Quite a few years ago an American friend of mine who was US Navy wrote the below comment in response to another American who was never in the military:
Begin
My views on the Canadian Armed Forces.
I worked with their Navy in Operation Desert Storm, and Desert Shield. Refueled and replenished many times from Canadian supply vessels, while in the North Pacific doing surveillance ops off of Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk. Ours weren't ready for cold-weather ops. That is ALL they ever do.
They may be small, but in comparative size, they're our equals, and in some respects, better. Since they don't do "power projection", they don't need aircraft carriers, and the cruisers and submarines designed to protect them.
What they do is coastal patrol, and anti-submarine warfare, and at surface and air ASW, the Brits and the Canadians are the best, with us coming in a close third. They routinely track Los Angeles class subs, but don't publish it, and we pretend that they don't.
Their airforce is first rate, ours is just arrogant, because of size and numbers. Their CF-18 pilots don't just do barrel rolls. They bomb the shit out of their targets in air to surface exercises, in all weather conditions. They waxed our asses (Exercise Northern Fury, in 1991), where 8 CF-18's put 9 (simulated) missiles into the USS Nimitz, while our planes were grounded because of visibility. Yeah, the f***ing Canuck bastards cheated, because their airfield was in clear weather, but they flew in at 100ft off the deck, and were 25 miles inside missile range, before they were detected by our (expensive and modern) cruisers. We were able to (simulate) shooting down 7 harpoons, and 2 of their aircraft, but (theoretically) lost a very valuable aircraft carrier. The world's 12th largest airforce, was wiped out, by 8 planes.
In air to air, they're the equal or better than our first rate squadrons. Sometimes we have a better day, sometimes they do. Flip a coin. But no-one going up against the CAF takes them lightly.
I've never worked with their ground forces, but I know many soldiers, SEALs, and Marines who have, and THEY don't make jokes about the Canadians. They're just damned glad to see them.
So Dogg... while I'm just as partial to making jokes about the Canadians, and their "peculiar" ways, don't knock something that you don't know much about. I don't particularly care for their politics, but I'm damned glad to know that there is a friendly, and competent group hanging out to the north of us.
