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Scott Taylor: New Arctic vehicles on order; here’s hoping much-needed fleet actually acquired

With the recent Liberal government promises to dramatically boost defence spending, there has been renewed public interest in what equipment and weapon systems should be prioritized for purchase.

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This increased scrutiny quickly lays bare the fact that almost the entire arsenal in all three major combat branches needs urgent renewal.

The current debate over a choice of fighter jet to replace the CF-18 Hornets makes one realize the Royal Canadian Air Force has been operating the current fleet for over four decades.

The ongoing competition to acquire up to 12 diesel-electric attack submarines from either Korea or Germany highlights the fact that the Royal Canadian Navy struggles mightily to keep even one of our four old Victoria-class submarines operational.

The Ottawa Citizen reported that the Canadian Army is pushing ahead with a procurement project to acquire up to 170 domestic Arctic mobility enhancement (DAME) vehicles.

The proposed timeline would see a request for proposal go out this year and a contract issued by 2027. Delivery of the vehicles would begin in 2032.

When discussed in April 2025, industry representatives were told by the Defence Department that the budget would be $100 million to $249 million. However, that has ballooned to an estimated $500 million to $1 billion on the DND website.

The specifications for the DAME project are that the vehicle has a crew of two and be capable of carrying at least eight fully equipped soldiers. They need to have a range of 300 kilometres and be able to operate without support for 72 hours.

Bidders will need to offer four separate variants of the DAME; a troop carrier, a command post, a cargo carrier and an ambulance. Technically, the fleet will be replacing the army’s Arctic-capable fleet of Bandvagn (BV) 206s.

In the early 1980s, Canada acquired 78 of these vehicles from Swedish manufacturer AB Hagglunds and Soner.

As an all-terrain amphibious carrier designed for crossing wetlands and soft snow, the BV 206 is an excellent vehicle. Its design is based on a split-cab single-drivetrain system, which allows it to negotiate tough cross-country conditions without increasing the ground pressure beyond that of a walking man.

To achieve this, the BV 206 relies upon a lightweight fibreglass chassis and extra-wide rubber tracks. The primary rationale for Canada buying the BV 206s was to operate them in the High Arctic, not so much in Canada but in Norway.

In the 1970s, at the height of the Cold War, Canada was pressured by NATO allies to a larger commitment to European security than the mechanized brigade and three fighter squadrons based in West Germany. The compromise solution was to create the Canadian Air Sea Transportable (CAST) brigade.

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In theory, in the event of a Soviet invasion of Norway, Canada would airlift a rapid reaction force to northern Norway while Norwegian roll-on, roll-off transport ships would convey the bulk of the CAST brigade across the North Atlantic.

The core element of the CAST brigade was 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group, based in Valcartier, Que. The RCAF also pledged to deploy a couple of squadrons of CF-5 fighters to the airfield at Bardufoss in northern Norway. It was an ambitious plan that failed miserably the few times full-scale exercises were attempted.

To expedite the rapid deployment of the air-transported advance guard of the CAST brigade, the bulk of Canada’s BV 206 fleet was predeployed in storage facilities in Norway.

Unfortunately, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Canada let the BV 206 fleet more or less lapse into oblivion. There are 47 of the original 78 still on the books, but only about 18 of those vehicles are still in running order. The remainder of the fleet is cannibalized for parts.

A little-remembered fact is that at one point Canada planned to build and operate a fleet of 800 of a Canadianized version of the BV 206. It was part of a policy plan to create a “Total Force” mix of regular and reserve units.

At that juncture, the Canadian militia numbered around 20,000 and the plan was to grow that to 40,000. The BV 206, renamed the Northern Terrain Vehicle, was to be the transportation workhorse of this expanded militia.

Hagglunds of Sweden partnered with a Canadian company called Foremost Inc., and the 800 NTVs were to be built in Calgary. That all got scrubbed with the post-Cold War budget cuts by the Mulroney Conservatives in 1991.

The $200-million budget for the NTV was cancelled but not before the government forking out roughly $45 million in cancellation costs to Hagglunds-Foremost, which had already begun construction on an assembly facility in Calgary.

Let’s hope that this time around, the Canadian Army actually acquires a much-needed capability if we are serious about operating in the High Arctic.

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