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The only reason why you'd let an MGS unit anywhere near a Soviet-era mechanised regiment is if you wanted to disassemble a whole bunch of MGS-es without doing the labour yourself. MGS is a "new army" system. It's a grudging nod towards the fact that sometimes it is good to shoot the infantry...

The Grits were in the process of buying new kit when the election hit, so I think there'd be a majority of seats in Parliament willing to see equipment bought. The question here isn't "will it or won't it?" but rather "HOW will it?" Will Reform maintain the Grit fast track purchases, or will...

It has been a long time since I was there, but here's how it used to be - your milage may vary: 1) Recruit camp used to start in late summer, a couple of weeks prior to the start of the school year. Recruits got 24/7 training up until school started, then they did classes during the day and got...

I wonder if the time hasn't come to take back the term "peacekeeping". Peacekeeping, when it was first envisioned, didn't mean throwing unarmed and impotent soldiers between belligerents. Instead, it was intended that the UN organize task forces made up of troops supplied by member nations who...

My troop was one of the two troops stood up from the instructors and students of a pair of Basic courses. I ran the one in C'Town, Erroll Mac ran the one in S'Side, and when we came back from our troop leader's courses, (and the students came back from TQ3) both courses were rolled over into...

Mess dinners, as a subbie, are an opportunity to have a lot of fun, and to see and interact with your superiors in a social context. They are to be celebrated, not avoided. Pay your money, suck it up, and have a good time. DG

A lot of the Vietnam-era fixation with body count came out of initiatives put forward by Robert McNamara. (Old Guy:if McNamara is still a sore point with you, you might want to watch Fog of War http://www.sonyclassics.com/fogofwar/ which is an extended "mea culpa" from the man himself)...

I just tested both links, and they worked fine.  ??? DG

Trying to get the lay of the land, I stumbled across these: http://www.aims.org.af/maps/national/physical/south_west.pdf http://www.aims.org.af/maps/national/routh_maps/road_network/road_network.pdf The nice thing about these is that they are done up as vectors, not bitmaps - meaning that...

Gramps already beat you to it Mike. Did everyboda have a happy Kwanzaa? DG

Trainor stories can go on for days. And don't forget Dave Laybolt! DG

I found an aide-memoire: http://www.armouredacorn.com/Orbats/Canadian/8CH-Aug75-reds.pdf DG

One of the things that distinguishes us from our southern neighbors is the idea that Canada is not a homogeneous mass, but rather a mosaic of different peoples sharing a common country, based on a certain set of common values. It does not diminish Canada when my next door neighbours - as they...

Ah, seen. Well then, it seems that everything old is new again. So how do we make it doctrine? DG

What was the APC carrying to make it a more effective DFSV vehicle than the Lynx? I'd think that Lynx, carrying similar armour and armament, plus being able to fire the 50 hatches down, would make a better firing platform. I find your ideas intringing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter...

Wow, everybody is crawling out of the woodwork today. :) Yeah, but that was (correct me if I'm wrong) mostly due to all the *other* jobs Assault troop did; the Pioneer-esque tasks like abatis, mine clearing/mine laying, ford and bridge improvement, etc etc. Those are all special, "oddball"...

Yup, finished it last night. The Iraqis supposedly called the LAV the "Great Destroyer" or something like that. I'm shocked and amazed (and a little horrified) at the tactic of sending a HUMMV-based recce troop flying into a built-up area, shooting up everything in sight. I'm shocked at the...

Hey Stan :) In the Reserve world, the major obstacle to fielding 44 is lack of troops and equipment. It's hard enough scraping together enough warm bodies and enough running trucks to put a pair of Recce troops in the field. But if there were bodies and trucks, 44 is a GREAT way to get fresh...

Well, *Verite*, Devoir, Valliance, eh? But what I perhaps failed to mention is that my lackluster performance and eventual ejection from CMR (at the end of 3rd year, having done 4 years total) was *ENTIRELY* due to doing what I was *supposed* to do (to get civvie side employment) instead of...

OK, RMC cadets, listen up: I'm about to dispense some hard-won wisdom that I wish to GOD somebody had given me back in the day. When I was at CMR, most of our talk about degree programs, just like yours, was "what would we be able to do with it once our hitch was up". The focus was on getting a...