posted 10-08- 12:36 PM               

Last Updated: Mon Oct 8 13:31:17 2001

OTTAWA - Canadian troops will be on the move in the next several days to join in the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism.

Defence Minister Art Eggleton announced Monday that more than 2,000 Canadian military personnel will be involved in Canada's contribution.

"Security has changed fundamentally," said Eggleton. "This will be unlike any campaign engaged in before."

The defence minister said he authorized the deployment of troops overseas 10 days ago.

Chief of National Defence Staff General Raymond Henault said he is planning a six-month period of deployment in principle, and it will be adjusted as the campaign continues.

Eggleton said a Canadian naval task group involving more than 1,000 personnel will include two frigates, a destroyer, a supply ship, and Sea King helicopters.

Canadian naval vessels involved in the campaign include:

HMCS Vancouver to join a U.S. carrier group
HMCS Halifax to head to the Gulf region
HMCS Charlottetown, HMCS Iroquois and HMCS Preserver to join a task force group in the Gulf
An undetermined frigate to replace HMCS Halifax in standing Atlantic force
Canada's air force will contribute to surveillance, and play a large role in a humanitarian effort. The air component will come from the CFB Trenton, and will include surveillance and air lift support in the Gulf region.
Canada will contribute three Hercules aircraft, one Airbus, and two Aurora Maritime Patrol aircraft.

Eggleton also said the U.S requested a component of the special forces unit, Joint Task Force Two, but he did not elaborate on what they would do. He did say they are not currently in action.

Eggleton said while there is no immediate threat at home, Canadians should be on alert.

"There is no indication of an imminent threat to Canada," said Eggleton. "But we cannot take security for granted."

Police in Ottawa are on high alert after the first wave of retaliatory attacks on Taliban targets in Afghanistan on Sunday. Officials say they are paying special attention to the airport and embassies, including the U.S. Embassy near Parliament Hill.

Here are a couple shots of our frigates, the one with me in it was from two summers ago. The one with the carrier in it is obviously on joint ops with the US, we haven't had a carrier in years. Note the ancient Sea King helicopter coming in for a landing.

EDIT: Ok boys, enough show and tell

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Abbeville Field: Dedicated to the SDOE Experience.

posted 10-08- 12:42 PM               

Canadian sailor charged with rape

A Canadian sailor has been ordered to stand trial in Australia on rape charges. Leading Seaman Nicholas Jean Raby of Timberlea, Nova Scotia was charged with raping a 27-year-old Melbourne woman while on board a New Zealand naval ship docked in Australia. Australian magistrate William O'Day determined there was sufficient evidence for Raby to be tried on four counts of rape and one count of false imprisonment. Raby was participating in an exchange program with the New Zealand navy at the time of the incident.

posted 10-08- 04:38 PM               

Don't take it too hard though WM, that stuff just seems to happen to everyones military.

It is nice to see us on the move. To bad we don't have new helis yet. Those freaking Sea kings are crap.

My Dad won't let one hover over him, he is too afraid it will come down on him.

He was recovering a canopy from a crash in Nova scotia a couple years back and they had a sea king on hand to hoist it out, they ended out bringing it out by hand because the heli developed a problem right over head and had to get back to base right away.

posted 10-08- 05:52 PM               

As for the Sea Kings... yeah what a laugh. PCs under Mulroney (remember them? lol) order a whole mess of sweet EH-101s, then Chretien pays loads of money in penalties to cancel them, and then ends up re-ordering a dumbed-down version of the same helicopter anyways, which we still don't have yet!

Oh and you heard about our supply planes, right? The plane bound for East Timor as the UN was moving in, took three tries to get out of Canada because of breakdown problems. I think I also read that later it needed Australian help to get back home. Pathetic!

Werner

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Abbeville Field: Dedicated to the SDOE Experience.

posted 10-08- 08:00 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Werner Molders:
[b]Canada's troop deployment to begin in days

Last Updated: Mon Oct 8 13:31:17 2001

OTTAWA - Canadian troops will be on the move in the next several days to join in the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism.

Defence Minister Art Eggleton announced Monday that more than 2,000 Canadian military personnel will be involved in Canada's contribution.

Eggleton said a Canadian naval task group involving more than 1,000 personnel will include two frigates, a destroyer, a supply ship, and Sea King helicopters.

Canadian naval vessels involved in the campaign include:

HMCS Vancouver to join a U.S. carrier group
HMCS Halifax to head to the Gulf region
HMCS Charlottetown, HMCS Iroquois and HMCS Preserver to join a task force group in the Gulf

[/B]

---

WOW!

Thanks, Mates!

Very Respectfully,

Chaps

posted 10-08- 10:22 PM               

About the equipment, I don't know WM, I know we have some old stuff. But I don't think its all crap. Thats the only time I have ever heard of a transport plane problem.

I've heard about alot of Sea King problems.

And yeah the whole Heli thing is a disaster. Just buy the damn things and get it over with. We already have new SAR helis.

posted 10-08- 11:30 PM            

P

posted 10-08- 11:43 PM               

- We have 5 Billion worth of inventory that is too rusted to use, artillery pieces, trucks, etc.

- We don't have a main battle tank to speak of, I think they finally gave up on the old Leopard Is we had for the longest time.

- Our transport planes do suck, as do our Auroras, they're old models and in desperate need of replacement. That bit above about the plane to East Timor is a fact, and indicative of the state of the air fleet.

- In the last year or so we mothballed a third of our air force.

- Our subs are so old, the UK sold them to us for 500K each, they were just going to cut them up for scrap otherwise. Btw those are our "new" subs, all four of them - our previous subs were 35 to 40 years old. In the picture above you can see the side of one, somewhere I have a picture of our entire fleet tied up in a single shot - 2 had oil booms around them because they leaked oil, one had a sump pump going 24/7 because it leaked water, all of them were seriously rusted up on the control surfaces and one of them had its nose section missing and in bits on the pier. It was a pathetic sight.

- At the rate the defense budget is going, we'll be down to something like 4 bases in about ten years - an Atlantic base, Pacific base, Edmonton and a fourth, probably Valcartier to keep Qc happy.

- We have 15K in the army (maybe the whole armed forces, can't recall now), half of which are combat troops.

On the plus side, we have:

- Among the best frigates in the world (For what a frigate is worth these days)
- Among the best LAVs in the world, the Coyote, in fact a large british unit used a Canadian recon unit of much smaller size as its eyes and ears during the Kosovo ground mission.
- Excellent pilots with very good endurance, our planes dropped 10% of the NATO bombs over Kosovo and represented less than 10% personnel-wise.

It seems that in whatever area, we have really quality stuff or 30 year old c**p, there isn't much of a grey area.

Werner

posted 10-08- 11:52 PM               

Werner

posted 10-09- 03:27 AM               

Yeah our equipment isn't to hot on the whole, no argument there.

Have you seen how large our airforce used to be? Hundreds of fighters back in the 50s 60s and maybe 70s.

Then we picked up about 100 F-18s and have less then that now.

Still though ya have to admit what do we really need that many fighter in action for?

I can totally agree with mothballing some, as long as they can be put in action in short order.

Not to mention the more that are flying, the quicker we are using up their airframe lifespans.

When they retired the CF-100s they found they really had 2 times the lifespan as originaly thought. OOPS Guess we didn't have to scrap those yet.

The Canadian forces page, actually lists the numbers of differnt equipment we have (or it could be what we bought) and how much they cost.

Kinda neat.

posted 10-09- 08:07 AM            

Here's the real deal:

http://www.jg51moelders.com/Operations.htm

posted 10-09- 10:50 AM               

Werner

posted 10-09- 10:51 AM               

I think its great that our elite ops (I'm not sure if they are elite ops or counter terrorism, maybe both) ARN'T highly known.

I have read as much as I can find on them and its probly about 3 paragraphs.

About the tanks we left in Europe, why did we need them? For our mission in europe, so why would we need them back in Canada for?

I wouldn't have just left them there either, but Ya have to weigh needs against costs.

As soon as someone actually wants to limit how much money the military gets they are a bad guys so I'm sure I am one here now.

posted 10-09- 01:13 PM               

If our Leopard I "+" tanks were so hot, it was a dumb move not to bring them back. If you're worried about budget issues, even more so - weigh the cost of repatriating X number of tanks versus replacing them in a couple years should a need arise (at which time we get caught with our pants down). Frankly I think the reason they were left behind was because they were woefully obsolete.

Werner

posted 10-09- 06:02 PM            

I have to laugh, last night I was watching Leno and he stated Canada being the great ally that she is, to show her support their going to let us borrow the tank, ILMAO...

posted 10-10- 12:01 AM               

Saw this in the paper today... lol, the guy is our Prime Minister for those who wouldn't otherwise know.

Werner