The Armoured Corps (S5 E7)
Tanks attacking by themselves, highly vulnerable. Infantry attacking by themselves, highly vulnerable. Artillery just rolling around without any other support, highly vulnerable. It's all about the combined arms team. If we don't build that thing correctly, whatever arm is left, frankly, it's gonna die.
Capt Orton:Hi. I'm Captain Adam Orton with the Canadian Army Podcast. Wherever the infantry is, there's almost always their fire team partner, the Armoured Corps. They bring a variety of weapons and protection, usually in the form of vehicles. And while tanks are great, there's a lot more to the Armoured Corps.
Capt Orton:Here with me today is Colonel Fraser Auld, who is the director of the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps and he's gonna lay it all down for us. Welcome to the podcast, sir.
Col Auld:Thanks very much. Greatly appreciate the opportunity.
Capt Orton:So we've already talked about tanks a fair amount on the podcast, but modern armour is more than just tanks. What does the Armoured Corps in general bring to the table in the battlefield?
Col Auld:So I think if you look back in history, and I'll and I'll start in the past and bring us forward to the the present. Yeah. There's always been a requirement, and military commanders have always realized that they need a force that is able to move rapidly across the ground. So, of course, if you look back several 1000 years, this was generally folks who are on horses. This is typically what you would call cavalry.
Col Auld:And so cavalry forces have been around for a long time, and their their key attribute that they bring to battle is the ability to move quickly across ground. And so if you fast forward that to kind of the 20th century, due to some of the industrialization, issues, increasing weapon lethality, the introduction of the machine gun, rapid firing artillery, you end up in this space where you still need to be able to move rapidly across the ground, except these forces are now much more vulnerable to some of these new weapon systems. And so, of course, there's an operational problem that presents itself in World War 1, which is how do we break the stalemate? How do we move over machine gun swept terrain in a way where you're protected? And horse mounted cavalry of old, it just doesn't fit the bill anymore.
Col Auld:We still want to move quickly, but we need to do it in a protected fashion. And so, of course, you begin to see all armies beginning to experiment with novel ways of combining, newly introduced engines, with this idea of armoured plating.
Capt Orton:Right.
Col Auld:And you begin seeing the kind of introduction of some of these tanks, which was just a code word to kind of cover up the production of these vehicles. But you get this idea of protected mobility, something that can move, not rapidly at that time, but move across the terrain in a protected fashion. And so you bring that right forward to today where, you know, we have much better engine technology. We have much better designs, we have armoured forces that can move very quickly across very lethal terrain under protection, and that's really what armoured forces bring, the ability to move quickly in a protected fashion.
Col Auld:And because of the platforms, you can also put a lot of firepower onto that platform. So you end up with a force that combines mobility with firepower, with protection. And a force like this that can move quickly across terrain, exploit openings when they happen, put pressure where we need it, that's something that armour brings to the battlefield. Regardless of platform, that's really the core function is the ability to be agile, move rapidly, and take advantage of, opportunity.
Capt Orton:It's interesting when you're talking about the cavalry. In my mind, I immediately thought of, like, the different formats of cavalry of old. Like, you know, you have horse archers, which are fast, maneuverable, have good range of fire. You have, like, heavily armoured cavalry, you know, mounted knights that are charging down, and you have all of these formats. How does that exist in the modern battle space?
Col Auld:Yeah. And so what you ended up with at at the core of all those different forms of cavalry that you mentioned, at the core is still this idea of moving rapidly, like, regardless of whether you're an archer on horseback, you were heavily armoured or lightly armoured on horseback. Still at the core was this idea of mobility, rapid mobility. And so today, we still maintain that. You know, if you look across the armoured forces of the world, many forces organize themselves along kind of light armoured cavalry lines, medium armoured cavalry lines, and heavy armoured cavalry lines.
Col Auld:And within the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps, we are putting kind of the finishing stages on new doctrine that also begins to see us categorize our armoured forces into these light armoured cavalry, medium armoured cavalry, and heavy armoured cavalry categories. And each of those forces, they bring different things to the battlefield. They're optimized in different ways and optimized for different roles on the battlefield. But without question, they all have a utility on the battlefield.
Capt Orton:Would you often see the heavy, medium, and light platforms deployed at the same time in terms of battlefield geometry doing the thing together, or how do they work together, if at all?
Col Auld:Yeah. So the Army in the field, whether it's a division, choose the formation size you'd like, whether it's a corps, division, brigade. That formation is essentially an organism that has to be able to survive, fight, live on the battlefield, and it comprises of different pieces. And it needs all those pieces in order to kinda survive and fight. And the Armoured Corps actually provides a couple of of those pieces.
Col Auld:So if we took a look at a brigade, a brigade is roughly we'll call it 5000, 6000, just to put a number on it, comprises largely of there will be infantry, there will be artillery. And the infantry really focus on the close fight. Supporting the infantry is heavy armour cavalry, which are optimized for that close fight. But on the outskirts of the brigade, further out front, further on the flanks, there's the medium and lighter armoured cavalry, which have more mobility, and their job really is to find the enemy and shape the enemy for the main body of the brigade. So within the brigade, when its job is to close with and destroy something, it will use its armour battle group.
Col Auld:It will use its infantry battle groups to do that. But before it can do that, it needs something out there finding the enemy. And that's another thing that the Armoured Corps brings to the army is we're the ones from a ground perspective, a ground force perspective. We are the ones that are out front of the brigades and divisions finding the enemy, shaping the enemy, and setting the conditions such that the main body of the brigadier division can actually close in and conduct their assaults on those enemy positions and achieve the objectives or the missions that they've been assigned. So we don't just have a singular role.
Col Auld:We have multiple roles within a formation. So to your question, to circle back to that, on the battlefield, you'd actually see multiple types of armoured cavalry at the same time, but fulfilling different functions in different roles and in different spaces on the on the battlefield. Heavy armoured cavalry, which would be optimized for the close fight. And then on the outskirts, leading out front, you'd see the medium and lighter armoured cavalry, which is out there trying to find the enemy, shape the enemy, find routes, find bridges, find things that that main body of the division of the brigade needs to keep moving. So the Armoured Corps provides that as well.
Col Auld:Forces out front as well as forces within the main body that are optimized for close fighting.
Capt Orton:You know, in my mind, when I think about shaping the enemy, it's really the battlefield is a fog of war. You don't know what's in there. You don't know what's happening. And so when you talk about shaping the enemy, to me, what that means is having pieces out there that are detecting that and trying to figure out what's happening so that you have a general idea of what's happening there. Does that sound right?
Col Auld:So what I would say is that fits more into finding. So we have several key functions that have to happen on the battlefield. One of them is finding. We definitely have to find where the enemy is, and so we need a force that does that. And most armies, ours included, the way the doctrine works is the Armoured Corps provides the force forward that is actually finding the enemy, so that's a role.
Col Auld:But once you've found the enemy, what you need to be able to do is fix them and hold them in place so that the main body can then close in with them. But, additionally, you're not just trying to hold them in place. You're trying to shape them or set conditions, attrit them, cause them to move in a way you need to so that you can have an advantage as the main body closes in to conduct the assault or go around them or whatever your your mission is. You need to shape that enemy that you found such that you can actually achieve your mission or win. And so sometimes, simply smashing into them is not good enough.
Col Auld:You may need to cut down the ratio of their forces. You may need to force them to move. That's how you may need to shape them, get them to move somewhere such that you have an advantage to close in and destroy them. And so shaping, you know, it's a term we throw around a lot. It really just means setting the right conditions so that you can win.
Col Auld:And most of the time, the enemy is not gonna cooperate with you. The enemy has a vote, and so finding them is hard and then shaping them so that you can beat them. That is also hard. That is a deliberate action to shape them. And then actually getting into them and defeating them, that is also hard.
Col Auld:You know, everything on the battlefield looks simple, but it's all hard, and that includes finding, fixing, and shaping, and then ultimately closing with and destroying. All of those stages have to happen. They all need a force that does that, and they're all difficult because the enemy gets a vote.
Capt Orton:One of the many things I've learned about being in the military is you notice that different countries do things ever so slightly differently or in some cases, a lot differently. How is the Armoured Corps organized in Canada?
Col Auld:So one of the biggest kind of I'll call it, an evolution within the Armoured Corps that we have ongoing right now is we're moving from what used to be a symmetric corps. So we have 3 regular force regiments, and we have 18 reserve regiments within the Armoured Corps. In total, just a little bit more than 5,000 positions, all of which are not filled. And our regular force regiments, at least for most of my history in the army, have been very symmetric. They all looked the same.
Col Auld:But currently, we're working to centralize all our heavy armour under one single regiment, and our other 2 regular force regiments are beginning to optimize more in the medium armoured cavalry and light armoured cavalry spaces. So that is one thing that we are beginning to do, move to a non symmetric core that other allies have also done. Their armoured core or their armoured branch, if you look across it, is not identical. The components of their armoured branch are optimized to fulfill specific roles on the battlefield. So we are kind of moving now in that direction, which is the right thing for us to do, and it also happens to be the thing that, kind of our key allies and partners have already done, actually.
Capt Orton:I would say that mirrors to an extent for those that are familiar with the infantry structure is at the brigade level, like, let's say, 1, 2, 3 PPCLI, while 3 is more of jump capability, and then 2 has different roles, and sometimes 1 has different roles depending on how that's coordinated. So now we're just doing that within a Corps level reorganization.
Col Auld:Essentially, that's right. And there's many benefits to it. First of all, putting all the the heavy platforms so the heavy armoured cavalry in Canada is centered on the Leopard 2 family of vehicles, the Leopard 2 tank. The Leopard 2 is maintaining them, making sure that they're in running order, they're ready for training, they're ready for deployment. It is a major effort to keep those platforms ready to go.
Col Auld:By centralizing them all, and they're being centralized in the West under the Lord Strathcona's Horse Royal Canadians, a regiment, in Edmonton. By centralizing the Leopards within that regiment, it allows us also to kind of pool and focus maintenance support, all the sustainment that's required to keep those vehicles running. It also allows us to focus if we needed contracted support or support from manufacturers. It gives a real focus to that to make sure that we can have the best fleet of functioning tanks as possible. And that that is underway now, and it will take us a couple of years to accomplish that.
Col Auld:But, ultimately, the army made the decision last year that those tanks would be centralized. And over time, we have to adjust the organization and structure of the Strathcona's a little bit because a a regiment that is fully based on tank needs a specific kind of maintenance footprint, a specific sustainment footprint, which is a little bit different than the other 2 regular force regiments that are kind of on medium or lighter vehicles, And so that work is ongoing right now to make sure that the Strethconas are set up with all the heavy platforms that we have. And, as well, we're working to make sure that the Royal Canadian Dragoons in Petawawa and, the Dusiem in Belcartier, the 2 regular force regiments that are more medium and light, to make sure that their structures are looked at and their equipment is looked at so that they are best suited to perform kind of a medium armoured cavalry or light armoured cavalry role on the battlefield. So the armour core is gonna be not symmetric, but that is purposeful, and I think it will suit the army well.
Capt Orton:And when we discussed that the heavy platforms is tanks, obviously. For us, what are the medium and light platforms?
Col Auld:So for us right now, the primary medium slash light platforms and, you know, there's a debate around this, but we have LAV 6, which is also, you know, very heavily resonant across the army and the infantry battalions and other units. But we have a combination of LAV 6, TAP v, which is the tactical, armour patrol vehicle. We still have some Coyote that are out there, which is a, LAV 2, 8 by 8 platform. They're at the end of their life, and they're slowly being kind of divested over time. Mhmm.
Col Auld:But those are the 2 main platforms, kind of LAV 6, TapV. There's a number of support vehicles as well, obviously. Yeah. Of course. We have, g wagons and a variety of trucks and kitchens and things like this, fuel trucks.
Col Auld:And, you know, the armour corps is a very platform focused corps. We work to fight mounted. That's what we bring to the army, you know, the ability to move rapidly. Agile, we fight mounted, And so we need platforms, and there are always platform challenges. But I think that there are some moves underway between centralizing the Leopards with the Strathconas along with some possible future initiatives that will see the Armoured Corps, our platform fleet kind of getting healthier and healthier as we go forward, which is something we need in the Armoured Corps again as a very platform based core for the army.
Capt Orton:You know, you're talking about the kind of platform based approach in the labs in particular, like, I had a chance to spend a lot of time in the lab. I got to drive a lab and recognized infantry operations is a unique experience that make you sometimes feel like basically Armoured right? If the Armoured Corps is operating in LAVs and the infantry is operating in LAVs, what's the difference between those two things?
Col Auld:Yeah. So the platform does not define the battlefield function, you know? And the reality is is that the infantry's core job is to fight dismounted. Some armies out there have armoured infantry.
Capt Orton:Mhmm.
Col Auld:Some forces out there just call them mechanized infantry. The reality is at the core of the infantry's function, it is to fight dismounted, close with and destroy, dismounted. The infantry is the only force that is optimized to do that. Armour, we fight mounted. We have to shape the environment, set the conditions so that the infantry can actually make it to the objective, dismount, and do what they're supposed to do, which is fight dismounted.
Col Auld:And most of the evidence out there shows kind of infantry alone can't fire their way onto an objective. It's all about the combined arms team. But I do find that some people get distracted by the fact that, well, we have the same platform as you. Yes. But you focus on different roles on the battlefield.
Col Auld:And it's the role and function on the battlefield that matters, not the platform. You need a platform for the infantry. The Armour Corps needs a platform. The artillery need platforms. This is the way it works, but we all fulfill mutually supporting roles.
Col Auld:And in fact, some of the images, some of the lessons, observations from what we see in Russia's war against Ukraine. If any side is unable to conduct combined arms properly, whatever arm that is just hanging out there by itself is highly vulnerable. Tanks attacking by themselves, highly vulnerable. Infantry attacking by themselves, highly vulnerable. Artillery just rolling around without any other support, highly vulnerable.
Col Auld:It's all about the combined arms team. If we don't build that thing correctly, whatever arm is left is, frankly, it's gonna die. And so the modern battlefield is way too lethal. Weapons are way too precise. The combined arms team is the answer, and so we have to focus on and, of course, these are my opinions.
Col Auld:We have to build the army to be balanced so that we have a lethal combined arms team. That's the goal. That's the key in my opinion.
Capt Orton:You know, maintenance on armoured vehicles is intensive. It takes a lot of time, takes a lot of effort, and a lot of resources. What does the Armoured Corps look like for a reservist, generally speaking?
Col Auld:Yeah. And that's really a great question. So within the army, of course, there's a one army approach. You know, the intent is a very integrated force between the regular force and the reserve force. That is mirrored within the armour corps.
Col Auld:We have a one corps approach, and the way that we think about this kind of conceptually is that the regular components of the Armour Corps or the reserve components of the Armoured Corps, we should be able to work together. So we could see regular folks moving to support reserve. We could see reserve folks moving to support regular, regiments. And so the idea is is to have this very integrated core. The challenge becomes, as you brought up, within the vehicle space.
Col Auld:You know? So when we start talking about vehicles for the reserves, a lot of our platforms in the Armoured Corps are maintenance intensive. Some of them require special tools, require special facilities to maintain, which frankly are just not available at all locations across Canada. So could we have Leopard 2 reserve regiments? It would be difficult because of the weight of the platforms, the requirements for maintenance and special tooling, etcetera.
Col Auld:However, with that said, the idea within the Armoured Corps is to ensure that the reserve force, they have access to platforms that are more easily maintainable for them and are more easy to train with given the realities of kind of reserve life, reserve access to training areas, reserve access to maintenance. I don't think it's something that we've completely cracked yet, and it's something that we continue to work on, frankly, is finding a good solution for armoured reserve regiments. The reserve regiments are very energized in this. They're doing great work to figure out how do they best partner with local regular force regiments. As an example, some of the Toronto area units have great relationships with the Dragoons up in Petawawa.
Col Auld:Or, some of the western reserve regiments have great, relationships with the Strathconas at Edmonton, etcetera. Right. And so by establishing these relationships as well between reserve regiments and regular force regiments, They're able to piggyback on each other's training opportunities. So you do see reserve units providing crews, providing possibly troops, etcetera, into regular force regiment exercises. You see regular force, folks supporting reserve regimen exercises.
Col Auld:And so life as a reservist within the Armoured Corps, it can be challenging to get access to the the platforms that you would like to have access to, but there's definitely work afoot to make that more available, make sure that the training that can happen is happening. But I don't think we fully cracked that yet. It's something that we have more work to do, not just us, but within the army, we have to do more work on that.
Capt Orton:And I would guess also when you're building core skills, those core skills are transferable to a certain extent across multiple platforms. And they're just like, let's say, weapon systems in the infantry or whatever is. You may not know everything about another weapon system, but if you have the basic functions of how to load, unload a weapon, make it safe, understand that those are the steps that you have to do with any weapon system, I'd imagine that transfers very well in the armoured department in terms of even things so much as tactics and things like that.
Col Auld:Yeah. And so that's what the reserves focus on really is. There are not just basic army skills, but basic Armoured Corps skills, living and fighting as a crew, map and compass skills, controlling fires. There are many basic skills that reserve regiments continue to focus on, such that when they go off to train, either their own training or they integrate with regular force training, Like you said, those core skills are completely transferable. And to be honest, the army is pivoting towards Latvia heavily, and the reserves are gonna be a a critical component, not just for the army, but within the armor corps to make sure that the army can deliver on the requirements for Latvia.
Col Auld:And so these core skills that the reserve regiments focus on make them easily integrated within these rotations. So our reserves, their training program, their qualifications, all of those pathways are the same as the regular force for us. Mhmm. The tactics the reserves use are the same tactics the regular forces use. And so by by having this kind of one core approach through training, through core skills, battle test standards, It makes us very integrated, regular to reserve, reserve to regular.
Col Auld:It really does help us with the one core approach.
Capt Orton:And what are the expectations for that upcoming deployment? Like, what is the armored corps gonna be providing to the team in Latvia?
Col Auld:So the armor corps actually has to force generate for every rotation going to Latvia. So every single rotation, the Strathconas will have to generate half a squadron for the heavy armor cavalry squadron that is in Latvia. And the way it actually is working now is every rotation that will go out the door for the first few rotations will be essentially a half squadron size. And so that's roughly we'll call it 60 soldiers, 65 soldiers from the Strathconas. Every single rotation will have to rotate into Latvia because there are Leopard twos in Latvia, and so every rotation needs a fresh wave of leopard 2 qualified members of the the armor corps.
Col Auld:Additionally, there's also a cavalry squadron in Latvia as part of the commitment, and this is more in the medium light role. So what that means is every rotation, either the dragoons in Petawawa or the Dusium in Feklharcier, they will also have to generate around 60, 65 folks to head over to Latvia. And so every single rotation to Latvia, the armor corps will be generating forces to land in 2 spots in Latvia, either heavy armor cavalry or the medium slash light role. And so it will be demanding. We will be drawing heavily on our armor reserve units to support this because this commitment is expected obviously to last for many years.
Col Auld:Yeah. And so every rotation, the armor corps is implicated in Latvia. We have people in the army who wanna operate. We don't wanna just be sitting in Garrison. We wanna be in the field soldiering.
Col Auld:Soldiering's hard business. We need people ready to operate because the army is about to go into a period of high tempo and constant operations, and we're gonna feel that within the armor corps. Check your kit.
Capt Orton:You know, to the untrained eye, I think a lot of people may not notice that there's been some evolution in, let's say, armored vehicles, even the difference between, let's say, a a Lab 2.5 Coyote and the Lab 6 platform. You know, from an outsider looking in perspective, you might just be like, yeah, big wheels, big gun. What has evolved in terms of these platforms over the past couple of decades?
Col Auld:First of all, I'll say, you know, I've made reference to heavy armored cavalry, medium armored cavalry, light armored cavalry. The one thing I would throw out there is the word heavy, medium, and light, that is not specifically about physical weight. Okay? That refers to the role that that particular force is optimized for. And within history, within our world, there's an accepted idea of this thing called the iron triangle.
Col Auld:You end up when you're designing forces or you're buying platforms, you're trying to balance mobility, firepower, and protection because whenever you kind of overweight one of those, you usually have to give up on 1 or the other, and so it's a constant battle to weight those and balance those. And so if you were to look at heavy armored cavalry, this is kind of a force that is optimized more for close combat. The close fight, hence, it would have a heavier weighting more on firepower and protection, and so you'd have to give up a little bit on the mobility side.
Capt Orton:Right.
Col Auld:Whereas if you look on the other end of the kind of armored cavalry spectrum and go to a light armored cavalry force, this is a force that would be optimized more for wide ranging movements and maneuver, maybe on a flank, operations on a flank or rear area. So you're able to reduce the amount of firepower, reduce the protection, but enhance the mobility piece. And so, you know, you you look to optimize your forces based on the role that you see them playing on the battlefield. The reason I throw all that out there is what we're seeing in terms of the evolution of armored vehicles is this idea of trying to manage the iron triangle to make vehicles, as an example, more lethal. So greater firepower, greater protection, greater mobility, but lighter physical weight.
Col Auld:Mhmm. So you would end up with a vehicle that would still be optimized for close combat. So it would still be a heavy armored cavalry vehicle, but the physical weight of it might be half the weight of today's vehicles. And so there's armies out there and there's manufacturers out there that that is their design challenge. Like, I want a vehicle that is better protected, more firepower, and can move better than today's tanks, but I want it to weigh less than 50 tonnes.
Col Auld:And so people are going after that with new armor technologies, different gun systems and ammunition systems, better engine technologies, including active protection systems. Instead of just typically armor is thought of, well, I need more protection. Let's just make the armor thicker, which then just makes the vehicle physically heavier.
Capt Orton:Yeah. Thick metal.
Col Auld:That's a And then it ends up you know, you can't fly it anywhere. It can only go on a ship. It takes forever to get anywhere. You can't maintain it. We're gonna see what is considered a heavy vehicle optimized for close combat.
Col Auld:The physical weight's coming down, And you're gonna see what is considered a light vehicle, still light, but you'll see their firepower is kinda coming up. And so my point with all this is this is where the future of armored vehicles are. The future of armored vehicles is also in optional crewing. So a lot of the armored vehicle developments that we're seeing, it is a vehicle that perhaps has a 2 person crew, or you don't have to have a crew and it can be remotely controlled or it can be automated. So we're beginning to see this kind of collaborative combat approach where you have uncrewed vehicles, whether they're in the air or on the ground.
Col Auld:You have uncrewed vehicles, several of them that are controlled by a crude vehicle, and this little grouping forms a little combat grouping on the ground. And sometimes you can also have that crude vehicle not being crude, something further back controlling it. So there's a lot of movement towards not just uncrewed and automated platforms, both in the air and on the ground, but also optionally crude platforms. So the idea of kind of remote control, hover tanks, or something like this, you know, it used to be really science fiction. There are companies out there.
Col Auld:There are prototypes out there of uncrewed, remotely controlled, automated systems that can fight on the ground. Are they perfect? Not yet, but they're in development. They're working towards them. You can find them open source on the Internet.
Col Auld:There's a lot of very incredible kind of developments in the armor vehicle space, not just for the armor core, but for the infantry. Infantry fighting vehicles are undergoing an evolution. Artillery platforms are undergoing an evolution. But ultimately, there's a lot of exciting development in that space, and and, we wanna be part of it.
Capt Orton:As you're describing kind of that development and the iron triangle aspect, a lot of military members, I would say, are familiar with the scene in the movie Pentagon Wars where we're talking about the development of the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle. And, the iterative design process of adding features and in a really challenging way, let's say. If you haven't seen it, you gotta look up the clip. It's pretty entertaining. And I know we've come a long way in facing those problems sometimes, but other times, not so much.
Col Auld:Yeah. I know. And and so, you know, when the US was developing the big five in the in the eighties or finalizing the big five, the Bradley is was one of them. Some of those lessons are being used to improve the way things are evolving today. So one of the big terms is this idea of new platforms have to be future proofed.
Col Auld:Yeah. They can't be expected to be perfect platforms right off the line. They have to be built in a way that as we learn or as some new technology, you can rapidly just upgrade the platform without requiring a complete redesign. So even the way these vehicles, these future platforms are being created, it's being done to make them more adaptable. As we learn and new things are discovered, you can rapidly upgrade your platforms.
Capt Orton:We've seen that with the LAV 3, actually. Even while I was in theater, variants were coming in that were heavily upgraded from the way they were previously.
Col Auld:Yeah. And that's the way that we'll go. And for whatever it's worth on my side, what I try to influence is, you know, we don't need the perfect solutions. What we need to do is get to good enough, snap the chalk line, get it moving forward, and then we can improve these things over time by upgrading modules, changing out this, changing out that, making it better as we learn. But if we just keep waiting to design a perfect solution, you'll never end.
Col Auld:Yeah. You know, technology is just changing way too quickly. We need to move forward with something.
Capt Orton:Perhaps to wrap things up, what is one of those things for the armored corps that your average person outside would not know what that thing is or, you know, that secret, let's call it?
Col Auld:That's a good question. And there'll probably be people that wanna debate with me about this, but, Always. So, you know, the reality is is within the armor corps, not everybody can do it. When you're trying to crew command a vehicle or you're part of that vehicle crew, there's a lot of inputs. You know, you're trying to watch where is the enemy, where are there just physical dangers, cliffs and potholes and and swamps, what is my crew doing, where are my fire team partners, Where's the combat team?
Col Auld:Where where is the battle group? You're trying to do all of that while also navigating off a map, screaming fire orders at your crew or giving direction to the driver. All of that is happening simultaneously. There's a lot that you have to do all at the same time. So for folks in the armor corps, a real strength is the ability to multitask and do these things quickly because you're moving across the ground very quickly.
Col Auld:The situation in front of you is changing very quickly. They have to think fast, multitask quickly, understand what the heck's going on really quickly, and our people do that very well. And so, you know, the Armor Corps, it has its challenges right now. We're working through some of them with respect to platform availability and other things like this. This is no surprise to anybody.
Col Auld:We do have a way to move this forward, and we're getting after it. But, the armor corps is definitely a great place to be. It plays an important role on the battlefield. And without question, we need good people coming into the corps ready to work, ready to operate, and ready to help us through the demands of the next decade. As we service every single rotation to Latvia, we need people with their bags packed and ready to go.
Capt Orton:Well, I guess if there's any takeaway, that's it. Is if you want some action in the armored corps, it's happening.
Col Auld:I'm ready to go. Like, I've got my bags packed just just in case I get called. Let's go.
Capt Orton:Nice. I love it. Well, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it.
Col Auld:Yeah. Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it.
Capt Orton:That was Colonel Frasier Auld, director of the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps. And I am Captain Adam Orton for the Canadian Army Podcast. Orton out.