FLCV: Canada Looks to Upgrade Its Armor

LAV-III: stuck
(click to view larger)

In late November 2008, Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND) announced its intention to combine 3 programs into one general set of upgrades to its armored vehicle fleets. The C$ 5 billion meta-program would include:

(1) “Close Combat Vehicles” that perform as tracked Infantry Fighting Vehicles or Armored Personnel Carriers, alongside Canada’s new Leopard 2A6 tanks. Canada’s wheeled LAV-IIIs showed limitations in Afghanistan. Canada’s old M113 tracked APCs were a successful supplement, but the Canadians appear to be leaning toward a heavier vehicle for their future CCV. (2) A new “Tactical Armored Patrol Vehicle” that’s similar to the blast-resistant vehicle buys in other NATO countries. (3) LAV-UP upgrades to the existing LAV-III 8×8 wheeled APC fleet completed the set. July 2009 saw the roster expand to add (4) “FME”: dedicated Armored Engineering Vehicles based on the Leopard 2 tank, and engineering-related attachments for Canada’s new Leopard 2 tanks.

The “Close Combat Vehicle” appeared to be the most urgent purchase, but Canada’s procurement approach wasn’t structured to deliver urgency, and CCV has suffered the most from that failure. CCV is now the last unresolved contract, but all 4 sub-programs failed to deliver vehicles in time to help Canada in Afghanistan. Even so, all 4 programs continue to move forward.

Rapid Fire Jan. 30, 2013: Defense Dealings Lack Transparency

• Non-profit Transparency International asserts [PDF] that a vast majority of countries exert little, if any, political oversight of defense policy or scrutiny of defense procurement. Only Australia and Germany are ranked as at “very low risk” of defense-related corruption, followed by 7 low-risk countries including the US and the UK. Unsurprisingly Saudi Arabia is the worst-ranking country among major arms importers.

• The Peter G. Peterson Foundation thinks the recent legislation passed in the US to avoid the fiscal cliff “does not come close to solving longer-run structural deficits, nor does it yield significant improvements to our 10-year budget outlook.” Even sequestration – which looks more likely each day – would only buy a few more years. Only taming healthcare costs can put the federal debt back to a sustainable course.

• US Undersecretary of Defense Ash Carter recently acknowledged in an interview with Defense News that the Pentagon and the services had been quietly working on sequestration planning for a while (despite their repeated claims to the contrary) in order to avoid a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the end it looks like pretending to be playing ostrich did not make a difference, but this explains why they do have some amount of guidance ready, like this memo and budget presentation [PDFs] from the Navy’s Chief of Naval Operations (via Navy Times).