Big Ol' Jet Airliner

There may be three years of Canadians flying into Afghanistan left before the scumbag killers get their final notice, but it's never too soon to figure out how you're going to get their kit back home. Well the Canadian forces aren't sleeping at any switches, even if the the "Harper Government" - best war party to be almost elected in decades did cock-up the supply conduit. And so this recent piece on how things are going without the stopover in Abu Dhabi.

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Massive+transports+helping+Canadian+Forces+deal+with+banishment+from/4193099/story.html

The Vancouver Sun, and other papers which carried the piece - no doubt emanating from a military source, outline a complicated process of getting our troops home via Germany. Now that couldn't be as much fun as the SOP of getting them home through the gin joints of Cyprus. But I think some recent misbehaviour on those 'ROTO decompressions' have done 'an Abu Dhabi' on the Cypriots. The latter putting a greater value on their tourist trade than they do in entertaining  CF personnel on a piss-up. Maybe we're banned there, too. But I digress.

The way home follows the old route, non-stop and then takes a sharp right to fly across south-eastern Europe to Germany. I'm wondering why? Wasn't there a load of ballyhoo about the Russians allowing free transport of non-lethal supplies across it's territory. Now, I know the troops are all 'lean, mean, killin' machines' at least in Gen Rick's (ret) estimation, but surely a planeful of the troops disarmed, in mufti and on their way home would qualify for a free pass. And wouldn't a route over Russia, or at least across the friendly ex-SSR's and the Black Sea,  be more direct? Or maybe there's some ATC problem with going the short way. Any way they're taking the long way home.

So supply and replenishment isn't a problem, and isn't considered to be a potential problem. The four C-17's of the CAF fleet can get that job done. But the other stuff will have to find some other way home. A fleet of trucks will be bringing heavy equipment and 2000-odd storage containers through Afghanistan and into Pakistan for shipment home by sea. The C-17s - or other 'rental transport'* will be moving sensitive equipment, 3 containers at a time, to the safe base in Germany at the rate of two flights per day. That doesn;'t mean 8 flights per day but more than likely exactly what is said, one, or two, of the 17's making the trip,  twice (or once) per day.


I'm wondering what's going to happen to some of the equipment, like those Leopard 2's for instance. I was under the impression that Canada had bought a number of these tanks, used, from the Dutch, but from things I 've read lately,  that 'purchase' may have been more in the nature of  'a lease'. For we're giving the tanks back, long before we're going home. The Marines are deploying tanks to take our place. So who pays to get these babies back to Holland, or wherever they're going? I know we rented the Ruslans to get them to Kandahar. The Dutch aren't all that stupid, so I'd imagine we're paying to send them back, too.

And then there are the Nyasas and all the bomb-resistant battlewagons we've bought to keep 'our boys' safe. Ideally they'd stay in Afghanistan, for as sure as hell they're going to be of little use in western Canada. They're clumsy enough on the Afghan tarmac, they'd be tipping all the time on Manitoba's back roads. But leaving them in Afghanistan would mean giving them, or selling them, to somebody. That means giving them to the Afghans, or selling them to America - which is paying for everybody else except the French, Brits, Germans and Italians (who already have theirs). And since the war is the best economic stimulus America has these days, selling second-hand to America is a no brainer, as well as a no-starter.


* Rental Transport?  The ongoing saga of  'we shoulda, but didn't'. Those Ruslans will be rented to haul stuff home, so much that the article posits buying another one or two C-17's is needed. That would mean we'd then have 6 C-17s. Enough to respond to a good disaster anywhere and 'only' for another billion and a half, or so. Scratching open the scab on the sore that we could have had all 27 Ruslans for about that much, spares included and have been renting some of  them out ourselves. Another "Harper Government" foul-up?

Making the Hard Harder

One of the major 'problems' facing the Canadian operation in Afghanistan is bringing five years worth of battle resources back from there. Canada has deployed a tank unit and an artillery unit along with the heavier equipment sent out:  the choppers, LAVs and other vehicles. Add to that the other paraphernalia required for waging modern war and the 'stand down' of Canada's warrior contingent, slated for 2012,  and the time-line involved for a Canadian withdrawal, assumes some notable proportions. Until last week, that was.

Last week a zit that had been in formation for a year or so came to head in the form of a nasty boil that popped, stopping Canadians from using Base Mirage - the military staging area in the UAE. "Wha happen?", as Desi Ricardo used to say.

Well to make a short story, the Canadian Ministry of Transport refused to grant an extension of landing rights to Emirate Airlines, who foolishly thought they might extend their direct flight services to Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver. Air Canada complained to the government that, although they aren't interested in direct flights to Dubai, the Arabs would be 'stealing' some of their custom - mainly the travellers who like to stage into and out of the middle east through a European stopover and change of carrier, or more specifically traveller who have to 'stage out' of Toronto or Montreal after arriving on Emirate.

The Dubaians took this Conservative negativity with some opprobrium and told the Canadians they could close Base Mirage, which had been running since 2001. To make the point clearer, the day they made the announcement, the Emirates also told the CAF flight carrying the CinC and the MofD to find another way home, forcing their flight to divert to Italy. Canadian flights are no longer welcome in Emirati air space. If we're lucky, they won't cancel the two weekly flights they do have flying into Toronto. The DoD has been in the habit of ferrying the honour flights of grieving families out to Kandahar for a photo opportunity on the first class A380 flights run by Emirate. Canadian business types, and government VIPs are also fond of the first-class amenities on the long haul to Dubai. But the fey blades running ther PMO wouldn't know much about that and wouldn't need to ask. Now somebody has arranged to jack the cost of Canada's military un-deployment, possibly sky high.

Talk now is of a withdrawal through the Ukraine or the friendly skies of Russia. Both those will require some high intensity diplomatic activity. There is no reason, given Mr. Harper's  bragadoccio and bombastic defense of North American air space from Russian Bison, that the Russians will want to give him a break on costs. The Ukrainians might, but he hasn't done much for them lately, either. The Georgians should, but in this case they're in the 'useless tit' department. I'm surprised he's not asking for Israeli help. But the Russians probably have a problem with their Ruslans landing there. And that's another story.

I mentioned those tanks? The ex-Dutch Leopard II's that have marked the annals of our recent military history with all their air-conditioned direct fire on Taliban targets? You can bet your bippy they weren't Taliban tanks, probably not even taxis or motorscooters, either. More in the nature of those notorious Taliban 'compounds' needing a new doorway, or the even more ubiquitous Taliban mountains. As a matter of fact, there has been precious little press on the exploits of the armored, so I'd bet they've been laid-up around Base Kandahar with come nifty paint jobs for the photo ops. But I digress. Those tanks required the use of Ruslans to get them out there. As did some of the same kind of helicopters we deployed to help the Myanmar floods a couple of years back. They wouldn't fit into a CF-17. Given that this process will be more rushed than the deployment, more Ruslans will have to be rented.

It would be interesting to see what the Ruslan rentals have cost us since we got our 4 heavy lifters. I'm sure the latter will be of some use for something, unless they're tasked to ferrying Mounties into Haiti.

It's a good thing that Canadians have full confidence in their Conservative govermint, for running a war on terror and for tough negotiations over airports and landing rights. They can make us look a lot more stupid than we actually are, but we know the Liberals could be, and the socialists would be, worse. Maybe they'll change their stupid minds this time.

Caveat Emptor - Airbus the Sequel

The egg may be congealing on the pusses of the Ottawa gang who were gloating over the recent arrivals of Canada's newest military hardware. Canada received, this past week, its first, of 4, C-17 'Globemaster III' Boeing cargo jets. Yesterday Canada's first Leopard 2's rolled off an Antonov heavy-lifter onto the tarmac at Khandahar airport.

The army was ecstatic with the tanks, a hundred of so will put Canada back into the mechanized forces category on a numerical par with Poland and Hungary. The Afghan contingent will appreciate the climate-controlled environment rather than the water filled cooling vests they had to wear. Mind you, if one of those liquid metal IED penetrated the tank, I'd rather have a 1/2 inch of cold water between me and it, rather than a tankers' coverall and some climate-controlled air. But they're sure the 'cats' will put the wind up the Talib.

The C-17's are the offspring of the reconciled lumber trade dispute that first arose 5 years ago.

The WTO ruled in Canada's favour and the US had to repay some tariffs they had imposed on Canadian lumber - about $5 billion worth . Being the business types they are, the Yanks wanted us to take it 'in trade'. So we bought 4 'big birds' for 3.4 of those billions. Enough to move all of Canada's new tanks for servicing in Holland over the course of any two-month period.

Now the interesting part. Up until those 4 big birds are flight tested and the crews worked up to speed, Canada will continue to depend on leased Russian heavy movers to get its forces positioned and supplied. Yesterday, an Antonov-124 'Ruslan' brought two Leopards from Holland to Afghanistan. The same day the Russians announced their whole 'Ruslan' fleet was going up for sale - all 32 aircraft. The asking price is estimated to be somewhere in the area of 350 - 500 Million dollars.

It seems strange to be laying out 3.4 billion dollars for 4 aircraft, when 1/6 of the price would have bought 32 of them. It's not as if the Ruslan isn't a good aircraft, the CAF has used them repeatedly. And it isn't that the C-17 is a vastly better aircraft - it isn't. It seems comparable but might lose on the maintenance requirements to the rougher Russian bird. The big difference is cost. What couldn't Canada have done with 2 and a half billion dollars, other than delay the close of Boeing's Seattle C-17 operation for a few months.

Sometimes you get what you pay for, and sometimes you don't. If we hadn't been owed those lumber billions, those Ruslans would look even more like the good deal they are. Looking on the bright side we got our Globemasters 'free'.