RUMINT of Canada wanting more C-17's

[YZT580]

So rather the RCAF then leave the freighters in the hands of the private sector, along with the fire fighters.

Add some Chinooks to the mix.

Subsidizing air freight so that the cost of lettuce and diesel is the same in Iqaluit as Peterborough would still be cheaper than building roads and rail over thousands of kilometers.

true, but roads/rail gives those at the end of the line the wherewithal to access the market in the rest of Canada with the goods they produce. Shipping minerals by air isn't practical and, pardon the cliché but air freight on a pair of sealskin moccasins puts at least 20 dollars on the base price. China will ship them cheaper in a can. If you want the north to be part of the rest of Canada you have to provide the ability for the rest of Canada to get there. How many Canadians will ever visit Ivvavik Park?

 

[YZT580]

If those communities were on islands would you require roads be built to them? Or would you rely on viable ports that attracted a steady flow of traffic?

Alert is sustained entirely by air. That is because our Canadian government chooses to subsidize its existence because it is deemed important that it exists.

How important are our northern communities?

....

The Aussies support their rural communities by national institutions like the Flying Doctor Service -

How the service works

The RFDS uses a network of bases, a variety of aircraft, and a team of pilots and medical clinicians to provide its services.

It is a lifeline for people living, working, and traveling in rural and remote parts of Australia, ensuring they can access the same quality of care as those in urban areas.

The organization relies on a combination of government funding, volunteers, and public support to operate

Greece maintains a fleet of ferries as does B.C. for general travel. Air links are for those with money and for emergency services; not for transporting potatoes

 

[Colin Parkinson]

true, but roads/rail gives those at the end of the line the wherewithal to access the market in the rest of Canada with the goods they produce. Shipping minerals by air isn't practical and, pardon the cliché but air freight on a pair of sealskin moccasins puts at least 20 dollars on the base price. China will ship them cheaper in a can. If you want the north to be part of the rest of Canada you have to provide the ability for the rest of Canada to get there. How many Canadians will ever visit Ivvavik Park?

Shipping ore by plane was done, i been to the mine site (long closed) and talk about a crazy place to fly in and out of. After this they shifted to Hovercraft to move the Ore. The CCG actually leased that Hovercraft as well for a bit.

https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/1996/a96p0175/a96p0175.html

 

[Kirkhill]

Greece maintains a fleet of ferries as does B.C. for general travel. Air links are for those with money and for emergency services; not for transporting potatoes

Your point is taken but dollar for dollar, when you are contemplating servicing the population of Lehbridge spread out over the area of Western Europe, over terrain that isn't friendly to ships, boats, road or rail then it seems to me that we are left with the least worst options. All of them are expensive. But until Gray's Bay reaches a population of 100,000 is it really worth building a road? Or would the money be better spent buliding up its sea and airports to exploit the local resources and attract those 100,000 in the first place?

Greece has blue skies and decent wine making sailing between the islands a different proposition than travelling in the Canadian North.

 

[Kirkhill]

Shipping ore by plane was done, i been to the mine site (long closed) and talk about a crazy place to fly in and out of. After this they shifted to Hovercraft to move the Ore. The CCG actually leased that Hovercraft as well for a bit.

https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/aviation/1996/a96p0175/a96p0175.html

Depending on costs it may be more cost effective to concentrate and/or refine the ore on site and ship ingots. With SMR technology it might be interesting to see how that could affect feasibility.

 

[YZT580]

Your point is taken but dollar for dollar, when you are contemplating servicing the population of Lehbridge spread out over the area of Western Europe, over terrain that isn't friendly to ships, boats, road or rail then it seems to me that we are left with the least worst options. All of them are expensive. But until Gray's Bay reaches a population of 100,000 is it really worth building a road? Or would the money be better spent buliding up its sea and airports to exploit the local resources and attract those 100,000 in the first place?

Greece has blue skies and decent wine making sailing between the islands a different proposition than travelling in the Canadian North.

I can see sea-lift as being of benefit but only if the channels can be kept clear for ice capable hulls for most of the year, perhaps combined with short haul rail links along the south Arctic shore to lessen the number of ports required. Only guessing.

 

[Kirkhill]

And I can see that as the start of the organic growth of a network.

A good starting point could be a railway across Baffin Island at the iron mine to connect the Arctic Bay / Nanisivik / Resolute side to the Hudoson Bay side.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

We need to build better port and airport facilities in those northern communities, that will speed up the sealift and hopefully get more loads in over the open water season. That port access will also encourage development and you see an organic road network spread from those locations. The Ports will encourage investments in other infrastructure like long resource roads, pipelines, transmission lines, dams and fiberoptics.

 

[dapaterson]

We need to build better port and airport facilities in those northern communities, that will speed up the sealift and hopefully get more loads in over the open water season. That port access will also encourage development and you see an organic road network spread from those locations. The Ports will encourage investments in other infrastructure like long resource roads, pipelines, transmission lines, dams and fiberoptics.

Those all qualify as investments in the 3.5% / 1.5% defence investments.

 

[KevinB]

What's the scenario where the CAF is doing JFE right from Canada?

Well honestly right now the CAF doesn't do JFE anyway.
The point was having a GRF Brigade and a significant increase in airlift would allow Canada to have that option.
I'm always of the option it is better to have and not need, than need and not have.

This is where people get way too fanciful and keep trying to ape the superpower in ways that make no sense for us.

Oh I don't expect you to drop a Div to seize anything.
I see a BN (ideally a Bde) as something to join with the US/UK event.

We have Hercs. That would be our last mile ride from a theater APOE.

Having done some traveling in both C17 and C130's. While I agree the C-130 is a good theater workhorse, it is a long and fairly unpleasant flight if your loaded for a combat drop, and you get 64 jumpers (max pack) on a Jerk, while you can get 102 jumpers and ramp bundles on a Globemaster, so you can relax and not be a sardine for the entire flight.
A realistic load plan for a Jerk is a platoon + as you need to bring stuff with you to fight and life for 48-72hrs, and you are looking at a 20 Jerk requirement for a BN.
The C-17 offers 2 Platoons +, and some light vehicles and supplies, and 6 (ideally 7 though) C-17 for a BN complete drop.





Right now you can grab some guys from the Hill and a small group from CSOR and that is the extent of Canada's actual (not paper) GRF.
SOF guys are expensive - and you don't want to waste them on tasks like airfield seizures or the like.
The RCAF doesn't have enough Hercs or Globemasters to support CANSOF adequately in conjunction with other missions let alone a conventional force GRF, and the GRTF BN right now is lip service to a Gov Mandated requirement.


But it is all theoretical as there are no C-17 on the market, and none in production, and realistically no similar aircraft in its class available either.

 

[Kirkhill]

We need to build better port and airport facilities in those northern communities, that will speed up the sealift and hopefully get more loads in over the open water season. That port access will also encourage development and you see an organic road network spread from those locations. The Ports will encourage investments in other infrastructure like long resource roads, pipelines, transmission lines, dams and fiberoptics.

Those all qualify as investments in the 3.5% / 1.5% defence investments.

Guardsman learns to fly autonomous Black Hawk in less than an hour

In a training first, an Army National Guardsman used a tablet to control Sikorsky's optionally piloted Black Hawk and plan its task during an exercise.

www.defensenews.com

Interesting thought of the day. Self piloting taxis for the north.

Good news. Don't need to pay a pilot.

Bad news. Without income from jobs like pilots who will pay for all the magic toys?

 

[ytz]

Having done some traveling in both C17 and C130's. While I agree the C-130 is a good theater workhorse, it is a long and fairly unpleasant flight if your loaded for a combat drop, and you get 64 jumpers (max pack) on a Jerk, while you can get 102 jumpers and ramp bundles on a Globemaster, so you can relax and not be a sardine for the entire flight.

All our J Hercs are stretch models. So 92 jumpers. Not 64. That's not that far from a C-17. And like I said, if we had to do anything like that, you're getting moved to an APOE in theatre first. So the flight time should be max of 2-3 hrs from APOE to your DZ.

Really though, if this is so important, we can do what the Brits did. Swap Hercs for Atlas. The A400M has a theoretical capacity of 116 jumpers.

Right now you can grab some guys from the Hill and a small group from CSOR and that is the extent of Canada's actual (not paper) GRF.
SOF guys are expensive - and you don't want to waste them on tasks like airfield seizures or the like.
The RCAF doesn't have enough Hercs or Globemasters to support CANSOF adequately in conjunction with other missions let alone a conventional force GRF, and the GRTF BN right now is lip service to a Gov Mandated requirement.

There's no paper requirement to be able to seize an airfield without allied support, so I'm not sure what the point is here. We're not a superpower military what needs to be able to do JFE. The absolute most high speed that the CAF might ever do is insertion of SOF for hostage rescue of Canadians. That doesn't require a Wing of airlift on task.

 

[KevinB]

All our J Hercs are stretch models. So 92 jumpers. Not 64. That's not that far from a C-17.

The J-30 claims 92, but there is a zero possibility of that actually occurring with full combat loaded rucks, and extra water, food, ammo.
70 would be a much more reasonable number.

And like I said, if we had to do anything like that, you're getting moved to an APOE in theatre first. So the flight time should be max of 2-3 hrs from APOE to your DZ.

Except that Canada doesn't have a number of pre-deployed Herc's. The entire point of an RDF or now that the buzzword is GRF is to be able to be able to punch out the door in short order
That would also mean that maybe those bases where the troops are at should have a functioning runway.
Or is the plan to launch the Hercs to XXX, then bus the troops to Trenton, embark the troops on a passenger A/C, land in XXX, spend several hours sorting out who's on first and get every combat loaded.
Watch US and UK teams fly back out of theatre, stay in 3rd party location for 30 days - get everyone some sort of SSM, and then come back to Canada?

Really though, if this is so important, we can do what the Brits did. Swap Hercs for Atlas. The A400M has a theoretical capacity of 116 jumpers.

You don't have enough airlift as it is, so I wouldn't want to swap out anything.

There's no paper requirement to be able to seize an airfield without allied support, so I'm not sure what the point is here. We're not a superpower military what needs to be able to do JFE. The absolute most high speed that the CAF might ever do is insertion of SOF for hostage rescue of Canadians. That doesn't require a Wing of airlift on task.

You can't even move the current GRTF without significant advanced notice.
Nowhere in the above posts did I suggest a sole JFE aspect, as you lack so many tools needed for that.
What you are doing is however typically Canadian, and suggesting all you need to do is X, but ignoring the fact that to get to X there are a whole lot of other steps that you abdicate to other nations.

 

[Baz]

What you are doing is however typically Canadian, and suggesting all you need to do is X, but ignoring the fact that to get to X there are a whole lot of other steps that you abdicate to other nations.

This, in a more general sense.

In my opinion, the primary role of a military is to be ready for full scale combat operations, so it never happens. Canada hasn’t done that, in any domain, for a long time.

We seem to always say we need enablers and sustainment, but it takes forever, and we tell ourselves “well, the need didn’t arise, so it’ll be ok.” (Navy sustainment, I’m looking at you). Does anyone remember the CAST commitment, that when tested (with a couple years warning) failed miserably. And then 5 Bde was reassigned to reinforce 4 Mech, and luckily the Cold War ended before we had to test it.

Canada needs an ability to get a reasonably employable QRF to a likely place of employment with all the appropriate enablers and sustainment in a reasonable amount of time. The strategic reason is so that we are seen as committed to securing the capitalist liberal democratic experiment.

That can be done various ways (preposition with assigned organizations so two equipment sets, rapidly deployable sea lift, or full air lift. We can’t do all of them, so pick one, develop reasonable resourcing requirements, and do it.

I would suggest that doesn’t look like a an air transportable force in the current environment, so we are looking at a much smaller force for very rapid intervention, if it is needed at all. So, is there a requirement for more C-17s?

Ironically though, when carried to its logical conclusion, this may not bode well for the RCAF. A proper exploration of Canada’s contribution may come to the conclusion the RCAFs primary expeditionary role might be fully in support of the Army or the RCN, mostly with helicopters in either case. That would make heads explode in Winnipeg.

 

[ytz]

The J-30 claims 92, but there is a zero possibility of that actually occurring with full combat loaded rucks, and extra water, food, ammo.
70 would be a much more reasonable number.

Your previous math was based on the book numbers for the standard J and for the C-17. So I'm using the book number for the stretch J and A400M.

Except that Canada doesn't have a number of pre-deployed Herc's.

We don't need to. That's how an air bridge works. They will send the Hercs out the door with extra crews to stage while getting the C-17s ready. Flying in the back doesn't make you an expert on air mobility. You should know that you don't need pre deployed airframes to move stuff by air.

You don't have enough airlift as it is, so I wouldn't want to swap out anything.

We have airlift for the missions we're tasked with. And again, since we're not tasked with the mission set you're discussing here, there's no point.

On the airframe discussion, the same reason the Brits did it: to have one less type in the inventory. They sold off the Hercs and kept the Atlas fleet which will expand.

You can't even move the current GRTF without significant advanced notice.
Nowhere in the above posts did I suggest a sole JFE aspect, as you lack so many tools needed for that.
What you are doing is however typically Canadian, and suggesting all you need to do is X, but ignoring the fact that to get to X there are a whole lot of other steps that you abdicate to other nations.

What is any of this based on? And go ahead and define how much is in the GRTF and what "significant advanced notice" is.

But also, other than a handful of SOF guys suddenly going somewhere, I can't think of a single scenario right now where even something company sized is going somewhere on an hour's notice with zero allied involvement. It's great that you served in a military that can do that. It's hard to see why Canada should have that ability. Also, as is typical of this forum, it ignores the opportunity cost in dollars and personnel to have that ability.