CBC:
Canada will send a third shipment of lethal weapons to Ukraine as its military continues to fight off better-armed Russian forces, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday.
“Yesterday, we announced that we would be sending new shipments of military supplies, including body armour, helmets, gas masks and night vision goggles,” Trudeau said. “Today we are announcing that we will be supplying Ukraine with anti-tank weapons systems and upgraded ammunition.”
This is so dumb on so many different levels. First of all, none of this is any sort of exotic weaponry. The only reason why the Ukraine Army wouldn’t have massive stockpiles of this stuff is purely due to incompetence. Secondly, what Ukraine needs is another entire airforce, complete with the already built airfields to launch these planes from.
Trudeau said the Canadian Armed Forces will provided airlift support to transport supplies and aid and to participate in other NATO efforts in support of Ukraine.
The Canadian Military is going to provide airlift support… in an air space entirely controlled by the Russians. Right. It’s possible what he means is strategic airlift, which is possible, but completely irrelevant and unnecessary.
If you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me explain it thusly. You’re Arnold Swarzenegger in the jungles of Bolivia, and you’re being chased by the Predator. You’ve realized that resistance is futile, so you need to run. So you run to the clearing while screaming “GET TO THE CHOPPAAAAA!”.
The original script read as “get to the tactical airlift,” but Arnold couldn’t pronounce that correctly.
Now let’s say you’re the Takanori Corporation, and you hear about this exciting happening in Bolivia. There’s Arnold Swarzenegger fighting off an alien. You want to get to Bolivia and be a part of this, and you also want to bring your entire research team, along with a small mercenary band, and tens of thousands of pounds worth of equipment. Hell, you even let this one treasure hunter come along with you. What’s the worst that could happen?
For a tangible example, the AH-6 Little Bird Helicopter is a tactical airlift vehicle. It seats a maximum of four plus the pilots, and they have to sit on benches outside the cockpit. The maximum cargo weight is less than 1,000 lbs. The range is stated at 400km, but is almost certainly less than that with a full load. The purpose is to get infantry into and out of sticky situations. And maybe transport the occasional half-pallet of goods.
A C-17 Globemaster can carry a payload of well over 150 people, and up to almost 200,000 lbs. It has a range of 4,500 km with a 150,000 lbs payload. The purpose is to move massive quantities of goods from one continent to the other.
Despite the name “airlift,” these vehicles don’t really have anything to do with each other. Canada isn’t providing any tactical airlift, since we’re not providing any soldiers, and Russia controls the airspace either way. If that could magically be provided, that would be of extreme utility to the Ukrainian Army, since it would make the encirclement of their military completely ineffective. Again, I stress that this would be magical, and isn’t on the table anyway.
In contrast, Canada is just offering to fly random goods from all over the world to Ukraine, where they won’t be able to reach the frontline anyway. Russia has gone with the slower strategy of encirclement over the mass casualty inducing horrors of hard urban fighting, so it’s hard to transfer large amounts of goods on the ground. Anything you try to fly over will just get shot down, since the Russians have great ground based Anti-Air vehicles, and they own the skies, having destroyed the Ukrainian airbases.
And all of this just to “provide,” or rather pretend to provide basic items that the Ukraine Army should have massively stockpiled many times over. But you know, gotta do your part for Freedom Democracy, which in this case means not accepting Ukrainian refugees.
Looks like team wahmen to the rescue!
First, Defence Minister Anita Anand said Canada is sending weaponry such as 100 Carl-Gustaf anti-tank weapons, with 2000 rockets. Second , Minister Melany Joly is in Warsaw negotiating a deal to transit said weapons thru Poland, and ensure they get into the “arms” of Ukraine soldiers “fighting for their motherland.” Last, Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko — “who, like many Ukrainians, has said she has armed herself to defend her country” — is going to fight “the biggest army in Europe”, and that she “can’t survive without more weapons from Canada and its allies.”
About time wahmen organized and fought a war, I say; although it will likely have all the excitement, drama and relevance of other wahmen team endeavours such as hockey, soccer, or handball.
It also shows how LARPy the whole thing is, with them all talking about taking up weapons. The military needs trucks and other logistical vehicles and personnel. The ratio of soldiers to non-combatants is around 20:1, so I’m pretty sure x military doesn’t need your rifle. But since “I’m going to do trucking for the military,” isn’t sexy, they all LARP like they’re RAMBO.