Saturday, July 1, 2017

Canada Day




I've always wondered why it is named the Canadian Army, without the word Royal?  And yet they name the other services the Royal Canadian Navy and Royal Canadian Air Force?

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12 comments:

  1. LeonJuly 2, 2017 at 3:28 PM

    I suspect that it's the legacy of being a British colony. The army is the lesser service when compared to the navy in importance (you don't really need the army if the navy keeps the enemy off of your shores) - hence 'Royal Navy'. Can't explain the RAF tho. Maybe Royal patronage? Or it could be a class thing? Most if not all of the WWI pilots would have been from the upper half of society, it wasn't until WW2 that you had flying sergeants (or equivalent) if I remember correctly.

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  2. UnknownJuly 3, 2017 at 12:33 AM

    The same is true in the British Army. Various regiments received the honour 'Royal,' but not all.

    The RAF and RN are single entities, but the Army is a collection of regiments going back a quite long time. And not all of them have always been loyal to the Crown :-D

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  3. mikeJuly 3, 2017 at 8:44 AM

    Carl G appears to be correct. I contacted my wife's niece working in Toronto, and she got the following answer from one of her colleagues. "In the Canadian Army, the Royal designation applies to in the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, the Royal Canadian Dragoons, the Royal Canadian Regiment etc. etc."

    She also mentioned (as Carl implies) that it goes back to the English Civil Wars when regiments loyal to Charles I and later Charles II had the word "royal" in their name. And later it applied to most if not all Commonwealth nations, not just Canada. Even though those nations had no part in the Civil Wars, they got the designation for honors in battle.

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  4. AelJuly 3, 2017 at 3:00 PM

    "Royal" is a title granted by the sovereign. For example, the Canadian Air Force (established 1920) was granted the "Royal" title in 1924 and became the Royal Canadian Air Force.

    In 1968 the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Force were merged to form the Canadian Armed Forces. Note that the "Canadian Armed Forces" have not been granted the the "Royal" title. Royal (and other titles) can show up at multiple levels of the hierarchy.

    So, for example we have the "Loyal Edmonton Regiment" (earlier simply the "Edmonton Regiment") being the fourth battalion of "Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry", part of the "Royal Canadian Infantry Corps", part of the "Canadian Army", part of the Canadian Armed Forces.

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  5. mikeJuly 3, 2017 at 3:24 PM

    Thanks Ael! Hope you had a good 150th.

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  6. mikeJuly 4, 2017 at 10:05 AM

    They should give the 'Royal' designation to Canadian sniper detachments

    https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/G2e2dIgwZNrXY1yYrZ5XETCwz_o=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8741353/Screen_Shot_2017_06_23_at_2.44.17_PM.png

    How in hell they trained up to make a shot from over two miles is beyond me. When I was young and sharp-eyed, I was always in the bull ring at 500 yards (~457 meters). But that is a long way from 3540 meters. And the rifle they use, TAC-50, supposedly only has an effective range of 1800 meters. Although I am assuming the Canadian special forces have an unique model engineered especially for their use.

    http://www.military-today.com/firearms/mcmillan_tac50.htm



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  7. AelJuly 4, 2017 at 1:15 PM

    Ya, our government is playing it too cheeky by half. We don't have a combat mission but our guys always seem to be standing real close to the folks who *do* have a combat mission.

    So, we end up with a compromise: don't put enough effort into our activities to satisfy our allies and lie to the Canadian people about what little we are doing. Sad but typical Canadian politics.

    Anyway, I spent the long weekend canoeing the North Saskatchewan River. Blue skies and an abundance of eagles, pelicans and beavers. A much better way to spend a weekend than yelling at my monitor.

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  8. mikeJuly 4, 2017 at 2:48 PM

    Ael -

    Sounds like you were well upstream of the oil spill. Or has that been cleaned up?

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  9. AelJuly 5, 2017 at 5:36 AM

    We were about 300 river kilometres upstream of the start of the spill. As I understand it, the spill was "mostly" cleaned up by October 2016 when all the river communities were again pulling drinking water from the river. However, cleaning up a river is hard and I understand that Husky is still actively involved.

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  10. mikeJuly 5, 2017 at 8:05 PM

    Ael -

    We down here are hoping that TransCanada's XL pipeline is not using the same design and same contractors as Husky did. Does Husky have a percent interest in XL I wonder? Although I'm sure that does not matter. There will be spills regardless.

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  11. mikeJuly 6, 2017 at 8:48 PM

    Canadian Armed Forces Brigadier General Dave Anderson gave the CJTF-OIR press briefing earlier today. Says the coalition will likely stay in Iraq after the Mosul op is complete for anywhere from 12 to 18 months. Full transcript below. DVIDS (or youtube) will likely have a video copy posted soon.

    https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript-View/Article/1239622/department-of-defense-press-briefing-by-brigadier-general-anderson-via-teleconf/

    https://twitter.com/CJTFOIR

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  12. mikeJuly 10, 2017 at 10:00 PM

    Here is the BGen Anderson brief to the Pentagon press corps. Kind of dated as it is from six days ago, but they only brief once a week or ten days or so.

    https://www.dvidshub.net/video/536738/oir-update-brief-with-bg-anderson-canadian-forces?sub_id=145150&utm_campaign=subscriptions&utm_medium=email&utm_source=145150&utm_content=asset_link

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