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Combat vehicles on list
Announcement today: sources
By CP
OTTAWA -- Canada is buying 60 new combat vehicles to provide the battlefield gunfire once delivered by tanks, even though the army concluded five years ago that the armoured Stryker was a bad choice. Defence Minister John McCallum will announce the multi-million-dollar purchase today, sources said.
The Stryker is an eight-wheeled, 18-tonne, lightly armoured vehicle equipped with a 105-mm cannon. The United States is buying 2,100 of them in various variants from GM Defence in London, Ont., and General Dynamics Land Systems in Michigan.
The Americans named the vehicle after two of their Medal of Honour winners. It‘s not clear what the Canadian army will call it.
In 2000, the army essentially declared their Leopard I tanks to be obsolete, suggesting the day of the tank was over, for Canada, at least. The tank was to be replaced by a "modern. mobile, armoured, direct-fire support vehicle."
Hence the Stryker.
But a 1998 study by the Directorate of Operational Research used computer games to put an armoured combat vehicle like the Stryker through battle simulations. It was a disaster and the authors said it would be "morally and ethically" wrong to substitute it for a tank.
"The ACV (armoured combat vehicle) was unable to manoeuvre in the face of the enemy," the study said. "When it did so, it was destroyed."
The study recommended flatly that the vehicle not be used to replace tanks.
McCallum has promised to save money by getting rid of "Cold War relics," which most analysts take to mean tanks. He‘s said to be enthusiastic about the Stryker, said David Rudd of the Institute for Strategic Studies.
"Does the minister know that the vehicle‘s a turkey?" Rudd asked.
He said a study done for an American congressman found the Stryker had many problems. The recoil of the gun was too much for the chassis and it was underarmoured, among other things.
Rudd said the Canadian army hasn‘t thought things through.
"The thing is too heavily armed for peace support operations, but the army has put it through the computer simulations and found this thing will get killed in the first five minutes of any real combat."
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My only question is this: Why do we insist on buying garbage?
Announcement today: sources
By CP
OTTAWA -- Canada is buying 60 new combat vehicles to provide the battlefield gunfire once delivered by tanks, even though the army concluded five years ago that the armoured Stryker was a bad choice. Defence Minister John McCallum will announce the multi-million-dollar purchase today, sources said.
The Stryker is an eight-wheeled, 18-tonne, lightly armoured vehicle equipped with a 105-mm cannon. The United States is buying 2,100 of them in various variants from GM Defence in London, Ont., and General Dynamics Land Systems in Michigan.
The Americans named the vehicle after two of their Medal of Honour winners. It‘s not clear what the Canadian army will call it.
In 2000, the army essentially declared their Leopard I tanks to be obsolete, suggesting the day of the tank was over, for Canada, at least. The tank was to be replaced by a "modern. mobile, armoured, direct-fire support vehicle."
Hence the Stryker.
But a 1998 study by the Directorate of Operational Research used computer games to put an armoured combat vehicle like the Stryker through battle simulations. It was a disaster and the authors said it would be "morally and ethically" wrong to substitute it for a tank.
"The ACV (armoured combat vehicle) was unable to manoeuvre in the face of the enemy," the study said. "When it did so, it was destroyed."
The study recommended flatly that the vehicle not be used to replace tanks.
McCallum has promised to save money by getting rid of "Cold War relics," which most analysts take to mean tanks. He‘s said to be enthusiastic about the Stryker, said David Rudd of the Institute for Strategic Studies.
"Does the minister know that the vehicle‘s a turkey?" Rudd asked.
He said a study done for an American congressman found the Stryker had many problems. The recoil of the gun was too much for the chassis and it was underarmoured, among other things.
Rudd said the Canadian army hasn‘t thought things through.
"The thing is too heavily armed for peace support operations, but the army has put it through the computer simulations and found this thing will get killed in the first five minutes of any real combat."
---
My only question is this: Why do we insist on buying garbage?