Category Archives: canada

Tow Buggies!

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Now this looks fun.

Photo: Master Corporal Richard Lessard, Garrison Petawawa; Master Corporal Matthew Tower, Canadian Forces Combat Camera, Canadian Armed Forces

The above shows an experiment by the 3rd Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment (3 RCR), using Polaris MRZR ATVs as weapon carriers mounting TOW anti-tank missiles, Heckler & Koch GMG 40mm grenade machine guns (Designated as the C16 Close Area Suppression Weapon, or CASW), and assorted GPMGs, at Petawawa last month.

Photo: Master Corporal Richard Lessard, Garrison Petawawa; Master Corporal Matthew Tower, Canadian Forces Combat Camera, Canadian Armed Forces

Photo: Master Corporal Richard Lessard, Garrison Petawawa; Master Corporal Matthew Tower, Canadian Forces Combat Camera, Canadian Armed Forces

Photo: Master Corporal Richard Lessard, Garrison Petawawa; Master Corporal Matthew Tower, Canadian Forces Combat Camera, Canadian Armed Forces

Such vehicles could prove useful in a fast-moving RDF scenario, especially in Third World countries ala Kolwezi, a sort of modern version of the old 106mm recoilless rifle-armed M151 Mutt.

A simple concept is still well-loved in out-of-the-way parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America:

 

Now that is a good ambush position that American anti-armor teams of the 1950s and 60s will easily recognize.

And, don’t forget, the Marines swapped out their 106s for TOWs on their M151s back in the mid-1980s, so this is nothing new.

Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Regiment, fire a jeep-mounted tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided (TOW) heavy anti-tank weapon during Combined Arms exercises Five and Six. Wires used to guide the TOW missile can be seen extending from the barrel of the weapon, 5/1/1983 NARA 330-CFD-DM-ST-83-09020

Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 6th Regiment, fire a jeep-mounted tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided (TOW) heavy anti-tank weapon during Combined Arms exercises Five and Six. Wires used to guide the TOW missile can be seen extending from the barrel of the weapon, 5/1/1983 NARA 330-CFD-DM-ST-83-09020

DF-ST-86-07566

Those chocolate chips! U.S. Marines drive an M-151 Light Utility Vehicle from a Utility Landing Craft (LCU) to shore during the multinational joint service Exercise BRIGHT STAR’85. The vehicle is armed with a BGM71 Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missile launcher, 8/1/1985 NARA 330-CFD-DF-ST-86-07566

Of course, with such light-skinned vehicles, they are risky as hell, both in terms of offering no protection against any sort of incoming fire or shrapnel and in the basic fact that these will usually be driven by a 19-year-old gassed up on Rip Its and Sabaton. Plus, with all that extra top weight on vehicles already prone to rollover…yikes.

Cold Ranger, squishy date

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Some 80 years ago. Maybe.

“Crewmembers aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4) clean snow off of the aircraft during operations in the North Atlantic on 29 June 1943.”

Note the snow-dusted TBF Avengers, SBD Dauntless dive bombers, and F4F Wildcats, a very late 1942- late 1943 carrier air group. Via Hampton Roads Naval Museum. 

The date given is kind of specious, however.

While DANFS notes Ranger was in the Atlantic during this period, saying that between February when she made her fourth trip carrying Army P-40s to North Africa, and August when she chopped to support the British fleet’s operations in Norway she “trained pilots along the New England coast steaming as far north as Halifax, Nova Scotia,” her deck logs in the National Archives lists her as tied up at Buoy P-5 in Argentia, Newfoundland with part of her airwing (Air Group Four) ashore, rather than underway or even in a latitude high enough to have heavy snow at that time of year.

Further, the weather for nearby Gander for that day, while mentioning that temperatures dropped as low as 39 F degrees, it never dropped below freezing and no snow was reported, just light to moderate rain.

Air Group Four’s excellent website notes, “On April 2, she proceeded with Task Force 22 to Argentia, Newfoundland, arriving on April 4. Ranger operated with Air Group 4 in the Argentia area until early July 1943.”

This leads to the possibility that the picture was taken earlier in the year, as snow in Newfoundland is likely in April and even into early May, and the picture was just released (not taken) on 29 June.

Another possibility is that the photo is more likely from Operation Leader, the efforts against German forces in occupied Norway, and the Bodo raid a few months later. In that op, Air Goup 4 notes, “All hands became ‘Blue Noses’ having crossed the Arctic Circle on several occasions.”

Royal Navy battleship, HMS Duke of York, underway astern of USS Ranger (CV 4), September 1943 #80-G-88048 (2048×1641)

Either way, springing forward 80 years, we now have this very related video released by the Navy earlier this month of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford’s (CVN 78), launching and recovering aircraft in the Norwegian Sea while on NATO operations.

Forgotten Canadians: The WWII Veterans Guard

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With news that the Canadian military just this week has finally made progress on replacing their WWII-era Browning Hi-Powers, this 80th-anniversary image seems very relevant:

The above shows one middle-aged Corporal A.M. McLean of the Veteran’s Guard of Canada in June 1943. Clad in a  No. 2 helmet and armed with an American-made Reising submachine gun, his unit was tasked primarily with guarding Axis E-POWs in Canada.

At the time the image was taken, the force, composed largely of Great War vets still ready to serve in secondary roles, was at its height, numbering over 10,000 men under arms at a time when the country had a population of just 11 million.

A Canadian “Dad’s Army,” for sure.

As noted by the IWM:

On 23rd May 1940, it was announced in the Canadian Parliament that a Veterans Home Guard was being formed from men between the ages of 40 and 65, mainly WW1 veterans. The idea was to make use, for domestic security duties, of experienced personnel too old for active service overseas. Twelve companies, each of around 250 personnel, were to be formed initially, with a number of reserve companies formed in due course. The name was shortly changed to the Veterans Guard of Canada.

They would be named with a mix of Ross rifles, SMLE .303s, and P14 Enfields. 

Note the Ross rifles. “Inspection of Veteran Guard, Internment Camp 130,” Kananaskis, Alta., photographed by William John Oliver LAC 3514979

Veterans Guard members, including some very aged corporals, training with a SMLE No. 1. MKIII

On the march with American-made P14 Enfields

Members of the Veterans Guard of Canada pose for a color publicity photo in an Ottawa studio via the LAC

Veterans Guard of Canada member poses for a color publicity photo, complete with his Belgian Great War ribbons, LAC

Many stood guard over power plants, factories, and other sites considered potentially vulnerable but most were assigned as guards for prisoner of war and internment camps. Guarding these prisoners was initially the responsibility of the Canadian Provost Corps but in May 1941 full responsibility for them was passed to the Veterans Guard. It was to prove a significant undertaking. Britain had initially asked Canada to accept some 4,000 internees and 3,000 prisoners of war, but this soon increased to the point where, at its peak in October 1944, Canada was holding no less than 34,193 prisoners on behalf of the UK.

With the growth of tasks came the growth of the Guard.

By March 1941 there were 29 active companies with a total strength of 206 officers and 6,360 other ranks. Of these, 98 officers and 2,848 other ranks were guarding internment camps, the balance of personnel being employed in guarding vulnerable points and training. There were in addition 43 reserve companies with a total strength of 183 officers and 3,765 other ranks.

The Guard reached its peak of strength in June 1943, when its Active strength was 451 officers and 9,806 other ranks, which included 37 companies and 17 internment camp staff in Canada.

The Guard also served overseas. One served in Newfoundland, and another went to the UK as the General Duties Company at CMHQ in London.

In the spring of 1942, there was concern that ships carrying bauxite from the mines in British Guiana might be sabotaged while on the Demerara River. The British Government asked whether Canada could provide white officers and NCOs to supervise the locally recruited colored guards assigned to the shipping. No. 34 Company was formed for this purpose, comprising officers and NCOs only, and it reached Georgetown in June 1942. The posting was extremely unpleasant, as the ships were filthy and the weather sweltering. They were not withdrawn until January 1945.

The British Government also requested Canada to provide a guard for the Governor of the Bahamas, The Duke of Windsor. ‘N’ Force, or No. 33 Company of the Veterans Guard, was formed for that purpose in April 1943 and arrived in Nassau in June. They were relieved by a company of the Pictou Highlanders in the autumn.

There were other less routine assignments. In early 1944 the British Army Staff in Washington asked Canada to supply personnel to “conduct” mules from New York to Karachi. Four shiploads of mules were taken by Canadian Army parties between March 1944 and April 1945, four of which were provided by the Veterans Guard.

The last Veterans Companies were disbanded in 1947.

America’s Hat Gets its SIGs

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The Canadian Armed Forces have received its first batch of new 9mm pistols from New Hampshire-based SIG Sauer.

The CAF last October announced the planned acquisition of SIG Sauer P320 modular handguns in a $3.2 million deal for 7,000 pistols with an option for as many as 9,500. The SIGs are replacing World War II-vintage Maple Leaf-marked Browning-Inglis No. 2 Mk1* Hi-Powers that had been produced in Toronto during the conflict.

The Canadians adopted the Hi-Power in 1944.

The Canadian Browning-Inglis production was aided during WWII by FN’s exiled staff, with the BHP’s co-designer, Dieudonné Saive, helping with the technical package, making these unofficial clones. Ultimately, an agreement was reached to pay FN a royalty of 25 cents after the war for each gun produced.

The SIG pistols, type classified as the C22 in Canadian service, will equip the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Air Force, Royal Canadian Navy, and Military Police.

As I have been covering in past years, the country has been trying to replace the aging classics since at least 2007 with the government and military officials running hot and cold on the process numerous times since then.

The C22 is a P320 modular, full-size, 9mm striker-fired pistol. The C22 contract pistol enhancements included an improved ergonomic design, 17-round capacity, and a loaded chamber indicator that is visible to the user at any angle. (Photo: SIG)

Vale, Kyle Ronald Porter

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First off, I just want to say that much of the press about Fireforce Ventures came from left-leaning and much-skewed small Canadian media outlets looking to sensationalize on the merch the small milsurp company sold, which included a lot of Rhodesian brushstroke camo and replicas of old Rhodie flags and patches, and then take said merch and use it to characterize who sold it, which were a couple of Canadian Forces vets.

While I have no love lost for the old Rhodesian regime, and don’t rock any brushstroke myself, selling it it is certainly no worse than companies that sell tons of old Combloc stuff or repro/vintage German/Italian/Japanese/Soviet WWII stuff, or South African springbok gear no less.

With that caveat delivered, one of the co-founders of FFV, a former Canadian Forces Medic, was just lost in Ukraine while volunteering as a combat medic on the lines at Bakhmut. An admirable end for any man. 

An email from Hank at FFV, which has since pulled stumps and moved to Texas:

On behalf of the Fireforce Ventures Corporation, I must sadly remit news of the passing of my co-founder, Kyle Ronald Porter during the Battle of Bakhmut on 26 April 2023.

Kyle Porter and I were the original two founders of Fireforce Ventures. At the time of his death, Kyle was a combat medic in the Ukrainian Legionnaires Special Services Group, attached to Code 9.2, 92nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Ground Forces.

Kyle came up with our name, our logo, and the business mindset we still rely on. Kyle emphasized attention to detail, and a deep respect for the hard-won military heritage that comes with the word “Fireforce”. His contributions to FFV are immeasurable.

However, Kyle was a combat medic first and foremost. He volunteered in Ukraine several times. He served twice with a search and rescue team, before volunteering as a combat medic in the Ukrainian Army. Kyle plied his trade with gallantry despite the horrors of war.

Under intense combat conditions, he saved the lives of both servicemen and civilians alike, regardless of who they were. He also empathized heavily with the plight of the innocent, caught in the crossfire of war. He was a professional soldier through and through. I know for a fact, he did not fear death. Whe n it came, I knew he had a smile on his face.

Before Ukraine, Kyle had truly lived the life of a modern-day adventurer. Whenever Kyle was back from some adventure, diving the Scapa Flow wrecks, skydiving in Arnhem to commemorate Operation Market Garden, or ranging the African veldt on anti-poaching missions, we d always meet up. We’d sit and chat, often for hours about life, death and everything in between. In those talks, he told me to never mourn his death, for he welcomed it if his time was up.

I don’t know how I’ll be able to do that. I am crushed knowing that my best friend won’t return for a beer this time. He’ll never see Texas. He’ll never see where we end up.

Kyle was my best friend. I pray that one day, the full story of Kyle’s extraordinary 27 years of life can be told.

No matter how many cruise missiles and artillery rounds danced around Kyle over the last two years, he never feared anything. He told me that if his number up, it was up. He primed me for this almost a decade ago when we met in basic. He always faced life and death with the same lingering smile and devil-may-care attitude that characterized him.

Kyle would have been tickled to have gotten so many words of love from strangers he’d never met in the last few days. He never viewed himself as anything special, just another combat medic in a random conventional war. He told me to never grieve his death, as it was one he accepted fully. He’d say he was “dead a million years before he was born, and will be dead a million years after”. I know he’d want us to move on the best we can. We shut down for 24 hours when we broke the news over social on May 8th, but have since come back online, as Kyle would have wanted.

Make sure to please still consider supporting his family on GoFundMe in their efforts to repatriate his remains and bury him with dignity. You can contribute to the GoFundMe campaign at https://www.gofundme.com/f/318ubtq8y0

Thank you everyone for your understanding and support in this difficult time.

–Henry “Hank” Lung, Managing Director of Fireforce Ventures

C19s Making it Out to the Great North

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Rangers and their Enfields, circa 2016 Small Arms Concentration. (Photos: Corporal Doug Burke/Canadian Forces Joint Imagery Center)

The Canadian Rangers date from 1942 when the government was facing Germans landing in the East to set up weather stations and potential Japanese raids in the West. With huge tracts of ice and virgin forests open to invasion, the Rangers were recruited from loggers, miners, and trappers who lived in the wilderness.

Now, 5,000 strong and located in 200 often remote communities the Rangers are paid for up to 12 days of service per year as they keep up their patrols. However, these volunteers are still in large part armed with the same rifle they carried just after Pearl Harbor– the British-designed Short Magazine Lee-Enfield in .303. The guns currently in use are Canadian-made Long Branch Arsenal No. 4 MK. I* and EAL models.

(Photos: Corporal Doug Burke/Canadian Forces Joint Imagery Center)

Now, as part of a slow-moving program that was first debuted five years ago, the Rangers are finally getting their new rifles out to the patrol level.

Based on the Finnish Sako T3 CTR (Compact Tactical Rifle), the rifles have tweaks for the Rangers as they have to use their guns in whiteout conditions at -51 C weather.

Meant primarily for emergency hunting and fending off polar bears rather than parting the hair of a Russian submariner, the Colt Canada-made C19 rifle is definitely unique to the needs of those that use it.

Plus, it is chambered in 7.62 NATO/.308, which is much easier to source than .303 British these days.

Although long in the tooth, the Rangers have used their Enfields effectively in service competitions and in ceremonial duty. As a bonus, the vintage .303s that are being replaced will not be destroyed but rather passed on to museums, cadets for use in training, and then offered to serving Rangers as a donation/gift to preserve their heritage.

A Smoke and a Read

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105 years ago. February 1918. Offical caption: A Canadian soldier enjoys a few minutes with the Canadian Daily Record (Un soldat canadien prenant une pause, s’apprêtant à feuilleter le Canadian Daily Record).”

Note his SMLE .303 to Sergent’s left, a Mills Bomb and electric torch by his pillow for repelling trench-raiding stosstruppen, a gas mask and bayonet eternally at the ready; and a kettle and water can by his rope bed.

Department of National Defence. Library and Archives Canada, PA-002507

According to Veterans Affairs Canada, more than 650,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders served in The Great War– big numbers considering the country had a population in 1914 of just under 8 million. Canada suffered a staggering 66,000 killed and more than 172,000 wounded in the conflict.

Flip Trihey and The Irish Rangers (of Montreal)

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On 2 February 1916, General Order 69 authorized the 55th Regiment “Duchess of Connaught’s Own” Irish Rangers with recruiting starting in mid-March, just in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

In fact, to help drum up recruits among ethnic Irish in Quebec for the Overseas Battalion, the Montreal St. Patrick’s Society and the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society held a concert for the nascent unit on March 17th. It followed in the wake of the 110th Irish Regiment (now the Irish Regiment of Canada), which had been stood up the year before in Toronto.

Another public draw for recruits was the fact that the unit’s commander was Lt. Col. Henry Judah “Flip” Trihey, O.C., a lawyer and well-known center forward and team captain with the Montreal Shamrocks when they won the Stanley Cup back-to-back at the turn of the century.

Trihey’s name was printed on all of the recruiting posters, and a special “Sportsman’s Company” was raised, drawn from local lacrosse, track and hockey enthusiasts. 

Added to the unit’s leadership was Capt. William James Shaughnessy, the son of Canadian Pacific Railway president, Lord Thomas Shaughnessy, the latter an important donor when it came to funding Canadian units. Lord Shaughnessy had already lost his younger son to the Germans, Alfred, who fell in France with the 60th Battalion just a month after he arrived. 

Group of officers from the Irish Canadian Rangers, May 1916. Trihey and Shaughnessy are up front.

The unit shipped out as the 199th Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), aboard the liner/troopship RMS Olympic on 20 December, consisting of 33 officers and 860 enlisted.

Arriving at Liverpool on Boxing Day, the only “service” performed by the unit as a battalion was to take time off of training for a rambling two-month tour of Ireland, where it was used to help drum up additional recruits to “take the King’s shilling” and show goodwill.

Irish-Canadian Rangers in Cork in 1917

Irish Canadian Rangers, O’Connell Bridge, Dublin, 1917.

It should be remembered this was just after the April 1916 “Easter Uprising” and finding either was hard. 

Returning to England, the Irish Rangers were basically dissolved, amalgamated into the 23rd Reserve Battalion, CEF on 11 May 1917, forming the disingenuous 23rd Canadian Reserve Battalion (199th “Duchess of Connaught’s Own” Irish Canadian Rangers), and would never uncase its colors in France. Its men were sent out piecemeal as replacements for other Canadian units on the Western Front, resulting in Triley and several of the other senior officers resigning their commissions in protest.

Officially disbanded on 15 September 1919 and then reborn intermittently as a militia battalion, the unit’s history, along with several others created over the years in “The City of Saints,” is somewhat perpetuated by The Royal Montreal Regiment, whose flag carries 28 Great War, four WWII, and one Afghan battle honor.

As for Trihey, after the war he remained affiliated with assorted Canadian hockey teams and served as Commissioner for the Montreal Harbor Commission, passing in 1942, aged 64. He was posthumously inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1950 and is recognized as “the first man to utilize the three-man line and he also encouraged defencemen to carry the puck.”

Clowns and Mills Bombs

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78 years ago today, 23 January 1945: PVT Marcel St-Laurent of “D” Company, Le Régiment de Maisonneuve, clowns for the camera at Cuyk, Netherlands. Details of the fuze on the bottom of the No. 36 Mills Bomb grenade can be seen. The length of the cloth bandolier has been altered by tying a knot in it to make it shorter.

First introduced in May 1918 and updated in the 1930s, the No. 36M Mk I was the British Army’s standard hand grenade until 1972 and still pops up in Africa and the Middle East from time to time.

A Canadian UN soldier in Korea with a U.S. made M-1 Carbine and several British Mills bomb grenades.

As for the good PVT St-Laurent, the Montreal-recruited Régiment de Maisonneuve was first recruited in 1880 and covered itself in glory in both World Wars– where its members became well-acquainted with the Mills Bomb. When the top image was taken, the regiment had previously landed in France in July 1944 as part of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. It was bled white through the Battle of the Scheldt, and the Walcheren Causeway before reforming for the final campaigns in the northern Netherlands and the Battle of Groningen.

Infantry of the Regiment de Maisonneuve moving through Holten to Rijssen, both towns in the Netherlands. 9 April 1945. Lt. D. Guravitch. Canadian Military photograph. New York Times Paris Bureau Collection. (USIA) NARA FILE #: 306-NT-1334B-11

It endures to this day as a Primary Reserve unit, still based in Montreal, along with the better-known “Van Doos” of the 22nd Regiment, making up one of the few French-language units of the Canadian forces.

Ninth (and Third Frigate) HMS Glasgow to hit the water

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The planned class leader of the Royal Navy’s new Type 26/City-class “Global Combat Ship” frigates rolled off the hardstanding and onto the submersible barge at BAE Systems Govan last week.

She is set to be floated out into the Clyde in a very slow-motion launching ceremony at Glen Mallan, all very Scottish as one would expect for a ship that will become HMS Glasgow.

She will be the ninth such warship to carry the name, dating back to a 20-gun sixth rate that became part of the RN in 1707. Past Glasgows have included a 40-gun fifth-rate Endymion-class frigate that served in the late Napoleanic era, a Portsmouth-built wooden screw frigate that was so beautiful as to be used by Sultan Bargash of Zanzibar as the model for his royal yacht HHS Glasgow, two 20th century cruisers that fought in two successive world wars, and a Type 42 destroyer that fought during the Falklands.

An ASW-optimized ship, the Type 26s will run just over 8,000 tons, use a CODLOG configuration to hit a stately 26 knots (making them probably the slowest frigates since the circa 1960s Leander-class design), and armament that includes a 5-inch gun (rather than the 57mm pop gun on the planned U.S. frigates), 48 Sea Ceptor anti-aircraft missiles and a 24-cell VLS for everything else. They can also carry two Wildcats and only need a 150-ish-man crew to operate.

The British plan to order eight of the ships.

There is a lot riding on the Type 26s to work out, as both Canada and Australia have already ordered up to 24 copies for their own use (numbers likely to be whittled down due to budgetary reasons), something unusual for an unproven design.

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