The british soldier

[ABI]

The Canadian Gov't disbanded the Canadian Airborne Regiment to appease the bleeding heart liberals (and non Airborne top brass) who were upset at the OTT actions of a few tossers (and every unit has them lets not kid ourselves) out in Somalia when they where there on UN duties. I'm not defending the actions of these blokes from what I've read they deserved a good kicking and then to be DD'd, but you don't bin the whole Regiment because of it.

They now have Para trained companies within line Inf Regts acting in some kind of recce role, from what I can gather the Para Coy's don't train together or have any heavy wpn capacity so have limited use in any event.

Sorry folks, this subject hits home as both the Parachute Regiment and Canadian Airborne Regiment have a shared history going back to WWII.

[BenChug]

Yes can't argue with that, each battalion has a single jump coy. However the bulk of the Airborne lads ended up joining in JTF2 which has jump, commando, recce and submersable deployments basically canadian version of the SAS. And yeh those lads deserved a good sh*t kicking for what they did in Somalia even though thats not where the problems started but became most obvious. What do you expect when you have a French-Canadian Prime Minister though?

[Andy O'Pray]

Tab, A slight correction, 1968 was the only year since WW11 that British troops were not involved in a conflict, I don't know about a member of the British forces not being killed. Yes the Canadian Airborne were sacrificed because of the actions of a few idiots, plus some very poor leadership. There could have been some political reasons behind the decision of which I am not aware.

The average Canadian service person is very proud of their present and past, and quite rightly so. Respective Canadian governments have let them down very badly. Even though they are under equipped and under manned, they still go out and give 100%.

I certanly do not agree with every decision made by my government, I do agree with their stance on the Iraq conflict, even though our young bucks would have liked to be there, my son being one of them. Perhaps another day.

Gnr Murray, thanks for the reminder of the Gurkhas. Their contribution should never be forgotten.

Aye - andy.

[Tab]

Andy I don't think the friendly fire incident in Afgahisatn helped the Canadian government make a postive contribution to the Forces in the Gulf.

[Rotary Booty]

This thread about the Canadian Forces reminds me of a visit to one of the training bases we used for field firing in 1975, somewhere near Montreal. (?) Can't remember the name of it, but Gagetown is swimming around in the memory cells.
Anyway, we were told that the Canadians were the best paid, and worst equipped, armed services in the world. As we flew our first recce of the ranges we noticed a compound filled with row upon row of rusty tanks. We came back, most impressed, until we were informed by our hosts that they weren't future range targets, they were their first line Battle Tanks. They had old Jet-Ranger helis, but only two serviceable out of 25!
I was waiting for an offer to buy a Gazelle, of which they were in awe, but I left before a deal could be struck!

[Andy O'Pray]

The Canadian forces are still poorly equipped and not well paid. Dependent on the Province in which they are based, the average married serviceman can find themselves on the poverty line.

Too many chiefs, not enough Indians. They are extremely top heavy with officers. If one visits Ottawa, one would have a hard time spotting a other rank. I was told by a serving WO1 that they use majors as coffee boys in Ottawa.

Aye - Andy.

[BenChug]

This thread about the Canadian Forces reminds me of a visit to one of the training bases we used for field firing in 1975, somewhere near Montreal. (?) Can't remember the name of it, but Gagetown is swimming around in the memory cells.

Was it Valcartie? Home place of the "Van Deuxs."

I i hear alot of emphasis on pay which mind you isn't bad its more than the british army if you do the math, but still not great. Dunno about you fellas but I didn't join the army for the 'great' pay, I'd personally rather see it go into some decent equipment. For instance this past summer I was bumming around at CFB Wainright, talking to a buddy of mine from the Pats who had just got back from Afghanistan and was interested to hear how they had taken to spray painting the new CADPAT uniforms to browns and sandy colours as they didn't have any desert cammoflauge. While at the same time a coloum of US Marine Reservists drove by us in a 25 vehicle LAV convoy.

Further more Canada used to have a 100,000 man army, plus naval and airforce assets.

The current standing total is about 56,000. And this is in a country where the law states the that it shall have a force no smaller than 60,000 troops and 20,000 additional reserve personal.

The liberals were the curse of this lands military, while the bloody health care covers some tosser's bloody sex-change operation because this 'SheMale' doesn't think 'she/he' was meant to be a man... bugger that. Thanks a $100,000 tax payers dollars down the drain for such bullsh*t.

Fawken eh mates, what is this world coming to?

[One N@tion]

Hi

Many around the world consider the british forces to be amongst the best man for man in the world. Recent history backs up that claim as well.

I was just wondering, why do you think they are?.

Is training throughout NATO different for each country?. Is it experience because they have a warlike past?. Or is it something undefinable.

If it is training, how do we differ from other countries in europe?.

Thanks

May

I think training has allot to do with it myself , I mean we do train harder and longer than any other NATO country. Plus the Army, Navy,Air Force has allot of combat experience. The British armoured forces has allot of experience in battle so they have so much history to fall back on.

How the training differs between country's I am not sure.

[may18]

Do you think we are falling so far behind the US wrt to equipment that we are becoming far less effective?

some things seem world beaters, the challenger for instance.

Other things, such as the clansman radio, beggar belief to an outsider.

What i view as a problem is the lack of engineering expertise in the country. I remember maybee 15 years ago in our town the streets had dozens of light engineering companies. Now they are gone. Im pretty sure we used to make damn good rifles as well?. And aircraft, if the french developed the rafale, couldnt we have developed our own harrier replacement?.

Anyway im veering offtiopic sorry

[BenChug]

For training harder, are we speaking of initial training or of continous training after you've developed into a soldier?

As for excersizes in my experience Brits have far superior "Lets not be retards about this" attitude. Definiatly alot better than the US Army.
Two years ago while teaching a machine gun course we were doing live fire with several C6 GPMG's going for the night shoot, just watching it was pretty damn cool as the tracers just go whizzing down range. At a confirmed range and all. An awsome sight, when do to some f@#k up the goddam 2nd Ranger Battalion did a bloody jump right into are impact zone, what the f*ck kinda military does that??? While I've never had such a cluster f*ck while working with the Royal Scots or 7 Para RHA.

In terms of initial training i've never experienced so much damn useless cock flying around in my life, everything we did was bullshit and we were "shitbubbles" (Damn french canadian instructors,) but you learn fast enough. I understand the RMC training is 30 weeks plus 4 for commando school (correct?) And thats longer than your regular army unit training, I had 13 weeks of Basic Military Qualification which covers everything, you need to know basically. Followed by a 16 week Infantry Battle School and a 5 week Jump Course, before being assigned to my regiment.

[lew]

i would like to remind the room of hitlers goal in the beggining of the second world war, this was to have britian as an allie not an enemy, hitler said and i quote "give me british soldiers and german officers and there world shall be ours"... in short even our countries greatest foe thought the british soldier was the best in the world...

the army advertisment "be the best" is no co-incedence...

further more any army that is worth anything in this small world had at some point had british military training i.e. the isrealie, austrailian, new zealand, and yes youve guessed it even the yanks will have had some level of british training hmmmm "cough" special forces ect