Why doesn't Canada design its own AFV and its own aircraft?

[Flip]

There is a downside to building your own.
If you build your own then you are obliged to use your own.
Even if the equipment is misdeployed or simply not suitable
for the task at hand.  Unarmoured humvees in Iraq come to mind.

The other issue is that Canadians are particularly
good at bureaucracy. At least one executive position will be generated for
each vehicle that rolls off the line - then you are paying out pensions
to those people long after the vehicles have been retired.

No. I think we have it right - Canada is a full partner in the US
"military industrial complex" with bargaining rights the Americans don't have.
We can make a fire control system for the M1A1 but then go buy the Leopards.
We could buy the Nyala and not be stuck with armoured Humvees.

 

[Blackadder1916]

Canada did try to design and produce its own AFV in the late 50's, the Bobcat (first 2 photos below).  If you are in the Borden area you can see one of the prototypes at the museum vehicle annex (last photo below, it's the vehicle partially obscured by the sign).  Don't know where the other prototypes ended up, hopefully there is one at the CWM.

If you ae interested in the story, try this link.
http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/caj/documents/vol_02/iss_4/CAJ_vol2.4_19_e.pdf

 

[CougarKing]

Aren't we forgetting the WW2-era Ram tank? It was at least partially of Canadian design- though the chassis was on a US M3 Grant/Lee tank, IIRC. It wasn't really used in combat, considering Shermans were being used by the Canadian Army in large numbers by the time of the invasions of Italy and Normandy.

 

[MediTech]

Speaking of designing our own weapons, anybody remember the Ross rifle?  Now that was a wonderful piece of Canadian kit.  Haha.  We even learned about how crappy it was in history class in high school.

 

[Shamrock]

What?

That was more an example of the wrong tool for the job than a crappy weapon.

 

[MediTech]

What?

That was more an example of the wrong tool for the job than a crappy weapon.

The sporting rifle variant was useful, I've read that the manufacturing of the original service rifle wasn't up to snuff.

 

[Albertaone]

Frederik G  have you added up the crashed V-22's and the loss of life associated with those aircraft.  Waayy more than the CL-84.  Protypes are known to crash and the CL-84 lost no lives, which illustrates it was a relatively safe aircraft. If you look closer one of the crashes was attributed to pilot stunting.  The Canadian Forces still needs utility aircraft to replace is stol aircraft that is used for SAR and up north anyway.  I seriously doubt that we will have enough Chinooks to go around.  We have the technology and the resources.  Besides most of the utility aircraft like the Buffalo, Twin Otter and Dash are Canadian built anyway.  So my proposing the government implement their Canada First defence plan with respect to utility aircraft such as the CL-84 is not entirely crazy.

 

[Eland]

Aren't we forgetting the WW2-era Ram tank? It was at least partially of Canadian design- though the chassis was on a US M3 Grant/Lee tank, IIRC. It wasn't really used in combat, considering Shermans were being used by the Canadian Army in large numbers by the time of the invasions of Italy and Normandy.

The Ram had potential, but it was limited by an inability to accommodate anything larger than a six-pounder (ca. 57mm) gun. When first introduced, the 6pdr was capable of taking out most of the early German tanks. Then the Panzer IV and Tiger came out and the Ram was instantly and hopelessly outclassed, and ended up being relegated to a training role. The Sherman which followed it was outclassed too - it's a good thing that the Allied armoured forces using the Sherman learned to use flanking and rear shots to take out the Panzer IV's and Tigers.

Michael McNorgan, writing in The Royal Canadian Armoured Corps: An Illustrated History argues that the Sherman tank was actually based on the Ram design. I tend to agree with him, because when looking at the Sherman and the Ram, the resemblance is hard not to see, particularly where the turret is concerned.

 

[KwaiLo]

There are over 500 members of CADSI that are helping keep Canada a player in the defense market worldwide. 

https://www.defenceandsecurity.ca/public/index.asp?action=profiles.

I think that a Canadian engineered and built design for an AFV or airframe is hard to justify when we have a defense partner in the US that is highly unlikely to prevent us from buying anything we really wanted from their companies. 

 

[retiredgrunt45]

We probably could build some world class hardware up here, but as someone already mentioned its cheaper to by of the rack.

 

[geo]

Heh...
Can anyone spell ADATS?
Can anyone remember the Bobcat APC?

springing all of the R&D money for some international business to develop a weapon platform on the speculation that they might be able to sell the product overseas after we get the kinks out of the product..... Yetch?

working out some agreement where we get manufacturing rights and an agreement that we can continue to produce the final product WITH the manufacturer...... like the Mowag Cougar / Grizzly which became the Bison which became the LAV III / Coyote / LAV 125 / ASLAV ....

Then again, GM Diresel was sold to General Dynamics Land Systems & I hear that we can't get an order in to replace some of the vehicles we have lost to the Taliban & wear 'n tear.