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  1. O

    South Alberta Light Horse Regiment to amalgamate with larger reserve force

    I served with some veterans of those pre-1970 battalions. According to them, they weren’t very cohesive between Regular and Reserve — the regular Black Watch thought of itself as the regular regiment of the Maritimes, the militia Black Watch was strongly Anglophone Montreal. In some ways, the...
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    Will 2021 see a new pistol buy?

    I’m fine with that, adopt the C8 as the PDW for those who need something smaller than a rifle (or whatever replaces the C8, is SARP II still an ongoing project?) What I’m not fine with is delivering no real pistol training, but giving pistols to people when they arrive in theatre — that’s the...
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    Base closures?

    Oddly enough, the trend is for units to own infrastructure and share equipment — while it probably should be the other way around. It makes sense for units to focus their maintenance money and time on the stewardship of the gear they will take overseas — sharing tents, vehicles, radios and...
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    Base closures?

    It’s not really the brigade that’s the problem (although in my opinion Petawawa’s infrastructure was never really upgraded enough when 1RCR moved from London). The bigger issue is that Special Operations units train a lot. Petawawa might not currently have enough manoeuvre and range space to...
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    Base closures?

    Not nuclear, the Meaford proposal is pumped-storage hydroelectric. https://sustainablebiz.ca/meaford-pumped-hydro-project-key-to-tc-energys-transition
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    Base closures?

    That really depends on the base. Some bases are regarded by the local powers that be to be more valuable used for other things, or are even considered a nuisance. The closure of St Hubert was robustly supported by local Montreal-area politicians, as it was felt that the redevelopment would be of...
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    South Alberta Light Horse Regiment to amalgamate with larger reserve force

    From a philosophy of ‘the army cares about what it inspects’ — the Canadian Army doesn’t really care that much about the physical fitness of their reservists — what they really care about is their dental fitness, because troops DAG red on their fangs faster than you can say saltwater taffy. So...
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    Medical release vs retention?

    The primary argument for retention of the wounded in non-deployable positions kind of falls apart when the Canadian public service still knows how to hire while the CAF has, as an institution, forgotten how to recruit. And one of the historically healthiest MOSIDs in the CAF (Infantry Soldier)...
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    MPs call for Ottawa to cancel military rent hike

    Also anecdotal — I heard the urban legend of a Regular Force Captain posted to the GTA on RSS who openly lived in his office in the armoury for the duration of the posting. That’s certainly a creative way to beat the cost of living crisis.
  10. O

    British Military Current Events

    Yeah, but the Indian Navy have retired their Sea Harriers and now operate Mig-29 in the Russian/Chinese style STOBAR configuration. They no longer have a need for a jump jet carrier. If they do decide to base the successor to the Vikrant-Class carriers on the QE-Class, they’ll want to build it...
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    British Military Current Events

    On the subject of HMS Prince of Wales being potentially up for sale, not to disparage the always reliable folks at the Daily Mail, but who the hell would want to buy it? There isn’t much overlap between countries that are interested in jump jets, don’t already build their own carriers, and have...
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    Annuitant and Class C

    Class C is normally service on an operation — there are sometimes reasons that a scheduled vacation doesn’t actually happen during an operation — from a ship being diverted to conduct an unforecasted task, to the airhead being closed all the way to the member becoming a casualty. Does the...
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    Office Production Paths - CFR or Bust?

    They tried that with CEOTP — and it failed, because almost no one was actually finishing a degree. The joke we CEOTPs had was “I promised to work on my degree, and the military promised me the time to do it — and we were both lieing”. The op tempo for junior officers just doesn’t lend itself to...
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    CDS General Eyre announces retirement

    The only sailor that had a full term as CDS, Admiral Falls, wore pilot wings and got his start in the RCAF. For whatever reason, the RCN has historically struggled to force generate candidates for the hugest position. There have been quite a few VCDS that came from the senior service, though.
  15. O

    25 grand debt

    CRA extension and transfer to the public service pension plan were the two possibilities I was thinking of.
  16. O

    25 grand debt

    That’s not accurate at all. A member joining at age 46 and retiring at CRA at age 60 would be able to collect a pension (28% or so) starting at age 60. There are other possibilities, but transfer value isn’t one of them, you can’t take a transfer value if you’re over age 50...
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    Federal skilled military applicant program

    As I recall, the ones I met had been Sergeants and Staff Sergeants in the British Army, and were enrolled in the Canadian Forces as Sergeants. But be aware that I’m talking about a small sample size — I think I’ve personally known 4 people that fell in this category. As to French, it’s more...
  18. O

    Federal skilled military applicant program

    I’ve met a handful of people that went through the old process. It’s a small sample size, but they were universally former British Army SNCOs and WOs who had been released at 22 years service, back when the UK was giving the boot to ORs at that point if they hadn’t been selected for late entry...
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    The end of Kiwi shoe polish?

    What we currently consider a formal business suit was almost considered a form of ‘athleisure‘ back when introduced, hence the term ‘lounge suit’. Fashion changes over time. Civilian fashion tends to change faster than military fashion, but it’s all still fashion. As I’ve said before, given the...
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    JUSTAS: the project to buy armed Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAVs

    That’s an interesting, and slightly more nuanced, point. There are also squadron badges that depict stylized ‘European’ warriors — 414 Squadron’s Black Knight comes to mind. Do we want to erase all aboriginal imagery from our crests, while leaving the European imagery intact? That seems...
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