Our North - SSE Policy Update Megathread

[markppcli]

Something that doesn't touch the ground?

Drones can’t mark and secure, or presently screen in all weathers.

To my mind the ideal recce vehicles are something along the lines of the French Jaguar

 

[PrairieFella]

To my mind the ideal recce vehicles are something along the lines of the French Jaguar

A man of culture I see. A wicked multi role vehicle.

 

[markppcli]

It’s great, has the fire power to engage the enemy crews, not overly tall, linked AT systems. I don’t like the Griffon but had we adopted the that suite of vehicles I’d have understood.

 

[PrairieFella]

It’s great, has the fire power to engage the enemy crews, not overly tall, linked AT systems. I don’t like the Griffon but had we adopted the that suite of vehicles I’d have understood.

That 40CT is an impressive round. You can lay some serious hate downrange with that bad boy. The built in Anti Aerial round is really cool imo and the penetration of the sabot is nothing to sniff at.

 

[ueo]

Having similar equipment doesn’t bind yourself like a vassal, Canada can still chose its own directions.

I tend to believe having more US kit would actually strengthen Canadian independence as you would be looked as valuable partner, instead of that pesky freeloader.


Canada made its decision after WW2 to be an ostrich, now you just rarely raise your heads out of the sand.

Or get shot in the butt!

 

[FJAG]

It’s great, has the fire power to engage the enemy crews, not overly tall, linked AT systems. I don’t like the Griffon but had we adopted the that suite of vehicles I’d have understood.

Personally I think that recce needs a suite of vehicles. The Jaguar can certainly be part of the DFS side of that. You also need surveillance equipment, and as it stands I see nothing wrong with the LRSS in that role. The army had some problems previously with the Coyote. It took some time for folks to work out that it didn't replace the Lynx as a recce vehicle but was a good surveillance vehicle in its own right. For me there also needs to be a light recce component made up of vehicles like the French VBL. Small and fast. Give it a diesel/electric drive and even better. Maybe a bit more armour. Add in electric motor bikes, drones, ATGMs and an FSCC and FOO/JTACs and you've got a suite of stuff that can basically seek out information and fight when it needs to.

 

[Maxman1]

Personally I think that recce needs a suite of vehicles. The Jaguar can certainly be part of the DFS side of that. You also need surveillance equipment, and as it stands I see nothing wrong with the LRSS in that role. The army had some problems previously with the Coyote. It took some time for folks to work out that it didn't replace the Lynx as a recce vehicle but was a good surveillance vehicle in its own right. For me there also needs to be a light recce component made up of vehicles like the French VBL. Small and fast. Give it a diesel/electric drive and even better. Maybe a bit more armour. Add in electric motor bikes, drones, ATGMs and an FSCC and FOO/JTACs and you've got a suite of stuff that can basically seek out information and fight when it needs to.

 

[ueo]

Back when the earth was still cooling, I was the unit emplaning officer for 2 RCHA for a year with the responsibility of keeping our emplaning plans up to date. That included the ones for the chalks needed to lift the AMF(L) Bty (which was used regularly) as well as for the regiment as a whole (which, since we only had one battery at the time meant regimental headquarters - which we never used)

Our lift, in those days, was a bunch of older hercs and Boeing 707. It took quite a few chalks to move us and our gear. The battery was a tracked L5 battery. Prepositioning in Norway didn't happen until later. The war load of ammo was a never resolved bug bear.

Same job 1RCR for 2 yrs in AMFL config. If memory serves something like 120 or so Herc chalks and 12 or so 707s depending on straphangers. Ammo, spec POL and major spares etc were never discussed but planned for in "follow on" sea lift. Never practiced.Many vehs came home on a contracted RORO into Montreal, Interesting road moves in all cases!

 

[GK .Dundas]

Well that goes without saying .

 

[Kirkhill]

Do you need to take and hold ground if you can deny the same from your enemy by non-infantranic means?

Area Denial or In Denial....

Do you need to hold ground or is it enough to deny ground and movement to the enemy?

For most of 2022 and 2023, the underlying assumption was that a Chinese attack on Taiwan, were it to occur, would involve a full-scale invasion – not unlike the D-Day landings.

But recent work has suggested that this might not be the strategy at all. A paper released by The Atlantic Council last year made a strong case that the likely Chinese strategy would be to simply blockade the island. The paper argued that “a maritime blockade is the most strategically viable action for the PRC, that Taiwan is uniquely vulnerable to a blockade, and that a blockade is both a present and enduring challenge”.


A naval blockade of Taiwan could be modelled on the actions by the Houthis in the Red Sea. That is, it would not be undertaken by Chinese destroyers firing cannon at inbound merchant ships. Rather, it seems likely that the PLA would deploy their extensive rocket forces, threatening any merchant ships that ran the blockade with being targeted.

Indeed, the Chinese have been closely monitoring the situation in the Red Sea, presumably to get a sense of how Western air defence fares against Houthi missile and drone attacks.

The West is completely unprepared for Xi Jinping’s next masterstroke

Growing tensions in the Taiwanese Strait threaten to leave the US and its allies with a grim choice

www.telegraph.co.uk

Blockade was the British solution against Napoleon, Napoleon III, Kaiser Bill and Hitler.

A2AD is the counter to Blockade. The Baltic and the Black Sea were both supposed to be Russian lakes but now the Baltic is denied to Russia and the Black Sea is tenuous.

Neither sea is held by the naval equivalent of foot soldiers. ISR and "artillery" form the basis of denial.

....

Ukraine is begging for freedom to use weapons against FUPs inside Russia - to deny that terrain to Russian troops. They don't need to put Ukrainian troops into Russia. All they need to do is keep the Russians at bay and deny the Russians the opportunity to mass troops and supply and manoeuvre them into position.


...

I agree that it takes a lot of effort to create a great assault force. That is why everything possible should be done to make sure it isn't used. Preferably by preventing the enemy from taking ground in the first place.

...

‘The time has come’: Nato chief piles pressure on Biden to allow strikes on Russia​

30 May 2024 • 8:28pm

The head of Nato piled pressure on Joe Biden to overturn his ban on Ukraine’s use of American weapons to strike targets inside Russia on Thursday.

Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s secretary general, said the “time has come” for restrictions to be lifted after France and Germany earlier this week signalled an easing of their own rules.

The Telegraph understands that Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, reassured Czech leaders that progress was being made on the issue in meetings on Thursday at the beginning of a two-day summit of Nato ministers in Prague.

It is rare for any Nato chief to directly put pressure on a US president and Mr Stoltenberg’s intervention was described as “surprising” by diplomatic sources.

“Allies are delivering many different types of military support to Ukraine and some of them have imposed some restrictions on the use of these weapons… these are national decisions,” Mr Stoltenberg said in a speech ahead of the gathering.

“But I think that in light of how this war has evolved the time has come to consider some of these restrictions, to enable the Ukrainians to really defend themselves.”

In recent weeks Kyiv has repeatedly urged its Western allies to allow the use of their long-range weapons to strike military targets on Russian soil.

Nato chief pressures Biden to allow Ukraine to use US weapons in strikes inside Russia

The head of Nato piled pressure on Joe Biden to overturn his ban on Ukraine’s use of American weapons to strike targets inside Russia on Thursday.

www.telegraph.co.uk

 

[Kirkhill]

Are the Europeans concerned about our Arctic?

European presence​

A pan-European force made up of the French, German and Spanish air forces is deploying first to Alaska under an overarching deployment effort, dubbed Pacific Skies, before making its way into the Pacific. Under that umbrella operation, those nations will participate in the Alaska-based exercise Arctic Defender, then continue into the Pacific where they will join the Rim of the Pacific drills off Hawaii, the exercise Nippon Skies in Japan, Pitch Black in Australia, and Tarang Shakti drills in India.

In first, Australian exercise Pitch Black gets dedicated aircraft carrier

Air forces from around the world will descend on Australia’s remote Northern Territory for a combat exercise of unprecedented scale there.

www.defensenews.com

And how about US interest in Canadian Government operations in the north?

The federal government has paid $8.6-million to acquire a privately owned aircraft hangar adjacent to a NORAD air base in the Arctic community of Inuvik, a strategic piece of continental air-defence infrastructure and satellite ground stations that has attracted interest from China and Russia.

Inuvik in recent years has come under heightened national-security scrutiny, with Ottawa growing concerned about possible foreign espionage efforts there, according to records released under access to information.

Canada’s top soldier General Wayne Eyre has warned that Canada’s “tenuous hold” on its Arctic territories will come under increasing challenge in the decades ahead as China and Russia expand their presence in the region.

In the fall of 2022, investigators with the Canadian Armed Forces national counterintelligence unit visited Inuvik as part of what the military calls Project Sandcastle, asking questions about visits by Russian and Chinese visitors who showed an interest in the Forward Operating Location Inuvik, as well as the numerous satellite ground stations and remote sensing arrays.

Forward operating locations in the north feature a fighter aircraft hangar to support the defence of North America under North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD).

As The Globe and Mail reported last year, the United States had been prodding Canada to purchase the hangar after Chinese buyers showed interest in it. Ottawa had initially resisted American pressure. The government had previously leased the hangar to shelter military aircraft, but argued it no longer had need of it.

Ottawa buys Arctic hangar next to NORAD base after Chinese, Russian interest

Arctic community of Inuvik has come under scrutiny for possible foreign espionage, reaching the interest of Canadian forces counterintelligence unit, records show

www.theglobeandmail.com

This is in keeping with

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/07/09/us_to_expand_control_of_land_sales_to_foreigners_near_military_sites_1043105.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. wants to expand a Treasury committee’s jurisdiction to review land sales near U.S. military sites where foreigners are the buyers.

New Treasury rulemaking would expand the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States’ powers to review land sales near 56 additional military sites, bringing the overall number to 227 military sites.

A 2018 law granted the committee authority to review real estate transactions near sensitive sites across the U.S.

 

[quadrapiper]

It’s about 3 years too late to start immediate orders.

Most Tank lines have 5+ year waits — unless you want some of the 3,500+ older M1 Abram’s tanks we have mothballed.

IFV’s are in the nearly the same boat - with 2 year plus delivery times.

Artillery and Rocket systems are also not going to magically be available, nor at ATGM’s etc.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine changed that calculus for decades - on top of the COVID related (real and imagined) supply chain issues.

At this point one really needs to make a long term investment in Defence Infrastructure in Canada if one wants new equipment in the next decade.

Which would also require incentives to industry, including tax breaks to Defense Multinationals to create Canada production lines.

Saw a post by @OldSolduer re: subs...

IF Canada REALLY wants subs the time is now to seek those that can build them. Not a year or two from now.

And was reminded of this discussion. Feels like, barring enormous and improbable shifts, everyone who builds tanks and IFVs will be busy for the the foreseeable, so, long lead time or not, best to get the order in now.

If the lead time is long enough, then see about getting some of those Abrams (and Bradleys, and tracked SPGs, perhaps?) to sustain and expand the armoured community until the final, factory-fresh fleet shows up.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Great article in the Arctic and the US view of what’s coming.

The Coming Battle Over the Arctic

The era of "Arctic exceptionalism" is over. The High North is no longer insulated from geopolitics everywhere else.

time.com

The Coming Battle Over the Arctic​

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Greenland - Iqaluit airline connection started. Greenland is upping it's airport game

 

[markppcli]

Greenland - Iqaluit airline connection started. Greenland is upping it's airport game

Allowing tens of people and dozens of dollars of trade

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Allowing tens of people and dozens of dollars of trade

Tis a beginning. The goal seems to be to get more travellers through this network.

 

[dimsum]

Greenland - Iqaluit airline connection started. Greenland is upping it's airport game

“Iqaluit international airport” was not something on my bingo card

 

[Cloud Cover]

“Iqaluit international airport” was not something on my bingo card

CBSA- “Anything to declare?..”

“I’m cold.”

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Meanwhile China has been busy. You can bet they are mapping fish populations for their fleets.

China Deploys Three Icebreakers to Arctic as U.S. Presence Suffers After 'Healy' Fire

Explore China's rapid expansion of its Arctic-capable fleet with three icebreaking vessels dispatched to the region this summer.

gcaptain.com

 

[Kirkhill]

Meanwhile China has been busy. You can bet they are mapping fish populations for their fleets.

China Deploys Three Icebreakers to Arctic as U.S. Presence Suffers After 'Healy' Fire

Explore China's rapid expansion of its Arctic-capable fleet with three icebreaking vessels dispatched to the region this summer.

gcaptain.com

Might want to get those AOPS into permanent patrols following the ice.