The reality is that the Donbas conflict was essentially static warfare along a defined front line in Donbas (approx. 300km long) with prepared defences and the further Russian attacks were coming from known locations in Russia, Crimea and Belarus (the force concentrations clearly identified by US intel). The current border region from Russian Occupied Kherson to the Russo-Norwegian border on the Barents sea is around 4,300km long by comparison.
And in that 4800 km there is a variety of terrain, climate, enemy capabilities and standing allied capabilities. Our single brigade is going to make more of a political statement than a tactical one. The government will get to pick where, when and how it wants the force inserted. A prepositioned force, somewhere along that 4800 km front is going to be stuck in place for the duration. That means that decisions made a decade previously are going to limit the choices available in the crisis.
Where are you expecting to get this heliborne mobility from to move a Light Infantry Brigade? We simply don't have anywhere near the airlift capacity for even a fraction of that and yes...I'm fairly certain that making a heliborne Brigade would be logistically more onerous than a Light Brigade.
I know there is a reluctance on the part of many to accept the Griffon as a utility vehicle but I have more faith. Especially when supplemented by the existing Chinooks and the rough field, short strip tactical lift of the Hercules and backed by the C17s. And I am not of the opinion that because you can't tactically lift a full brigade then the light brigade is of little value. Frankly, I don't think that if we are only committing a single brigade to the allied effort that we will commit the entire force to a single throw of the dice. Rather I would expect the entire force to be deployed to the theater in the most advantageous position and then employed tactically in Battlegroups and Combat Teams as circumstances demand while still being retained under national control as a complete force.
I would also like to see more lift purchased, and proper escorts and incorporation of the RCAF into the force to supply Air Defence, CAS and ISR capabilitites.
In short I like the USMC model.
In open terrain how is that person (presumably with his ATGM) going to be able to hide from enemy ISR if there is no cover? If I'm not mistaken, someone mentioned in another post (EITS?) that they had tracked a sentry to their position from their IR footprints. It seems to me that the Light Infantry in such terrain would be very vulnerable to enemy indirect fire to suppress or destroy them.
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EITS and others have also referred to something like a Drinking Straw effect. Or looking at the world through a telescope or a microcope. You see a lot of detail by in a very narrow field of view. Once you know where to look the target becomes obvious and easy to track. But locating the target is difficult. If locating the target were easy then there would be no need for Search and Rescue in Canada. It would strictly be a Rescue force. But lost people are still hard to find because there is so much space to scan with those telescopes and scanning takes time.
And, in the military setting, once you have located a trackable target and dedicated assets to tracking that individual then they are not engaged in finding other targets to track or tracking them. A dispersed force with a large number of very small units, equipped with ultra light vehicles, would be very hard to track.
It would also be very hard to counter since any single artillery strike, or air sortie, would only eliminate a tiny portion of the force.
This is what the US Marines, and the Royal Marines are counting on to allow them to manoeuver within the enemy's ability to respond with fire. And I believe it is the style of warfare the Ukrainians initially exploited to slow and stop and reverse the Russian incursion in the North.
In the East, as you rightly point out, that 300 km front, is a static front. Even with Russian reinforcements and continuous effort over the last 7-8 weeks that original line is holding.
But attacks on its flanks at Kherson and Izyum are forcing the Ukrainians over to the offence and they are having to commit organized, well trained and equipped Brigades to the fight.
In short, something I seldom am, I see value in territorial forces, light forces and heavy forces. Even in a peer on peer conventional war. I even see value in the conventional war of hybrid warfare, cyber warfare, info warfare and outright propaganda. World War II employed all of those forces in all theatres globally. The Russians and Ukrainians are still using them today.
Canada currently has the luxury of deciding how, or if, it is going to wage war. Unfortunately....
they remind me of my dozers lol
