Manley panel: Marines, helicopters and UAVs (and copying)

Maybe Marine deployments will not be temporary:

The Manley panel on the future of Canada's role in Afghanistan has recommended that Canadian troops fighting in Kandahar must be augmented by another NATO battle group of 1,000 combat soldiers by next year and, if not, that Canada should go home.

A demand for more NATO forces in Kandahar by 2009 is likely to be met, but not from Europe, where Canada has been highly critical of allies such as Germany, Italy and Spain operating in western and northern Afghanistan.

Sources at NATO headquarters in Belgium and in the United States have indicated in recent days that two marine battalions being sent to southern Afghanistan for seven months this spring with specific orders to assist the Canadians are likely to be followed by even more marine battalions in 2009 and 2010. This was possible because the Pentagon has begun to slowly wind down combat operations in Iraq and because the marine leadership has been pressing hard for a bigger role in Afghanistan.

"It is starting to come together," a senior officer at NATO headquarters in Belgium said yesterday of the assistance that the marines were expected to provide to the Canadians in Kandahar. The officer, who did not wish to be identified because he was not authorized to speak about the issue, said U.S. help for the Canadians had been in the works for several months.

Britain is also likely to send more combat troops to the south now that it is reducing its presence in Iraq. But, it is almost certain that those extra troops will augment the 4,700 British soldiers already fighting the Taliban in Helmand province...

A blogger wonders whether the Manley panel was aware of a likely continuing Marine presence--in which case the panel's recommended threat to withdraw our troops if we don't get a NATO partner might well be viewed as rather a PR stunt.

As for the panel's demand that helicopters for Afstan be acquired by next February, there might be a way around the government's unconscionably long delay in signing a contract for Chinooks:

Ottawa is in negotiations with Boeing to buy 16 Chinook helicopters – the chopper of choice for transport – but they aren't expected to arrive until [very late] 2011.

Canada could, however, negotiate with Washington to snag some CH-47 Chinooks off the production line where they are now being made for the United States army, said Mark Kronenberg, vice-president of international business development for Boeing's defence business.

"There's going to have to be some government-to-government discussions. ... It's always in the realm of the doable when governments get together," he said in an interview.

Ottawa did a similar deal with Washington that allowed Canada's air force to take quick delivery of C-17 transport jets last year.

But [Brian] MacDonald [a senior analyst at the Conference of Defence Associations], said the American choppers, built to U.S. specifications, won't have features sought by the Canadians, such as self-protection systems [our specialized requirements--along with securing industrial benefits--are what seems to be holding up the contract].

That could leave the option of renting Russian choppers and using foreign pilots to ferry gear around the war zone – something Canadian military officials might be averse to doing...

I still don't see how we could acquire our own helicopters, train the pilots and other personnel (without stripping our Griffon or Cormorant squadrons of people), and get the maintenance and logistics in order in time for a significant deployment to Afstan in one year.

The panel is also demanding better UAVs--more from the same story:

The air force, which uses unmanned aerial vehicles in Kandahar, was already looking at upgrading its capability to better protect troops on the ground.

The federal cabinet last spring rejected a proposal to buy large Predator vehicles, able to carry missiles. MacDonald said smaller drones might be more feasible.

"The Americans have found that the little UAVs are in fact intensely useful," he said...

The government would have a very hard time reversing itself (one can hope) on not sole-sourcing Predators (the way to get them quickly). But perhaps some other, less-expensive type could be fast-tracked in some fashion. There's a good general discussion of UAV's at this post of Babbling's.

Meanwhile another blogger's research seems to show pretty definitely that parts of the panel's report were lifted close to verbatim from an article of Mr Manley's published last October before he was picked to head the panel. Rather embarrassing that.

Update: But another blogger responds.

Upperdate: Here are some observations (edited) on the helicopter issue received, since this post was put up, from a serving member of the Air Force in response to comments (since deleted by Babbling) by "a taxpayer" at this post:

As I sit here reading some comments by a dude called "a taxpayer" regarding how simple it would be to train CF helicopter pilots "in a few weeks at most" and trying to compare airline operations with tactical helicopter operations I had some thoughts:

1) Let's not forget that helicopters, well, aircraft in general, also require technicians who also require training...technicians who would have to be taken from another fleet, which would obviously degrade that fleet's operational capability.

2) "A Taxpayer" is obviously unaware that even if it only takes "...3 months at the most" to train airline pilots on a new type, the airline went through some much longer procurement process to get the aircraft and prepare itself (infrastructure, groundcrew, flight planning staff, etc...). And let's be honest, flying a commercial jet from Toronto to Calgary is a little less involved than flying a helicopter in an operational theatre. So if it takes airline pilots 3 months to learn how to fly a jet from A to B, how on earth could CF pilots learn how to fly a Russian helicopter tactically in "a few weeks at most"?????

I think this guy is a little uninformed about the actual hurdles involved - but maybe he knows better and, if so, I suggest he write the CDS a letter and give him a plan because tactical helicopter airlift would certainly be a great asset.