Obsolete equipment

[Jarnhamar]

I think its a little longer then 5 days. You have the cultural briefs, couple language classes. Have a bunch of stands with vehicle searches, building searches and crowd control/riot training. Reacting to disturbences etc.. Not to mention the week and a half/two week long FTX at the end of it. I was including all that into the one and a half month estimate.

 

[Infanteer]

Well, it was 5 days when I did it. There was no FTX, we had "opfor" played by another company and went through Pl exercises after theory. It was alright, but everything was really learned during handover once on the ground.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Infanteer, Ghost, et al - good discussion.

The Lee Enfield was "officially" replaced in the late 1950s, though of course the Militia would have soldiered with it into the 60s. The Canadian Rangers still use it IIRC, and as noted, the sniper version (No. 4 Mk I (T)) was used well past 1959 as well.

Don‘t forget we were putting a lot of money at the time into Bomark missles, and the ARROW. If you want to talk about criminality in procurement policy, there‘s a story for you...(!)

 

[onecat]

Also it should be noted that during the Korean war, Nato was still deciding on their common round. The Uk and Canada wanted the .280cal which was more in common with assault rifle theories learned from WW2; while US wanted a larger round. They got their way and it was decided in 1954 that 7.62 would be the new Nato standard. So what would of been point of buying surplus M-1 from the United States when they were clearly going to replace them in a few short years. That would of been a total waste of money, what with large of surpluses of ammo and rifles, not to mention that to switch would of also meant that a new machine gun was needed, as the Bern also used the 303 round. And Canada adopted the FN Fal in 1956, so with re-tooling they most likely had the 303‘s old of reg service but 1960. It does take some time to get a rifle supplied, I think it tool the CF 6 years to get all C-7‘s in place and that was just 80,000.

Would like to know why you think the M-1 is hot?

Here‘s a link with more info.

http://world.guns.ru/assault/as24f-e.htm

 

[Infanteer]

Correction to my previous post, I was reminded of some extra stuff we did on peace support training bringing the total up to 8 or 9 days. However, still nothing close to a month or two.

As for the topic of obsolete kit, I think Mr. Dorosh raises a good point with his "conspiracy theory." I don‘t think I am ready to by the argument that our military is horribly obsolete. Of course there are the few glaring examples such as the Sea Kings, or some specific items like the communications suites on our fighters or the lower half of our tanks, but all countries have these problems (Anybody trained with the Brits and had to use their comms equipment? I swore I would never bash the over-complicated TCCCS after that....) However, on the plus side, are small arms are among the best in the world, the LAV and Comorant (please get more...please) are state-of-the-art, the Cloth-the-Soldier program, despite its teething problems, is giving us some pretty nice snivel kit, comms equipment is second to none, the new jeeps look pretty snazzy, and I could go on and on. And whats more, reservists get access to alot of this stuff too.
I think our problems lie in the fact that we are
A) missing a few key items of importance (tac and strategic transport comes to mind)
B) overwork what we got, alot of the times without proper replacement.

After working with a few foreign militaries I have learned to put our armies problems into perspective, namely "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence."

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Infanteer is dead on with all his latest comments.

I was truly surprised to hear that the temperature was below -20 on our last exercise. With all the truly effective winter kit we are now issued, I honestly had no idea it was that cold.

The comments on small arms et al, I would agree with 100 percent also.

Everybody wants something; we have health care coming out our ears, and people cry for more. Then they whine cause taxes are too high. Then they cry because alcohol and tobacco are taxed so much. Then they complain because they go to the hospital with liver failure and lung cancer and complain again that we don‘t have enough health care.

Throw in complaints about highways, property taxes, bad teachers and not enough schools, and finally, way down on people‘s list, is the fact we are driving 20 year old MLVWs with rusty wheels, and don‘t have any tanks for our tank regiments.

Unfortunately, we can‘t have it all. On the whole, our kit does allow us to train - and in all kinds of weather and terrain conditions. You can always imagine your Cougar is really a tank, but you can‘t imagine your combat coat is really a parka when you‘re out at -30 degrees!

 

[Jarnhamar]

"Correction to my previous post, I was reminded of some extra stuff we did on peace support training bringing the total up to 8 or 9 days. However, still nothing close to a month or two."

I‘m really glad someone must have seen this as a bad thing and decided to increase the amount of training for peace support training.
The idea of learning peace keeping stuff "in country" seems as dangerous as training a soldier to fight after he hits the battle field and not before. Even with the amount of training we have now i noticed guys acting with a "war fighting" mentality for lack of a better word. I think we could stil use even more time training in peace support operations. Maybe 2 and a half months war training, 2 or two and a half months peace support and a month off for the pre tour leave etc..

Clothe the soldier i think is a great project. The equipment thats comming out of that for the most part is amazing compared to what we have. The only problem is how long it‘s taking. The other night we got to play around with the new Tactical Vest which will replace the webbing. The set up was incredible. Everything fit perfectly, it looked and felt great. We were given a class on how to wear it and all the functions then asked to evaluate the class and the booklet it came with. (How do you like the text, are the words easy to understand, do you like the pictures, is there enough pictures, what would you add). We asked how long before we would see the vest and he said atleast a year and a half. Im not sure if that was regs and reserves or if he ment a year and a half to be filtered down to the reserves. It was also said that the vest was the first phase of the load carrage system with the new ruck sack comming out sometime later. (I don‘t want to guess how many years). Looks to me like soldiers will be wearing the new assault vests with the old style ruck sack which im sure won‘t be very compatable.
Awesome project but i wish they would speed things up.

 

[Infanteer]

The idea of learning peace keeping stuff "in country" seems as dangerous as training a soldier to fight after he hits the battle field and not before. Even with the amount of training we have now i noticed guys acting with a "war fighting" mentality for lack of a better word. I think we could stil use even more time training in peace support operations. Maybe 2 and a half months war training, 2 or two and a half months peace support and a month off for the pre tour leave etc..

I disagree. Peace support operations are mundane and very boring, more like routine police work, and I think we got adequete time training for them. The "warfighting mentality", however, is something we can‘t afford to lose, especially on an OOTW, as it remains our "raison d‘etre." Besides, we got a highly professional NCO to keep it in check until neccesary, right.

As for the new LBV coming out, I don‘t think I like it. Not only does it appear (like the new CADPAT uniforms) to be shoddily constructed, but it is still not up to being a proper infantry vest. 4 mag pouches??? A friend from the Medak said he was carrying 15 mags, loaded, when they went in. There still remains far superior stuff on the after market, and CADPAT versions will soon be out.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Peace support operations are very boring but they have the ability to flair up fast.