General Hillier fails to rid the Canadian Army of tanks
In October 2003, Lt.-Gen. Rick Hillier, then commander of the Canadian Army, told journalists that Canada was taking its Leopard tanks out of service and instead was going to purchase the U.S. Stryker Mobile Gun System, a wheeled vehicle.
Hillier told reporters the Army’s Leopards had served their purpose and, despite undergoing a $145-million upgrade, were now of limited use. The vehicle of the future was instead the Mobile Gun System, which Hillier, an armoured officer, dubbed state-of-the art and a “war-winner.”
“A mobile gun system is the right vehicle for Canada’s Army and will provide an excellent capability on Canadian Forces operations,” Hillier said. “We are losing a millstone that has hamstrung our thinking for years,” he added, referring to the Leopard.
Hillier dismisses concerns
Hillier dismissed concerns from some opposition politicians who warned the decision would put the lives of Canadian military personnel at risk and place the country on par with Luxembourg and Iceland, two nations at the time which also saw no need for heavier armoured vehicles.
Some in the armoured corps were not happy with the Mobile Gun System (MGS) purchase, but said little publicly. Studies by the Canadian Forces in the late 1990s had already called into question replacing the Leopard tank with a lighter armoured vehicle, similar to the MGS. The outcome of one of those war game simulations warned that using such a vehicle would not only cost Canadian lives but would be “morally and ethically wrong.” A few officers, however, stepped forward to question the purchases in internal memos and professional publications. But it was difficult to push back against Hillier, who was solidly behind the plan to get rid of the main battle tanks.
Mobile Gun System faces harsh criticism
It was a 2003 comment by a retired general that set off the most extensive and dogged defence of the MGS from the Canadian Army leadership. Responding to a Canadian Forces report that showed U.S. tanks played a key role in the Iraq war, then retired brigadier general Jim Hanson ridiculed the MGS purchase in an Ottawa Citizen article.
“The Americans drove their tanks into downtown Baghdad where RPGs bounced off their armour,” said Hanson. “Buying the Stryker — that’s insanity.”
Hanson also argued that Canada’s Leopards could be upgraded at a lower cost than the MGS price tag and still provide the Army with armour protection and firepower for years to come. Hillier responded a short time later with a 1,000-word rebuttal in the Ottawa Citizen. He called Hanson’s comments “a distortion” and characterized critics of the MGS as “armchair strategists” who “preferred it the old way.”
Warfare had changed, according to Hillier. No longer was the Canadian Forces facing the Russians, he noted in his rebuttal. Instead, it was up against “snakes,” a reference to terrorists and insurgents. “Tanks are a perfect example of extremely expensive systems that sit in Canada because they are inappropriate to the operations we conduct daily around the world,” Lt.-Gen. Hillier wrote in his rebuttal. “The MGS, in conjunction with other combat systems, will give us a much greater capability on operations such as those being conducted in Kabul, and still give us options for high-intensity combat.”
Hillier also directly linked the MGS purchase to the future transformation of Canada’s Army. “This transformational process to counter the Snakes that are prevalent around the world is unsettling to some,” he wrote. “They would appear to prefer that we stop the process of change irrespective of the dramatically different threat.”
That, argued the general, would be illogical.
A short time later, the Canadian Army under Lt.-Gen. Andrew Leslie asked that the MGS project be killed. And in Afghanistan it turned out that Canada did need Leopards to kill the “snakes” so tanks were sent.
PHOTO: Members of Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) conduct a live-fire range with their Leopard 2A4 main battle tanks during Exercise Steel Lance in the 3rd Canadian Division Support Group Detachment Wainwright training area, in Wainwright, Alberta, in 2023.
CREDIT: Corporal Daniel Chiasson, Canadian Armed Forces.
