Canada does not need fighter jets, period - G&M

[YZT580]

With regards to Charles Nixon, he was the deputy minister of defense from 1975 to 1983.  These were the years when defense spending cuts had reduced the army to the point of irrelevance, our NATO air force commitment was reduced from 6 wings to 3.  If he was DM in those years it means that he was seriously involved in 1970 when the Bonnie was scrapped so what we have is an retired liberal defense hatchetman with a hate on for anything in uniform except possibly nurses and the Governor General's Footguards (for show).  It would be nice if the papers actually informed people of their writers' true history instead of concealing it behind a title.

 

[MarkOttawa]

But "Buzz" Nixon sounds so dashing,!  Cf. Buzz Beurling.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Edward Campbell]

With regards to Charles Nixon, he was the deputy minister of defense from 1975 to 1983.  These were the years when defense spending cuts had reduced the army to the point of irrelevance, our NATO air force commitment was reduced from 6 wings to 3.  If he was DM in those years it means that he was seriously involved in 1970 when the Bonnie was scrapped so what we have is an retired liberal defense hatchetman with a hate on for anything in uniform except possibly nurses and the Governor General's Footguards (for show).  It would be nice if the papers actually informed people of their writers' true history instead of concealing it behind a title.

In those years, from 1967 to 1984, Jesus H Christ himself could have been DM and the budget would still have been slashed. The prime minister of the day loathed the military and everything about it. It offended him to his philosophical core. He wanted to disarm the country (and he had some, but not enough, support in cabinet). Nixon was, in fact, a tough cookie who used (many would say abused) every trick in the bureaucratic book to foil the PM and his Clerks, Robertson (not really a bitter enemy) Pitfield and Massé.

Yes things were bad in the 70s ~ Rick Hillier never really knew what a "decade of darkness" looked like, he lived through a mere "decade of dimness" in the Chrétien years ~ but the problem was at 24 Sussex Drive, not on the 13th floor of Fort Fumble.

 

[McG]

On that note, let's drop the ad hominem.  If the author's message is wrong, then it can easily be taken apart without need to attack the individual.  The website does not need to find itself in trouble because seine decided to play name-calling of a public person.

 

[AlexanderM]

Yes, we need fighters, agree that 65 is not enough.  Was a report on the news the other day that the f35 is going to cost 1 billion per year, so make it 2 billion and purchase 130, that would be more like it.  We can set aside $2 billion in our military budget for fighters.  We need to have a referendum, find out how many Canandians care about our Sovereignty, might be suprised.  Call it the sovereignty referendum.

 

[Remius]

Ugh.  Referendums cost money and in this case would be a waste of time.  When elections barely gets out half the electorate (or way less in some cases) what makes you think that people would brave the rain or leave their back yard BBQs for this?

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

...and do we have enough landfill to bury the pilots ego's when it comes back to not buy any??  No wait, they'd be deflated so they'd probably be able to squeeze them in. :-*

 

[Loachman]

Most people are not interested in sovereignty. Many cannot even spell it.

Most just want "free stuff" from governments, but are not motivated enough to even go after that if they can't get an app to do it on their I-phones. Those with a clue are trying to protect their hard-earned money from being gouged by governments in order to pay for "free stuff" that will buy them votes.

People should have to earn the right to vote, like in Starshp Troopers.

 

[Transporter]

Most people are not interested in sovereignty. Many cannot even spell it.

Most just want "free stuff" from governments, but are not motivated enough to even go after that if they can't get an app to do it on their I-phones. Those with a clue are trying to protect their hard-earned money from being gouged by governments in order to pay for "free stuff" that will buy them votes.

People should have to earn the right to vote, like in Starshp Troopers.

Most Canadians take their sovereignty for granted. That's both a good thing and a bad thing - good in the sense that they feel safe, secure and not threatened; bad in the sense that they may easily be lulled into a false sense of security. The boogy man is not always around the corner, but he is out there in one way, shape or form.

 

[daftandbarmy]

A good example of why having a lot of 'Jabos' (or drones that can do the same) are important:

This Never-Before-Seen WWII Document Offers An Inside Account Of An Elite Nazi Combat Unit's Collapse

American G.I. John Frankemolle was guarding a group of captured German soldiers in Europe during World War II when an intelligence officer handed him an interrogation of prisoner of war (IPW) report. The officer told Frankemolle to keep the papers to himself and give it back to him after reading it — but that was the last time the two ever saw each other.

Seventy years later, 90-year-old Frankemolle still has that report, which he stored in his Long Island home alongside photos and mementos from his period of service with the U.S. Navy Armed Guard. The two-page Special IPW Report, titled The Odyssey of Goetz Von Berlightngen, is an English translation of a first-hand account written by an unnamed Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) staff officer in the presence of his American interrogators.

Frankemolle believes he may have one of the last copies of that forgotten document, which his family agreed to share with Business Insider.

Nazi SS combat troops were Hitler's most diehard and elite soldiers, still notorious for their wartime atrocities. But this officer's account reveals that he and his comrades fought hard — but suffered from waning morale in the months following the Allies' successful D-Day invasion of the European mainland on June 6, 1944.

You can find the full document at the bottom. But here are the highlights of a jarringly intimate glimpse into the enemy camp during World War II.

Heading to the front

The officer's unit, the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division — named after a spelling variation of the medieval German knight  Götz von Berlichingen —  headed from Thouars, France, to Normandy to fight the Allied forces landing there.  "Everyone was in a good mood and eager to see action again — happy that the preinvasion spell of uncertainty and waiting had snapped at last," the German SS officer wrote.

As the motorized column traveled along French roads, it was ambushed from the air by an enemy it had never encountered before.

"Something happened that left us in a daze," the officer wrote. "Spouts of fire flicked along the column and splashes of dust staccatoed the road. Everyone was piling out of the vehicles and scuttling for the neighboring fields. Several vehicles already were in flames."

The startled soldiers only continued their march after 15 minutes of strafing and bombing. "The men started drifting back to the column again, pale and shaky and wondering that they had survived this fiery rain of bullets. Had that been a sign of things to come? This had been our first experience with the 'Jabos' (Fighter bombers)."


An hour later a second and more effective air attack left the French road strewn with destroyed vehicles and equipment. The officer had this to say:

It dawned on us that this opponent that had come to the beach of Normandy was of somewhat different form. The march was called off, and all vehicles that were left were hidden in the dense bushes or in barns. No one dared show himself out in the open anymore. Now the men started looking at each other. The first words passed. This was different from what we thought it would be like. If things like this happened here, what would it be like up there at the front? No, this did not look like a feint attack upon our continent. It had been our first experience with our new foe — the American.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/never-seen-wwii-document-offers-135955667.html

 

[GR66]

While I think some people still seem to be under the (in my opinion) very mistaken belief that air power alone can win a conflict, disagreement with that premise shouldn't' lead us to underestimate the importance of air power.  Absolute air supremacy is the key to our ultimate military success.  Without that our relatively small militaries are much more vulnerable.

Obviously we can't and shouldn't fund the RCAF to the point that our other services are ineffective, but combat aircraft definitely need to be a key component of our military forces.  If we're forced to cut capabilities due to budget constraints I think fighters should be one of the last to be cut. 

 

[Fishbone Jones]

While I think some people still seem to be under the (in my opinion) very mistaken belief that air power alone can win a conflict, disagreement with that premise shouldn't' lead us to underestimate the importance of air power.  Absolute air supremacy is the key to our ultimate military success.  Without that our relatively small militaries are much more vulnerable.

Anyone that believes that is a fool.

I was Armour, but I understand the taking, holding and ultimate possession of an objective. The only group that can take, hold, secure and win the ground battle is the Infantry. All other Arms, be they land, air or sea, are ancillary contributions to the basic Infantry task. They all have their part, but it is the Infantry who meet the end state.

If you don't support their task, you are outside and useless in the parameters of winning the ground war.

 

[GR66]

Anyone that believes that is a fool.

I was Armour, but I understand the taking, holding and ultimate possession of an objective. The only group that can take, hold, secure and win the ground battle is the Infantry. All other Arms, be they land, air or sea, are ancillary contributions to the basic Infantry task. They all have their part, but it is the Infantry who meet the end state.

If you don't support their task, you are outside and useless in the parameters of winning the ground war.

No argument there.  Only boots on the ground = control.  Unfortunately Western armies are continually shrinking their numbers of boots on the ground.  The overall sizes of our militaries are decreasing and the "tooth to tail" ratio is decreasing as well.  We have the potential of being outnumbered on the ground and air supremacy is one of the factors that helps us overcome that disadvantage.  If we continue to make the decision to have a small army then we'd be very foolish not to ensure our dominance of the airspace above our forces. 

And to clarify, you are absolutely correct that only a fool would think that air power can hold ground.  However I do think there are some military/political leaders that do believe that air power and other long range precision weapons can advance to the point that an enemy's military capability and political will is so degraded by those attacks that the infantry will not be required to SEIZE the ground but will rather only be required to OCCUPY the ground after the enemy collapses.

 

[Shrek1985]

Most people are not interested in sovereignty. Many cannot even spell it.

Most just want "free stuff" from governments, but are not motivated enough to even go after that if they can't get an app to do it on their I-phones. Those with a clue are trying to protect their hard-earned money from being gouged by governments in order to pay for "free stuff" that will buy them votes.

People should have to earn the right to vote, like in Starshp Troopers.

+1

Sadly, the kind of moral welfare advocated in the article is way too popular in our world.

I think a part of the issue is perspective. Again; agree with the above that we need fighters and 65 is not enough.

So I pose the question, in which sphere of influence do canadian defence spending and requirements really sit?

I propose that we think of ourselves, militarily, as a nation; as on par with 1st line European, but moreso American forces. I further propose that in this self-image the appearance matters more to us, as a nation than the reality; it matters more that our troops appear modern, capable and equivalent than that they really be so. Finally, In looking at the budget, it's hard to place an equivalence. I can look at second-rate powers, even 3rd world nations with much larger, better equipped militaries, but suffice to say we prefer to spend very little.

I am happy with none of this.

In the spirit of posing a solution to the problem, though one which I think will be unpopular, politically and emotionally, I have the following. To better frame the situation;

Money; we do not want to spend a lot; this militates against either quantity, sophistication, or both. Baring a major cultural/govermental shift (Loachman) I cannot see this being fixed in any major way. In a wholy hypothetical dicussion, I have ideas, but practical? Nah.

Geography and Geometry; by this I mean considerations of space and time. We have a large nation, with a concentrated (decrepit?) infrastructure. We have a lot of area we need (agreed?) to defend. We also seem to at least makes noises to the effect of wishing to influence "Bad Things Happening" else where, this bespeaks a need for both power projection and an ability to enforce soverignty which is useable and effective.

Procurement; is junk. end of story. the system is corrupt, politicised and ineffective. I think, given the political will, this *IS* fixable, if one is willing to suffer the costs of changing it.

Industry; is bad, but, I think; fixable. I even think that with judicious investment in infrastructure and technology, we could roll back some of our current material problems, such as with ammunition; vast advances in which have been made in the last 30-40 years, none of which have been adopted in a big way, but which might yield cheaper supplies to train with and stock.

Solution; Revoke the condition of appearance and self-image in favour of capability and ability to perform vs not perform. In other words; stop seeing our military as US Military-Lite.

The US does NOT have the same restrictions on budget as we do and their expanded infrastructure (Military and of military utility) is superior to ours, thus, even the geometric requirements of soveriegnty protection are not as severe as ours. In fact, I think Russia is a closer match in terms of large, sparsely-populated landmass than the US to Canadian Defence Requirements. Europe is also less appropriate as a military role-model in many ways, especially in terms of air power, but better in some ways in how and what they buy, not always literally, but generally. People tend not to build equipment which has capabilities they do not need; ref the Vulcan comment above and the massive support (19 tankers? been a while) required to make the Black Buck mission possible during the Falklands in 82. Which is why I say European airpower is a bad role-model in a literal sense, though it is not all short-ranged.

I think it would be better to have have less-advanced equipment and be able to train on it, than to have not enough of the advanced gear the US and many of our NATO allies possess. Let's face facts; we have 1st world obligations for a military we fund like a 3rd world nation, if we want to at least pretend to be more than an impotent 2nd rate power, it's time we bought within our budget in a quantity which fits our needs and that means buying from people we prefer to look down our nose at.

Yes, this means less advanced gear; continued 4th generation fighters, rather than the current 5th generation, but; we could have enough fighters to cover our borders and they'd be cheap enough to operate enough to keep our pilots current and trained to a keen egde. I do not think we will be able to do that with the F-35.

I've always heard how good CF pers were; how this overcame our shortfalls in equipment, how we took home trophies in artillery, tank gunnery, naval maneovers and air combat with better trained people in less-advanced equipment. I know, emotionally, this is hard to take. But think pragmatically; how much better is a given cutting edge american system, than the simpler, cheaper 2nd-rate equivalent? Does that advantage overcome having MUCH fewer systems to train with?

There are 2 or 3 problems with this solution.

There is a treaty which mandates that a certain portion of all or most canadian defence purchases either take place in the US, or benefit the US to a certain percentage, say 40% of every deal. That would have to go. This is mentioned in Granatstien's "who killed the canadian military?" but I can't find it online right now.

Naturally there is a huge political bias against buying gear percieved as second rate and this is also a professional concern. On the one hand this is emotional and on the other it's practical. Yes, if we are talking about buying russian-pattern equipment, quality control can be an issue, but it can be mitigated as well. Though I feel this is better done at the source, rather than here for reasons of cost. As far as emotional concerns, I refer you again to my above argument; just how much better is X than Y and does it make up for having 4 or 5 or more times less of X than we could have of Y? Does the lack of training this necessitates by having less equipment to train with still not close the distance? How about issues of supply, replacement and build up in the event of war? Check out the WWII Tank shortage as it relates to Canada for an idea of what that's like.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...

There is a treaty which mandates that a certain portion of all or most canadian defence purchases either take place in the US, or benefit the US to a certain percentage, say 40% of every deal. That would have to go. This is mentioned in Granatstien's "who killed the canadian military?" but I can't find it online right now.

...

Only one, immediate, comment on a great and interesting post which provides a lot of food for thought: I think you are referring to the Canada/US Defence Production Sharing Agreement. It was signed in 1965 and has been amended several times. It refers to combined, Canada/US projects. It doesn't say we have to buy a certain share from the US, nor would it apply, for example, if we decided to replace the entire RCN combatant fleet by signing a similar (bilateral) sweetheart deal with Germany or Korea .. my reading of it, anyway.

 

[GreenMarine]

Just trying to pose some humor on the topic with the picture.

maybe we need to go with quatity over quality. As said before 65 jets are better then none. However if Canada was to look into cheaper fighters they could in theory cover more airspace or at least look impossing on paper.

 

[Shrek1985]

Only one, immediate, comment on a great and interesting post which provides a lot of food for thought: I think you are referring to the Canada/US Defence Production Sharing Agreement. It was signed in 1965 and has been amended several times. It refers to combined, Canada/US projects. It doesn't say we have to buy a certain share from the US, nor would it apply, for example, if we decided to replace the entire RCN combatant fleet by signing a similar (bilateral) sweetheart deal with Germany or Korea .. my reading of it, anyway.

Thanks ER Campbell, I think that's it. Never have my books when I need em!

Just trying to pose some humor on the topic with the picture.

maybe we need to go with quatity over quality. As said before 65 jets are better then none. However if Canada was to look into cheaper fighters they could in theory cover more airspace or at least look impossing on paper.

...If that thing flies...it would be the Shriner Car of the air. nice!

I shy away from matters of appearance, because when that's all there is, you can't back it up, that said; how much worse, really is a well-maintained 4th Generation fighter with a keen pilot than a 5th generation fighter?

I have see so much competing data on the F-35 vs less advanced  aircraft, I don't want to touch it, suffice to say "the issue is in doubt".

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

The problem I have with this entire debate is the fact that is being dominated by every single opinion piece except the one that matters: pilots.

It's like me, as an infantry officer, weighing in on what the Navy needs in a boat.  I can have all the opinions in the world but at the end of the day I really know SFA about anything related to boats. 

I've spoken with a couple of my buddies who are fighter pilots and they all say the F35 is hands down the plane we need.  From an operational standpoint it will out perform any competition that it comes up against due to it's advanced computer system which makes it incredibly easy to fly along with the fact that whatever it's going up against will already be dead before it even realizes the F35 is there.

You only have to look at the respective cockpits of an F18 and an F35 to realize what an improvement the F35 is over the competition in terms of allowing the pilot to focus on what he is there to do, fly the airplane and kill bad guys. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

and what about your customers? do their opinions matter? For Canada the equation is simple we are replacing like for a newer like. The question to the RCAF from the army is: Exactly how do you intend to support CAS with the reduced size of the fleet and under what combat conditions will you and won't you support us?

For the US the equation is different they are replacing, like, sort of like and nothing at all alike for a apparently all singing and all dancing platform. So the question above becomes even more pertinent. Is the USAF will to have 12.7, 14.5 and 23mm holes in their new shiny toy and if that does happen, will they come back for more?   

 

[SupersonicMax]

Colin P,

CAS is ONE of the many roles we have (and it is not our primary one).  While you are right, planes don't hold ground, a government may not need traditionnal ground forces altogether to achieve political objectives in certain theaters. 

On the question getting more of a cheaper airplane I ask you:  Which one is cheaper than what the JSF is going to cost?