Originally Posted by
mahogany bob
Finnningly Boy
Amalgamate the forces- Oh no not that again !
Well we know that it will never happen as there are far too many comfortable jobs up top! (more Admirals than ships ). The new CAS will never vote himself out of a job.
BUT with only 158,000 men in uniform do we need such a top heavy 3 pronged system - With the 3 arms fighting over a very small pie.
Inter service squabbles contributed to binning the Harrier early and buying 2 carriers which some think are very expensive luxuries!
i experienced the best and worst of the Canadian Armed Forces unification. The fundamental problem was the typical government approach to any big new idea, if a little bit of unification is good more must be better.
Where unification worked was in the support side. Do you need Army, Navy and Air Force doctors or just military doctors. Same with a lot of the supply, personnel and logistics functions.
Where it failed utterly was recruiting. Having a purple recruiting system produces a purple Private/Able Seaman/Airman with no connection to their service at the most impressionable time.
Where it should have worked but hasn’t is joint procurement. What was supposed to happen was the development of a hierarchy of requirements ranked by importance to the CAF, not by individual service desires. Unfortunate while there is a joint requirement’s organization reporting to the VCDS, in practice capability and capacity development is mired in constant zero sum inter service rivalry.