“Missed Opportunity”: Operation Broadsword, 4 Brigade and the Gulf War, 1990–1991

The decision not to deploy 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade (CMB) to participate in the Gulf War may eventually be of interest to students of Canadian defence policy. The current lack of available material on this subject will no doubt attenuate such efforts. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief, and very tentative, discussion of relevant factors contributing to the decision not to go. In essence, the following should be considered a “toe in the water” rather than a “headlong dive.

Incursion at Howz-e Madad: An Afghanistan Vignette

On 20 June 2007, Canadian and Afghan National Army forces supported by Dutch and American air forces conducted one of a series of incursions into the Zharey District west of Kandahar City. This incursion, called Operation SEASONS, was representative of operations undertaken in the summer of 2007 by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in this area and is an evolution from how Canadian ground forces have been employed since they were re–introduced to the region in 2005. This account is based on the personal experiences of the author who observed these combat operations while they were in progress

The Mobile Striking Force and Continental Defence, 1948–1955

The need to project land force power within the confines of the northern portion of the North American continent may appear, at first glance, ridiculous in today’s world. In the early years of the Cold War, both Canada and the United States gave credibility to a land supported air threat to North America and took steps to meet such a contingency. The Canadian response was to configure the small, almost token, active Canadian Army into an airtransportable formation called the Mobile Striking Force (MSF). Some have suggested that the creation of the MSF and its operations in the 1948–1955 period was not only a waste of resources but distracted the Canadian Army from training for other, more important tasks which would become apparent in the 1950s.1 This may be an accurate assessment, but only in hindsight. The MSF did provide many positive benefits within the greater context of post-1945 Canadian defencec policy. The aim of this study is to examine the MSF’s organization, mission and planning in order to provide insight into these positive benefits

Dr. Strangelove Visits Canada: Project Rustice, Ease, and Bridge, 1958–1963

During the Cold War, many NATO governments developed highly secret contingency plans to maintain the continuity of government (COG) during and after nuclear attack. Canada was no exception. COG planning generally consisted of several elements including legal mechanisms and constitutional matters; document duplication and storage; skeleton bureaucracies; dispersion; transportation; and shelter. All were necessary to keep Canada functioning as a nation in the face of an attack by Soviet atomic and hydrogen bombs. The most misunderstood element of COG planning has been the shelter component. Critics of civil defence programmes argued that protecting government leaders in shelters and not providing similar facilities to the population as a whole was “undemocratic,” designed to maintain the “power elite.”1 The reality of Canada’s COG programme was quite different from this propaganda line and its ability to protect the country’s leaders in underground facilities was much more limited than alleged. This study will concentrate on the strategic context, physical arrangements and concepts of operation developed to maintain the continuity of Canadian government in the era of the greatest danger during the Cold War, 1958 to 1963

Operational Manoeuvre Group: Operation SOHIL LARAM II, Kandahar Province, February 2008

In February 2008 Regional Battle Group (South) in Afghanistan, based on The 1st Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles supported by Canadian “enablers” and working with Afghan national security forces, conducted a mission known as Operation SOHIL LARAM II in the Maywand district of Kandahar province. A weak NATO presence coupled with a corrupt police force had allowed the Taliban to turn Maywand into a safe haven. Following the dismissal of the police force, Op SOHIL LARAM II was successful in disrupting Taliban operations, reasserting government authority and regaining the confidence of the local population. In addition, the disruption of Taliban forces allowed the relief in place of Canadian battle groups to proceed without the usual interference

Operational Manoeuvre Group: Operation SOHIL LARAM II, Kandahar Province, February 2008

In February 2008 Regional Battle Group (South) in Afghanistan, based on The 1st Battalion, The Royal Gurkha Rifles supported by Canadian “enablers” and working with Afghan national security forces, conducted a mission known as Operation SOHIL LARAM II in the Maywand district of Kandahar province. A weak NATO presence coupled with a corrupt police force had allowed the Taliban to turn Maywand into a safe haven. Following the dismissal of the police force, Op SOHIL LARAM II was successful in disrupting Taliban operations, reasserting government authority and regaining the confidence of the local population. In addition, the disruption of Taliban forces allowed the relief in place of Canadian battle groups to proceed without the usual interference

Lower limb stiffness testing in athletic performance: a critical review

Stiffness describes the resistance of a body to deformation. In regards to athletic performance, a stiffer leg-spring would be expected to augment performance by increasing utilisation of elastic energy. Two-dimensional spring-mass and torsional spring models can be applied to model whole-body (vertical and/or leg stiffness) and joint stiffness. Various tasks have been used to characterise stiffness, including hopping, gait, jumping, sledge ergometry and change of direction tasks. Appropriate levels of reliability have been reported in most tasks, although vary between investigations. Vertical stiffness has demonstrated the strongest reliability across tasks and may be more sensitive to changes in high-velocity running performance than leg stiffness. Joint stiffness demonstrates the weakest reliability, with ankle stiffness more reliable than knee stiffness. Determination of stiffness has typically necessitated force plate analyses, however, validated field-based equations permit determination of whole-body stiffness without force plates. Vertical, leg and joint stiffness measures have all demonstrated relationships with performance measures. Greater stiffness is typically demonstrated with increasing intensity (i.e. running velocity or hopping frequency). Greater stiffness is observed in athletes regularly subjecting the limb to high ground reaction forces (i.e. sprinters). Careful consideration should be given to the most appropriate assessment of stiffness on a team/individual basis

Development of a small scale tire for vehicle dynamics research

An approach for developing a tire suitable for performing small scale vehicle dynamics research is discussed. This will allow for physical verification of vehicle dynamics modelling and controls in environments where a full scale prototype is either not feasible or too large an investment. Currently, scale vehicle research is limited by the availability of tires on the desired scale, which are typically sourced from the radio controlled (RC) vehicle industry. Use of these tires, however, results in poor similitude between the representative scale vehicle and the full scale vehicle. This is due to variations in the behaviour of the scale tire to the full scale tire. An existing analytical tire model known as the cornering force self-aligning torque model (CF/SAT), is analyzed and modifications to the model are proposed to allow it to be used for non-dimensional tire parameterization. The model is then non-dimensionalized, using Buckingham Pi theory, to allow for comparison of small scale tire performance to large scale tire performance. A static load-deflection tire testing apparatus named the Windsor Automotive Tire Tester (WATT) is also developed. This machine is used to analyze if it is possible to determine the CF/SAT parameters for a given tire without the use of full scale tire dynamic studies and regression analysis. A DUBRO 5.00 T.V. RC airplane tire is then parameterized and modelled using relationships derived from the static tire data. The results of the tire model are compared with experimental data of the DUBRO 5.00 T.V. tire in order to analyze the effectiveness of the approach. It was found that it was possible to estimate some tire parameters using this method, however, more research is required to fully parameterize the tire using static load-deflection data