🚀 go-pugleaf

"Andrew Chaplin" <ab.chaplin@yourfinger.rogers.com> wrote in message 
news:8vidnQCTFtJx9THZnZ2dnUVZ_rednZ2d@giganews.com...
> "Arved Sandstrom" <asandstrom@accesswave.ca> wrote in message
> news:syXqg.97410$I61.29978@clgrps13...
>> "Brian Daily" <daily.brian@gmail.com.nomaps> wrote in message
>> news:rf0oa21r6ebha0fta861jli9pottugjkuk@4ax.com...
>> [ SNIP ]
>> > The trip back to base is the scary part. The Taliban try to anticipate 
>> > the
>> > return routes. This is forcing the convoys to go off road. The HUGE
>> > downside if
>> > this is the vehicles are taking a shit kicking and spend as much time
>> > being
>> > repaired as they do on patrol. Look for Harper to spend Billion$ very 
>> > soon
>> > on
>> > replacements.
>>
>> For a change, that's quite perceptive. You're right, ingress and egress
>> routes to and from a patrol base are as dangerous as other restricted 
>> areas
>> of maneuver.
>>
>> That being said, infantry do know a little bit about the art of exiting
>> from, or returning to, a patrol base. Seeing as how they've been doing it
>> for thousands of years. Furthermore, the fact that the enemy may try to
>> catch you near base can work against them, since it now fixes their 
>> location
>> too.
>>
>> As for vehicles having to go offroad, let me assure you that these are 
>> not
>> Tahoes or Navigators - you can actually take them offroad, beat the shit 
>> out
>> of them for a while, and not have them break. Some, if not many, of the
>> vehicles in Afghanistan may actually be getting no more of a workout than
>> they would if they were still in Canada...exercises back in CONUS tend to
>> put more of a beating on trucks, APCs and AFVs than an average pickup 
>> will
>> see in ten lifetimes. In other words, the vehicle fleet assigned to
>> Afghanistan will likely not attrit at a much greater rate (apart from 
>> being
>> blown up) than vehicles assigned to combat units currently in Canada.
>
> A drivers' course will put a heck of a lot more wear and tear on vehicles 
> than
> a deployment, and a unit typically runs two of those a year. In a 
> deployment
> like ARCHER, VOR rate is important -- I should say critical; I suspect 
> that
> troops, NCOs and officers are careful about how "Stables" is done.

It doesn't end at drivers' courses, although I concede that those are hard 
on vehicles. But just routine ops in the training cycle beat up vehicles 
good too - drivers are loath to consider the possibility that a particular 
stretch of swamp or scree does not admit to towing a howitzer through.

In my experience vehicles hold up well. Even vehicles which are 
lightly-modded variants of civilian kit bear up OK. I am reminded of the 
five quads with boxes that we used to use at Gagetown back around 1980; we'd 
take them offroad in the impacts, and despite some wild flailing about (if 
you were housed in the back you had to hold on for dear life) they survived.

> All the same, I suspect Brian is actually right about the idea of a 
> follow-on
> buy to replace operational losses. I am sure, however, that the price he
> predicts will be off by two orders of magnitude.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is such a purchase, either. In practical 
terms a given vehicle in Afghanistan is probably undergoing a duty cycle 
which is 2-10 times greater than that it would experience back in garrison 
(this in and of itself is not a big deal, because if 6 months in Afghanistan 
represents 5 years back in Canada, the vehicle still would have lasted 20 
years anyway), there may be a greater number of accidents, and of course 
there are the actual combat casualties. I don't know the exact numbers, but 
if it were decided at some near point to top up with 5 or 10 LAVs, and 5 or 
10 G-Wagons (I'd assume that any blown-up Iltis would be replaced by 
G-Wagons), that's not going to represent a large chunk of change.

AHS