Rick's Napkin Forces Challenge

[ArmyRick]

We where not allowed to use the Reserves - they had been removed from play by the DS
So non issue

Unless fighting fires, floods, ice storms, hurricanes, riots, airplane crash, SAR assistance, Oil spills, etc the former PRes now Civil Defence Force is out of play.

 

[KevinB]

I've been mulling things over as well and think that with a 15,000 establishment that there are a whole lot of more things we can't afford to keep.

For starters, CSOC. That's just another form of regimental tribalism that says everything must go but we need to keep the tan beanies as a major organization because ... special. Keep some capabilities, sure; but not as a major element.

In my construct I expanded SOF - simply because given the Situation with the Separatists in both West and Quebec - as well as the Russian meddling - they are the option that best fits for dealing with it.
*they wouldn't wear tan berets in my construct - in fact I wouldn't have berets or any regimental affiliations at all.

My thought now is: okay, so we need to guard east, north and west but the south is our friend. What do we need and what can we afford to have.

We need a central overarching command/administrative structure but it needs to be really small. Basically C&C, strategic direction, procurement, sustainment, some form of personnel management.

Beyond that we need only two operational commands, one facing east the other west.

I disagree simply as I see the North as an easy method for the Russians in this scenario to supply the insurgencies/seperatists - as well to sneak in and cause issues.

What about the north you say? Well, like everything else, the north has a western and an eastern part. For convenience sake, if you run up the Sask and Man border you reach the border between the NWT and Nunavut which extends northward through the Queen Elizabeth Islands more or less separating the Arctic Ocean in the west from the North West Passage and Baffin Bay in the East. It makes a handy dividing line between the responsibilities for a JTF East and a JTF West each of which maintains responsibility for its entire coastline and territories from the US border right up to the northern boundary. Each JTF will have all of the sea, air and land assets needed to provide for that task. (which for JTF(E) will include a small detachment called the NfldR - nothing says that it has to be a land element ) (As an aside its rouglly the same distance from Esquimalt and Halifax to that northern dividing line - between 5,000 to 5,500 kms)

Imagine mine is three triangles superimposed over Canada.

I agree fully at this point with scrapping any and all element headquarters although there still remains a need for a training structure which is capable of producing trained soldiers, sailors, aircrew and their various equipment maintainers and the developers of doctrine for how these two JTFs operate.

I had an all arms training school in my ORBAT

So three HQs - a CFHQ (including a form of SJS and CJOC), and a JTF(E) HQ and a JTF(W) HQ. Everything needed to support both JTFs remains directly under CFHQ. That would include a common procurement and sustainment and individual training system as well as certain units that face in all directions (which could include cyber, intel, a small reserve (not the forbidden reserve force but a strategic reserve which could include a small SOF component)).

Everything else needed to guard and fight on the coasts and in depth goes into the respective JTF which, incidentally, do not need to be symmetrical but should be organized to meet their specific current threat and change from time-to-time as the threat changes.

I'll still keep my Northern Task Force

 

[daftandbarmy]

Unless fighting fires, floods, ice storms, hurricanes, riots, airplane crash, SAR assistance, Oil spills, etc the former PRes now Civil Defence Force is out of play.

You forgot one: providing thoroughly inadequate Defence Ministers

 

[Kirkhill]

OK, ready to engage.

The Governor in Council, on advisement from the government of the day has decreed a standing armed force of no more than 15,000 members.

Those members are to be employed strictly within the realm of Canada.

The G-i-C further indicates that the 15,000 should be divided among four elements in the following numbers

Command and Support 3000
Sea 4000
Land 4000
Air 4000

The Canadian Rangers and all members of the Reserves of the Canadian Armed Forces, Primary and Supplementary, wiil be removed from the command and control of the CAF and transferred to the civil authorities.

With those numbers it is critical that none of them be wasted. That means that they only do jobs that others can't. Accordingly it is important to know what others can do.

And thus to definitions. And here I tread boldly knowing that words are FJAG's specialty.


The Crown - the device symbolizing authority, worn by the monarch of the day.
The Realm - the domain over which the Crown's authority extends
The Attorney-General - now the Minister of Justice, with the Power of Attorney for the Crown since 1243
The Solicitor-General - now the Minister of Public Safety, Deputy to the Attorney-General since 1461

The Attorney-General's Power of Attorney gives authority over all the assets of the Crown including:

The Constable - commander of the royal armies and the Master of the Horse since 1139
The Marshall - responsible, along with the constable, for the monarch's horses and stables including connected military operations since 1139
The Admiral - with authority to establish courts of Admiralty and jurisdiction over maritime affairs since 1160 The Admiral did not originally have command at sea.
Master of the Ordnance - Master of (the Crown's) Works, Engines, Cannons and other kinds of Ordnance for War since 1415

The Ordnance, variously the Office and the Board, is the source for the Royal Engineers, the Royal Artillery and the Royal Fusiliers and the Carabineers, mounted fusiliers with short fusils. The Royal Engineers also spawned the Royal Signals and then Royal Air Force.

The Ordnance has also been intimately associated with the Royal Navy since the 1540s and the creation of the iron cannon industry in England. The iron cannon, cheap and plentiful but very heavy, were ideally suited for mounting in castles, forts and ships . The Office of the Ordnance of 1460, located in the Tower of London, maintained a Department of engineers and surveyors responsible for harbours, ports, forts and their defences including guns. The Royal Navy has been around since 1320 when a Clerk of the King's Marine was appointed.

So, in my estimation, I suggest that the Magnificent 15,000 be re-styled as Ordnance Canada. and that it be constituted of the RCN, the RCE, the RCA, the Royal Canadian Fusiliers and the Royal Canadian Carabineers as well as the RCAF. It will also require its own communications in the form of the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals, technical support from the RCEME and logistics support from its own Royal Canadian Logistics Corps.

The primary role of Ordnance Canada will be the application of lethal force within the Crown's realm of Canada.

More to follow (Definition of the Realm).

 

[Kirkhill]

Defining the realm is complicated.

Generally it is given as 10,000,000 square kilometers. But it can expand to 18,000,000 km2 when considering its international airspace obligations. Equally it can shrink when the 10 self-governing Provinces are removed from federal authority, and shrink still further when indigenous title is considered.

What is sure about federal authority, the authority of the Crown as exercised by Power of Attorney, is that the Governor-in-Council and her Attorney-General are responsible for the entire airspace over Canada, all 18,000,000 km2 of domestic and international obligations. It is also responsible for all the seas around Canada beyond the 3 nautical mile line. It is responsible for the three northern territories with their 120,000 inhabitants. It is responsible for establishing and maintaining relations with the indigenous inhabitants of the realm, especially those that don't recognize the Crown's authority. It is responsible for the maintenance of relations with our neighbours and the rest of the international community on behalf of all the inhabitants of the realm.

It is also responsible for assisting the provincial governments in the maintenance of order by keeping the peace through good governance.

That means keeping friends, making friends, offering a helping hand when requested and only applying force when necessary. Making enemies is not congruent with peace, order and good governance.

More to follow.

 

[Kirkhill]

The point of these maps is to demonstrate the high degree of overlap between the arable land, 10% of the lands of Canada, and the Militia districts. This characterises the Settler lands in which more than 95% of the inhabitants of Canada reside. The other 5%, predominantly indigenous, occupy the other 90% of the land, the Boreal Forest, the Barrens and the Arctic Coast.

The arable lands are well connected by a system of roads, rail and pipelines. That accounts for 95% of the people but only 10% of the lands. Roads also tie-in another 20% of the land to that arable land network. But 70% of the land is inaccessible by road.

The dominant means of connecting the inhabitants of Canada is air transport.

Canada's air sector depends on its 1,889 aerodromes1, including 26 airports that are part of the National Airports System2 ( NAS ); 570 certified airports, heliports and waterdromes that support scheduled and non-scheduled flights; and 1,297 registered aerodromes and 22 other aerodromes

National Airports System airports handle roughly 90% of all scheduled passengers and cargo volumes in Canada. They, again, predominantly serve the 95% of the population in the arable lands.


NAS airports are capable of handling very large aircraft. Most of the other 1863 aerodromes are shorter and rougher and may even require landing on water or ice.
A mixed fleet of aircraft, with a strong VTOL/STOL component is necessary to connect the dots.

The Crown's authority is exerted on land through its Constabulary, the RCMP and the forces available to its provincial solicitors-general, the local constabularies.

In addition to living and working on land the inhabitants of Canada work at sea





Almost 13,000 registered fishing vessels work these waters flying the flag of Canada. And some 700 commercial vessels including 182 ferries. There are also 8 offshore drilling rigs.

All of these vessels, together with the thousands of foreign vessels that transit Canadian waters each year, are subject to Canadian Admiralty law. The lead enforcers of that law are the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Department of Transport's Coast Guard.

The vessels operate out of 700 to 800 harbours. 17 of those are designated ports with their own independent port authorities. They, like the National Airport System airports function as the primary gateways to Canada.



Nav Canada, a civilian agency, acts as the Crown's agent in the airspace over Canada and beyond its borders.

MTF.

 

[Kirkhill]

So how to defend Canada and its inhabitants.

The lead agency for the Attorney-General (Minister of Justice) is the Minister of Public Safety (Solicitor-General) acting under the authority of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Act. The Minister has at his disposal the RCMP, the CBSA, the CSC and the courts and prosecution service to enforce the laws. The RCMP is an armed force, as is the CBSA, and authorized to use lethal force judiciously. To assist in these endeavours the RCMP maintains a small reaction force trained in assaults against armed outlaws that refuse to recognize their authority.

The RCMP operates across the whole of Canada but in the southern, arable lands of the provinces, where most of the population resides, it has its greatest numbers. But it also has the most assistance in the form of local and provincial constabularies.

In the north, among the 120,000 indigenous inhabitants in their approximately 200 communities the RCMP has their greatest presence. They are the primary agents of the Government of Canada in the north, operating in detachments of three constables in each community. They operate in similar detachments within those non-arable areas of the provinces with indigenous inhabitants.

The new Government of the Day has decreed that the Canadian Rangers have been severed from the Department of National Defence. In my opinion this is a rational move and the Canadian Rangers should be folded into the RCMP's auxiliary or reserve systems as the Rangers and the Mounties live and work together in very small, tight-knit communities already. The Rangers can continue their current roles of observing and reporting through the RCMP and assisting locally in emergencies.


Also operating under the Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Act is the Minister of Emergency Preparedness.

The Government of the Day has decreed that the Reserves will be severed from the Department of National Defence.

Given this I might expect that the Naval Reserves, Air Force Reserves, Militia, and Medical Reserves, and their Armouries and Stone Frigates, all get rolled into DARTs or Disaster Assistance Response Teams.

• DART Headquarters: DART HQ directs all the work of the DART
• DART Company (Coy): DART Company is the main body of the DART. It includes an Engineer Troop, a Medical Platoon, a Logistics Platoon and a Defence & Security Platoon.

Which brings us back to this map.



The Constabulary supplies standing patrols to enforce the laws of the realm of Canada.
They can be reinforced in the north by the Rangers.
They can be reinforced in the south by the Militia.

More to Follow

Taking a break.

 

[FJAG]

The arable lands are well connected by a system of roads, rail and pipelines. That accounts for 95% of the people but only 10% of the lands. Roads also tie-in another 20% of the land to that arable land network. But 70% of the land is inaccessible by road.

The dominant means of connecting the inhabitants of Canada is air transport.

I'm interested to see where this is going. Lots of good research there and terrific graphics. Interesting to see how the French and Newfoundlanders weren't too fussy about entering into treaties.

I'm waiting to see how you resolve and/or apply the contradiction in the above quotation in that while its true that the only way to connect 100% of the population of Canada, air transport is not the "dominant" means of connecting the inhabitants of Canada. In the 10% of the lands occupied by 95% of the population the dominant means of connecting the inhabitants are in fact the road, rail, pipeline and power transmission networks. That will have strategic significance as you move on.

 

[Kirkhill]

Continuing....

Master of the Ordnance - Master of (the Crown's) Works, Engines, Cannons and other kinds of Ordnance for War since 1415
The Office of the Ordnance ... maintained a Department of engineers and surveyors responsible for harbours, ports, forts and their defences including guns.

The Ordnance, variously the Office and the Board, is the source for the Royal Engineers, the Royal Artillery and the Royal Fusiliers and the Carabineers, mounted fusiliers with short fusils. The Royal Engineers also spawned the Royal Signals and then Royal Air Force.

Given what the Government of the Day has severed from the Department of National Defence, including the Search and Rescue function then the DND is reduced, if applying traditional definitions, to assisting Public Services and Procurement Canada, previously known as Public Works and Government Services Canada, in:

the design of harbours, ports and forts and their defences;
the provision of lethal reaction forces
surveillance.

But....

Surveillance is inherently a continuous function requiring standing patrols and listening posts and those eat up manpower. Manpower that is in short supply in a 15,000 PY body.

Additionally

Intelligence in Canada is largely a civil domain, co-ordinated through the Office of the Commissioner of Intelligence who reports to the Governor-in-Council.

Accordingly I propose that all intelligence and surveillance assets be placed under the OCI.

Office of the Intelligence Commissioner

Office of the Communications Security Establishment Commissioner

Canadian Security Intelligence Service

Communications Security Establishment Canadian Space Agency

Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada

Secretariat of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians

National Security and Intelligence Review Agency Secretariat

Security Intelligence Review Committee

This includes CSIS, the CSA and CSE. Further I would make CSE responsible for all Elint, including radar and sonar, and all Cyber warfare. This would not exclude the NORAD North Warning System.

Surveillance systems

Radarsat




NavCan Surveillance



North Warning System



CSE ECHELON Network



If we transfer Intelligence and Surveillance to the civil authorities, and force the Ordnance Department to rely on a Common Intelligence Picture then the Intelligence Department of the Ordnance Department would just be required to generate actionable intelligence commensurate with then Ordnance Department's needs.

Those needs would be reduced in scope to:

the design of harbours, ports and forts and their defences;
the provision of lethal reaction forces

The lethal reaction forces would be responsible for armed reconnaissance and armed force within the realm of Canada, air, sea and land.

 

[Kirkhill]

All of which brings us to:

the design of harbours, ports and forts and their defences;

And jobs for the Corps of Royal Canadian Engineers.






Combined you end up with this



43 defended localities (45 actually although some overlap - Vancouver covers two Ports, Vancouver and Deltaport, as does the Hamilton-Oshawa Authority).

I have chosen to circle each locality, centred on the airports and the harbours (although most harbours are collocated with airports) with a 25 km radius circle. Each 25 km circle covers about 2000 km2. All 45 of them therefore cover 90,000 km2. Or about 1% of the total land area of the realm of Canada.

It also covers over 95% of the inhabitants of the realm.

Law and order is maintained by the RCMP and the local provincial and municipal constabularies, as well as auxiliaries such as privately contracted security guards. International access to these ports is controlled by the CBSA. The auxiliaries are not generally armed but the RCMP, the CBSA and the local constabularies are. All are authorized to employ it.

So ground level security in these ports is well provided for.

That leaves the approaches from the water and the air as vulnerable. I will leave the marine approaches for now and focus on the air approaches.

The air approaches are well monitored as demonstrated by the surveillance coverage. Now to deal with reaction to suspected threats.

25 km

I intentionally chose 25 km in reference to this:

The British Sky Sabre system based on the MBDA CAMM missile chosen for the new CSC frigates. It has a 25 km range.

CAMM | FORCE PROTECTION, Ground Based Air Defence | MBDA

CAMM, the Common Anti-air Modular Missile, is the next generation air defence missile designed for land, sea and air environments. CAMM

www.mbda-systems.com

Do I expect every airport and harbour to be equipped with a CAMM launcher? No. But I do expect every airport and harbour to be able to integrate something like CAMM into its existing security system.



This graphic is from Rheinmetall. It demonstrates the full spectrum of threats that an airport, or port, might expect to encounter all the way from burglaries and fires, through intruders to defence against objects ranging from birds to ICBMs. This obviously includes UAVs, helicopters and aircraft.

Most of these threats are managed in the civil domain although the technologies overlap with the military domain.

The array of technologies available to the civil authorities, without crossing over to traditional ordnance is quite extensive.

This ranges from EO, Acoustic and Radar detectors and trackers to responses based on radio waves, sound and light.

 

[Kirkhill]

More examples




None of these would look out of place in a civilian environment and, generally, they are non-lethal.

 

[Kirkhill]

Moving up the scary spectrum, but still "under the radar",

 

[Kirkhill]

Also available are various pyrotechnic devices that can be launched from projectors like these

When shrouded the launchers themselves look entirely non-descript. And the devices launched can all be non-lethal or less-than-lethal. They can also be loaded with drones capable of conducting reconnaissance which would aid the defence of the ports and also the other efforts of the constabulary.

Loitering Munitions - Uvision

loitering munition March 28, 2024 Smart Loitering Systems

uvisionuav.com

Given that the constabulary has authority to employ lethal force it is not impossible that they could be authorized to employ lethal munitions as well without having to resort to the Ordnance Department.

 

[Kirkhill]

And now for the cross over to the Ordnance Department




Less-than-lethal, possibly lethal (depending on munitions loaded) and decidedly lethal.

I suggest that the laser mounts and the missile mounts are compatible with a civil ground based effort.

If those elements were in place on the ground then it is not impossible that the Ordnance Department, under high threat conditions, could thicken the defences by changing the load-out on the missile launchers to dedicated SAMs (or even SSMs) and adding cannons, perhaps even swapping some of the lasers for cannons. The cannons could also be used in the ground role.

So, my GBAD prescription looks like this.

The RCE assists PSPC in the design of ports and harbours and their defences, focusing on GBAD in the civil environment but incorporating the ability to scale up to manage a heightened threat level.

The RCA, in peace time, supplies a resident detachment of a Lieutenant, a Bombardier and two ammo techs to manage the stores in support of the civil authorities. The would also act as the recce element for the main RCA GBAD force equipped with additional NASAMs type missile launchers, cannons and a 25 km SAM det, all of which could plug into the GBAD system managed from the local airport's control tower or the harbour-master.

That leaves 95% of the population sheltering under the "guns" of the port and its fort.

Which leaves us with reconnaissance and strike for the Ordnance Department.

The Navy will be dealt with separately.

 

[Kirkhill]

So moving on to Admiralty and the Navy.



The job is to protect and control the activities of 13,000 fishing vessels, 700 commercial vessels and thousands of visiting foreign vessels. And 8 offshore oil rigs.




Most of the job goes to the Coast Guard fleet with its 118 vessels, 15 of which are large enough to support helicopter operations (Bell 429, Bell 412 EPI). That number is expected to increase with the arrival of the Coast Guard's variants of the Navy's AOPS (2x Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship and 16x Multi-Purpose Vessels) as well as 2x Polar Icebreakers. Additional numbers are possible.

The RCN maintains a fleet of 12x CPF frigates, 4x SSK submarines and 12x MCDV general purpose vessels. The fleet is expected to add 6x AOPS and swap the 12x CPF for 15x CSC frigates.

While noting earlier that standing patrols are drains on manpower and therefore should be handed to civil authorities where possible the high seas present a particular problem. It is a matter of historical record that they are a particularly lawless environment subject to smuggling, piracy, kidnapping and slavery as well as illegal fishing and exploitation of resources. They also present the means by which large forces and heavy ordnance can approach the realm of Canada.

Accordingly it is reasonable that the Ordnance Department maintain a fleet of heavily armed vessels, the RCN, to conduct standing patrols in the approaches and also to provide a screen to protect the civilian fleets while they go about their daily routines.

Canada is bordered by salt water on two coasts, the Pacific on the West and, on the East the Atlantic and the Arctic. The West Coast extends from the Straits of Juan de Fuca off of Victoria to the Dixon Channel off of Prince Rupert. The East Coast extends from the Bay of Fundy off of New Brunswick to the western entrance to the North West Passage off of Tuktoyaktuk. The East Coast presents two radically different environments. In the south, the Atlantic Coast, there is a blue water environment comparable to that of the West or Pacific Coast. To the north, the Arctic Coast there is ice. The Atlantic and Pacific Coasts are well served by vessels like the CPF, the CSC and the MCDV. The Arctic Coast demands ice-strengthened vessels like the AOPS. SSK (conventional submarine) operations are problematic in the Arctic but practicable in the blue water environments of the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts. The West Coast is served out of Victoria while the East Coast, Atlantic and Arctic, are served out of Halifax.

The approaches to Canada are defined by choke points at Dixon Channel and the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Cabot Strait and the Straits of Belleisle, Hudson Strait and Robeson Channel, and the North West Passage. These choke points should be constantly monitored by a standing patrol. In addition, monitoring the distant approaches to Canada, there should be two distant water patrols, one each in the Pacific and the Atlantic.

Taken in sum the Pacific patrols, the Dixon and Juan de Fuca patrols and the distant patrol, based on the CSC/CPF/SSKs represent one standing fleet operating out of Victoria The Atlantic fleet, also CSC/CPF/SSK based, operating out of Halifax, would supply a distant patrol and a Cabot and Belleisle patrol. An Arctic Fleet, also operating out of Halifax but based on the AOPS, would supply Robeson, Hudson and North West Passage patrols.



The patrols are represented by yellow pins surrounded by 25 km circles. In other words each patrol, standing stationary, is covering an area the size of Metropolitan Toronto.

With standing patrols at these points the ships can sprint to cover much larger areas. Assuming open water and good weather.






With an onboard CH-148 helicopter the response areas can be extended by about 30% or an additional 200 NM.

The AOPS responses are much more constrained. Even in blue water. In ice the vessel is reduced to walking pace.




This suggests maintaining a fleet at sea of 6 CSC/CPFs and 4 AOPS. This will require regular rotations of the ships and the crews. One model is two divisions on every ship at sea and a third division ashore with the shore division rotating in on a regular basis to replace one of the divisions afloat. That division would then rotate in after a rest period.

Equally, every two ships at sea should have one ship in port under going refit.

That would result in a standing fleet of 9 CSC/CPFs and 6 AOPSs. Crew size reduced as much as possible targeting 45 in the AOPS and 100 in the CSC conforming to Danish practice.

This system of patrols, however, only addresses the surface and the sky. It does little to address the water column under the surface. In blue water that is addressed by the 4x SSKs but those numbers are two few to maintain a standing patrol. They also are totally incompatible with Arctic operations.

To that end one of the first major purchases to be recommended to the new Government of the Day is the acquisition of a fleet of submarines. I am proposing adding to the Dixon, Juan de Fuca, Cabot and Belleisle patrols one accompanying submarine. That requires 4 submarines at sea plus 2 submarines in dock.

Additionally I am proposing four submarines in the arctic. With two in dock, for a total of six dedicated to Arctic operations that brings the total fleet requirement to 12 submarines.

I do not believe that nuclear submarines are necessary. Particularly if the RCN is focused on defending the homeland.

As noted, in the Pacific and Atlantic conventional submarines can operate safely. The problem arises in the Arctic. However, if the subs are not voyaging independently in the Arctic, but are operating as listening posts, close to shore bases like Alert, Resolute, Iqaluit and Cambridge Bay, in conjunction with an AOPS acting as a tender, then I believe the risk would be manageable. I further believe that the risk could be reduced by the acquisition of air independent vessels. Accordingly I would be recommending the purchase of 12x Type 218 coastal submarines that can snort indefinitely and cruise for three weeks without surfacing, or snorting. I would add to each of the choke point patrols two XLUUVs (Extra Large Uninhabited Underwater Vehicles).

So a chokepoint patrol would consist of a CSC/CPF or an AOPS and a Type 218 with 2x XLUUVs.

 

[Kirkhill]

Sprint Coverage



Taken in total the at sea sprint coverage would look like this.





And that's enough for today.

RCAF, the Army and the Special Forces to follow.

 

[Kirkhill]

Just before leaving the navy and the admiralty I want to mention the StanFlex system

I think that each of the AOPS/MPV vessels should be fitted/retro-fitted with 3 or 5 Stanflex positions making all the vessels truly Multi-Purpose.

 

[lenaitch]

A very extensive and well constructed presentation. Actually, I find the entire thread somewhat fascinating, if not a little confusing from a civilian perspective.

I couldn't help but notice that the limitations imposed by the government in the scenario are solved, at least in part, by unloading some of the responsibilities onto local law enforcement. Admittedly, there is much precedent for responsibilities to be downloaded, but they would have to be accompanied by significant funding. No police service that I am aware of has the capacity to absorb any of the, for want of a better term, 'active civil defence' responsibilities as it now stands. There may also be constitutional barriers.

Civilian law enforcement can deploy lethal force under certain narrow and prescribed conditions. It is an individual authority, and liability; it is not chain of command driven, nor can it be delegated. The authority is vested in the officer, not the force. I would wonder how an individual civilian law enforcement member, let alone a harbourmaster or airport manager, would be able to use any of the information inputs to determine an immediate threat to themselves or the lives of others, then deploy lethal countermeasures.

 

[Kirkhill]

A very extensive and well constructed presentation. Actually, I find the entire thread somewhat fascinating, if not a little confusing from a civilian perspective.

I couldn't help but notice that the limitations imposed by the government in the scenario are solved, at least in part, by unloading some of the responsibilities onto local law enforcement. Admittedly, there is much precedent for responsibilities to be downloaded, but they would have to be accompanied by significant funding. No police service that I am aware of has the capacity to absorb any of the, for want of a better term, 'active civil defence' responsibilities as it now stands. There may also be constitutional barriers.

Civilian law enforcement can deploy lethal force under certain narrow and prescribed conditions. It is an individual authority, and liability; it is not chain of command driven, nor can it be delegated. The authority is vested in the officer, not the force. I would wonder how an individual civilian law enforcement member, let alone a harbourmaster or airport manager, would be able to use any of the information inputs to determine an immediate threat to themselves or the lives of others, then deploy lethal countermeasures.

Thanks for the appreciation.

Also thank you for the heads up on the legal ramifications. I understand the financial end of things. TANSTAAFL. However I sense that Canadians generally are happier funding constables and stretcher bearers than soldiers so the new Government of the Day may be on to something.

Having said that can you enlighten me on the use of force rules as they apply to SWAT/ERT operations?

And I get your point about the use of lethal force by harbourmaster or airport manager. I was more thinking along the lines of knocking down uninhabited foreign objects than knocking down people. Or launching observation drones more than loitering munitions. My sense there was that it would be better for the air traffic controller to launch a drone into his airspace than have a third party complicate his picture.

Maybe the transition to lethal force should be made explicit by transferring control temporarily to the artillery det. Somewhat after the practice of Op Palaci avalanche control.

 

[FJAG]

Thanks for the appreciation.

Also thank you for the heads up on the legal ramifications. I understand the financial end of things. TANSTAAFL. However I sense that Canadians generally are happier funding constables and stretcher bearers than soldiers so the new Government of the Day may be on to something.

Having said that can you enlighten me on the use of force rules as they apply to SWAT/ERT operations?

And I get your point about the use of lethal force by harbourmaster or airport manager. I was more thinking along the lines of knocking down uninhabited foreign objects than knocking down people. Or launching observation drones more than loitering munitions. My sense there was that it would be better for the air traffic controller to launch a drone into his airspace than have a third party complicate his picture.

Maybe the transition to lethal force should be made explicit by transferring control temporarily to the artillery det. Somewhat after the practice of Op Palaci avalanche control.

The temptation to offload responsibilities onto civilian agencies is highly tempting in this scenario. Some of those make sense, such as search and rescue and patrolling going to the coast guard.

Even use of force legal scenarios are not problematic in that the appropriate legislation can always be made to cater to that. More problematic is that the use of military force isn't a simple matter of allocating the responsibility to another agency. It takes equipment, a doctrine and constant training. The idea of having a basically civilian organization which on a day to day basis does non-lethal work suddenly, in an emergency, switch over to conduct lethal operations - regardless whether against manned or unmanned system - is asking quite a lot. Let me put it this way, the Reg F does not trust reservists who already get military training on both courses and on an ongoing basis to deploy for combat using relatively minor weapons without significant predeployment training. What is the likelihood of a government having the confidence to release lethal force authority for major weapon systems to people who are in all respects civilians and who have limited training and a part time command and control structure?

Do not underestimate the complexity of these weapon systems and the rigid command and control structure that needs to be in place and rigorously tested and practiced on a regular basis.

Just a point on Op Palaci. I did two tours as the Oi/c of AvConDet and understand the system quite well. In short, there is never a transfer of control to the military. Parks Canada employs several civilian experts in what is now called the Avalanche Control Section who are on duty in round the clock shifts and who are responsible for researching weather and snow conditions throughout Rogers Pass and who determine when a shoot is required to release dangerous slides. While the Army mans the guns, its the ACS supervisor who accompanies each shoot who determines what target is to be fired and when. There isn't a single round that leaves a gun unless expressly ordered by the civilian ACS supervisor.

I look forward to your next few posts.