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Ho Hum

The Canadian military has admitted that new sleeping bags issued to troops last year were not suited to “typical Canadian winter conditions”.

Sigh.

20 thoughts on “Ho Hum”

  1. It recommended loaning the troops some of the army’s original Arctic sleeping bags, which were first acquired in 1965.

    Surely that won’t work, due to all the global heating that has taken place since 1965.

  2. And the wicked truckers will be burning all that evil fossil fuel to keep themselves warm while the poor old soldiers freeze.

    That’s cheating!!!

  3. Canada is being overrun with bears.

    Couldn’t the government capture some and give each soldier his own personal ursine to cuddle up to at night ?

  4. John Galt:

    Certainly much of their training will be in Canada. In the north, which is most of the country. Often in winter, which is a large part of the year.

    I’m just wondering whether some %$^%$^ in the bureaucracy said “The new ones won’t need as much insulation because of global warming.” And it was treated as gospel of course.

  5. Plenty of bears I Canada I saw about 15 in a 3 day roadtrip a few months ago. Bear hunting was bannned around here and now they are complaining about the big increase in the number of bears that have had to be shot by the authorities last 12 months when they became a danger in public areas, who would ever have expected that

  6. Total BS. The sleeping bags went through a rigorous testing and selection process. Far right climate denier soldiers are as usual disinforming that cold and snow exist in a Russia-involved attempt to disrupt upcoming elections.

  7. I wonder where these sleeping bags were made? With the bean counters increasingly infesting government procurement (no, not THAT sort of procurement), perhaps someone realised that buying cheap Chinese made sleeping bags, cash could be diverted to more important budgets, such as DEI projects?
    The UK Procurement Executive made the same mistake with military footwear, which led to cases of trenchfoot amongst soldiers in the Falklands (Doc Martens manufacturers made a killing from that).

  8. Most Canadians live south of the 49th parallel and typical winter conditions are the same as those experienced by Americans in the northern states. Toronto is south of Minneapolis. Yes, there are a few outliers like Edmonton which really is pretty far north. But suitable sleeping bags can be found in any sporting goods store.

  9. “. Yes, there are a few outliers like Edmonton which really is pretty far north.”

    Half of Lincolnshire is further north than that.

  10. A friend of mine lived in Scotland. His house was farther north than Churchill, Manitoba, the polar bear capital of the world.

  11. “It recommended loaning the troops some of the army’s original Arctic sleeping bags, which were first acquired in 1965.”

    Given the huge improvement in civilian outdoors kit since 1965 (heck, since 1985), it’s impressively bad that the Canadian military has managed go backwards since then.

  12. You do have to hand it to the Russians. They boast that Saint Petersburg is the city of 1 million+ that is closest to a Pole (not the Joanna Krupa sort). And they are right. Had to build the world’s deepest metro to make it work, but they did it. The place is such an outlier it could only make sense in Russia.
    Canada in the mud, famous for providing half the world’s exports of lentils, and that horrible truckers showdown.

  13. The UK benefits from being on the west coast of a continent and the earth’s rotation explains much of it. It also gives you the long summer twilights which we don’t have in the US outside of Alaska. Well, maybe a tiny bit in Seattle, but not much.

  14. TD @ 2.48, Clacton, Essex is at 51.8 degrees North.
    Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada is at 51.4 degrees North.
    Last time I was there I walked on it…..

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