BATUS vehicles on the move in Canada

[Robin Craig]

Many people are unaware that the British Army has a large training area at Suffield, Alberta.

The vehicles are rotated back to the UK and new kit is sent out.

These vehicles have been seen during transit this fall.

Apologies for the poor quality, time of day is not of my choosing for best photography and I am using a cell phone.

the first is a Warrior infantry fighting vehicle and the second is a CVRT Scimitar diesel.

R

[Robin Craig]

These two are a King trailer and an MAN wrecker, very impressive both of them.

R

[Robin Craig]

More of the wrecker

R

[Neil Ashley]

Did I read somewhere that BATUS was closing or did I imagine it?

With the size of the British Army now and other training areas in europe becoming available it must be hard to justify the cost.

[Dano McLaren]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

[Robin Craig]

Neil,

I know nothing of the dollar figured charged as rent by Canada, but I can tell you that the size of BATUS is huge and the ability to do live fire battle runs with armoured infantry and support weapons is a huge value.

Considering the money sunk into infrastructure and vehicle hangars I would say it is unlikely but to be honest things change and who knows some former eastern european country might just offer the same facilities at a fraction of the cost and only a cross channel ferry ride away.

I do know the opportunity to snap these vehicles is thanks to the bean counters. All this stuff used to travel in one train but now is trucked in onesies and twosies.

R

[rob love]

I think we Canadians traded the Suffield wasteland for some gently used submarines. We thought we were making like bandits, but in the end it may have been the Brits who got the better of the deal.

All kidding aside though, when the time comes that a better deal is had by a military, they do not throw good money after bad. The Germans here in Shilo (GATES) had some terrific workshops, with huge overhead cranes. There was a lot of good shop equipment, PMQ furnishings, etc etc, that all went onto the chopping block. We used to line up at 7 in the morning in November waiting for the sales to open. Workbenches were $5 each....$10 if they had a vice on them. Work platforms were also $5 each, and mess hall stacking chairs were $1 each, with hundreds to be had.

As to the buildings themselves, if the Canadian Forces wanted to use any of them, then we had to pay book value for them. As a result, most were demolished while some were sold off to be moved. I picked up a few good buildings very cheap back in those days.

Of course, all the military pattern vehicles went back The only things we bought from them vehicle wise were the German Commanders staff car (an old full size LTD which I think we paid $1 for and sent off to CADC a few months later), a couple of the unimog range control trucks (also sent to CADC within 6 months...we made money on those) and their fairly new MCI scenic cruiser bus, which I think may still be kicking around the base. A number of German military bicycles were sold off through CADC as well, I think Gordon Falk got one.

End of the day, when it's time to go, it's time to go.

[BCA]

Rob,
What about all the auto union Mungas that showed up in Manitoba in the very early 1980's. Weren't they sold by German army. Perhaps you heard about how they were sold. Through Crown Assets? I have one of these ex-German Mungas and it still runs well.
.... Brian

[rob love]

Brian
I do remember when the Mungas were surplussed. CADC will act as the disposal agency for foreign government assests located in Canada. I have even seen them sell off American assets. The Germans (thru CADC) also regularly sold off the unimogs and the much larger MAN trucks, as part of their normal fleet rotations. Seems to me I heard something about a problem with duty not having been paid on the vehicles during the time of import. Not an issue if you take the vehicle home after you are done with it, but if it gets disposed of in Canada, then there was an issue. I think the same thing occurred for quite a while with the British vehicles form Suffield as well, where they were tagged "for export only".

But in the last few years that the Germans operated in Shilo, they were running their newer fleets, like the Mercedes G-wagon. None of those were released here, but rather taken back to Germany.

The thing that amazed us about the Mungas was that when they went, they were complete with batteries, mirrors, soft tops, and even the operators tooling. We seemed to treat all our DND surplus vehicles as a parts source, which surely affected the final sale prices.

[maple_leaf_eh]

The British Army calls their exercises in Suffield Medicine Man. From the accounts I've read, the units get a lot out of their exposure to big open terrain, live fire exercises and relatively few restrictions. Not like Salisbury Plain, where every second grid square has a medieval village or semi-endangered gorse bush. Not saying these things don't deserve full protection, but when the troops are learning how to fight big manoever elements, having to read the ROEs continuously get in the way.

One book I read recently was by the former CO of the Irish Rifles. He got his name in the news later in Iraq for belittling a boorish US Army Reservist and for fist fighting with an Iraqi insurgent. The CO duking it out with a bad guy! The thread of the book was how the battalions were on a constant rotation of garrison, overseas training and operations. A twenty year career in a line infantry unit might have had 2 or 3 Northern Ireland tours, adventurous training every 2 or 3 years in some place really exciting, and since 2002-3 predictable tours to Iraq and Afghanistan.

It used to be common to see trains of BATUS vehicles on the Prairies. During the height of the Mad Cow disease crisis, a shipload of vehicles was quarantined in Montreal because there was UK mud on them. Just when Canada was trying to get rid of one disease in our beef producing regions, another one almost slipped in.