Canadian battlefield helicopters officially delayed until 2011

Urgh everything is being delayed!!! This is frustrating.

What we need is to start manufacturing our own products to service our needs.

Agreed, however it would be difficult to support a wide array of Weapons Systems/Equipment to avoid this kind of thing. I think avoiding Contracts without guaranteed delivery dates would be useful in this situation. Sounds like grounds for cancellation and going elsewhere for our needs.

Weapons and military equipment manufacturing development is too subsidy-intensive. It's far better to let other nations do the actual building and then retro-fit it to our own needs upon purchase.

FACK!

not when everything arrives late.

not when everything arrives late.

Explain further please.

not when everything arrives late.

Explain further please.

Alright. Say you order a computer, on March 31st. It almost completely suits your needs as far as process and graphics power goes (say you are a gamer or digital artist), but you expect that when you recieve it you will want to replace the standard keyboard and mouse with fancier equipment. All the parts of the computer come from different companies; they do the building, you do the buying.

You expect this computer to arrive on May 15th, which is good because you have alot of major jobs you want to get done over the summer you can't do with your current machine. However, the damn thing keeps on getting delayed, and it doesn't arrive until July 1st. Now you've lost a month and a half's worth of quality computing time with the new computer. You can't very well build the entire damned thign yourself unless you ordered all the outsourced parts yourself, and knew how to assemble it.


Same thign with our military purchases. We needed the Chinooks yesterday, but weren't expecting them till 2009, now we possibly wont get them till 2011. Unless the mission in Afghanistan is dramatically increased, we'll never get the things on time to be of any use to us in that theatre. Now, we potentially could get our aircraft companies to manufacture our own heavy lift vehicles, but that would take a fair chunk of time, as we don't have any designs of our own ready for production.

Now, we could simply pay Boeing for the manufacturing rights to the Chinook, and get Bombardier to build em. But would the states or the company allow it?

Iy isnt just helicoptors that are a problem either, wait until we start buliding the 30 new ships for the Navy ( Icebreakers, frigates, destroyers, and supply ships), we dont build enough to keep the technology in canada, and that is why we have no infrastructure for major military hardware.

That is why our Subs are used pieces of junk from Britain, The Cormorant while state of the art has truckload of problems that have caused nothing but problems.

These Chinooks are going to be late because the US Military wants to buy more of them and they get priority.

Point conceded. I agree that starting from stratch would take even longer. A three year wait for 2011 would probably turn into a 6 year wait (or longer) if someone pushed for an all-Canadian build. As such it would be more efficient to do the short term wait instead.

Given the amount of surplus out there I still find it hard to believe that the wait times are so difficult. How hard can it be to procure a few dozen or so helicopters from countires that operate under the same maritime conditions that we do when we were almost instantly able to get a hold of those Leopard 2A6's from the Dutch?

And yet, three years from now, the war in Afghanistan could very well be over. Getting tactical lift helos after a mission with dozens dead and hundreds wounded, not to mention the added fighting capabilities...it sounds something akin to stupidity or carelessness.

Two possible reasons:

1. There is no surplus because everyone else is using theirs.

2. We want more modern Kit.

You think after Afghanistan the military will not deploy outside of Canada on another mission for 30 years???

There is an old saying that the military are prepared to fight the last war.

Part of that is because in the 20-21th century is that usually the war is past by the time the hardware is ready. The end of WW1 saw the cancelation of many orders for advanced (for the time) equipment.

Same after WW2. A good example is the centurian tank....just too late. The US P80 Shooting Star.....

Even in the runup to WW2.....naval planners had to compromise on battleship design to hasten production......they could build Battleships three times as fast as the guns and mountings.

Procurement of modern weapon systems is a lengthly process even when development is over.

These Chinnocks are valuable assets in any setting.

Those big jet transports were sorely needed for many roles....and they will be with us for a long time.....unless some politician in a fit of brilliance doesn't sell them to a wiser nation.....like the Chinnocks we sold the Netherlands.