Royal Canadian Again

After 43 years, the Air Command and Maritime Command of the Canadian Armed Forces, will once again be the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy. The Royal designation was dropped in 1968 when the military was structured into a unified service. Coverage is here and here.

The part of me that respects the heritage, applauds having the Royal names restored. I will have a family member in the Royal Canadian Air Force. How cool is that?

The cynic in me thinks this is a Harper ploy to get votes from veterans who have petitioned for the old names to be restored for many years. The fact that I think a politician might be so calculating, makes me kind of sad.

Special Forces? Really?

Both the Netherlands and the U.K. deployed special forces units in Libya to assist their respective citizens. In both cases the units were captured: the Dutch by the Libyan military; the British by rebel forces. Yeah, the SAS were captured by amateurs. That's kind of embarrassing, actually. It seems special forces ain't what they used be.

I'm sure someone will blame it on budget cuts or something like that.

New Fighters

Canada plans to buy the the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter to replace the CF-18. Since this will be a single source purchase there are obviously serious misgivings about the choice. Canada has contributed to the development of the F-35 which may explain the decision, but that doesn't mean it's the right one.

In an an open bid, what are the competitors? This article mentions the F-18 Silent Eagle, the F-18 Super Hornet, the Eurofighter Typhoon, and the Dassault Rafale which was developed when France dropped out of the Eurofighter program. If only Canada had an aerospace industry that would allow us to develop our own fighter, but I'll refrain for make obvious references. *cough*Avro Arrow*cough*

Compared to the other options, the F-35 is a good choice, so it is likely that bidding process would picked it anyway, but we'll never know now.

Military Service

When my grand nephew Steven graduated from high school in June 2009, he decided he wanted to join the Armed Forces. He was only seventeen at the time so he needed a parent to sign the application. They refused. So he waited until he turned eighteen and applied anyway. At this point we got a idea of how serious he was about this. But that wasn't the end of it.

The medical examination revealed a possible complication which required further tests. The results took about six months to come back and during that time Steven's commitment never wavered. The tests were negative and the final hurdle was cleared, and his application was accepted. Steven's patience to see it though to the end, blew away any lingering doubt about how much he wanted to do this.

Steven departed yesterday to begin basic training. Ultimately he will be trained as an aircraft technician. I have no doubt he will work hard to succeed at his chosen career. No one in my family has ever seen any military service, so this is a big deal for all of us.

The Laser

50 years ago the first working laser was developed and the military have been of dreaming of laser weapons ever since. While most of the experimental weapons have been duds, and even though there have been some interesting successes like the THEL, they are still a very long way from a battle field ready blaster. And when the generals do eventually get their practical laser weapons, I'm sure someone will want to attached them to some sharks. ^_^

That's Neat! Um, No...

"That's neat!" was my first thought as I watched this promotional video from Marathon Robotics, in which robotic Segways are used as for military training exercises. "Um, no," was what I ended up thinking. The system has an obvious advantage in that it allows for live fire training. But that's all you get!

The entire exercise could be done with normal humans, who are definitely more "realistic" and a darned sight less expensive than robotic Segways. It's amazing how easily the military types can be fooled into thinking the technological solution must be the best one. I guess they have to justify those big budgets with flashy toys.

Robotic Warfare

This BBC article on robotic warfare misses one interesting point. If we can go to war without endangering our own soldiers, there is one less incentive for avoiding war. At least once a month, Canada loses a soldier in Afghanistan. Without that human face, the war would likely go unnoticed by almost all Canadians and the politicians would not be under pressure to withdraw our troops. If the military brass get their robot soldiers, we would actually have more wars than ever before, assuming the machines can be mass produced cheaply, which is likely the only sticking point for having full robotic armies.