Canada's last working sub?

[Devastatin Dave]

My problem with this story is that its disgraceful to have your sailors on a malfunctioning sub when its your ONLY working sub. I would think there would be more of an outrage but appearantly not since from the replies to my post show an extreme dislike for the troops of their nation. Those men and women manning the sub are Canadian citizens and deserve better.

[CBR]

My problem with this story is that its disgraceful to have your sailors on a malfunctioning sub when its your ONLY working sub. I would think there would be more of an outrage but appearantly not since from the replies to my post show an extreme dislike for the troops of their nation. Those men and women manning the sub are Canadian citizens and deserve better.

The 4 used subs they bought from UK has more or less been a waste of money as they have had lots of problems with them from day one. But I guess the Brits were happy to get rid of them


CBR

[Reverend Joe]

the replies to my post show an extreme dislike for the troops of their nation.

[lars573]

My problem with this story is that its disgraceful to have your sailors on a malfunctioning sub when its your ONLY working sub. I would think there would be more of an outrage but appearantly not since from the replies to my post show an extreme dislike for the troops of their nation. Those men and women manning the sub are Canadian citizens and deserve better.

You have no idea what Canadians are willing to gumble to no end but never take real action about. We put up with Americans don't we, the slightly aggrevating older brother. We still send our fairly new Halifax class frigates out to sea with 1 60's vintage sea king helicoptor. The fact that the air force (the Canadian military has been 1 combined service for like 30 years) keeps those things in the air is a friggin miracle. We spend about 20-30 billion (I forget the exact figure) annually on our military. That translates into 50,000 army troops 2 or 3 groups of fighters and some c-130 tansports and about 50 naval vessels.

[GoreBag]

Lars, the Canadian military hasn't been unified for almost ten years.

[PanzerJaeger]

You can barely control Iraq, nevermind any part of Europe. I'de like to see the US invade at most one more country in the next 10 years. That'll stretch your army to the point that you will end worse then in Vietnam and Korea combined.

Actually, the more civilized a country is, the easier it is to occupy. France was much easier to occupy than Russia during ww2. People are a lot more willing to accept occupation if they actually have something to lose by opposing it.

If you had to pick between leaving your comfortable home and all its comforts to go live in the wilderness and fight an unbeatable army, or live in relative peace and prosperity under occupation, chances are a lot of people would choose to complain but not act.

However, if you're dirt poor and dont really have much better to do, the glory of war is a lot more appealing.

[lars573]

Lars, the Canadian military hasn't been unified for almost ten years.

Who ever told you that was a dirty liar or living under a rock. It's still one service all the way.

[Slyspy]

We sold you those subs in good faith. Shame you didn't check them on delivery......

[Goofball]

Wow, so much to comment on, and all in one thread! We'll go in reverse order:

Lars, the Canadian military hasn't been unified for almost ten years.

Who ever told you that was a dirty liar or living under a rock. It's still one service all the way.

Lars, either you're being sarcastic or you don't know what you are talking about.

Socialist countries can't afford large militaries and Canada has no need for one even if it could afford it.

Canada isn't a socialist country.

My problem with this story is that its disgraceful to have your sailors on a malfunctioning sub when its your ONLY working sub. I would think there would be more of an outrage but appearantly not since from the replies to my post show an extreme dislike for the troops of their nation. Those men and women manning the sub are Canadian citizens and deserve better.

Truer words were never spoken, my friend.

Now for the fun part:

Canada actually has one of the best trained armies in the world. If we were to match them man for man in a wargame of some sort, they would easily whip our asses. They just have no reason to go to war- who wants to invade a deep freeze? You would get more out of invading Siberia.

Maybe in a game they could beat us but not in actual battle.Remeber most US troops are now battle hardened veterans. Canada couldnt even take on our Marines and stand a chance in a conventional war.

The only reason why we wouldn't be able to stand up to the Marines is that even by themselves they outnumber the entire Canadian Armed Forces by a large margin. The entirety of our regular (not including reserves and militia) ground combat forces consists of three very understrength regiments of light infantry, and I believe a single regiment of artillery and a single regiment of armor.

But quite frankly G, a battalion from any of our infantry regiments would kick the everloving snot out of a battalion of Marines every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

When I was with 3PPCLI, a battalion of Marines came up to do an excercise with us and honestly, they didn't know what the hell they were doing. Quite a funny story

Seeing as how it was Marines (as opposed to Army) coming up for the excercise, our CO figured it would be appropriate to do a joint amphibious landing, then do a combined assualt up the side of a big hill. The Marine CO said (this is my favorite part) that he didn't think the amphibious landing was such a good idea, since "a lot of his guys couldn't swim."

"Couldn't swim."

Jesus wept... Isn't this the frickin' Marine Corps we're talking about here?

Anyhow, our CO said that's fine, but can you let us use your landing craft so our guys can do the landing, and your guys can take buses out and just meet us at the beachhead. No problem.

So we do our landing, then wait a little while for the Marines to show up on the cozy, heated (it was a bit of a chilly night) buses we provided. We then form up to do an assault up a big hill, with Canadians in the center and on the right, and the Marines on the left.

So, we begin our attack. Pretty standard, lay down fire support with heavy weapons, and use fire and movement tactics to advance toward the enemy. Except that apparently that's not how Marines do things (or did things, back then anyway). As soon as the shooting started, they got up and charged up the hill in a mad, screaming rush. Which in itself, might not have been that bad. Except they were also veering to the right as they charged, right through all of the Canadian interlocking fields of fire. Even though we were pretty quick to react to this clusterf*** (did I mention this was at night?) and stopped firing, the damage was done and the umpire staff declared a large part of the Marine force killed by friendly fire.

As far as the U.S. forces being battle-hardened veterans now, you are correct G. That would definitely have an impact. But the same can be said of the Canadian troops. There are very few of our reg force infantry troops that have not been involved in real combat operations over the last 15 years.

Having said all that, we also used to go down to Fort Lewis and work with the Rangers quite a bit. Those guys had their crap together pretty good and (for the most part, anyway) could keep up with us during PT. Some of the most fun I ever had was doing live fire jungle lanes that they set up for us.

[Beirut]

Goofball,

You were in the PPCLI?

(Beirut bows in respect.)

Once we get our delivery of F-35 JSFs, new helicopters, and keep up the upgrades on our CF-18s and City Class frigates, we'll be in good shape. Our guys are top notch, they simply need better equipment and more training dollars.

Napoleon said the moral is to the physical as three to one. We've got the moral, so when we get the physical we'll truly be first rate.

[Papewaio]

Canada, got to love the Maple Syrup.

Australians and Canadian backpackers have already taken over the world!

[Goofball]

Goofball,

You were in the PPCLI?

(Beirut bows in respect.)

Thanks m'man; it's nice to be appreciated. I was with 3rd Battalion (The "Hollywood Third") in Victoria.

Back to the issue of Canadian military; I am genuinely interested in Canadian military history. How much, in terms of scale, time, and actions; did the Canadian regiments participate in the two World Wars, for instance? Were they also in Korea during the Korean War?

Yep, we were in Korea. The second Battalion of the PPCLI (along with some rag-tag Aussies ) was awarded the United States Presidential Unit Citation for their actions there. See below:

The battalion kitted out with winter gear and a plethora of weaponry moved 50 miles north to Miryang in order to undergo rigorous training until the 15th of February when they would join the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade at Changhowan-ni. Operations would begin with earnest and throughout March and early April the Patricias would conduct several attacks on Chinese-held features. Hills 419 and 532 fell to the Patricia's in March and the advance continued against sporadic enemy resistance on 900 and 1200 meter features until the Brigade went into reserve near the village of Kapyong on the 18th of April.

The enemy had finally managed to stop the advancing UN forces and, on the night of 22 April, let loose the Spring Offensive to recapture Seoul. Under heavy resistance at the front the 6th Republic of Korea Division broke, and 27 British Commonwealth Brigade was called upon to block the advancing Chinese troops. The 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry quickly and efficiently moved their forces onto Hill 677 where they occupied a defensive position. As this was occurring, at the same time, the Australians occupied a defensive position to the east on Hill 504.

The Patricia's and Australians bedded in and awaited the inevitable battle that would commence on the night of the 23rd. The Australians fended off the Chinese attacks for the full day until they were forced to withdraw on the afternoon of the 24th in order to establish a new defensive line. Once the Aussies had fallen back it was left on the shoulders of the 2PPCLI troops to bear the brunt of the Chinese attacks. The Chinese were obviously no match for the skilled and highly trained Canadian troops attacking non-stop for two days with no success. 2 PPCLI was surrounded and low on ammunition, water, and rations but was able fight off the attackers, at one time even bringing artillery fire down on their own positions.

The Chinese plans to attack and recapture Seoul had failed due to the well-trained Canadian and Australian infantry soldiers who never gave up although they were heavily outnumbered. As a result, their efforts were recognized with the award of the United States Presidential Unit Citation, which is proudly worn to this day by the warriors of the 2nd Battalion.

[Redleg]

Having said all that, we also used to go down to Fort Lewis and work with the Rangers quite a bit. Those guys had their crap together pretty good and (for the most part, anyway) could keep up with us during PT. Some of the most fun I ever had was doing live fire jungle lanes that they set up for us.

Used to work with the Canadian Light artillery when they came down to Fort Lewis when I was assigned there. They were always pretty good artillerymen.

Learned a few tricks from them concerning light howitzers - showed them a few tricks we knew on fire direction - all in all a good exchange of training from two groups of professional soldiers.