The Arctic Military Base Thread [merged]

[Kirkhill]

http://www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/8w-8e/nr-sp/index-eng.asp?id=10928

RCAF News

Operation Boxtop 2010: the Globemaster’s grand debut

Aug. 31, 2010
By Jill St. Marseille

Under mostly clear skies, the CC-177 Globemaster III hit the gravel runway at Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert on August 14 for the start of Operation Boxtop 2010.

 

[GK .Dundas]

While the American C-17s can apparently land on gravel strips, according to a recent DRDC/CORA report (Optimal RSOM-hub Locations for Northern Operations; A MAJAID Scenario Analysis, Annex A: Northern Airfields), only aspshalt runways in the north are suitable for CC177s.

It's news to me too.  :dunno:

Right ! The American C-17 is a completely different Aircraft from the CC-177 is what I'm reading here. The fact that it looks just like the C-17 and are built by the same Company and has all the same characteristics ( with apparently this one exception ) had me fooled !  :facepalm:
Looks like there is an ongoing attempt here  to basically give northern defence  the death of a thousand cuts. ie: We can't do this or that it . or it far too difficult . I don't buy any of it .

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

  Looks like there is an ongoing attempt here  to basically give northern defence  the death of a thousand cuts. ie: We can't do this or that it . or it far too difficult . I don't buy any of it .

Concur: This could be the start of a campaign to justify saving more bases and materiel required in the South when the rounds of budget cuts come rolling in.

 

[Zoomie]

Keep in mind that the CC-177 has a huge envelope of what it can weigh upon landing. A heavy C-17 would most likely leave divots in the gravel strip. This may be what they are referring to as being unsuitable.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I don't know how long the gravel airstrip, for the DEW line site, in Tuk was when we went in, in 76, or if it's longer now. What I do know is that we had a full load of survival cairns, a 5/4 ton pickup truck, two assault boats and motors, fuel, ration, tentage etc for the 25 of us, aboard the Herc, that would spend the next three weeks there. IIRC the runway deadended on the shore. The pilot went around three times saying he couldn't do it. Apparently, according to the crew, he had never done this kind of landing before and this was his cherry run. We came in off the water and touched down as soon as we had gravel under us. The gravel was scraping the belly and that truck wanted to get up into the cockpit in the worst way. We got to a stop and by the time we got off and wanted to congratulate the pilot, we found him by the nose gear puking his guts out. Then for laughs, the USAF Sgt from the site drove up and told us we weren't allowed to use HIS runway without HIS approval and we had to leave til we got it, but we had already landed and would again, three weeks later when we left ;D

 

[57Chevy]

                              Shared with provisions of The Copyright Act

Ottawa moves ahead with High Arctic military centre
(Centre will focus on disaster training)
CBC News, 27 Nov
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2011/11/27/north-high-arctic-military-centre.html

The federal government will move ahead with its planned military facility in Resolute, Nunavut.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised an Arctic warfare training facility in 2007. The facility looks like it will now become reality, but with a few changes to the original plan.

The new facility will focus mainly on training for disasters.

"I think the tragic event of this past fall highlighted the need for being able to have a facility that we can operate out of,” said Maj. Bill Chambré with the Department of National Defence.

In August, 12 people died when a 737-jet slammed in to a hill near the airport.

Soldiers responded right away and helped save three lives because they happened to be training in Resolute at the time.

Chambré says instead of a facility dedicated solely to protecting Canadian Arctic sovereignty, soldiers there will learn how to respond to accidents and disasters in the High Arctic.

"My focus is mainly building a training facility but to also have a facility where we can conduct operations."

The facility will be built on to the existing Polar Continental Shelf Project research base, which is already the largest in the community.

It will have a warehouse for 40 snowmobiles and ATVs, accommodations for 140 people, and a small infirmary. It will also have an operations centre and classrooms.

The building’s price tag is $18 million and the final design is expected to be complete by next month.

Chambré insists it is not the permanent search and rescue base northerners have called for because it’s unlikely the military will use the facility year round.

The government plans to work out of the facility mostly during winter, with people from other government departments working there mainly in summer.

“I certainly don't see this going idle, especially when we have two government departments sharing,” said Chambré.

Building materials will arrive in Resolute on the next sealift, and construction is scheduled to be complete by 2013.

 

[The Bread Guy]

                              Shared with provisions of The Copyright Act

Ottawa moves ahead with High Arctic military centre
(Centre will focus on disaster training) ....

And in line with the highlighted bit, it appears DND is looking for outside expertise to train people in how to plan arctic SAR missions - more details available from the Statement of Work (4 page PDF) downloadable here.  Note that the contractor's classroom lessons will be monitored and assessed on Interest, Comprehension, Emphasis, Participation, Accomplishment and Confirmation.  Rather appropriate to check arctic ops planning lessons using the ICEPAC mnemonic, no?

 

[Fishbone Jones]

And in line with the highlighted bit, it appears DND is looking for outside expertise to train people in how to plan arctic SAR missions - more details available from the Statement of Work (4 page PDF) downloadable here. Note that the contractor's classroom lessons will be monitored and assessed on Interest, Comprehension, Emphasis, Participation, Accomplishment and Confirmation.   Rather appropriate to check arctic ops planning lessons using the ICEPAC mnemonic, no?

In other words, all students will have to fill out the multiple choice critique sheet at the end of the class.

 

[The Bread Guy]

In other words, all students will have to fill out the multiple choice critique sheet at the end of the class.

Ouch - "classroom monitoring and critiquing" has changed an awful lot since my Combat Leaders Course days ......

 

[old medic]

No surprises here:

Maps suggest Soviet subs cruised Canadian Arctic
The Canadian Press
06 December 2011
copy at: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20111206/soviet-maps-canadian-arctic-111206/

The old Soviet Union may have been just as familiar with Canada's Arctic waters as Canadians.

Sections of Cold-War-era nautical charts obtained by The Canadian Press suggest that Russian mariners have for decades possessed detailed and accurate knowledge of crucial internal waterways such as the Northwest Passage.

Those charts, which may offer the first documentary proof of the widely held belief that Soviet nuclear submarines routinely patrolled the Canadian Arctic during the Cold War, are still in use by Russian vessels. In some places, they are preferred to current Canadian charts.

"In some cases the Russian charts are more detailed than the Canadian ones and the navigators have them out on the chart table beside the Canadian ones in order to cross-reference any questionable soundings," said Aaron Lawton of One Ocean Expeditions, an adventure tourism company that charters the Russian-owned ship Academik Ioffe for Arctic cruises.

"I have travelled on the Ioffe in the Canadian Arctic for (many) seasons and have generally found that the vessel has always cross-referenced the Russian charts," Lawton said in an email from on board the Ioffe off the Antarctic coast.

The Ioffe is owned by the Moscow-based P.P. Shirsov Institute of Oceanography. Vladimir Tereschenkov, head of marine operations, said the Russian charts were published by the Russian Hydrographic Service.

The sections seen by The Canadian Press are photographs of charts in current use on the Ioffe. Compiled from information gleaned over the years up to 1970, they are clearly marked with Soviet insignia, including the red star and the hammer and sickle.

Both sections are of highly strategic Arctic waterways.

One map is of a section of the Northwest Passage in Barrow Strait, southwest of Resolute. All deepwater vessels navigating the passage, including submarines, must pass through there.

The other section details a choke point on Nares Strait off Cape Isabella between Ellesmere Island and Greenland. Not only does Nares Strait pass the U.S. air base at Thule in Greenland, it links the Arctic and Atlantic oceans and avoids waters east of Greenland that were heavily NATO-patrolled during the Cold War.

Both sections of the charts contain many more depth soundings than corresponding modern Canadian charts.

"That was surprising, especially up in that area," said Alex MacIntyre, a highly experienced Canadian ice pilot who was advising the captain last summer on board the Ioffe. "The thought immediately came to mind, how did they get all those soundings?"

MacIntyre saw the charts one evening last summer on the Ioffe's bridge, where he was joined by passenger Michael Byers, a Canadian academic and Arctic expert who was a guest lecturer on the ship as it cruised the Northwest Passage. Byers was also struck by the detail of the Soviet charts.

"The difference was immediately apparent," he said. "The density of soundings on the Soviet chart was much greater than on the Canadian one."

Byers points out that Nares Strait is still choked with thick, hard, multi-year ice and would have been even more so 50 years ago. Both he and MacIntyre believe the only way the Soviet government could have acquired data for the charts is from nuclear submarines secretly patrolling the Arctic.

"It confirms what many of us assumed," said Byers. "The Soviet navy was extremely capable and also was willing to take considerable risk. Sending submarines into the Canadian archipelago, which was heavily monitored by NATO, thousands of miles away from Soviet assistance, was a perilous thing to do. It was a phenomenal accomplishment."

Byers said the charts are the first public proof he's seen of that theory. They suggest that the capabilities of the Soviet navy portrayed in movies may not be entirely fiction.

"I can't help but think back to 'The Hunt for Red October,' where Sean Connery plays the captain of a Soviet nuclear missile submarine and relies on the accuracy of Soviet charts to avoid a torpedo that's been shot at his ship," Byers said. "These charts indicate that the Soviets were in fact that competent."

Canadian government sources acknowledge that the Soviet charts seem to incorporate Canadian data, but they have no explanation for the additional information they contain.

"We are not sure yet what to make of the difference in sounding-density," said one.

So-called "field sheets" -- records of raw data from Canadian hydrographers -- are more detailed than the published Canadian charts. Field sheets are available, but only through application.

Nares Strait has been surveyed three times between 1962 and 2003; the Barrow Strait six times between 1960 and 1989.

Byers said the existence of the Soviet charts doesn't pose a threat to Canadian sovereignty over those waters.

"This Soviet activity was covert," he said. "At no point did the Soviet Union challenge Canada's sovereignty claims."

The charts do, however, present a buying opportunity, he suggested.

"It would seem prudent, for both shipping safety and economic efficiency reasons, for the Canadian government to obtain a complete set of the Soviet charts so as to determine their potential utility. It might also be possible to obtain the Soviet equivalent of field sheets and an effort to do so should certainly be made."

Although Canada is improving its knowledge of the northern oceans, most of that mapping involves High Arctic waters in preparation for an extended continental shelf claim under the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea. Sea lanes within the Arctic islands are getting less attention.

"At the current rate of charting, it will take 300 years for the Canadian Hydrographic Service to bring all our charts for the Canadian archipelago to world standards," Byers said.

He points out three ships ran aground in the Arctic last summer.

"Those three groundings focused attention on the inadequacy of our charts. That's where the Soviet charts are most interesting.

"This is first and foremost an opportunity for Canada to acquire some very valuable new data

.

 

[The Bread Guy]

No surprises here:

Only to those who, in the old days, thought "why would the Soviet Union ever be interested in Canada?"

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I sent this article to our GIS tech, maybe she can send a request for funding to buy a set.

 

[The Bread Guy]

In the words of ipolitics.ca, it's reportedly being shrunk down to a "gas station" - this from the attached letter from DND to a panel doing the environmental screening for the project:

.... The intent of the NNF (Nanisivik Naval Facility) will remain - a berthing and refuelling facility for the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS), and other Government of Canada vessels, but the functionality of the site will be reduced. A brief summary of the scope changes is outlined in this letter.

Originally, there were plans to have capacity for a two (2) year supply of Naval distillate fuel. There will now be fuel for one (1) season of operation. This will result in a decrease of the number of fuel storage tanks on site.

Additionally, due to the results of the geotechnical investigation undertaken in the summer of 2011, it has been decided to postpone major upgrades to the existing jetty for several years. Upon the advice of engineering consultants, a monitoring program for the jetty shall be implemented before a decision on major upgrades is made.

Finally, the buildings that were identified in the previous submission (serving the functions of offices, accommodation, and industrial) will be removed from the scope of the project. In its place will be an unheated storage building that will contain the necessary supplies for a re-fuelling facility.

The planned changes result in a significant reduction of the site layout and function plan that was submitted for review in 2011. The facility will only be operational during the navigable (summer) season. All facilities will be shut down and secured when not in use. On-site support will likely be reduced to an as-needed basis. Access to the site will continue to be via the Nanisivik deep-water berth and the Arctic Bay airport (via the existing overland road) ....

More from the hometown media here (hat tip to MarkCollins for pointing this one out)

 

[daftandbarmy]

In the words of ipolitics.ca, it's reportedly being shrunk down to a "gas station" - this from the attached letter from DND to a panel doing the environmental screening for the project:
More from the hometown media here (hat tip to MarkCollins for pointing this one out)

Wasn't that the same rationale used by the UK to retain sovereign toe holds in colonies that they could no longer fully occupy before the decline of the Empire? e.g., Hong Kong, Singapore and Cyprus retained as coaling stations