The Army of Tomorrow, Today

Vincent J. Curtis 

11 July 2020

Yogi Berra once said that predicting the future was hard, especially since it hadn’t happened yet. 

Imagine you were a Canadian military planner in 1927.  Andy McNaughton orders you to forecast what the army should be like in 1942, a mere fifteen years in the future.

“Simonds,” you cry. “Take a note!”

The Bren gun and the Browning Hi-Power hadn’t been invented.  The No. 4 Lee-Enfield rifle hadn’t been developed.  The 2” mortar hadn’t been thought of.  The armoured doctrine of Plan 1919 was known, and the British were experimenting with it, but this was way beyond Canadian industrial capabilities and the funding interests of the government.  We were up to date on artillery doctrine even if we lacked the guns.  Tanks, trucks and other mechanical gear were primitive and unreliable.  The Kellogg-Briand Pact and the Locarno Treaties made war in Europe illegal.

A future strategic environment (FSE) assessment would fail to account for the coming revolutions.  The Nazi Party was an obscure, fringe group. Germany itself was crippled by the Versailles Treaty and was convulsing with political unrest.  Berlin was dissolute with the frivolities of the late 1920s.  The Soviet Union was still consolidating its communist revolution.  Lenin was dead, and Trotsky and Stalin were competing for the leadership of the party.  Russia was deeply impoverished and economically confused.  Japan had been an ally in the Great War, and hadn’t invaded China.  The great depression lay ahead. 

It’s now 1942.  The Canadian army has three divisions in Britain and would launch an ill-fated raid on Dieppe.  The Germans are on the Volga River in Russia and driving on the Caucuses.  Brand new Sherman tanks engage with Panzer Mk IVs in the deserts of Egypt and Cyrenaica.  The Canadian Force Employment Concept (FEC) is a shambles, the only things that hold from 1927 are artillery doctrine and that peculiar Canadian invention of World War I, the Machine Gun Corps.  The machine gun is the self-same Vickers .303 HMG, but mounted on Bren gun carriers instead of armoured cars.

Andy McNaughton orders you to forecast what they army should be like in 1957.

“Kitching” you cry.  “Fetch your Underwood!”

The 1942 FSE of 1957 would be blind to revolutionary events.  The atomic and then the hydrogen bombs would be invented.  Strategic bombers would advance successively from the new Lancaster, to the B-29, the B-36, the B-47, and the B-52.  Germany would be defeated, occupied, and replaced as an enemy by the Soviet Union.  NATO would be created.  The Korean War would be fought.  Sherman tanks would be replaced by Centurions, woolen battle-dress by FSOD, the No.4 by the FNC1, the Bren by the C2, the Sten by the Sterling, the PIAT by the 3.5”, and the Vickers by the Browning.  Ballistic missiles would be deployed.  But why have an army if the war will be over in thirty minutes?

It’s now 2006.  You’re a Major.  In Kingston.  You’ve been issued a T-shirt, Bermuda shorts, sandals, and a Toshiba 486SX laptop with Office 2000.  Andrew Leslie tasks you with coming up with a concept for “The Army of Tomorrow”  (AoT for short).  This will be the capstone concept for future material acquisitions and doctrinal development through 2021.  No pressure.  You look up.  It’s a blue sky.  What do you do?

Here is the Present Security Environment (PSE).  Canada, under Prime Minister Paul Martin and MND Bill Graham, just committed Canada to a mission at Kandahar, dramatically expanding our commitment in Afghanistan.  No idea how long this will last.  The tactical situation around Kandahar is hazardous.  General Rick Hillier is the new CDS.  The dark decade for the CF is over, as Hillier made it a condition of his appointment that money starts to flow.  We have no tactical aviation, no transport helicopters, and the heaviest lift aircraft we have are C-130H Hercules, each with over 30,000 flying hours.  We have no modern artillery and no tanks.

Start typing.

To Be Continued….

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