Posts Tagged ‘Lockheed Martin’
MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 19 Aug 11
- Report leaked to QMI: CF way too top heavy. “The Department of Defence and the Canadian Forces are top heavy with too many civilian bosses in Ottawa and need to shift resources to the front lines, according to a secret defence report. Between 2004 and 2010, civilian hires at DND and the CF outpaced hires in the regular forces three to one, and while the number of sailors fell, staff at DND/CF headquarters in Ottawa ballooned by 38%. But the government says those hires were necessary to backfill positions left vacant by Canada’s heavy involvement in Afghanistan, “so that military members could focus their efforts on operational matters,” wrote Jay Paxton, a spokesman for Defence Minister Peter MacKay, in an e-mail Thursday. The transformation report, authored by Gen. Andrew Leslie, was submitted in early July but has yet to be released publicly. QMI Agency obtained a copy from a military source ….” No word on sharing the report with anyone who wants to read it themselves.
- Report leaked to Globe & Mail: CF way too top heavy. “National Defence must take an axe to its bloated headquarters by dismissing or reassigning thousands of workers if the military is to meet its future obligations, concludes a landmark report charged with transforming the Canadian Forces. This scathing assessment by Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie, who commanded the Canadian army during the Afghanistan war, arrives at a pivotal moment for the military, as the army returns from its troubled mission in Kandahar, the navy and air force seek new ships and aircraft, and the Conservative government vows to eliminate the federal deficit in a gloomy economy. “If we are serious about the future – and we must be – the impact of reallocating thousands of people and billions of dollars from what they are doing now to what we want them to do …will require some dramatic changes,” Gen. Leslie writes in Report on Transformation 2011. A copy of the report has been obtained by The Globe and Mail ….” No word on sharing the report with anyone who wants to read it themselves.
- Libya Mission (1) More on HMCS Vancouver replacing HMCS Charlottetown from the CF Info-Machine.
- Libya Mission (2) More on Canadian boss reorg in Italy (via CF Info-Machine)
- Way Up North (1) “Peter Mackay, Canada’s defence minister, who arrived in Resolute Bay in the early hours of Aug. 18, made the most of his day-long visit to observe Operation Nanook, the Canadian Forces’ military exercise, shoring up support from every direction for his department’s increased visibility in Nunavut and the North. Mackay even managed to cram in a dive from an iceberg lodged in the bay outside Resolute with divers who have been learning how to work around icebergs. That, said Mackay, who donned a dry suit and full divers gear, was “disorienting,” but “incredible” as light shone through the iceberg into the water ….”
- Way Up North (2) CF Info-Machine coverage of Operation Nanook: “Operation Nanook is well underway with Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) aircraft and personnel providing valuable airlift during this major national and international operation. A combined Naval Task Group set sail from St. John’s, N.L. on Aug. 5, towards Canada’s Eastern and High Arctic, where other personnel and equipment from the Canadian Army, RCAF, and Canadian Rangers converged for the month-long, annual Arctic sovereignty exercise. In addition to the Canadian Forces, simulated major air disaster and maritime emergency scenarios involve the Canadian Coast Guard, Transportation Safety Board, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Public Safety Canada as well as the Government of Nunavut, the community of Resolute Bay and our private sector partners. Op Nanook, named for the Inuit word for polar bear, is the centerpiece of three annual northern sovereignty operations conducted by the Canadian Forces and its partners who share interest in Canada’s North ….” More on Op NANOOK at the Canada Command page here.
- Way Up North (3) “A senior Canadian Army officer – Lt.-Gen. Walter Semianiw – is to travel to Moscow and other northern European capitals this fall for discussions about the Arctic. This development mocks the ludicrous media hype suggesting that there is a bitter rivalry involving Canada, Russia, the United States and Denmark (Greenland) over their sometimes competing claims and interests in the Arctic. To be sure, there are differences of opinion about the top of the world. But the reality is there is actually far more co-operation than there is friction. “This is beyond search and rescue,” the chief of Canada Command told me in a recent interview upon his European travel plans. “We are going to be talking about military co-operation in the North.” Officials from Russia and other Arctic Council countries will “table top” an international search-andrescue exercise in the Yukon in October. At this moment, Canadian and Danish warships and U.S. Coast Guard and Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers are working together in Arctic waters after some of the vessels paid a courtesy call on a Greenlandic port. U.S. Coast Guard divers are on an exercise with Canadians on Cornwallis Island ….”
- Afghanistan (1) Canada’s air contingent in Afghanistan basically shuts down, after a very busy few years – these stats from the CF on how busy the planes and crews were since December 2008:
More from QMI’s David Akin here, and ipolitics.ca here. - Afghanistan (2) How Canadian air force folks are helping create an Afghan air force (via CF Info-Machine). “Kabul International Airport covers a vast area on the north side of the city. The sprawling complex includes civilian and military air terminals, air cargo centres, and International Security Assistance Force facilities. One military unit located on the airport grounds represents the future of the Afghan Air Force. The Afghan Air Training School (or Pohantoon e Hawayee, which means Big Air School) is where new members of the Afghan Air Force learn the basics of flying and maintaining aircraft and running an air unit. They also participate in literacy training, which is incorporated into nearly every course conducted by the Afghan national security forces. Ten advisors from Canada’s Air Force serve at the training school as part of the Canadian Forces contribution to the NATO training mission in Afghanistan. The Canadian staff are part of 738 Air Expeditionary Advisory Squadron (738 AEAS), a NATO unit assigned to advise the the (school’s) Afghan commander and his senior staff ….”
- “The sacrifices made by members of the Canadian military and their families are being honoured with 26 bronze commemorative plaques that will be placed at intervals along the Highway of Heroes, which runs from Trenton, Ont., to Toronto. Announcement of the plaques took place Thursday in Toronto and was observed by at least 100 people, including Canadian soldiers, their families, parliamentarians and corporate sponsors. Each plaque is sponsored by a company, whose logo is visible below the image depicted on the plaque. Money raised through the sponsorship goes toward helping military families send children to summer camps, provide psychological counseling, retrofit homes and vehicles for soldiers returning with injuries or amputations and rehabilitate soldiers through athletics. Creation of the plaque program is a joint effort between the provincial Ministry of Transportation and True Patriot Love, a national foundation created by civilians with the aim of fostering better understanding between Canadians, the military and its endeavours ….”
- F-35 Tug o’ War Well, at least SOME of the U.S. Joint Strike Fighters are able to fly again. “The F-35 Lightning II test fleet has been cleared for flight, the Pentagon announced Thursday. An Air Force safety investigation board is continuing its investigation of the failure of the AF-4’s Integrated Power Package on Aug. 2, which led to the grounding of the entire fleet of 20 aircraft. The AF-4 is the fourth conventional takeoff and landing variant produced by Lockheed Martin. A government and contractor engineering team determined that flight operations of the test aircraft could continue after reviewing data from ground and flight tests, and revised the test monitoring procedures that govern the IPP. Ground operations of the test fleet resumed Aug. 10 ….”
- What’s Canada Buying? Here’s a taste of what happened at the Fixed Wing Search and Rescue industry day: “…. A full complement of the right ADM’s and DG’s from Industry, Public Works and DND turned out, and it was noteworthy that they stayed until the end of the day. In a procurement with this kind of history, little things can mean a lot, so government representatives handed out all their slide decks and notes in advance …. industry has until September 16 to get back to the government with its feedback, with a major focus on where the fixed-wing purchase can and should sit on a spectrum from full government ownership and ISS all the way through to full ASD, provided it still delivers the same ‘world-class’ capability as today. This does not appear to be the only interaction the Crown intends, as this briefing is being followed by individual one on one corporate briefings, with the promise of follow-up sessions once inputs have been received and digested ….”
- What’s Canada (Not) Buying? Canada reportedly pulling out of Global Hawk UAV project. “…. Canada has become the second country to withdraw from the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 alliance ground surveillance (AGS) program, but the remaining NATO partners are “very close” to signing a contract, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. The decision means AGS will lose another source of funding that must be compensated for by the 13 NATO members still committed …. Denmark also decided to withdraw from the partnership acquiring a six-aircraft RQ-4 fleet in June 2010. Meanwhile, Northrop and NATO officials are likely to sign a contract to launch the development phase of the AGS programme within several days. The contract award may still have to be approved by each of the national partners before it becomes official ….”
- “Two Canadian Forces members were listed on the National Sex Offender Registry, as of this spring, the Chief of the Defence Staff, has confirmed. “As of 11 May 2011, two Canadian Forces members were known to be subject to a SOIRA (Sex Offender Information Registration Act) order,” Gen. Walter Natynczyk said in a letter to Defence Minister Peter MacKay that was tabled in Parliament this week. Gen. Natynczyk said he has the power to temporarily exempt CF members from certain sex offender registry obligations, but noted he has never done so. Although a top government official told Huffington Post Canada the two members are still serving, Capt. Scott Costen, a Department of National Defence spokesman cautioned that administrative reviews, which are are launched after court martials or civilian criminal proceedings call into question the suitability of a member’s continued service, may be underway to release individuals from their military positions ….”
- Some Twitter updates from the boss of Canada’s Army. 1) Senior Canadian medic recognized by U.S. ”BGen Hilary Jaeger was awarded the US Meritorious Service Medal for her outstanding leadership and great contribution to ISAF mission.” 2) Change of assignment for senior Canadian officer working with U.S. forces. “Great visit III Corps and Fort Hood. Atkinson‘s were awesome ambassadors for Canada. Welcome Milner‘s” (more on the senior Canadian appointment switch-around from the Fort Hood base newspaper here)
- PM on Syria Time for the boss to go. “…. The Assad regime has lost all legitimacy by killing its own people to stay in power. I join with President Obama and other members of the international community in calling on President Assad to vacate his position, relinquish power and step down immediately. The Syrian people have a right to decide for themselves the next steps for Syria’s future ….” More from Postmedia News here and Agence France-Presse here.
- Lew-Mac on NATO: “…. (Historian Jack) Granatstein rightly points out that, “In diplomacy as in baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out. Afghanistan was strike one; Libya was strike two. And strike three?” he asks. I suggest strike three already happened in 1999 during NATO’s 50th birthday celebrations when it was frantically searching for a role and an enemy now that the Cold War was over. It found an out of area mission bombing Serbia and Kosovo in support of the Kosovo Liberation Army, at the time a terrorist movement according to the CIA. Seventy-nine days of bombing later, Serbian infrastructure was devastated but her security forces were still defiant and little damaged. Diplomacy took over and NATO capitulated on the two poison pills in the Rambouillet Agreement that “justified” the bombing campaign in the first place, that is to say, NATO freedom of movement throughout Serbia and a referendum on Kosovo independence within three years. As a result of this Russian-led diplomacy Serbian forces pulled out of Kosovo. NATO’s military mission had failed which in my book makes it three strikes in 12 years ….”
- MORE criminals (not just war criminals) on the CBSA “help us find these folks” web site – more from CTV.ca.
- Meanwhile, “Anyone defending foreign criminals remaining here are naively ignoring their potential threat or are driven by unknown motives, Canada’s public safety minister warned Thursday. Vic Toews said some Canadians “condemn our soldiers as war criminals,” but not foreigners evading deportation to face charges of crimes against humanity. On Sun News, he said such stances — including Amnesty International objecting to the government seeking public help to catch 30 suspected war criminals, plus the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) seeking killer Omar Khadr’s return — exhibit a “culture gap. “Don’t you people understand what is going on in the world … there are some bad people out there,” Toews told Ezra Levant, host of The Source ….”
- “Several Canadian cities will be receiving artifacts from Hangar 17 — a makeshift museum inside New York’s John F. Kennedy International airport that houses pieces from the 9/11 wreckage. Thousands of meticulously catalogued steel beams, crushed cars and fire trucks can be found inside the 80,000-square-foot hangar that’s rarely open to the public. Tom Doucette, executive director of The Military Museums in Calgary, said they will be receiving a 15-foot long piece of steel from one of the fallen World Trade Center towers that weighs just under 3,000 pounds ….”
- “Just as they did during active duty, the Olympus and Okanagan continue to slip silently along Canada’s waterways. These days, however, they’re not doing so unnoticed. After all, it’s difficult to miss the 1,250-tonne submarines that are taking a voyage from Halifax to Port Maitland – especially when they’re travelling above the water. Decommissioned by the Canadian Department of National Defense, the former submarines are being transported on floating drydocks towed by barges. At the end of the journey, they’ll meet their fate. The Oberon class submarines are scheduled to be scrapped by Port Colborne-based Marine Recycling Corp. at the company’s Port Maitland shipyard. Now it’s just a matter of getting them there ….”
MILNEWS.ca News Highlights – 1 Jun 11
- Karl Manning, 5 RALC, R.I.P.: He’s back in Canada – more here and here.
- One American soldier’s view of Bdr Manning’s repatriation ceremony. “U.S. Army Sgt. Cindy Curtis had never seen a repatriation ceremony. But Tuesday, Curtis, a member of the 861st Quartermaster Company based in Nashville, Tennessee, and nine of her parachute rigger colleagues, watched as the flag-draped casket of Bombardier Karl Manning come home …. “We don’t hear much about the repatriation of our fallen soldiers in the United States,” she said, while keeping an eye on the C-17 Globemaster pulling up on the hot tarmac. “Unless you were serving with the man or woman who lost her or his life on mission, or are a family member, or a close friend … People know about it, but locally. The local newspaper and TV network of the town or city where the fallen soldier was from will cover the ceremony and report it the next day, but they (media) don’t publish any advance stories or anything as well documented as the work you guys do here today …. As a public affairs officer myself with my unit in Tennessee, I asked if I could attend the ceremony with members of the press in order to learn more about how Canadian Forces hold this particular kind of ceremonies” …. Curtis thinks more people in the United States should see and know more about how Canadians Forces repatriate and honour the sacrifices their soldiers make when they are killed in action. “I think attending those ceremonies is a good thing,” she said. “I think media in the United States should pay more attention to what’s going when one of us gets repatriated from Iraq or Afghanistan. It shows the reality of war. And I think it’s even more important that people can show their support to the families and to the military. I guess the mentality is just really different here in Canada.” ….”
- Afghanistan (1): The PM’s official release following his visit this week here.
- Afghanistan (2): “…. Harper can and should take pride in his country’s accomplishments, but he should be careful not to overstate his case simply because Canada’s mission in Afghanistan is about to change. When George W. Bush spoke in front of a banner declaring “Mission Accomplished” in 2003, a month after U.S. troops were deployed to Iraq, he succeeded only in making himself look foolish and drawing attention to the very stubborn challenges the American military still faced there. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
- Afghanistan (3): First wave of new Canadian trainers arrive. “…. Col. Peter Dawe, deputy commander of the training mission, said the army is “mitigating the risks in many ways.” Troops will often live and work in same compounds, will limit their movements and “won’t be travelling frivolously” around the countryside. “But in the end of the day it’s a difficult environment,” said Dawe who once commanded the 3rd battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, the unit selected as the core of the first training team. “Our troops are well-trained. They’re prepared for it. They’re going into this with eyes wide open. For the most part, we’re talking about combat veterans here.” The bulk of the 950 trainers will be deployed in Kabul, but 90 medical and military police advisers will be stationed in Mazar-e-Sharif, in the north. A further 15 soldiers will work out of NATO’s regional training centre in the western city of Herat ….” More on Operation Attention here and here.
- Afghanistan (4): The PM’s said the danger is still not down to zero in Afghanistan – click here (Google search showing headlines only) if you want to see what the Taliban is saying it’s up to in and around Herat, one of the areas where Canadian troops will be training Afghan security forces. Not sayin’ the claims are accurate (you know the Taliban’s track record if you check here from time to time), but the Taliban must be highlighting the area in its claims for some reason.
- Taliban Propaganda Watch: Attacks and assassinations alleged across Kandahar (including some Canadians) – more claims here.
- Afghanistan (5): “…. It is a well-tested rule of counterinsurgency that the perception of time is always critical. If insurgents believe their adversaries – in this case the United States and the rest of NATO – have no stomach for the fight, they will eventually win at least some of their objectives. Countries such as Canada have lost their stomach for the fight, preferring the role of trainers. (The Dutch pulled out in 2010.) The Americans, in increasing their military presence, simultaneously announced a timetable for beginning to withdraw. Blowing and sucking at the same time, in other words. In every NATO country, the public wants out ….”
- “A new study says the military’s overall suicide rate is no higher than that of the general population, though some soldiers and ex-soldiers are more than twice as likely to take their own lives. The Statistics Canada study of 188,161 military personnel who enrolled between 1972 and 2006 found that women between the ages of 40 and 44 were more than twice as likely to die from suicide as their same–age counterparts in the general population. The report comes just days after what appears to have been the fourth suicide by a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. The study period, however, predates the bulk of Canada’s major combat operations in the country’s Kandahar region and it does not include deaths that occurred outside Canada. It therefore excludes combat deaths and suicides in Afghanistan. The study found the risk of suicide was much higher among the 112,225 personnel who joined the military in 1972 and left before Dec. 31, 2006 ….” More from CBC.ca here. You can find the study at StatsCan here, and discussion on the issue at Army.ca here.
- Computer simulation helps wounded warriors recover. “…. The CF Health Services Group (CF H Svcs Gp) has teamed up with major Canadian rehabilitation centres in Ottawa and Edmonton to provide the best care to Canadian Forces personnel who have either lost limbs or suffered major injuries while serving. “With CAREN,” says physiotherapist Captain Pauline Godsell, CF H Svcs Gp, “the sky is the limit in creating new training programs that engage more than just the visual and auditory senses.” …. The system features real-time feedback, a wall-sized screen and a round, moving platform that makes it more exciting for users to practice walking, driving, swimming and skiing. The computer-controlled platform can be moved in any direction, bounced or sloped ….”
- One MORE reason being opined about Julian Fantino’s appointment as Associate Minister of National Defence. “…. Fantino’s new job quickly became known in the shorthand among Ottawa observers as the “Minister of Procurement”. But why was procurement taken off of the plate of Peter MacKay? A recently published Conference Board of Canada report notes that if the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy is anchored in Halifax’s Irving shipyards rather than on the West Coast, this would mean over 11,000 jobs for the region. If MacKay oversaw a windfall for the BC shipbuilding industry it would hurt tremendously at home. On the contrary, if he was personally responsible for the same for Halifax, that would be the very example of a conflict of interest ….” More on this theory here.
- F-35 Tug o’ War: “Lockheed Martin is peddling untruths about the relative cost of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Super Hornet, according to Boeing Military Aircraft president Chris Chadwick. In a Tuesday morning teleconference, Chadwick not only called Lockheed Martin’s claims “fundamentally untrue” but named business development vice-president Steve O’Bryan as the source, and the fact that the claims were denied formally also points to a developing war between the two programs. The offending statement, quoted in Air Force Magazine’s Daily Report last week …. claimed that a fully operational F-16E or F/A-18E would be “the same cost” as an F-35 at maturity, around $65 million in 2010 dollars. Not so, Chadwick says, claiming a comparable (recurring flyaway) cost of $53 million for a Super Hornet — including a set of external tanks, an ATFLIR targeting pod and “working” helmet mounted displays. Any F-35 cost figure, Chadwick pointed out, “is an estimate based on numbers of unsold aircraft.” ….” (Thanks to “prolific blogger” Mark Collins for this one).
- What’s Canada Buying? Renting canoes for Petawawa Ironman competition, anti-ship missile defence research help (as well as a trade show dealing with “Maritime Missile Defence), more research into swarming tiny UAVs, and someone to teach people how to investigate airplane accidents.
- Another screed about banning military research at universities. “…. The main channel for military funding to social and political science departments is the Security Defence Forum (SDF). Established during the Cold War by DND, the SDF exists to distribute department funds to Canadian political and social science departments through “centres of expertise.” In return for funding, centres are expected to produce academic articles, conduct media interviews, publish Op-Ed articles, participate in conferences, and host a number of events to reach out to the public. The impartiality of funding allocation for research topics is seriously questionable, and casts doubt on the objectivity and academic freedom of these centres.” How about the freedom of researchers to study militay-related subjects? I guess that doesn’t matter, right?
- “It’s been nearly 200 years and it seems that Canada and the United States are still at odds over who was the victor in the War of 1812. That was apparent Monday morning at a U.S. Memorial Day ceremony held here in Halifax to honour the nearly 200 American prisoners of war buried in what is now a small park known as Deadmans Island on the shores of the Northwest Arm. The brief ceremony was attended by American sailors off the USS Boise, a Virginia-based sub, which is visiting Halifax Harbour, and a smattering of locals and Canadian military. “We have different views about exactly how we came out on that deal,” said Anton Smith, the U.S. consul general for the Atlantic provinces. “You guys ended up with more territory than we did, but a lot more ice,” Smith said. During the ceremony, Canadian Rear Admiral Dave Gardam clearly stated that the U.S. did not win the War of 1812. However, both are firmly in agreement of the benefits of the war’s outcome. “The important thing is . . . it settled our differences in a way that allowed us to join hands and become the friends and allies that we have since become. That is why it was an important conflict, no matter how you see the resolution,” Smith said ….”
