Should Canada adopt the LAV III (AKA: Stryker) as its primary armoured vehicle family?

[McG]

From the site's photo album:

 

[Infanteer]

being tied to the roads is NOT a good thing in counter insurgency or conventional war.

That's not neccesarily true; the South Africans had great success with their Casspirs in the bushwar insurgencies in Angola, Namibia and all those nice places.

Let's leave the Toyota's for those who play that game.

 

[Cloud Cover]

If brand new Strykers with the stickers still on the tires are needed, there are rows of them at GDLS as we "speak" along with a few  LAV with a new turret with longer 105mm tube. [the Denel variant?]

 

[a_majoor]

Let's stick with the LAV III.  Pickup trucks are great until the shooting starts.

Not in dispute, just thinking that lumbering convoys attract the wrong sort of attention and require more and more resources in and of themselves. Since our force structure is so small, any means we have to increase the actual "boots on the ground" as opposed to bulking up the echelons and absorbing troops in the Force Protection role need to be explored.

I think I am not making my argument clearly enough, so I will drop out for a bit to rephrase and restate.

 

[McG]

just thinking that lumbering convoys attract the wrong sort of attention and  . . .

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/52565/post-471243/topicseen.html#msg471243

 

[Eland]

I would have to say I‘m sitting on the fence with this one. 
  I do not belive that Canada can abandon all tracked vehicles as easily as you would suggest, Brock.  Some specialized vehicles cannot be built on a LAV III chassis.  Such vehicles include the AEV, AVLB, 155 mm self propelled howitzer, and the MBT.  I do not belive that Canada should do without these vehicles either.  You have phrased it nicely yourself when you said, "LAV III is not a tank and therefore should not be used as a tank."  To assume that there will be no future need for a MBT is to suggest that one knows when, where, and how the next war will be fought.  This is never the case.

Agreed.

  Your argument does hold some merit however, and as I said, I‘m sitting on the fence with this one.
  The potential of the LAV III is highlighted by the recent US decision to equip its medium mechanized brigades with the vehicle.  To meet this need there are already a 105 mm FSV, Engineer section vehicle, CP, Ambulance, NBCD Recce, Mortar carrier, and other variants developed and available off-the-shelf. Additionally, the LAV III could be adapted to replace any other M113 variants serving in the CF.

The key word in your paragraph above is 'medium'. A medium brigade can cope with low-to-moderate intensity warfare, especially in a three-block-war setting where the vehicles don't get too close to insurgents with RPG7's sitting on their shoulders, or as follow-on forces after the heavy brigades have done their job in a high-intensity setting.

  BUT: the Americans were buying the right tool for the right job.  Their plan was to establish rapidly deployable brigades that could get to the fight quicker than the M1A2 Abrams.  The LAV brigades would deploy overseas and be capable of defeating lightly armed enemy forces or to delay heavy enemy forces (a la Western Europe defense against the red hoards) until additional forces could be shipped by boat from the US.  The MBT is not eliminated from this scheme, nor is the armoured cavalry.  A new element is added to fill the void in between.

Correct. It seems counterintuitive, but MBT's have played a crucial and even pivotal role in Iraq in situations involving FIBUA. They provide the heavy punch and take the hits that the lighter, wheeled vehicles cannot possibly provide, or survive.

  How does this apply to Canada?  If you belive we cannot afford multiple different levels of Mechanized Brigade groups (which we cannot)  then you must leave the MBT within the Brigades as they now are and deploy them as needed.  This would allow a brigade to upgrade from medium to heavy, through the arrival of its tanks, while deployed.  Alternatively, you could suggest that all the MBT be concentrated within a single regiment (LdSH, because they have more room for tanks in the prairies) and have the army restructured into two medium brigades and one heavy.  This would correct for the excessive dispersion of the current fleet of Leopards.

Actually Canada *can* afford to maintain at least two different kinds of brigade groups - motorized (based on the LAVIII fleet)
and a mechanized brigade group (or two). We have the wealth and sufficient population to manage this kind of thing. I sense that the Harper government would like to do something like this but cannot do so until they form a majority government. Really, the issue boils down to making one of two choices - do we want to be a meaningful force on the world stage, or will we be content sitting on the margins, waiting for the day the United States absorbs us, lest we become a failed state and a liability to them?

There's a price of admission associated with the first choice -and it ain't cheap, but it's far cheaper than option two, which entails a much greater price - the loss of one's country and any claims to sovereignty we might have had.

Some parting thoughts:
1.  Why continue spending funds to train reservists the fire the 76 mm gun on the cougar when the vehicle should never se operational deployment again?  Why not replace the turret with the Delco turret of the LAV III and Coyote?  This would train reservists in the same gunnery techniques as their regular force counter parts and make it easier to integrate them in to units preparing for overseas duty.

I agree with the first part of point one. The Cougar is very long in the tooth and can't be expected to provide a realistic sense of what it is like to fight as part of a tank crew. Nor can it be used to provide a realistic appraisal of LAV gunnery technqiues, since the ballistic characteristics of a 25mm round are totally different from the 76mm used in the Cougar.

Sure, it can be used to impart basic gunnery techniques, but that's about it. Rather than go through the bother, expense and trouble of switching turrets, why not just acquire a basic version of the LAVIII (or maybe the Coyote DFSV) and issue these to the Primary Reserve - if your aim is to provide LAV/Coyote training? If your aim is to prepare reservists to crew tanks, then you're best off investing the money in simulators and allocating a limited number of real tanks for training only.

The problem with this country is that we always expect our military to use half-measures (to save money, of course!) and then deliver  stellar results. I say, either do it right, or not at all.

2.  The Australian LAV-25s have the same Delco turrets as on our LAV III, except that some also have TOW launchers on either side of the turret.  If Canada had chosen those turrets for the LAV III (or at least on one per Inf Plt) it could have greatly increased tank killing capacity and thereby reduced  dependency on MBTs.

The LAV TUA (Tow-Under-Armour) project is supposed to be addressing this issue. However, neither your suggestion nor the LAV-TUA will ever reduce our need for main battle tanks. The idea behind the LAV-25 TOW and TUA systems is to provide light, wheeled forces with some chance of survival if they unexpectedly encounter a tank or two.

It is theoretically possible to deploy wheeled vehicles mounting a TOW-type anti-armour system as primary anti-tank weapons, provided they are in well-chosen and protected defilade positions from which they can exfiltrate rapidly. The main risk in this gambit is that if your enemy has rocket artillery (like the US-made MLRS system), good air support and high-quality tanks crewed by experienced and well-trained soldiers, you are likely to lose your wheeled ATGM systems in large numbers, thus defeating their original purpose.

 

[Blue Max]

If the topic and question is still "Should Canada adopt the LAV III as its sole armoured vehicle?", then in IMHO I would say no.

The LAV III is a good wheeled APC, but its limited off-road mobility and variants add very little to our armed forces ability to patrol and protect Canada's far north as an example.

If our forces also had the CV90 family of vehicles in their inventory it would, IMHO add great operational ability, while staying with one family of vehicle. While the CV90 is not the most modern multi-role APC (Germany PUMA...), we could probably buy into its proven family of vehicles at a good price. 

 

[McG]

That's a decent idea and sounds much like the US Stryker (note:  decidedly not the MGS).  If we bought enough, we could replace the Bison in it's "APC" role (using that term loosely), and re-role that vehicle to more specialist variants...

 

[Teddy Ruxpin]

Yeah, like that!  Heh...

 

[McG]

and here is another popular idea  ;D

 

[Nug]

I see pick like that and I don't know if I should laugh or cry :crybaby: ;D

 

[Colin Parkinson]

We were discussing resupply and support of the LAV's in another thread, in specific about the carrying spares, I thought it was better to post my concept here. This may be an option to provide support to a LAV company with a vehicle capable of taking the same fire as the LAV (the picture is based on the Coyote, but it was the best I had) You could also build a similar version with dumpable fuel tanks.

 

[Desert Fox]

No, dont do it!!! one post refered to the fact that the LAV is not capable of carrying all platforms....
However, i think the bigger issue is mobility.... as it stands now the LAV III (as much as i love it) is having problems in Kandahar going through fields and ditches and what not. Tracks offer far greater mobility then a wheeled vehicles do. For this reason along, we need to maintain the presence of MBT.

The Stryker is a good idea.... however it is no tank, and thinking that it can act as one is nonsence
Thank god for the on going problems with styker, otherwise all of our leopards would be sold off as scrap by now...

 

[ringo]

IMHO Canada should consider procurement of Haggslunds BvS 10 tracked vehicles as used by Royal Marines.
Would be excellent vehicle for reformed Airborne (or Air-moblie) Regt. perhaps Atlantic and Pacific Marine Commando as well.
Coyote and Bison should be sent to reserves, regular forces standardize on LAV.
The Germany Puma may be an option for future Cdn army tracked vehicles.

 

[Desert Fox]

Ringo....

The P Res has barely enough keep its LS / ML running....

The regs use the Bison was to much to simply cast it off to the militia. Besides there is nothing wrong with the vehicle itself, other than the lack of wpns. But then again that why its so commonly used as an field Amb.... 

Coyote? Its a fairly new piece of kit, the optics are amazing on it, and it offers the same fire power as a LAV..... far to valuable to be condemed to domesitc service only....

 

[ArmyRick]

Ringo, there are some problems with your idea. 

 

[geo]

Uhh... the BISON was purchased for the reserves - NOT the Regs.  They were kept in central locations so that there would exist maintenance facilities AND a critical mass of vehicles that the reserves would need for Troop / Squadron training.

As a reg, what would you do / think about a fleet of brand new vehicles sitting in a compound all week long while your Cougars, Grizzlies were breaking down?

It didn't take more than a month that NDHQ & Reg units were taking bisons for Local training AND Eriteria mission, Somalia Mission, Bosnia mission........

 

[vonGarvin]

The BISON was purchased in the early 1990s for use by the PRes.  Due to operational requirements, it was "acquired" by the regular army (or re-allocated to them).  Since then, it has become a work horse.  It has served as an ambulance, a command post, mortar carrier and I don't know what else.  Heck, I just saw one the other day with a dozer blade on it.

The Coyote is much more than a 'similar' vehicle to the LAV III.  Other than having 8 wheels and a similar turret, it has other capabilities, and uses, that make its employment not "doable" by a LAV III.

There is a vast training bill to be qualified to work on a Coyote, too great to sustain for a reserve unit due to a variety of reasons.  The bison could be used at the reserve level quite easily, but there are only so many of them, and they have proven their worth time and time again.

 

[dapaterson]

Further down the BISON rabbit hole:

In the 1989 Defence yearbook, it was announced that roughly $200 million would be spent to acquire 199 MIL-LAVs - Militia Light Armoured Vehcles, from the General Motors Diesel Division in London Ontario.  In addition, 26 (or possibly 24 - memory fails) M113APC Dozers were to be acquired for militia engineer units.


It would probably have been prudent to report to Parliament that the attribution of the Bison costs to the militia in 1989 and onwards should be revisited; as it is, the Public Accounts do not accurately reflect the nature of that expenditure.  And the OAG (bless her soul) is getting increasingly insistent that government departments tell the truth in their reporting...

 

[ringo]

The powertrain for Coyote and Bison are not common to LAV III, Canada is one of the richest nation's in the world 2% GNP would buy the CAF everthing it needs.

Didn't the Coyote have problems climbing hills in Balkans due to being underpowered. Transfering to reserve would see the vehicle used in fire support, while recce fit is transfered to new buikd LAV111.