Getting back on track...
Your naval reserve personnel would get zero training benefit if you got rid of their MCDVs and made them gun crews on civillian crewed and commanded vessels.
Ex-Dragoon,
Are you saying this because these gun crews would not have the support of a CIC and the supporting sensors that a Frigate/MCDV would have? (other than the civilian radar,sonars and GPS used on civilian ships)
Or is it because you believe that naval detachments mixing with a civilian crew would probably affect their cohesion and discipline since they would be staying with them for the whole length of the cruise?
BTW, I mentioned the US/British/Commonwealth naval/naval reserve detachments on board merchant ships in Allied convoys during World War II- isn't that a good enough precedent/past example that naval crews' training doesn't necessarily deteriorate just because they are mixed in with civilians?
A good World War II example would be the SS
Stephen Hopkins, a US Liberty ship travelling alone in the Atlantic, whose naval "Armed Guard" gunners were able to defend the ship and even sink the German merchant cruiser/raider
Stier which attacked them.
http://www.usmm.org/hopkins.htmlI know this example might not apply in the modern world, but still, having naval detachments placed aboard the larger CCG fleet would allow us to kill three birds with one stone:
1.) Enforce Canada's sovereignty in the farther reaches of our waters (e.g the Arctic,) with the naval detachments aboard with the largest fleet already at our disposal- the CCG fleet.
2.) Some law enforcement missions (drug and illegal immigrant interdiction, which the US Coast Guard does)
3.) SAR and other normal Canadian Coast Guard duties such as fisheries patrol, ocean surveying and ice-breaking.
Of course, modifying the large CCG fleet with these weapons would not come without considerable cost since most of the current CG ships are not designed to have weapons installed, larger than the 50 cals of the CCGS
Cowley, not to mention the ASW suite and other criticisms you pointed earlier, as well as a government (whether Liberal or Conservative or whoever) willing to foot the bill of permanently installing weapons on these ships.
However, this may be a change worth considering for
future Canadian cutters and icebreakers. They could more modelled on the US Coast Guard cutters such as the
Hamilton Class cutters which are designed for BOTH SAR and sovereignty/law enforcement missions mentioned above. Even many of their smaller cutters are armed.
Since the Canadian Coast Guard is so resistant to "militarizing" as mentioned in the "Should the Canadian Coast Guard be Armed?" thread, why not just have Naval detachments aboard?
You may answer this by pointing out that with only 9,000 active duty sailors already spread throughout the bigger warships and the 4,000 reservists for the MCDVs, YAGs, Orcas and across the nation, we might not have enough sailors left to man those CCG ships, unless the navy grows bigger, or unless the MCDVs are retired and the reservists are transferred to those detachments on the CG ships.
In that case, one might then suggest that the RCMP instead increase the joint role it already enjoys with the CCG by having more permanent detachments aboard to be used in drug interdiction/illegal immigrant/law enforcement missions, along with permanently installed weapons such as 50 cals or possibly even training them to use 3-inch guns. This could also take care of the sovereignty enforcement function as well
without involving the Navy then. But then again, this other suggestion of increasing the RCMP's joint ventures with the CCG even to the point of having the be gun crews would be the subject of another thread. (*if the Mounties don't have enough personnel, then how about arming some Border Guards and training them in the same fashion as mentioned earlier for the Sovreignty function).
I am surely going to get a lot of flak for this, but I await your responses and criticisms.
Cougar
PS
Here's a little pic of one of the US Navy armed guard gun tubs in the
Stephen Hopkins's gun duel with the
Stier.
