaller size.

Better is relative as well; more advanced and complicated equipment has a much higher learning/proficiency curve, so for suddenly surging that's a big problem. I think there are a few countries with small core militaries that have a lot of conscripts may have equipment that is much better matched to our relatively small standing force.

 

[CBH99]

To a large extent interoperability is a lot less dependent on specific kit, as some of the comms interfaces etc have been standardized, and performance wise lots of very good kit from other countries that doesn't come with the really restrictive ITAR and IP limits that a lot of US stuff does.

May be element specific, but USN has a very different manning/crewing philosophy then we do, and I don't think we can support some of the crewing intensive requirements you get from things like the AEGIS system with our significantly smaller size.

Better is relative as well; more advanced and complicated equipment has a much higher learning/proficiency curve, so for suddenly surging that's a big problem. I think there are a few countries with small core militaries that have a lot of conscripts may have equipment that is much better matched to our relatively small standing force.

All fair points.

And I especially like what you said about interoperatability - I feel like 'making sure we are interoperable with US forces' has been a fairly shallow yet effective argument that comes from the US military industrial complex...

If fighter jets from across NATO can coordinate and operate effectively during NATO air campaigns, pretty sure we can coordinate & operate effectively elsewhere also (for NORAD, for example)

We don't have to buy American planes in order to interoperate with American forces, despite what the noise says...

---

Sweden & Israel have always been fascinating case studies for me.

Both countries still use conscripts, yet both countries also use state of the art kit & both countries have their own small but highly capable military industrial complexes.