Returning the favour

[Bill Murray]

Forgive me for I have sinned, or in this case sinning.

What in the bloody hell are the Canadians going to do with 100 MBT vehicles, even if they were given them for nothing, in today's potential conflict environment????
Now, and I suspect in the near to mid/long term future, we are dealing with insurgent situations, ethnic purging situations, religious purging situations etc. etc.

There are no more standing armies such as we faced during the "Cold War", I suspect there will be no set piece battles such as we have not seen since the 1970's in the foreseeable future.

Personal opinion only my friends, but it is my feeling that the development of IEDs and now Super IEDs and the proliferation of RPGs that any deadhead can fire off have made MBTs and a hell of a lot of other similar vehicles pretty much redundant.

Even my own country's Stryker vehicles are pretty much prohibited from straying too far from the fold of a nice safe enclave because they are so vulnerable to IEDs and RPGs.

All due respect to all of you tankers out there, and by the way all of you Arty guys as well, but warfare as we know it has taken quite a turn, again, my personal opinion.

As frightening as it may seem, I see in the short term future a lot of activity by aircraft/missiles and less and less reliance on boots on the ground. Most of the countries we represent here do not want to look at casualty lists of soldiers/marines/sailors involved in a senseless ground conflict.

Just my opinion, and I would not want to see the maintenance bills on those "prisitine" Leapords in a few years.
Bill