Future Canadian Airborne Capability and Organisation! Or, is it Redundant? (a merged thread)

[MilEME09]

At some stage, probably fairly early on, you are going to have to prepare for withdrawal of the force and evacuation of casualties, plus build up including strategic communications. I am not up to speed on a J model's capabilities, but this implies at least a few aircraft to drop in a follow on force to build an airfield, establish an operating base including a hospital and work on sustaining the initial force.

the max takeoff weight is about 20,000 lbs more then a C-130H model, so the J in theory can get some more supplies squeezed in.

 

[Old Sweat]

Indeed, and when we get an airfield operating the airlift can be much more efficient as we can land supplies instead of having to airdrop them.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Indeed, and when we get an airfield operating the airlift can be much more efficient as we can land supplies instead of having to airdrop them.

Which is why you need to send in the Rotweillers first

 

[McG]

At some stage, probably fairly early on, you are going to have to prepare for withdrawal of the force and evacuation of casualties, plus build up including strategic communications. I am not up to speed on a J model's capabilities, but this implies at least a few aircraft to drop in a follow on force to build an airfield, establish an operating base including a hospital and work on sustaining the initial force.

There is the problem.  Because we put parachute all over the army so that everyone has it to play with, none of those follow on enablers exist.  We have engineer jump sections, but they are focused on close support to company operations and there is no in-service droppable equipment to open a runway.  Once we put guys on the ground, we are not establishing two way movement until we get to them by land or we establish helicopter operations from an already safe APOD or from a ship.

 

[Old Sweat]

There is the problem.  Because we put parachute all over the army so that everyone has it to play with, none of those follow on enablers exist.  We have engineer jump sections, but they are focused on close support to company operations and there is no in-service droppable equipment to open a runway.  Once we put guys on the ground, we are not establishing two way movement until we get to them by land or we establish helicopter operations from an already safe APOD or from a ship.

Hope is not a method, and with that I am going to have a Bushmills and go to bed.

 

[MJP]

the max takeoff weight is about 20,000 lbs more then a C-130H model, so the J in theory can get some more supplies squeezed in.

The max load will almost never be reached via CDS load.  The main limitation is the space avail to put the platforms and limitations on actual load size. 

Quite frankly we don't have a great deal of institutional knowledge when it come to supporting Airborne Ops either with supporting arms/enablers and their equipment or with actual supplies after the fact.  We focus on the sexy part which is the pathfinder/recce CT6 drops and the almost as sexy CT1 main bodies.  How we sustain that force or enable them to influence an area is largely an after thought.  Some great minds are thinking of the issues and potential solutions but they are far and few between.

The fact our entire fleet of parachutes is getting old and are Txing with no real timeline on replacement is another issue all together.

 

[ArmyRick]

Interesting. To maintain the fight we need supporting elements we do not have. It makes sense.

So to fly an airborne force to our far north
1. Initial wave F echelon troops with some atts
2. Second wave seems like it should be engineers with heavy equipment, medics (establish forward casualty post), sigs, an extra rifle platoon or company
3. Need air superiority (this scenario assumes we are fighting a conventional force).

Can hercs be fitted with skis to land a fairly flat snow covered field?
How long would it take to get chinooks to follow the initial drop? Assuming we can set up re-fueling points along the way?
Do Tac Hel squadrons have the ability to run an austere airfield for choppers?

What the hell I'll throw this in. How easily can we quickly modify a herc with 1-2 mini-guns on port side and turn it into ad ad hoc specter gun ship? Would it be worth it to give the jumpers some extra muscle?

 

[Kirkhill]

Add in:

How close is the nearest salt water and how many helicopter capable ships are in the area?

How close is the nearest point of departure?  Are you mounting from Trenton or from Rankin Inlet?

 

[Infanteer]

Question - why paradrop into the north to fight a mythical invading host?  Why not just shoot their resupply down and let them starve and freeze?

 

[Kirkhill]

Question - why paradrop into the north to fight a mythical invading host?  Why not just shoot their resupply down and let them starve and freeze?

Or that.

Of course.  Maybe there is something they wanted to get done that only took them an hour and a half.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Interesting. To maintain the fight we need supporting elements we do not have. It makes sense.

So to fly an airborne force to our far north
1. Initial wave F echelon troops with some atts
2. Second wave seems like it should be engineers with heavy equipment, medics (establish forward casualty post), sigs, an extra rifle platoon or company
3. Need air superiority (this scenario assumes we are fighting a conventional force).

Can hercs be fitted with skis to land a fairly flat snow covered field?
How long would it take to get chinooks to follow the initial drop? Assuming we can set up re-fueling points along the way?
Do Tac Hel squadrons have the ability to run an austere airfield for choppers?

What the hell I'll throw this in. How easily can we quickly modify a herc with 1-2 mini-guns on port side and turn it into ad ad hoc specter gun ship? Would it be worth it to give the jumpers some extra muscle?

Any plan like that would have to be anchored on working from existing villages and other inhabited areas. Those would have to be our 'Air FOBs', which means we should invest in upgrading the infrastructure in all those mainly Inuit populated communities across our northern flank.

We would look pretty silly if we flew and Airborne Brigade 2000 miles north of Ottawa, then have to racetrack because the winds were too high which, based on my relatively limited experience in the high arctic, is often. We would require the ability to airland in a variety of different areas in the eastern and western arctic.

Of course, any successful Arctic excursion is mainly a feat of logistics, not tactics, so we need more propeller beanie wearing 'logistics brainiacs' on this job than 'meat bombs', at the outset anyways.

But, in the meantime, I'm still waiting for someone to let us walk a platoon to the north pole and plant a Canadian Armed Forces Flag there, just to make an international fashion statement of course

 

[GR66]

I'm still looking for a concrete example of something that Russia or China might deem vital enough to their national interest to risk a general war with NATO (or at least the USA) by either seizing or attacking with conventional ground forces in the Canadian arctic.

With the exception of Hans Island, I don't believe that there are any disputes between Canada and any other nation over ownership of any of the islands of the arctic archipeligo.  How could landing military forces on any landmass that is already legally acknowledged as being Canadian soveriegn territory be seen as anything other than an act of war. 

There are certainly disputes over where the water boundaries of various nation's Exclusive Economic Zones are, but how would launching a military invasion of soveriegn Canadian territory help with these claims when they would almost certainly result in a war with NATO/USA? 

As a stretch I could see China or Russia claiming that Canada has relinquised any claims it has over certain territory due to lack of occupation or use but again I'd suggest that that could much more easily be prevented by civil investment and economic development of the arctic rather than by designing a military force to counter a foreign invasion.

That doesn't mean that I think that Canada shouldn't have an airborne capability for a number of other military purposes or that we shouldn't have the ability to rapidly deploy a variety of types of assets in the North, but I think that organizing our airborne forces around the premise of repelling an arctic invasion is mistaken.

 

[George Wallace]

I'm still looking for a concrete example of something that Russia or China might deem vital enough to their national interest to risk a general war with NATO (or at least the USA) by either seizing or attacking with conventional ground forces in the Canadian arctic.

......... 

Natural resources.  Oil.  Diamonds.  Uranium.  Other precious metals.

Canada's arctic is chock full of natural resources.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Russia is building up its naval forces again.  They are expanding their ability to conduct sustained ops in the arctic over the course of the next few years.

ISIL, the GWOT might be the soup de jour for the next few years.  IMO, the thing to look for 10 years from now is the claim to resources in places like the Arctic.  Would Russia risk a war with NATO...perhaps the question is, would NATO risk all-out war with Russia over 'some frozen Canadian tundra'. 

Cold War II could literally be that, for all we know where the world will be in 5, 10 years.  Some things are going back more to the way they were.  The US is likely going to re-open a base in Iceland.

The times, they are a-changin'...back?

 

[Kirkhill]

I joined in 80.

That was 36 years ago. 

Back then I heard the argument that nobody is ever going to attack the North.  The SSF/CAR was a waste of time. The CAST Brigade wasn't something that we wanted to do/were capable of doing. AMF(Land) was a sop to the Danes.

4 CMBG and the Heart of Darkness was the only game in town worth playing.  And Mulroney bought into that and doubled down.

Curiously, since then, the activities on which the CAF seems to have been tasked look a lot more like CAST/AMF(L)/SSF missions than 4 CMBG missions.

And Canada doesn't need defending.  Nobody wants the North.  Not even Canadians.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

And Canada doesn't need defending.  Nobody wants the North.  Not even Canadians.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/11944219/Russia-builds-massive-Arctic-military-base.html

20 Oct 2015

Russia's defence ministry said on Tuesday it has built a giant military base in the far northern Arctic where 150 soldiers can live autonomously for up to 18 months.

The ministry said the building erected on the large island of Alexandra Land, which is part of the Franz Josef Land archipelago, is 97 per cent complete.

Named the "Arctic Trefoil", or three-lobed leaf, the sprawling three-pointed structure is coloured red white and blue like the Russian flag.

The base is a permanent structure located on the 80th parallel north and has an area of 14,000 square metres (150,000 square feet).

The building can house 150 soldiers and stock enough fuel and food to let them work there autonomously for a year and a half, the ministry said.

The soldiers can move around the base from one building to another without going outside to face winter temperatures which can reach minus 47 degrees Celsius (-57 degrees Fahrenheit). Fuel can be pumped in from tankers.

Franz Josef Land is a chain of islands between the Barents and Kara seas north of Novaya Zemlya archipelago.

It has maintained a Russian border post but the military presence there was withdrawn in the 1990s. It returned last November, when the Northern Fleet dispatched air defence contingents there.

This year Russia has reopened a landing strip there equipped for large transport planes in order to deliver building materials.

Russia is building up its Arctic military infrastructure as part of a recently updated Naval Doctrine, which proclaims the region as a top priority due to its mineral riches and strategic importance.

Russia has already built a similar military base called the "Northern Shamrock" on Kotelny island in the East Siberian Sea further south on the 75th parallel.

Russia has increasingly asserted itself as an Arctic nation, this year filing a United Nations claim for a vast swathe of the region including the North Pole, and holding war games in the area.


------------------------------------

 

They sure seem interested in the region to me.  8)

 

[Kirkhill]

North of Great Slave, East of Great Bear and West of the Barren Grounds, I can put an outline of the country of Switzerland on the ground and cover five diamond mines.  Salt water is accessible via Bathurst Inlet.

What happens if the locals decide they want a better deal than Ottawa is offering them and they pull a Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence, looking for diplomatic recognition from other countries?  Native land claim. Well established resource base.  Foreign investors.  Foreign governments.  Is that a domestic or a NATO issue? 

If NATO doesn't react in the Baltics will it react in Canada? 

We can't know all the "what ifs".  But you can ask yourself what might you be able to do if.

 

[GR66]

Natural resources.  Oil.  Diamonds.  Uranium.  Other precious metals.

Canada's arctic is chock full of natural resources.

I'm not questioning the fact that the arctic has lots of natural resources.  So does the Russian arctic.  Maybe I've caught a nasty case of the "Sunny Ways"  :boke: but I honestly think we're a long way from Russia being so short of their own resources that they would go to war to seize ours.  And while European NATO members may not go to war for "some frozen Canadian tundra" I seriously doubt that the USA would stand by and accept such a blatant challenge to the Monroe Doctrine. 

Any I certainly wouldn't envy the Russian position if they were to try and take and hold Canadian territory in the far North and trying to set up mineral or oil extraction facilities.  It's hard enough to operate up there without active military forces trying to disrupt you.  I'm quite confident that it would cost much, much more than they could possibly ever gain from it.  And as Infanteer noted "Why not just shoot their resupply down and let them starve and freeze?"

As for China...they would have to go over Canadian and/or US territory in order to launch an airborne invasion of the arctic and any naval forces would have to fight their way through the choke point of the Bering straight.  Their logistical situation would be even more difficult than the Russians and they would be risking their vital export trade to their biggest export partner (the US) by taking such an action.

Short of M. King Hubbard being right afterall and "Peak Oil" unexpectedly hitting and the Gulf/Iranian/Russian/Venezualan/US oil wells all run dry making undiscovered arctic oil worth the risk of war I don't see an arctic invasion in the cards.  Might they encroach on our EEZ and start drilling wells on our side of a disputed boundary?  That I an see...but not sure what an airborne brigade would bring to that fight that wouldn't be better done by air and sea power.

Again...I do think that Canada likely should have an airborne capability for overseas deployment and greatly improved ability to rapidly move equipment, personnel and resources to the Arctic (and everywhere else in Canada), but I personally see this particular scenario very low down on the probability scale.

Much more likely in my mind that we'd have to quickly send our airborne forces to the Scandanavian Arctic to counter Russian attacks aimed at unbalancing NATO while they attempt to retake the Baltic states for example than having to use them to retake Sachs Harbour from a Russian invasion.

Just my personal opinion though of course.

 

[GR66]

North of Great Slave, East of Great Bear and West of the Barren Grounds, I can put an outline of the country of Switzerland on the ground and cover five diamond mines.  Salt water is accessible via Bathurst Inlet.

What happens if the locals decide they want a better deal than Ottawa is offering them and they pull a Rhodesian Unilateral Declaration of Independence, looking for diplomatic recognition from other countries?  Native land claim. Well established resource base.  Foreign investors.  Foreign governments.  Is that a domestic or a NATO issue? 

If NATO doesn't react in the Baltics will it react in Canada? 

We can't know all the "what ifs".  But you can ask yourself what might you be able to do if.

This scenario to me is significantly more likely than a Russian (or Chinese) direct invasion.  But again I'll come back to my argument that a much better counter to this possibility is to develop the Arctic so that it and its people are prosperous (and therefore unlikely to want to trade Canadian citizenship for the questionable benefits of becoming Russian) rather than building a military capacity to counter it IF it happens.

Again...not in anyway saying that economic development of the North AND improvements to our airborne capability can't or shouldn't happen at the same time.  I just don't think that tailoring the force and optimizing it for what I believe is a low-probability threat makes a great deal of sense.

Since I'm sure that I've more than made my point I'll leave it at that so as to no longer distract from the discussion.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I'm still looking for a concrete example of something that Russia or China might deem vital enough to their national interest to risk a general war with NATO (or at least the USA) by either seizing or attacking with conventional ground forces in the Canadian arctic.

With the exception of Hans Island, I don't believe that there are any disputes between Canada and any other nation over ownership of any of the islands of the arctic archipeligo.  How could landing military forces on any landmass that is already legally acknowledged as being Canadian soveriegn territory be seen as anything other than an act of war. 

There are certainly disputes over where the water boundaries of various nation's Exclusive Economic Zones are, but how would launching a military invasion of soveriegn Canadian territory help with these claims when they would almost certainly result in a war with NATO/USA? 

As a stretch I could see China or Russia claiming that Canada has relinquised any claims it has over certain territory due to lack of occupation or use but again I'd suggest that that could much more easily be prevented by civil investment and economic development of the arctic rather than by designing a military force to counter a foreign invasion.

That doesn't mean that I think that Canada shouldn't have an airborne capability for a number of other military purposes or that we shouldn't have the ability to rapidly deploy a variety of types of assets in the North, but I think that organizing our airborne forces around the premise of repelling an arctic invasion is mistaken.

Based on Russia's approach to the Crimea and other places, they are probably already occupying our arctic territories and we don't even know they are there.