[Thanos]

With the cost of ripping out the Russian electronics and installing NATO/NORAD grade systems, not to mention adding in the extra goodies for specialized Canadian "kit" (i.e. spend five times as much on your own item as the stock item costs) as the cock-eyes at DND Procurement love to do, the final price of getting Russian equipment would probably end up as being no cheaper than it is right now to buy from the Americans. Aside from cheap thrill of telling the salesmen from outfits like Lockheed (as well as their greased-up payola-consuming pals at Procurement) to go to hell there's really no benefit to dealing with the Russians. Unless they still owe us a major favour in the form of a few billion dollars for when we were sending them free wheat back during the Cold War to prevent them from having a famine there's no way we come out any farther ahead than we would from dealing with the slicksters in the US.

[Gunnair]

Thanos Thanos:

With the cost of ripping out the Russian electronics and installing NATO/NORAD grade systems, not to mention adding in the extra goodies for specialized Canadian "kit" (i.e. spend five times as much on your own item as the stock item costs) as the cock-eyes at DND Procurement love to do, the final price of getting Russian equipment would probably end up as being no cheaper than it is right now to buy from the Americans. Aside from cheap thrill of telling the salesmen from outfits like Lockheed (as well as their greased-up payola-consuming pals at Procurement) to go to hell there's really no benefit to dealing with the Russians. Unless they still owe us a major favour in the form of a few billion dollars for when we were sending them free wheat back during the Cold War to prevent them from having a famine there's no way we come out any farther ahead than we would from dealing with the slicksters in the US.

One doesn't necessarily need to buy all of the Russian hardware. One can buy hull, propulsion and basic weapon systems or not. One can certainly explore options.

[Gunnair]

commanderkai commanderkai:

Gunnair Gunnair:

Which goes back to the original assertion of trolling in return for musing on a hardware procurement process no one has a say in.

Stupid. Hence the COD devotee suggestion.

Because I rarely ever see people argue non-Western equipment as a viable option for the Canadian military. Commonly, I see it as a way to stick it to the Americans (for whatever reason), and because it's cheaper than Western counterparts.

I'll add this question here...Gunnair, putting aside your sarcasm , I actually do respect your opinions, even if I disagree. In the unlikely event of actual conflict, or hell, even the relatively likely event that relations between Canada and Russia sours, for whatever reason, how would Canada handle acquiring spare parts from a nation unwilling to sell them to us?

Obviously this scenario hypothetically exists with our relations with the US, and with Europe, but it's far less likely than with Russia, in my opinion.

It depends on what you buy. One can begin with a hull and nothing more. Fit it out with western equipment. Tell ya what though, talk to engineers and see how hard it is to find spares for some our western systems now. Some parts aren't even made anymore. You can guess how much it costs to have them individually made for us., eh? Think subs.

Buy a modern Russian system and stock up on spares before it goes sour vice buying an old system that has no spares at all.

We could buy US, that's what I'd prefer; two squadrons of Arliegh Burkes would be fine. We'll pay through the nose though and a glimpse at the over run costs of their latest generation DDG doesn't bode well.

[commanderkai]

Gunnair Gunnair:

It depends on what you buy. One can begin with a hull and nothing more. Fit it out with western equipment.

Wouldn't this just lead to the same issue of needing to procure spare parts for 50 year old equipment because they're not being made anymore? Let's say, hypothetically, Russia would be willing to sell airframes for the PAK FA, wouldn't we need to procure specific electronics, propulsion, and other equipment that can fit within the airframe specifically designed for us? Won't that make it extremely costly? Then, you'd have to find, or build a facility devoted to assembling the aircraft...is that really worth the effort?

$1:

Tell ya what though, talk to engineers and see how hard it is to find spares for some our western systems now. Some parts aren't even made anymore. You can guess how much it costs to have them individually made for us., eh? Think subs.

Well yeah, we require parts for military equipment that would probably be deemed as obsolete by most other Western allies, and major corporations that produce military equipment will not be willing keep labor and capital invested just for Canada, who has a bad tendency to underprocure in the first place. I don't see that changing even if we use non-Western equipment, especially if we can't just use off the shelf equipment with Russian based hulls and airframes.

[saturn_656]

commanderkai commanderkai:

Well yeah, we require parts for military equipment that would probably be deemed as obsolete by most other Western allies, and major corporations that produce military equipment will not be willing keep labor and capital invested just for Canada, who has a bad tendency to underprocure in the first place. I don't see that changing even if we use non-Western equipment, especially if we can't just use off the shelf equipment with Russian based hulls and airframes.

Under procuring for us is getting to be a bad habit. Despite being quite late to the EH 101 club we have the highest hour 101 airframe in the world. Most countries tend to buy larger fleets and rotate airframes in and out of service to spread the hours around. We on the other hand buy just enough to get the job done and run them into the ground or run them past their service life. All of our E model Hercs should be retired by now but some of them accumulated ridiculous hours over their lives, it was quite some time ago but I remember reading about an E model that hit 45,000 hours and was the highest hour Herc of any model anywhere.

Our active Hornets are also racking up the airframe hours quickly since 1/3rd of our fighter force was needlessly put out to pasture and left unmodernized.

[bootlegga]

Gunnair Gunnair:

One doesn't necessarily need to buy all of the Russian hardware. One can buy hull, propulsion and basic weapon systems or not. One can certainly explore options.

This was the same argument used when they bought C-17s instead of An-124s. Given that the new model Condors use western avionics and engines, finding spare parts for most of it shouldn't have been that hard.

The C-17 isn't a bad plane at all - it's just godawful expensive to operate, which was why DND still leased 'inferior' AN-124s for transport (when we were still in Kandahar).

It also doesn't help when you buy a plane like the C-17 and shovel a couple billion to contractors from Boeing to maintain it instead of doing it ourselves like we used to do with every other plane we owned. That's one of the reasons why we spend close to a quarter of our defence budget on contractors.

[Jabberwalker]

$1:

there's really no benefit to dealing with the Russians. Unless they still owe us a major favour in the form of a few billion dollars for when we were sending them free wheat back during the Cold War to prevent them from having a famine

... and. of course, the convoys full of supplies and armaments that we delivered right to their door in Murmansk ...

[Jabberwalker]

commanderkai commanderkai:

I can't tell if people actually think buying Russian equipment is a feasible option, or if they're just trolling. Why not Chinese if we're considering Russian? We might get some better deals from them.

Let's just hope there's never a flareup in East Asia, or in the Arctic that ever involves either of them, since we'll be somewhat screwed for spare parts and replacements.

The Russians seem to do some things very well and one of them is aerospace (remember the last US manned space mission?). It is not a stretch to say that they make the best performing and most robust aircraft on the planet. They, as we do, have to cope with the vast geography of their country and some of their aircraft would have the range and "survivability" that the RCAF needs to patrol our huge and hostile country. American aircraft (the F-35, anyway) appear to have crossed a threshold whereby their complexity and the difficulty of keeping them up in the air during a real conflict may just cancel out any technological advantage that they carry. They may be gosh-gee-wiz right out of the box but the warranty is really short.

Anyway, we don't necessarily have to buy the aircraft themselves from the Russians. They could be produced in Canada under licence (we still have that capability) and with ground-up fabrication, we would install our avionics, perhaps engines during assembly without great expense added. Also, if we make them here, a supply of spares is less of a problem. I think that the idea has some merit ... perhaps for naval helicopters, as well.

[saturn_656]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Gunnair Gunnair:

One doesn't necessarily need to buy all of the Russian hardware. One can buy hull, propulsion and basic weapon systems or not. One can certainly explore options.

This was the same argument used when they bought C-17s instead of An-124s. Given that the new model Condors use western avionics and engines, finding spare parts for most of it shouldn't have been that hard.

The C-17 isn't a bad plane at all - it's just godawful expensive to operate, which was why DND still leased 'inferior' AN-124s for transport (when we were still in Kandahar).

It also doesn't help when you buy a plane like the C-17 and shovel a couple billion to contractors from Boeing to maintain it instead of doing it ourselves like we used to do with every other plane we owned. That's one of the reasons why we spend close to a quarter of our defence budget on contractors.

The reason the AN-124 was relatively cheap for us to use is because we wet leased them. Paid civvie pilots to move cargo in a civvie grade jet. If we wanted AN-124's of our own for the RCAF with western avionics, engines, defensive systems, generally built to our standards, they would get more expensive guaranteed.