April 25, 2005
The Ghost of the Airborne Regiment
According to a report by Scott Taylor in The Halifax Herald, a careful reading of the new defence plans may resurrect the Airborne Regiment:
Well, one of the few nuggets of heretofore unannounced "new" developments turns out to be another case of Back to the Future (or of history repeating itself).
In addition to increasing the manning levels of the JTF2 and adding to its integral combat support, transportation and intelligence capability, General Hillier talked about the establishment of an elite battalion to augment the commandos.
This new unit would be based on a light infantry battle group, manned with the fittest and most dedicated soldiers, and would need to be highly mobile in order to serve as a rapid reaction force to global hot spots.
So let's see now. "Light infantry" means no armoured vehicles, and "rapid deployment" would best be facilitated by paratroops.
In other words, the Liberal government is planning to re-establish the very same airborne regiment it disbanded in disgrace almost exactly 10 years ago.
After the Canadian Airborne Regiment's disbandment, the army brass maintained a limited airborne capability by forming three separate parachute "jump" companies.
These were attached to the light battalions of their parent regiments in the Royal Canadian Regiment, the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and the Royal 22nd (Vandoos) Regiment.
This very same system of far-flung jump companies had been attempted in the 1950s until it was deemed to be "unworkable." The solution was to create a single airborne regiment to fill the hole as Canada's rapid reaction force.
The more things change . . .
Not to mention pegging the "Irony" meter.
Hat tip to Spotlight on Military News.
Posted by Nicholas at April 25, 2005 12:11 PM
I never agreed with the political (Liberal) decision to disband the Airborne Regiment. We need a regiment with its capabilities. I'll be very interested in developments.
It struck me at the time as a remarkably "political" solution to a military problem. I was never fond of the Airborne Regiment, but they had a fairly clear role in the army's then-current philosophy, and the separate jump companies are not able to replace the Regiment.
The disaster that is our Armed Forces should be seen as an opportunity to rework the paradigm for the 21st century. Along with Australia, Japan, Britain and the Americans we could put together a globe spanning force with defined responsibilities. With Britain and Japan in, it would not be seen as bending to the Americans so much as working together. The Americans have put out a lot of thought on the next generation of combat. The Australians are about the same place as we are in terms of troops and equipment. The Japanese are basically at zero. They are definitely going to start to build some sort of offensive ability. This could be a golden opportunity that we should not let pass.
Rebarbarian, I see the point, but I don't think there'd be support even within the military community for something like this if it meant we no longer even pretended to have all-arms, all-environment, all-task capability. The pongoes have been fighting a rearguard action against giving up the MBTs, the pigeons desperately want to avoid losing the CF-18 follow-on aircraft, and the wetbacks are committed to keeping the world's only non-submersible submarines.
Something like you're suggesting, where Canada's military contribution would be specialized-troops only — especially if the specialization was "sharp-end" — would never be acceptable to all those born-again pacifists in Vote Rich Ontario. They already think that our troops spend 90% of their time being lightly armed social workers as it is . . .
