CCV was never a Good Idea

 

 
Vincent J. Curtis


23 Dec 2013

 

David Pugliese broke the story that the Close Combat Vehicle acquisition project will be cancelled by DND.  The CCV acquisition was plagued with problems from the beginning, and several rounds of requests for proposals were unsatisfactory.

 

Julie DiMambro, spokesperson for MND Rob Nicholoson, was quoted as saying, “…our Government has been living up to our promise to give the Canadian military the tools it needs to get the job done….the Canadian Armed Forces are once again the best in the world.”

 

The real story behind the cancellation of this new CCV tool is not the lack money, not a lack of satisfactory options, but the lack of a warfighting doctrine by the army combined with the lack of money.  The Army brass simply does not know what the next job is going to be, and cannot justify to itself buying an expensive tool designed for a job that may not come up.

 

What army reservists are training for is often a good sign of what DND brass expects the army to have to do should the call go out.  Since the end of field operations in Afghanistan, army reservists have not been doing much of anything specific, and nothing that involves the coordinated movement of several companies at a time.  Training from out of the 1960’s: patrolling, light infantry advance-to-contact, has been the army reservist fare since the wind-down of Afghan style tactical scenarios.

 

Some time in February, 2014, several light infantry units of 31 Brigade, 4^th Canadian Division, are going to be moved to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, to undertake an exercise there.  Rankin Inlet lies on the western shore of northern Hudson’s Bay.

 

It is expected that the reservists will operate out of the NORAD Forward Operating Location Rankin Inlet facilities at the Rankin Inlet Airport.  What exactly the reservists are going to practice, few involved seem to know.  What the anticipated OPFOR object this exercise is supposed to defeat is met with a chuckle.  No mechanized combat vehicles or artillery are expected to come along.  Light infantry is going to be plunked down in the middle of the Arctic and expected to do something by itself.

 

DND is going to overpay for the nine-day exercise in the high Arctic, and sources suggest that 31 Brigade is looking for the excess cash.  Deploy, freeze, return, collect.  An object of this exercise may be that it demonstrates to the world Canada’s commitment to the high Arctic.  But no one involved seems to know.

 

The army top command has communicated no idea of the next kind of war the army will be called upon to fight.  They have communicated little idea of how they would like to fight.

 

Spending $2 billion on the acquisition of a new vehicle that is designed to fight best on the terrains of Europe could prove to be financially dislocating.  Investing that much money into what could prove to be the wrong thing does not help burnish reputations or help the soldiers who have to risk their lives working with them.

 

DND did have a particular vehicle in mind when the CCV project began, and would likely have bought it had it been offered.  Rheinmetall makes an all-new Puma CCV for the German Army.  It was designed from the ground up to be able to work closely with the Leopard II tank, which the Canadian army now has in good numbers.  What Rheinmetall actually offered DND as a CCV was not the Puma they hoped and expected, but a reworked and upgraded Marder vehicle, which the German army was taking out of service and replacing with the Puma.  DND turned down the offer for used vehicles.

 

Also offered in the CCV category was the new Swedish CV 90 vehicle.  Whether this vehicle would be able to work closely with non-Swedish tanks and on non-Swedish terrain remained questions.

 

Buying a vehicle now that unquestionably could work with the current inventory of Canadian tanks might have justified the CCV acquisition project to go forward.  Lacking such assurance, a good reason to acquire a CCV regardless was lacking.

 

Through the Canada First Defense Strategy, the Canadian government promised the military a stable and predictable level of funding over a twenty year period.  That promise lasted until the first budget crisis.  The cancellation of the CCV project, however, was not the product of the government failing to live up to the promise for the military to buy new equipment.  This was a decision of the military brass, who can’t justify the expenditure to themselves.

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