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Originally Posted by O-tacular
Out of curiosity do you know anything about why it's taking so long for the air defence systems we bought to be delivered?
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I assume the OEM is probably backed up in the US. Not only is NASAMs important for Ukraine, it's gotten popular for other buyers since this war. And unfortunately orders for Ukraine aren't always getting priority.
Quote:
Originally Posted by O-tacular
What do you think we need to donate more of? Are we low on artillery shells or could we send more of those?
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We should acknowledge this has become a long war and we should set up to help Ukraine win and then to equip them after the war to deter. To me this means ramping production in areas we have competence and capabilities.
1) Armoured trucks. Roshel can ramp up even more given funding. And they are a sleeper hit in this war. I know plenty of folks thinking we should buy thousands of these for our own reserves and the regular army rear echelon. There's some other companies beyond Roshel too.
2) AFV/IFV. We gave them a handful of ACSVs. I think we should ramp production up and start giving them enough ACSVs and LAVs to equip a brigade per year. This is great for high skill jobs in London. And great for promotion of the LAV. And great for Ukraine.
3) Ammo. This has been discussed to death. $400M is small potatoes. Almost criminal the government will penny pinch on this.
4) Civilian pattern vehicles. Regular old semis, pickups, cube vans and ATVs are still needed in the country. We produce them. Could we strike a deal with OEMs to sell us their low demand period production at a discount and ship that to Ukraine?
5) Sensors. Wescam makes some of the best EO/IR sensors in the world. We should be working on how to mount these on armoured vehicles and new drone models anyway. So good time.
More off the wall. I wish the defence review had made some hard decisions. For example, if we're going to divest tanks, might as well give them to Ukraine. Their line about "exploring a replacement" is ridiculous. They haven't done the work to look at whether we should continue with MBTs, go to light tanks or even divest armour for other capabilities (helps for example). I personally think heavy armour is pointless for Canada. But whether we should have it or not, should have been part of the review. Likewise, the much hated TAPV fleet. That's 500 vehicles that are newer, in good shape and don't fit our doctrine or where we're going well. Deciding what we need and don't need would have freed up resources for Ukraine. Instead they kicked the can down the road. I still think the next government should do a quick 6 month divestment review and if there's anything we can ditch that should go to Ukraine send it. Yeah, chunks of the army might be driving pretend kit for a while. So be it. This helps Ukraine and with our personnel shortage might be nice to tank crewmen and armoured officers doing basic training anyway.
I also think we can do a lot more for training Ukrainians while helping ourselves. We have to RSVP training anyway. Let's aim to go bigger and build a training system that can start including Ukrainians in our regular training system especially for skilled trades like pilots, electronics techs, etc. This way we can help the Ukraine of 2 years from now, while the Americans help the Ukraine of today.
All of the above takes some funding, but mostly sustained commitment from the government that goes beyond just rhetoric.