Just as a side note we are currently in the process of converting two
tank/mech brigades into wheeled armor mobile brigades. One is standing
up this quarter. 3/2ID out of Ft Lewis. They traded in their M1Abrahms
for 46 LAV IIIs on loan from the Canadian Army. The new brigades are being
termed Initial brigades duwe to where they are slotted in any intervention.
** We have tanks to loan someone else? (Well, a wheeled armoured vehicle isn't
a tank, but for us Canucks it sure seems like the closest thing we've seen in
a while). THAT surprises me. Though we have made good use of 6x6 Grizzlys,
Bisons and other similar vehicles (a LAV like product) from times ancient...
and 8x8 is the new choice de jour. They are pretty good for the kind of work a
lot of our military forces do.
** I'll be interested to see what light AFV the US finally picks. I wouldn't
be surprised if it is a MOWAG Pirahna derived chassis like the LAV though the
competition I don't doubt is stiff. The French have been using various wheeled
products as have the Russians for a long time now.
> Thomas.Barclay wrote:
> ** We have tanks to loan someone else? (Well, a wheeled armoured
Apart from your Leopard CI's of course, but I suppose most of those are
in Bosnia nowadays :-/
Regards,
> ** We have tanks to loan someone else? (Well, a wheeled armoured
Actually, I not sure that we have any in Bosnia... (certainly I haven't heard
of any going there). If there are any there, it won't be more than a few.
They did take some to Kosovo, but again, only a few (4 or 8, I think).
We only have around a hundred Leopard CI's, and they're split up around
Canada.
The gov't has just announced an upgrade for the fleet, though, with a new
turret, electronics, etc etc etc.
> Just as a side note we are currently in the process of converting two
The vehicle on loan to the US is the new Canadian APC. It is basically an
upgraded version of the vehicle the Australians and USMC use as the LAV, and
similar to the Canadian Bison and the new Canadian Armoured Recce vehicle
(which is much in demand in Kosovo with its unique and rather
high-tech features). It has space for 8 infantry (2 more than the 6
carried in the older LAV variant), a turret with a 25mm autocannon and a
coaxial mg, etc. It is a bit bigger than the previous versions, and I believe
is better armoured. This family of vehicles are built for the USMC, the
Australians and the Canadians (and I think they've sold a bunch
in the Middle East - to Saudi Arabia ??) here in Canada, by the Diesel
Division of GM Canada in Windsor (across the river from Detroit). They are all
based on the Swiss MOWAG series of vehicles. Good kit, supposedly. I heard a
story about the company demonstrating them to reps from one of the Asian
countries (I think Thailand or Malasia) who wondered what would happen if the
vehicles suffered damage to the wheels in the very soupy terrain in their
country. So the company took off four of the eight wheels (two on each side),
and drove it into two foot deep mud. And the vehicle drove through the mud
just fine.
The versions we're building here for our army are fully road-legal, so
they
are self-deployable over great distances. Kind of odd seeing them
trucking down the highway with the commander sitting in the top hatch, with
licence plates bolted on...
> Adrian Johnson wrote:
> ** We have tanks to loan someone else? (Well, a wheeled armoured
At least last week's JDW had a picture of a Canuck Leo C1 in Bosnia... didn't
say how old the pic was, though <g>
> They did take some to Kosovo, but again, only a few (4 or 8, I think).
But you only *have* a few, so even "a few" can be "most of those" ;-)
;-) ;-)
> We only have around a hundred Leopard CI's,
114 :-/
> The gov't has just announced an upgrade for the fleet, though, with a
A new glasis plate would be nice too... none of the Leo I variants is
really designed to be shot at by another tank :-(
Later,
> At least last week's JDW had a picture of a Canuck Leo C1 in Bosnia...
Heh. That's new then. I think they were scared of taking them overseas up
until recently. I believe we tried to sell them off when they were still in
Europe (with the Mech Brigade Group we had in Germany), and when they couldn't
sell them to anyone we *reluctantly* brought them back here... And they've
been trying to make them useful since. We didn't deploy them to Bosnia during
any of the major Canadian deployments there while the Bosnian war was still
going. When General Lewis MacKenzie drove for the Sarajevo airport with a
Canadian Mech Battalion to open it up, the heaviest "armour" they had with
them were M113's with TOW.
> They did take some to Kosovo, but again, only a few (4 or 8, I think).
Heh. Even less of that few are WORKING at any one time. It's like our
airforce - we *own* 130 or 140 (ish) F18's, but there are actually only
60 *operational* at the fighting squadron level, and of those, not all are
mechanically fit at any given time. When we deployed 18 F18's to Italy during
the bombing campaign in Kosovo, that was a *significant* portion of our
operational fighter force... It's tough for the military here having a
government who truely doesn't give a crap about them.
> The gov't has just announced an upgrade for the fleet, though, with a
Well at least they're getting up-to-date night fighting and sight
equipment, so if we're lucky and we have to use them against anyone else with
armour, we can out see them like they did in Iraq... And they look really mean
sitting at roadblocks in Kosovo...
> Adrian wrote:
[On Leo C1s]
> Well at least they're getting up-to-date night fighting and sight
Don't count on it. Lines of sight were often extremely long in Iraq and
Kuwait (ie, the Alliance could make full use of their 4+ km ranges in
spite of their targetting systems not being built for those ranges). Lines of
sight in the Balkans range from very short to short, so the
electronics advantage isn't nearly as big - if the enemy is waiting in
ambush, you probably won't see them before they see you in spite of your
better electronics.
> And they look really mean sitting at roadblocks in Kosovo...
That they do, certainly. Not very likely that they'll run into enemy tanks
there, and they're more than adequatly armoured to protect against small arms
and light support weapons.
Later,