RUMINT of Canada wanting more C-17's

[Cloud Cover]

Maybe.

I think took he home the big model of the ALSC ship. He liked to move the vehicles around on the decks and pretend he was invading Haiti.

 

[FJAG]

Goes to my point of how obsolete the Herc looks these days. Especially if you're not doing high speed SOF stuff. A fleet of 14 A400Ms could do more for use than 17 of our stretch Hercs right now.

Rumsfeld paraphrased – “You go to war with the Army (and Air Force) you have, not the Army (or Air Force) you might want or wish to have at a later time”

I know the CC330s are mostly thought of in their tanker role, but they can haul and awful lot of passengers at one go.

The air force we have is not up to the task of hauling a lot of equipment oversees, but, IMHO, it is well position as between the CC130s CC177s and CC330 to lift one brigade worth of people oversees in one go onto prepositioned equipment and stocks.

If we don't start to plan on flyover commitments and prepositioned equipment and stocks, and we continue this game of rotations that will wear out the army, then we're just not serious about our NATO commitment. There is a NATO Force Model in place.

The NATO Force Model (NFM) which includes an Allied Reaction Force (ARF) to replace the NATO Response Force (NRF) and the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF).

The NFM consists of three committed tiers of forces supplied by member nations. Tier 1 forces numbering 100,000 are to be committed within 0 to 10 days following the eruption of a crisis or a predictive warning. These will be mostly forces already in place. Tier 2 forces number 200,000 and are to be ready within 10 to 30 days. Tier 3 forces number roughly 500,000 and must be ready for action within 30 to 180 days.[1] Tier 1 and 2 forces are mostly assigned to specific geographic defence plans so that they can train for their tasks.[2] One needs to take note of these tiers as they establish readiness guidelines that can, and should, be applied to any given country’s force structures.

---

[1] John R. Deni, “The New NATO Force Model: ready for launch?” Outlook, No. 04, (Brusselles: NATO Defense College, May 2024), 2.
[2] Sven Biscop, “The New Force Model: NATO’s European Army? Egmont Policy Brief 285,” Brusseles: Egmont Royal Institute for International Relations, September 2022.

The point is that we can easily slide into that model (we used to before, I presume we still do to the extent of a brigade). The point is that we can fit into any of a number of tiers even without the need for rotos. Tier 1 can be met by a flyover onto prepositioned equipment construct. Tier 2 can include RORO sea transport and Tier 3 definitely does.

My problem with all this is that the army (and perhaps the air force) is not currently focussed on a mobilization plan that could commit up to a mechanized division spread over the three tiers. CAMO creates a force structure that can probably support one brigade indefinitely based on the 3:1 ratio.

IMHO, we continue to punch below our weight because we are not looking at the mobilization processes and objectives realistically. We continue to spend too much with the objective of doing just enough.

Yup. I'm cynical.

 

[MacNav63]

Maybe.

I think took he home the big model of the ALSC ship. He liked to move the vehicles around on the decks and pretend he was invading Haiti.

Everything is relative...