Diving Falcon

I was wondering for some time now, how many F-35 (JSF) will the Royal Canadian Air Force Induct?

See, there was an order for 180 CF-18s in the 1980s, which was cut back to 139?

So, since the F-35 will be more potent, less numbers will be required, I doubt it'll go beyond 100, so I think it'll be more on the lines of 80, can anyone help me out here?

Officer of Engineers

Well, first off, the RCAF has been offically been renamed to Canadian Forces/Air Command around 1962.

Our current NATO committement is 79 CF-18s which will be expanded back to 87 planes as a result of 11 Sept.

In keeping in line with the 1994 Defence White Paper, we're obligated to provide a CF-18 sqn within 10 days and a wing within 90 days. The 79 is the bare number require to meet this committement and it leaves no room for training nor maintenance planes.

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Chimo

Diving Falcon

So I guess the end of the Cold War has really changed the Canadian Armed Force's requirement, from 700 Fighters in the Cold War to 79 in a Modern Era, but the question is, how many F-35 JSF's does the Force need?

Officer of Engineers

Assuming 2 for 1 replacement as the propaganda...I mean the brochure states for CF-18s, then the bare minimun would be 36 planes. However, that is unrealistically low. And we never had 700 fighters during the Cold War. We barely broke 300 at our height.

Diving Falcon

Sorry, I meant the RCAF had a total of 700 Aircraft, not only fighters.

hiiii

Before answering that question, Canada should answer another question. What is the threat to Canada's security? What will be the future long term threat to Canada's security? Canada is a big country to defend, and air superiority will be needed if someone decides to attack Canada...but who will attack Canada?

Officer of Engineers

The 1984 Whitepaper (yes, it's damned old) obligate us to support Coalition operation in supplying a sqdrn within 10 days and a full wing within 30. The Whitepaper defines our defence as an Allied Defence. Let's face it, anyone hitting the UK or the US is going to hurt us economically and being small in size means that we would have to take the fight to the enemy to prevent attacks on our allies.

hiiii

In the case in which the US and/or UK are involved, then there isn't much need for the Canadian Air Force, as the US and UK are quite capable of gaining air dominance. By the time Canada gets its F-35s, the US will have the F-22 in enough numbers to make a huge difference in the air. What Canada needs more are transports to transport Canadian troops to the combat zone, while not relying on US transports.

Officer of Engineers

No really, we're reliant on the same assets as both the US and the UK. If Kosovo is any example, we'll do more than our share (4% of the air asset flying 10% of the missions).

Canada has a reputation of punching way above our weight. We were the 3rd largest force contributor to UNPROFOR and OEF (and in Afghanistan, the 3rd largest ground force contributor during the active Taliban War).

Naval wise, we've been the 3rd/4th largest force contributor as well.

hiiii

Wow, quite impressive. Canada is quite involved in the military operations that it takes part in, contrary to what I had thought. Considering this, then, I think that Canada should not need that many F-35s if Canada can achieve what it has done in the past. A force of no more than 100 F-35s should be sufficient to meet the needs of Canada if Canada is not constantly at war like the US.

Officer of Engineers

We really do need a new White Paper to tell us what we need to do and how we are going to do about it. Thus far, we've ping-pong between two extremes. I really don't know about the birdbrains and the boat people and what kind of headaches and heartaches they went through but I do know they moaned just as much as the bellycrawlers.

During the Cold War, we've kept the 4th Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group in CFB Lahrs Germany to be re-enforced by 1st Canadian Division within 30 days through REFORGER.

Since the end of the Cold War, we've disbanded 4Bde and supposedly brought our people home. We've dillywhacked between 2 and 4 Battle Groups in Yugoslavia instead. We're keeping a BG there now.

Our biggest problem is sustainment. People are going on way too many deployments in too short of a time. Thus, we were devising deployment scenarios that would solve the sustainment problem. The solution we came up with was the Combat Team Entry Force, a re-enforced company designed to go in first to do the dirty work before Peacekeeping Forces come into theatre.

Then Kosovo happenned and NATO demanded two BGs, essentially a reduced Bde.

11 Sept came and we've found that the BG was still the only answer we've got. 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry Battle Group did us proud though 2 PPCLI BG still holds the bragging rights for fighting the largest battle since the Korean War in Croatia.

Before the Little Guy from Shag-me-again shafted the CF committement, we were prepared to offer CENTCOM a reduced bde based upon units from 2Bde, ie the Royal Canadian Dragoons and the 3rd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment though we would have stripped the other 2 bdes to make this committement. The British Army was prepared to offer another BG to flush us out to a full bde. 2Bde would be attached to the Commonwealth Division.

Instead, we went back to the Afghanistan with the ISAF in two rotations of BG strength.

We really need to know what we want to do.