[Canadian_Mind]

Bruce_E_T wrote:

Canadian_Mind wrote:

There are other reasons as well. But what it boils down to is that the gun system is simply to valuable to expose to the elements unnecessarily.

That makes sense. I just noticed on the clip that I was seeing what appeared to be new tanks without guns and didn't make a connection to a reason. I suppose if you have a critical part, esp, if it is high tech, protection is a priority.

Not tanks! IFVs. Tanks have about 4-5 times more armour than those things do, and a correspondingly bigger gun.

[2Cdo]

Canadian_Mind wrote:

Bruce_E_T wrote:

Canadian_Mind wrote:

There are other reasons as well. But what it boils down to is that the gun system is simply to valuable to expose to the elements unnecessarily.

That makes sense. I just noticed on the clip that I was seeing what appeared to be new tanks without guns and didn't make a connection to a reason. I suppose if you have a critical part, esp, if it is high tech, protection is a priority.

Not tanks! IFVs. Tanks have about 4-5 times more armour than those things do, and a correspondingly bigger gun.

I just shake my head at people calling anything with tracks a tank. The press here in Canada are especially ignorant about combat vehicles.

[saturn_656]

Media is ignorant about many things. Pretty well all matters military. Firearms as well (thinking back to the CBC Poll on banning "Military Assault Rifles" in Canada).

[Canadian_Mind]

2Cdo wrote:

I just shake my head at people calling anything with tracks a tank. The press here in Canada are especially ignorant about combat vehicles.

Remember when the RCMP got the "tanks" from the army? Fucking Cougars. My mom's pickup weighs more then those things do.

On a serious note, I think a big reason for that is our overall lack of equipment, and a lack of exposure.

For instance - If every mechanized brigade had the amount of "tanks" they are "supposed" to have, plus appropriate warstocks, we'd have 315 tanks. Currently we have less then half of that, 66 of them being old, obsolete vehicles that should be used soley for training purposes, and of the "new" 100 that we bought, only 80 of them are actual tanks. The rest are engineer variants. Puts us about 125 short to properly equip each brigade (65 for each armoured regiment), and make sure that Gagetown has an appropriate number for training new drivers, gunners, crew commanders, etc (at least 15), remainder (105) going into warstocks. Your total comes to 315 vehicles. Now add another 20 per brigade for the engineers, plus appropriate warstocks. At the end of the day it works out to close to 400 tank hulls, if not a touch more. So you can see where the equipment shortage is a start.

Next is exposure. The brigade in Petawawa does dog and ponies all the time (events where civvies get to come to the base to see our stuff, ask questions, etc) but the place is so damned remote that the majority of the population will never see it. The trick to teaching people proper terminology would be to go to special events across the country, and bring all the kit we use. Show the people the difference between a tank, an IFV, an APC, mobile artillery, etc.

More exercises in the RMA would help with that as well, and provide training value to the troops.

But of course, in these days of budget austerity, we'd never get that. And frankly, having people know the difference between an IFV and a tank is not something worth wasting money on. But I do believe Canadians need to be better educated about what we have and are capable of doing, and what we don't have and are not capable of doing




Of course, being airborne, I'm surprised you know what a tank is there 2Cdo.

[Regina]

I saw a train similar to that roll through on the CN line years ago. Most were tanks but there were other support armor as well and the train was just as long. All were British flagged and the tanks all had painted names on them that started with an "E". I believe there were on their way out west to Shiloh. The oddest thing was while in Winnipeg about 10 years ago and watching 25 or so F4 Phantoms landing one after the other at 1 Wing. They all had Luftwaffe emblems.

[Canadian_Mind]

Tanks were probably on their way to BATUS.

And the Germans used to operate a training centre out here. For the life of me I can't remember where though.

[Regina]

http://www.army.ca/wiki/index.php/BATUS
I'd never heard of that before.

[2Cdo]

Canadian_Mind wrote:

Of course, being airborne, I'm surprised you know what a tank is there 2Cdo.

5 years out of almost 30 were with the Airborne Regiment, the remainder was with the PPCLI minus a 5 year commitment teaching basic soldiering to CFJSR.

[Newfy]

Regina wrote:

http://www.army.ca/wiki/index.php/BATUS
I'd never heard of that before.

Hopefully i'll be doing a 6 month tour there soon. We use our Gazelle helicopters there to do range safety and Casevac.

[2Cdo]

Canadian_Mind wrote:

And the Germans used to operate a training centre out here. For the life of me I can't remember where though.

Shilo, Manitoba. But they shut down a few years ago.

[2Cdo]

Regina wrote:

http://www.army.ca/wiki/index.php/BATUS
I'd never heard of that before.

Did some training with BATUS back in the early '80s and the Brits hated when you would engage targets down range but "accidentally" shoot the sides of the tanks!

Did I mention they stored all their personal kit on the OUTSIDE of their tanks!

[Guy_Fawkes]

2Cdo wrote:

Regina wrote:

http://www.army.ca/wiki/index.php/BATUS
I'd never heard of that before.

Did some training with BATUS back in the early '80s and the Brits hated when you would engage targets down range but "accidentally" shoot the sides of the tanks!

Did I mention they stored all their personal kit on the OUTSIDE of their tanks!