[OT] Interesting Facts of Canadian Military Life

Glenn joked:
Canada has an army big enough to require 
Generals?  Oh,
that's classified, right?

[Tomb] Glenn, you probably don't realize 
this, but at one point, we had more 
generals (flag rank people) per soldier (non-
flag rank) than anyone else in NATO: 1 per 
1000 men in uniform. The nearest 
competitor was Denmark or someone with 
1 per 27000 or something like that. We 
actually joked about forming up an infantry 
company of flag rank officers at NDHQ for 
emergency purposes before we realized 
that the logistics tail would be... 
unmanageable to say the least. I think 
we've trimmed back some since the 
heyday, but the idea was that we'd have 
enough general staff to quickly fill out the 
forces in times of crisis (like maybe if WW1 
happened again....). This doctrine failed to 
note the fact that in today's world, trained 
*soldiers* is what takes time to produce 
and that you can't just stick a rifle in a guys 
hand and make him a good infantryman 
overnight. That takes time and training. 
And its worse in other trades. 

And as for your comments about the 
Militias just south of the border, that 
actually makes a surprising amount of 
sense. But acquiring surplus webbing in 
Canada (even to replace bits of your own 
issued kit that had "gone walkabout") was 
a challenge. I eventually ended up with two 
full sets, but it took me years to acquire 
them. And one whole set was 
"permanently borrowed" by someone in my 
unit who quietly faded out with no 
forwarding address. 

Besides, the Yankee Militias wouldn't like 
our gear for compatibility reasons. I don't 
think (haven't seen latest US LBE) that we 
use the same clip arrangements. US used 
ALICE clips far longer than we did. The sad 
part is, they might have been better. The 
webgear I used required certain pouches to 
be present to hook together at all (unlike 
most of the older yokes) and they used 
plastic clips which tended to get nubs 
broken off during installation. 

Now, mind you, the new load bearing 
equipment (the vests) look very cool and 
very adaptable, but I haven't actually got to 
handle any of those yet. And of course, I'm 
sure the pam for building your LBE is still a 
matter of need-to-know.... :) 

Tomb
"Too many generals spoil the army" 

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Mr. Thomas Barclay
Software Developer & Systems Analyst
thomas.barclay@stargrunt.ca
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