Army wants to keep Leopards, ditch MGS and MMEV

I really do not know how to assess this. But if we do get C-17s at least we could move a few Leopards to a theatre rapidly.

On Oct. 29, 2003, Liberal Defence Minister John McCallum and Lt.-Gen. Rick Hillier assembled the Ottawa news media to announce the demise of the country's tank force. Canada was taking its fleet of Leopard tanks out of service and was going high-tech.

Mr. McCallum said the army had requested the government purchase the U.S. Stryker Mobile Gun System, better known as the MGS. That wheeled vehicle, also being bought by the American army, had less armour than a tank but could move faster and was more manoeuverable on the battlefield...

The army's plan would instead see the MGS working in conjunction with another high-tech weapon, the Multi-Mission Effects Vehicle or MMEV. Based on the army's existing air defence missile system called ADATS, the MMEV would be designed and built by the Quebec-based aerospace firm Oerlikon and be capable of shooting down aircraft or destroying ground targets.

But less than three years later, and in a major reversal of its plans, the army is now asking the Conservative government to cancel both the MGS and MMEV programs.

The MGS is no longer the right vehicle for the army and the Leopard is no longer seen as a millstone. A study is under way to determine how to keep the tank in service until at least 2015.

Army officials refuse to say why they want to cut the two programs which just a few years ago were heralded as evidence that Canada would be fielding a high-tech military.

The decision to buy the MGS and MMEV was at the heart of the army's decision to transform itself into a force that could be quickly sent overseas and, once there, rapidly move around the battlefield. Tanks took too long to get to a war zone, Canada's military leadership maintained, and the tracked behemoths were difficult to manoeuvre, particularly in places like Kabul. In fact, Canada wasn't sending its Leopards overseas all that much; the last time they had been used on an international mission was in Kosovo in 1999...

But the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to new questions about how future conflicts will be fought. Insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and using roadside bombs have proven to be a formidable enemy, knocking out lightly armoured vehicles and even tanks. Fielding vehicles with better protection, argue some commanders, is now the way of the future...

The MGS, in particular, has faced widespread criticism, particularly from soldiers in the U.S. Some American officers have argued that the move towards such lighter forces is dangerous. Wheeled vehicles, such as the Stryker, while good on roadways, lack the mobility for cross-country warfare, they maintain.

The other main argument against the MGS centres on the vehicle's light armour and its vulnerability to rocket-propelled grenades. "The Stryker was not ordered with the RPG in mind," noted a report written by U.S.-based analyst Victor O'Reilly, who described the vehicle as suited for light peacekeeping duties, but not combat...

More from a front-page story in same edition of the Ottawa Citizen (full text for subscribers only):

...
General Dynamics Land Systems Canada in London, Ont., was to have built the 66 mobile gun systems originally wanted. Company spokesman Ken Yamashita said the firm has not been informed about a change in status in the MGS program. Engineering work has been done on that program, but the government has yet to enter into a contract to purchase the vehicles.

The MGS program was launched in 2003 and the MMEV project was announced last year, both with much fanfare about how they would help form the basis of the country's new high-tech army. The MGS is a wheeled light armoured vehicle equipped with a 105-millimetre gun. The MMEV would carry several types of missiles and is based on the army's existing Air Defence Anti-Tank System, or ADATS. That system was originally bought in the late 1980s to defend Canadian installations in Germany from air attack.

The two, along with a third anti-tank missile system mounted on a wheeled light armoured vehicle, were to be used as a "direct fire" capability to replace the Leopard tank, according to army officers...

The headline of the latter story is "Army backtracks on plan to ditch armoured tanks". Is there any other kind? The ignorance of our jouralists (a few excepted) about things military demonstrated again.

I await the headline that reads: "Air Force plans to buy flying airplanes".

Also to note: the first story has a picture that is captioned "Mobile Gun System", of a vehicle with no gun. It it actually a picture of the Multi-Mission Effects Vehicle. Dear me.

Update: Much more at this thread at Army.ca.