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Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

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Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#171

Post by nradov »

mrguyorama wrote: post #144
colonwqbang wrote: post #127

How much useful combat skills can be taught in only a week? It seems like an extremely low estimate on the training needed to play a useful role in the military.

Every combat soldier requires like 10 support soldiers doing things like logistics. Millions of people during WW2 did nothing but drive trucks. A lot of military burst capacity is about freeing up soldiers who went through all the training and basic and specialization, but are stuck driving that truck. The guys and gals who fire bullets are just the sharp point of the spear and all that. It's also why Russia balloone…

That's not how it works in any NATO military. Truck drivers and other logistics troops generally never went through any sort of advanced combat training. They can be retrained for another MOS with sufficient time but not quickly enough for any sort of crisis. And in volunteer forces, the troops driving trucks are generally doing that because they specifically enlisted to do that job.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#172

Post by bpodgursky »

colonwqbang wrote: post #127

How much useful combat skills can be taught in only a week? It seems like an extremely low estimate on the training needed to play a useful role in the military.

Even having up-to-date contact info, age, health records available for a population you know is physically able to serve is a big first step. Lot of logistics, most western countries don't want a draft that pulls randos off the street and shoves them in a van.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#173

Post by rogerrogerr »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #157
mig39 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've been paying attention, but the head of the USA has threatened on numerous occasions to invade Canada.

I mean yeah we've famously even had full on invasion war plans drawn up in the past that leaked. Canada isn't going to do anything that changes the USA's ability to steam roll over the country.

Yep - the US is bad at fighting insurgencies, but a state military? Over in days. This does not materially change between Canada’s current military vs 5x their current military.

But fighting pissed-off indigenous Canadians? I wouldn’t sign up for that part.

None of this is relevant because the US does not want to own Canada.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#174

Post by BigGreenJorts »

nick_ wrote: post #167
qball wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For a nation with basically zero chance of invasion of its home soil and an extremely low risk of internal conflict Clearly the Canadian government doesn't feel the same way. If they tried to conscript they'd quickly find themselves in a civil war (for the same reasons the US would), and one the Canadian capital clearly doesn't believe it'd win given how well it fared defending itself in 2022. Of course, bureaucrats…

Are you referring to the "Freedom Convoy"?

If so, the capital did perfectly fine breaking it up, they were just politically hamstrung. But otherwise, it took all of an afternoon and a couple horses to break up that nonsense.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#175

Post by JohnnyLarue »

wagwang wrote: post #119
scotty79 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not teaching your son a second language so he can escape the country with draft as soon as he's 18 is evil. You are obligated to give your child tools to choose his future if your government is trying to deny him that choice.

No you have a duty and obligation to the society that raised you.

abs(ofuckinglutely) you do not.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#176

Post by imtringued »

notatoad wrote: post #131
colonwqbang wrote: post #127

How much useful combat skills can be taught in only a week? It seems like an extremely low estimate on the training needed to play a useful role in the military.

i don't think they're really expecting people to serve a useful role in the military. it's a "supplemental reserve", meaning a level below ordinary reservists. it sounds like basically if the country was ever in a situation dire enough that they were calling on ordinary citizens to help with defense, an ordinary citizen with a week's training would be better than one with no training. or more cynically: it's a way to…

It's not even that. It's literally the equivalent of an assessment center. The military is basically looking for promising recruits ahead of time. It's not about having a week's worth of training. It's about knowing who did well or not.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#177

Post by palmotea »

hollerith wrote: post #159
palmotea wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A large nuclear exchange between great powers (and currently there are 3 great powers, the US, China and Russia) would be followed by the use of conventional military forces. E.g., The US would try to capture and hold the major ports of the power or powers that attacked it because holding those ports is the most effective way of denying the power the ability to deploy its own conventional forces outside its own ter…

The Soviets had no hope of capturing any ports or any territory in the continental US: to do that would mean first destroying the US Navy, and they knew they could not do that. So, their plan focused on the next best thing: namely capturing the part of the European plain they did not control already (namely, West Germany, the low countries and maybe the part of France occupied by the Germans in WWII) then hoping that…

All that is assuming a limited nuclear exchange is possible, without further nuclear escalation. I find that pretty unbelievable.

> One Soviet war plan that was made available to Western scholars in the 1990s anticipated this invasion of Northern Europe (with conventional forces) starting immediately after the Soviets make a large nuclear strike on Western Europe. Note that tanks crew are basically immune to nuclear fallout provided they are trained to operate in fallout.... This particular plan avoided any attack on Britain or France (and I presume also the US) to make it less likely that Britain and France will choose to use its nukes on the USSR, but hits West Germany, the low countries and NATO airbases in northern Italy really hard to soften them up for the invasion by tanks. In summary, the plan was to grab territory, then dare NATO to take it back or to nuke the USSR in retaliation.

If the USSR nuked non-nuclear NATO, they just assumed their opponents wouldn't retaliate with nukes at all? At a minimum I'd expect the Warsaw Pact countries would have gotten nuked in retaliation. And, IIRC, NATO planners anticipated an attack along these lines, and had nukes lined up to directly target the attacking communist military formations (so those formations wouldn't just be dealing with fallout).

> I heard years ago from some expert that if the US ever decided that China must be suppressed as much as possible by military means, it would be foolish to try to capture the whole country (i.e., it is too big and too populous for the US to try to do what it did to Japan at the end of WWII) so capturing and occupying its ports (which of course the Western powers held collectively for decades in the past) would be the likely military goal.

It's a completely unrealistic goal. If China hasn't been nuked to oblivion, I don't think the US could ever dream to hold its ports against a counterattack (especially given China's rate of modernization and sheer industrial capacity). If China has been nuked to oblivion, the US would almost certainly be wrecked as well, and in no state to send over anyone to hold Chinese ports.

> (which of course the Western powers held collectively for decades in the past)

That was a loooong time ago, when China was basically at a pre-modern technology level and comparatively extremely weak. That's not the case anymore, and China is now arguably the more powerful country (in the ways that matter to such a conflict) than the US.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#178

Post by asacrowflies »

wyldberry wrote: post #139
gpm wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference here is presumably for the last hundred years, ending last November, there was simply no chance of a invasion of Canada. Nukes might fly overhead and end the world as they struck targets on either side, but other than that we were safe and any significant military action we took part in would be overseas and thus not justify calling up a huge number of reservists. Meanwhile Norway was occupied in WWII,…

"ending last November" - Is the implication that a Trump presidency implies a risk of invasion from the South? Canada has relied greatly on the United States providing a blanket defense guarantee of the continent. The Canadian military is currently operationally worthless across the board, save the cyber domain. There are many reasons for it that I'm not here to list out. However, that does come with grave consequenc…

I can't take anything you say that serious because of the rather extreme bias. 'buy Greenland" I think seize is a better word if your avoiding the term invade.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#179

Post by mikkupikku »

mrguyorama wrote: post #158
mikkupikku wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Mexico wants to deter America, their best bet by far is to pose a credible insurgency threat. And in that regard, between the number of Mexican nationals and sympathizers in America, the number of guns in Mexico, the national pride of the Mexican people, and their established proficiency with asymmetric warfare (at least from their cartel elements)... I think they've got their bases well covered. Mexicans have the…

Except America has shown that it would rather chew through all it's resources and capability than accept that "The public here doesn't want you, that wont change, go home and save the effort" How many people in the middle east did we blow up or kill? For 20 years. For a supposed outcome we had no chance of ever getting. Multiple presidents even. The deterrence effect of an occupation didn't stop Russia, did not stop…

Deterrence not existing because sometimes it doesn't work is certainly... a take.

Re: Canadian military will rely on public servants to boost its ranks by 300k

#180

Post by hollerith »

palmotea wrote: post #177
hollerith wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Soviets had no hope of capturing any ports or any territory in the continental US: to do that would mean first destroying the US Navy, and they knew they could not do that. So, their plan focused on the next best thing: namely capturing the part of the European plain they did not control already (namely, West Germany, the low countries and maybe the part of France occupied by the Germans in WWII) then hoping that…

All that is assuming a limited nuclear exchange is possible, without further nuclear escalation. I find that pretty unbelievable. > One Soviet war plan that was made available to Western scholars in the 1990s anticipated this invasion of Northern Europe (with conventional forces) starting immediately after the Soviets make a large nuclear strike on Western Europe. Note that tanks crew are basically immune to nuclear…

The USSR would evacuate its cities right before the attack. The officers who drafted this war plan would have estimated a large probability that NATO would attack the USSR with nukes -- probably thousands of nukes. Then after waiting for the fallout to subside (e.g., waiting 3 weeks) the people leave their fallout shelters in the countryside and start rebuilding the cities. (Locations a few miles in diameter that were attacked by ground bursts will probably be permanently uninhabitable. Some of these locations would probably have been near city centers, namely, where US war planners believe the USSR's telecommunications nexuses were. Runways usable by Soviet stragic bombers would also be attacked with ground bursts, but of course none of these would be particularly close to city centers.)

Contrary to what many many chatterers on the internet say, "nuked to oblivion" is not a thing. A nuclear strikes with many thousands of strategic nuclear weapons against a country as large as the US, Russia or China temporarily degrades the country's economic and military capacity, then it bounces back. It is difficult to predict how quickly it bounces back, but it will not take multiple decades.

I never claimed it is realistic for the US to hold Chinese ports in 2025. The expert I heard talk about it was talking many years ago -- 15 or 20 years ago. I figure that if it was true of China 15 or 20 years ago, it is true of Russia today.

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