December 4, 2024 • 26 mins
Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) materials are often the plot point in disaster and action movies. For soldiers, they are a potential threat on the battlefield or when responding to a domestic crisis. Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Hubble is the Director of the Joint CBRN Defence team, and he explains how the Army does all the heavy thinking about CBRN for the Canadian Armed Forces.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Capt Orton (00:06):
Hi. I'm Captain Adam Orton with the Canadian Army
Podcast. So right off the bat,I'm going to define CBRN because
we're gonna have to say it a lotand that's chemical, biological,
radiological, and nuclear. Weusually see these things as part
of the main plot point in theDestroy the World movies. Here
to talk to us about how to dealwith the fallout of these
(00:26):
incidents is Lieutenant-ColonelJonathan Hubble, the Director of
Joint CBRN Defense, whichbasically takes care of
doctrine, equipment, and all thethings that have to do with CBRN
threats for the Canadian ArmedForces.
Welcome to the Podcast.
LCol Hubble (00:39):
Well, thank you, Adam. I'm very glad to be here.
Capt Orton (00:42):
In general, CBRN stuff is pretty dangerous stuff.
These weapons have been aroundfor forever. A lot of it can be
war crimes. But what are thethings that we're focusing on in
these modern times for CBRNdefense?
LCol Hubble (00:56):
You know, we do take an all hazards approach. So
in a way, what's, important forthe soldiers to know and have
confidence in their protectiveequipment, for example. So we're
hoping, obviously, and planningto prevent and protect against
any kind of CBN threat. We dofocus on airborne threats, so
the c 4 gas mask, and we'reactually replacing the c 4 gas
(01:17):
mask with the c 5. It's beingrolled out as we speak.
These things are things thatprotect us from toxic industrial
chemicals. They protect us from,sarin gas, mustard gas, a
variety of different threats,actually. So in terms of what we
could face, in terms of specificthings, there's obviously
emerging concern over thenuclear threat with, certainly
(01:40):
the public statements that havebeen made by the Russian
president. And that hascertainly concerned our European
allies at the CBRN level and atthe operational level. I believe
that there's a lot of concernabout those threats in the
European theater and where we'reconducting operation
reassurance, for example.
Capt Orton (01:58):
Can you maybe talk us through any recent notable
CBRN incidents?
LCol Hubble (02:03):
Right. So one of the recent uses of chemical
weapons that we're aware of is afew years back in the UK, there
was an attack against anindividual using 4th generation
chemical warfare agent. And thisis something that's basically
like a highly poisonoussubstance that was supposedly
targeted against an individual.But based on the lethality of
(02:25):
the substance, it became quitean operation within the UK to
conduct decontamination. Soquite a lengthy investigation,
quite a lengthy and detailedcivilian and military response.
And I'm speaking about theSkripal incident in the UK.
Capt Orton (02:41):
I remember it very clearly. Sergei and Yulia
Skripal were poisoned with, somesort of suspected nerve agent of
some sort. I think it wasNovichok.
LCol Hubble (02:49):
Right. That that incident is one. There's other
incidents. These are traced toRussia and the use of,
basically, chemical weapons.
Capt Orton (02:57):
Yeah. Basically, textbook textbook CBRN incident.
LCol Hubble (03:00):
Yes. And certainly an assassination type thing, so
conventional threat, notexactly, but there is the
weaponization of thosesubstances is possible in a
conventional setting.
Capt Orton (03:12):
So let's jump right into what all of the things
mean. So let's start off withchemicals. These kinds of
weapons have been around forsome time now.
LCol Hubble (03:22):
Right. Chemical weapons, you know, chemicals are
specifically developed for,like, a weapons purpose, and and
actually kind of can trace theirroots back to certainly 1st
World War with the use ofmustard gas and so on.
Capt Orton (03:35):
Yeah. And it really got out of hand in World War 1.
What did we do about that?
LCol Hubble (03:41):
I touched on sarin and mustard. VX are all listed
chemicals in the organization ofprotection against chemical
weapons to which Canada is asignatory. So we've committed
not to manufacture or use thesein warfare, and hundreds of
other countries have signed onto that. There's countries that
haven't signed on to or are notconsidered to be respecting
(04:03):
their signatories on thatconvention. So there's a number
of listed agents that are stillout there in terms of old
stockpiles, and, there is alwaysthe potential for, new
manufacturing and newweaponization of those those
chemicals.
Okay. What about biologicalweapons? So biological is a very
interesting space because, whenyou have the first indications
(04:25):
of a biological threat, you mayactually not know whether we're
talking about a manufacturedbioweapon or whether we're
dealing with a naturallyoccurring virus or bacteria or
whatnot. So biology is its ownsphere, which I'm personally not
an expert in. But but I can saythat when we had the pandemic,
for example, the COVID 19pandemic, specifically, At
(04:48):
first, when things wereunfolding, it was not
necessarily clear whether we'redealing with a bioweapon that
got out of hand or a naturallyoccurring virus, for example.
Capt Orton (04:59):
Right. And who would you say that's different from
chemical? Like, I knowbiological weapons are living
agents and chemical weapons arenot alive, but I would say I've
had some interestingconversations recently about
that subject. And, you know,some people are like, oh, it's
kind of the same thing. Right?
They're manufactured things thatyou may inhale or touch, and
then you get sick.
LCol Hubble (05:18):
Like, one of the big differences obviously is in
detection. Like, the technologyof detection is gonna be very
different, and the sensors aregonna be different. So in CBRN
discipline, detection,identification, and monitoring
is a key component where we'relooking to define a hazard and
stay away from the hazard andprotect ourselves against that
hazard. So the technology thatdetects bio threats is different
(05:40):
than the technology and thesensors. So if we go to Suffield
Research Center, which is whereCAF and DND does cutting edge
research and, development in thespace of both counter bio
threats and counter chemicalthreats, they're gonna be
working on different types ofsensors to, achieve as much
standoff and warning to thesoldier as possible to give them
(06:04):
time to either evade the threator protect themselves against
the threat.
Capt Orton (06:09):
And then we have nuclear and radiological, which
also seem very similar. What arethose threats?
LCol Hubble (06:15):
Right. So radiological and nuclear
different just the sense of youcould have weaponized or
radioactive material that is nota nuclear weapon. So nuclear
weapon would be designed andengineered for an attack as a
offensive weapon. We're talkingabout intercontinental ballistic
missiles, nuclear warheads thatare payloads designed for
(06:35):
militaries essentially. Then,radiological threats could be,
you know, wider spectrum of moreasymmetric radiological material
that could pose a hazard.
And often the response in termsof what we're doing is gonna be
similar in terms of detection,identification, and monitoring.
We're gonna want similarsensors, but they may be
different in other respects. Forprotection, we would be looking
(06:58):
probably at similar types ofprotection levels that protect
us against radiation.
Capt Orton (07:03):
Yeah. And I would guess detecting a nuclear blast
is generally pretty easy, butinvisible dirty bomb radiation
is probably pretty hard?
LCol Hubble (07:12):
So one of the things one of the capabilities
that we have in this area is asoftware called joint effects
modeling. And this softwareallows a CBRN analyst in a
collection center to take apotential threat and model what
would happen if this weaponexploded in a given area. So
they can then take weather dataand take, temperature data and
(07:34):
all that, and put it togetherwith the effects that are known
for specific weapon systems, andthen predict hazard areas. And
they would use this to informcommanders on responses in terms
of risk mitigation and forceprotection levels that need to
be adopted.
Capt Orton (07:50):
These things, biological, chemical, and
nuclear, all have vastlydifferent signatures and vastly
different mechanisms of actionin terms of harming people. How
do you come up with protectionagainst such a wide spectrum of
things in the context of whatwe're talking about and also
detection methods?
LCol Hubble (08:10):
Yeah. With detectors, I mean, we take the
approach of developing by chem,bio, rad, essentially. So each
of those will have their owndetectors. But once within bio,
you want a bio detector thatdetects as many bio threats as
possible and same thing with theother areas of the discipline.
With respect to protection, youknow, you do get into trade
(08:32):
offs.
So one of the key trade offs isthe thermal burden that is
applied to the individual. Soeverybody knows well, a lot of
soldiers would understand why wedon't train for long periods of
time in SCVRN suit. It's becauseof the ergonomics and the
thermal load, which we areactively working through our
minor capital projects and evenour next generation low burden
(08:53):
individual protective equipmentproject, which is a major
capital project. We are lookingat ways to reduce that thermal
burden. In other words, makeprotective equipment or clothing
more ergonomic.
The issue obviously is you maketrade offs, and so you won't
have a suit necessarily thatprotects you against radiation
to a high level if it's alsogonna protect you against
(09:17):
chemical, and it's also gonnahave a low burden, for
ergonomics. So in that wholespace, we will have to make some
choices. We have, in the past,focused on chemical threats,
because of the prevalence oftactical chemical weapons that
our adversaries possess andpossessed in the past. But in
the future, we may have to havemultiple suits that you pull off
(09:38):
the shelf based on the toolboxapproach. What is the current
threat?
Capt Orton (09:42):
And this brings up everybody's favorite topic of
conversation, which comes downto kit. And I think it's fairly
well known that throughout the1000 of years that soldiers have
been doing soldier stuff thatyour average weight for a
soldier is about x pounds,whatever that is.
LCol Hubble (09:58):
I think
Capt Orton (09:58):
it's something like in the 65 to 70 range.
LCol Hubble (10:01):
Right.
Capt Orton (10:01):
And so you're constantly doing the dance of
what that amount of weight isfor body armor, CBRN equipment,
weaponry, etcetera, etcetera,etcetera. And it's this constant
dance of making sure that youhave everything that you need
while at the same time stillbeing able to travel and not run
out of steam to get there andthen do the fight.
LCol Hubble (10:21):
Yeah. I mean, I think with the CBRN equipment,
it's generally you know, basedon the threat level, we push
that equipment to the echelonthat it needs to be at. So if it
needs to be right on the soldieror right in the in the rucksack,
then that's a pretty high threatlevel because of all the other
things that are in the rucksackthat are dealing with other
threats like, you know,ammunition and NVGs and all
(10:42):
those things. So luckily, in therecent past, we haven't had to
burden the soldier with a CBRNsuit in a rucksack. But it can
be, you know, at their CQ, attheir company quarter master,
not far away.
You know, a couple tacticalbounds away and in time and
space not that far away. Butthat's why we're looking for
standoff and warning timethrough sensing, through
(11:03):
knowledge management, throughour networks, and basically,
situational awareness so thatwe're not surprised. And if
there is gonna be somethingthat's coming that we have time
to to prepare.
Capt Orton (11:14):
There's something to be said about the value of
having the equipment on hand,but there's other protections,
like just generally being awareof what capabilities the enemy
has. And that works both in theCBRN sphere and also in
conventional warfare, like, youknow, whether it's weapons range
bands or types of equipment andso on. Yeah.
LCol Hubble (11:33):
And one one of the protective layers that I didn't
actually have any idea aboutbefore I got into this job was
the medical countermeasures. Sothere's a whole stockpile and
there's a whole system ofmedical countermeasures where
they've done a threatassessment. They figured out
what chem threats, what biothreats are kinda most
prevalent, for example. And theypurchased in the stockpile,
(11:54):
medical countermeasures. So ifyou're going into a specific
theater with a higher threat, insome cases, you'll be deploying
with medical countermeasures.
And those are sometimes preexposure, and in a lot of cases,
they may be post exposure. Butthey're designed to preserve
your life and to bring you backinto, you know, recovery. So,
you know, we think of the suitsand we think of the masks, but
there's another layer that ispretty important as well.
Capt Orton (12:17):
So when I think about Sierra, and we're kinda
talking about it, is, like,running around with a gas mask
on, and you're just huffing, andyou maybe your goggles are
fogging up because you'rewearing this rubber thing on
your face. And it's reallydifficult sometimes to work with
this stuff. You were talking alittle bit about balancing
combat effectiveness withprotection. How do we examine
(12:38):
that?
LCol Hubble (12:39):
It is the probably the number one modernization
agenda, I would say, of the nextgeneration of physical
protection equipment is toreduce the burden. So with the c
5 mask, they did reduce theburden. So they reduced the
breathing burden. So you knowhow you have to use extra force
to breathe in through, c 7, c 8canister? Now with the c 5 mask,
(13:04):
that burden is reduced.
So it takes less effort tobreathe in with that mask. And
there's other kind of ergonomicimprovements in terms of what
you can hear in the masks withthe sound system and what other
people can hear from you with abit of amplification. So there's
some important improvements tothe c five mask. And we're doing
the same idea with the materialsthat we're gonna use for any
(13:26):
suits and anything that thesoldier has to wear on their
body. We're very muchconsidering thermal burden and
ergonomics as one of the keydeciding factors.
I mean, protection levels aswell because you don't wanna
reduce protection levels. But atsome point, you need the soldier
to be able to operate for acertain amount of time.
Capt Orton (13:45):
I feel like since we're talking about kit, let's
talk about something real quickthat near and dear to a lot of
people's hearts up untilrecently, beards.
LCol Hubble (13:53):
Right.
Capt Orton (13:53):
What's the deal with beards and gas masks? Do you
have any searing insights onthat?
LCol Hubble (13:58):
Yeah. So we've looked at that. We are studying
it. So a few years back, we haddirection and guidance to
consider all faces and andpeople with bona fide or
legitimate religious,accommodations with turbans and
beards that are there forreligious reasons and so on. So
we, working jointly with DRDC,developed a project called the
(14:21):
C5 Bravo mask.
And that's based on the C5 mask,but it's a mask that's intended
to have a proper seal withoutnecessarily requiring a shaven
face that fits a certain mold.So right now, it's based on a
hood pattern. The hood kind ofmelds with the mask, and you get
(14:41):
a whole body seal essentiallythat keeps things out. That mask
is still in early stages ofdevelopment. But there's another
solution that has been testedand I believe we have confidence
in it.
It's a, a PAPR solution. Andit's a little air blower that
fits onto your mask and createspositive pressure on your mask.
And what it does is instead ofair filtering in through the
(15:04):
leaks, air filters out throughthe leaks. So this has been used
successfully at Canadian ForcesLeadership and Recruit School
for people that don't have agood mask seal with their c 4
mask, for example. And it can beused in operations as well for
that same purpose.
So there is another solution forpeople with beards, for example,
(15:25):
you can shave. If you need toand if it's gonna save your
life, you know, militaryleadership have said that and
they've preserved thoseregulations in the CF dress
manual, and the CAF has reservedthe right to tell people to
shave for life saving purposes.But at the same time, we're
actively pursuing equipmentsolutions to reduce the burden
on people that have legitimateeither physical reasons and
(15:49):
differences or religious orsocial reasons.
Capt Orton (15:53):
You know, it's interesting about the different
approaches that we use becausefor anybody who's even been
exposed to something like, CSgas as part of our training,
it's not a great time if youdon't have a good sale. That's
what I'll say. And People reallysense it, and I think one is
well motivated to create theconditions for success,
particularly when exposed tohighly dangerous items too.
LCol Hubble (16:15):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I remember last year do
you remember when we had thewildfire smokes here?
Capt Orton (16:19):
Yeah. Of course.
LCol Hubble (16:20):
You know, that was a time when you stopped taking
clean air for granted and youstart saying, well, okay. I'm
like, what's the right mask towear here? Because clearly just
breathing in, you know,particulate matter is not the
best idea here. So I thinkpeople are really fond of clean
air. Yeah.
Capt Orton (16:36):
That sounds a way of putting it. So, you know, you've
got your regular everyday bignuclear bombs that can level the
city, but we also haveconventional civilian attacks
like subway gas attacks andthings like that. In terms of
our role, the military's role,how do we balance that with
civilian infrastructure andnatural events, like, you know,
(16:57):
radiological incidents andnuclear power plants and so on
and so forth? Where do we fitinto that?
LCol Hubble (17:02):
For one thing, it's all a civil military problem.
I'm not aware of too manydisasters that happen that don't
have both a civilian responseand some level of military
response. Even the pandemic, welook back and we had, I would
say, a significant militaryresponse to Yeah. In a civilian
led environment. And, my CBRNcounterparts in Europe are
(17:22):
proposing very clearly that theysee an equal partnership between
civil military in terms ofresponse to CBRN incidents.
It's gonna be disastermanagement. It's gonna be risk
mitigation and hazard mitigationin a kinda whole of government
approach. What other resourcesexist outside
Capt Orton (17:39):
of our structures that we would connect into?
LCol Hubble (17:41):
I'm thinking of especially a first responder
concept where, you know,firefighters and if you look at
Capt Orton (17:47):
Yeah. Of course.
LCol Hubble (17:47):
I I wasn't at Chernobyl, but I watched I
watched the Netflix series. Youknow, the first folks that get
the call to go check it out andgo do something about it are the
firefighters. And they areprotected to a certain degree,
certainly now more than theywere then. But they have
detectors. They have the abilityto sense a little bit and, do
situational assessment, and theyalso have reach back so they
(18:09):
can, you know, take samples andfigure out what stuff is.
What we don't wanna happen is,you know, people sensing by
falling down and and becomingcasualties. So we want to make
sure that within the CAF, interms of first responders within
the CAF, our health services,our MPs, and so on, we want them
to be equipped. And then withinthe larger structure, we would
(18:30):
expect that we would fit into assecond responders. So there'd be
within Canada, especially,there'd be a civil response
initially, and then the militaryresponse would kind of fit into
that. But we would need the sameor at least complementary
capabilities and some level ofmutual understanding to be able
to work together.
So the operational example ofhow we've kind of envisioned
(18:52):
that is written into contingencyplan Rubicon, which is the
operational level plan thatsays, here's how we would assist
the civil authority in managinga CBRN disaster. But that's just
a contingency plan that changesonce an actual incident happens
because everything becomesspecific to the province, the
municipality, the type ofincident that occurred,
(19:13):
etcetera.
Capt Orton (19:13):
Just like COVID, really.
LCol Hubble (19:14):
That's right.
Capt Orton (19:16):
So that's the planning side of the house. And,
you know, we also have exerciseprecise response, which is
basically the Canadian ArmedForces led major CBRN specialist
response. You got a bunch ofallied countries with NATO using
live agents. But for us, formilitary members, CBRN is kind
of, like, woven throughout ourtraining. You know, usually,
(19:38):
when you're doing an exercise,there's always a bit about it.
When you do your basic training,you cover it. We do annual
refresher training. There'sadditional exercises that take
place that focus more on it. AndI was gonna say, you know, why
is that ubiquitous? But I guessnow that we're talking about it,
it seems fairly obvious.
But how do we incorporate thatinto our training, and why do we
do it that way?
LCol Hubble (19:58):
I think we've succeeded in weaving it into the
initial training of the soldierat Canadian Forces Leadership
Roomwork Crew School in SaintJean. And I think we've
succeeded in making sure thatit's a baseline to go on
deployment with the individualskills of the gas hut and so on.
But I would say that in the last5 to 15 years or even longer, as
we went through a period ofcounterinsurgency fighting where
(20:19):
there was, you know, very highID threat and maybe a lower CBRN
threat. And then, you know, avery conventional threat of
firefights and conventionalmunitions threats. I think it's
my perception and and theinformation I have is that in
collective training and andtraining exercises that the
amount of CBRN injects and taskcompletion has been relatively
(20:41):
low compared to historicals ifwe look back into, you know, the
nineties, the eighties, andbefore that.
So it is interesting to hearyour perspective in that regard.
I think as we look at OpryAssurance, for example, and
training in that theater and forthat theater, I think it will be
important. I think our allieswill see it as important in the
multinational context. And,that's certainly what we've got
(21:03):
from, reading the NATO CBNDefense Policy from 2022 where
they say that we need to, trainthis, we need to be more
resilient, we need to workharder and better at being
prepared and also preventing andprotecting and recovering from a
CBRN threat.
Capt Orton (21:21):
You know, when I look at maybe some of my
training experiences and kindahow we talk about how chemical
warfare happens, If you knowthere's a threat, like, if
there's an intelligence reportof some sort of CBRN threat in
your area, and then you seeyellow smoke blowing towards
you, it doesn't take a genius tofigure out what that might be.
LCol Hubble (21:40):
Mhmm.
Capt Orton (21:40):
What other mechanisms of detection exist so
that people can see what'shappening and take appropriate
actions?
LCol Hubble (21:46):
Yeah. For one thing, I happened to go visit
the Comprehensive Test BandTreaty Organization in Vienna
Oh. Which monitors seismicactivity across the world using
acoustic sensors undergroundand, you know, other acoustic
sensors. And the whole purposeof that is to make sure that if
anybody tests a nuclear weaponanywhere that, it's not done in
(22:06):
secrecy, that that it will beknown and it will be reported to
the tree organization. They havea great operations center.
And as we are visiting thelocation, we're seeing actual
seismic activity being reported.In this case, it was in Japan.
It was naturally occurringlikely, you know, low level
earthquakes, that are constantlykinda happening there anyway.
(22:27):
But at the very basic level atnuclear detection, the CBTO
tracks any explosion of any kindof size, to the point where
their sensors went off andreported the Beirut explosion,
for example.
Capt Orton (22:38):
That was a big one.
LCol Hubble (22:39):
It was a big one. Yeah. And so Canada is actually
part of that. NRCan, NationalResearch Council Canada,
receives that data. And ourintelligence folks are able to,
absorb that data if they need toas required as well.
So but that's at the, you know,kind of strategic global level,
really. When we get to thetactical level, we are about to
(23:00):
purchase a chemical agent sensorthat does standoff detection. So
the gas cloud you talked about,we're looking at purchasing an
optical type sensor that's gonnasee that cloud at 5 k or line of
sight, detect it, a warning goesoff, and then a computer system
and a duty officer are reportingthat and then sending out force
(23:22):
protection advice to commanderson the ground that are gonna
then either, you know, protectthemselves or evade the threat.
Capt Orton (23:30):
You gotta appreciate then that seismic thing that you
just described. It tells thestory of the bigger intelligence
picture, which is it can bereally hard to hide these things
because there's all sorts ofindicators. You have weapons
labs, you've got scientists,you've got big facilities, and
all of these things are advancedwarnings that the enemy has some
type of CBRN weapons. So youkinda know something before a
(23:53):
cloud of gas is hitting thetroops.
LCol Hubble (23:56):
So we're absolutely trying to take an approach where
the soldier is not the sensor.
Capt Orton (24:00):
Right. Well said. You know,
LCol Hubble (24:02):
And we're in a sensor rich environment. There's
satellite coverage of the entireglobe. There is, like I
mentioned, the seismic coverageof the globe. There's sensors
everywhere. Our capability thatwe have is called sensor
integration and decisionsupport.
And that's a software systemthat links our computers with
our sensors and allows a CBRNanalyst to, receive NATO reports
(24:25):
for strike warnings, hazardwarnings, CBN reports that are
specific to incidents that haveoccurred or are expected to
occur. It allows us to do whatyou just mentioned, which is
make sure that we know what'shappening around us and turning
all sensor data that are pickingup clear indications or
indications and making thatusable for commanders on the
(24:47):
ground.
Capt Orton (24:48):
So with all these things that we've talked about
up to this point, what hasgrasped you the most about kind
of what you've learned over yourtime dealing with these
materials? Like, what's the keytakeaway here?
LCol Hubble (25:01):
I think an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure, with CBRN, so in otherwords, a little bit of training
goes a long way. A little bit ofequipping goes a long way. Zero
equipping and zero training isnot a great option.
Capt Orton (25:17):
Yeah. Yeah. That's good.
LCol Hubble (25:18):
So I think it's that prevention aspect of being
prepared. And even though wewish these things will not
happen, we look at the doomsdayclock at, you know, one second
to midnight or whatever it iscurrently. And, you know, these
are the atomic scientists of theworld telling us that we're
close enough to disaster in alaundry list of things that
(25:40):
maybe we should take time to beas prepared as we can be with
the limited resources that we dohave.
Capt Orton (25:45):
Hope is not a COA.
LCol Hubble (25:47):
Hope is not a COA. That's right.
Capt Orton (25:48):
Yeah. Hope is not a Course of Action. It doesn't
work. You gotta work for it.
LCol Hubble (25:53):
Yeah. That's right.
Capt Orton (25:54):
Alright. Well, thank you so much, sir, for being on
the podcast. Really appreciateit.
LCol Hubble (25:57):
I had a great time. Thanks thanks for having me.
Capt Orton (26:00):
That was Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan
Hubble from the Directorate ofCBRN Defense. And I'm Captain
Adam Orton for the Canadian ArmyPodcast. Orton out.
Hi. I'm Captain Adam Orton with the Canadian Army
Podcast. So right off the bat,I'm going to define CBRN because
we're gonna have to say it a lotand that's chemical, biological,
radiological, and nuclear. Weusually see these things as part
of the main plot point in theDestroy the World movies. Here
to talk to us about how to dealwith the fallout of these
(00:26):
incidents is Lieutenant-ColonelJonathan Hubble, the Director of
Joint CBRN Defense, whichbasically takes care of
doctrine, equipment, and all thethings that have to do with CBRN
threats for the Canadian ArmedForces.
Welcome to the Podcast.
LCol Hubble (00:39):
Well, thank you, Adam. I'm very glad to be here.
Capt Orton (00:42):
In general, CBRN stuff is pretty dangerous stuff.
These weapons have been aroundfor forever. A lot of it can be
war crimes. But what are thethings that we're focusing on in
these modern times for CBRNdefense?
LCol Hubble (00:56):
You know, we do take an all hazards approach. So
in a way, what's, important forthe soldiers to know and have
confidence in their protectiveequipment, for example. So we're
hoping, obviously, and planningto prevent and protect against
any kind of CBN threat. We dofocus on airborne threats, so
the c 4 gas mask, and we'reactually replacing the c 4 gas
(01:17):
mask with the c 5. It's beingrolled out as we speak.
These things are things thatprotect us from toxic industrial
chemicals. They protect us from,sarin gas, mustard gas, a
variety of different threats,actually. So in terms of what we
could face, in terms of specificthings, there's obviously
emerging concern over thenuclear threat with, certainly
(01:40):
the public statements that havebeen made by the Russian
president. And that hascertainly concerned our European
allies at the CBRN level and atthe operational level. I believe
that there's a lot of concernabout those threats in the
European theater and where we'reconducting operation
reassurance, for example.
Capt Orton (01:58):
Can you maybe talk us through any recent notable
CBRN incidents?
LCol Hubble (02:03):
Right. So one of the recent uses of chemical
weapons that we're aware of is afew years back in the UK, there
was an attack against anindividual using 4th generation
chemical warfare agent. And thisis something that's basically
like a highly poisonoussubstance that was supposedly
targeted against an individual.But based on the lethality of
(02:25):
the substance, it became quitean operation within the UK to
conduct decontamination. Soquite a lengthy investigation,
quite a lengthy and detailedcivilian and military response.
And I'm speaking about theSkripal incident in the UK.
Capt Orton (02:41):
I remember it very clearly. Sergei and Yulia
Skripal were poisoned with, somesort of suspected nerve agent of
some sort. I think it wasNovichok.
LCol Hubble (02:49):
Right. That that incident is one. There's other
incidents. These are traced toRussia and the use of,
basically, chemical weapons.
Capt Orton (02:57):
Yeah. Basically, textbook textbook CBRN incident.
LCol Hubble (03:00):
Yes. And certainly an assassination type thing, so
conventional threat, notexactly, but there is the
weaponization of thosesubstances is possible in a
conventional setting.
Capt Orton (03:12):
So let's jump right into what all of the things
mean. So let's start off withchemicals. These kinds of
weapons have been around forsome time now.
LCol Hubble (03:22):
Right. Chemical weapons, you know, chemicals are
specifically developed for,like, a weapons purpose, and and
actually kind of can trace theirroots back to certainly 1st
World War with the use ofmustard gas and so on.
Capt Orton (03:35):
Yeah. And it really got out of hand in World War 1.
What did we do about that?
LCol Hubble (03:41):
I touched on sarin and mustard. VX are all listed
chemicals in the organization ofprotection against chemical
weapons to which Canada is asignatory. So we've committed
not to manufacture or use thesein warfare, and hundreds of
other countries have signed onto that. There's countries that
haven't signed on to or are notconsidered to be respecting
(04:03):
their signatories on thatconvention. So there's a number
of listed agents that are stillout there in terms of old
stockpiles, and, there is alwaysthe potential for, new
manufacturing and newweaponization of those those
chemicals.
Okay. What about biologicalweapons? So biological is a very
interesting space because, whenyou have the first indications
(04:25):
of a biological threat, you mayactually not know whether we're
talking about a manufacturedbioweapon or whether we're
dealing with a naturallyoccurring virus or bacteria or
whatnot. So biology is its ownsphere, which I'm personally not
an expert in. But but I can saythat when we had the pandemic,
for example, the COVID 19pandemic, specifically, At
(04:48):
first, when things wereunfolding, it was not
necessarily clear whether we'redealing with a bioweapon that
got out of hand or a naturallyoccurring virus, for example.
Capt Orton (04:59):
Right. And who would you say that's different from
chemical? Like, I knowbiological weapons are living
agents and chemical weapons arenot alive, but I would say I've
had some interestingconversations recently about
that subject. And, you know,some people are like, oh, it's
kind of the same thing. Right?
They're manufactured things thatyou may inhale or touch, and
then you get sick.
LCol Hubble (05:18):
Like, one of the big differences obviously is in
detection. Like, the technologyof detection is gonna be very
different, and the sensors aregonna be different. So in CBRN
discipline, detection,identification, and monitoring
is a key component where we'relooking to define a hazard and
stay away from the hazard andprotect ourselves against that
hazard. So the technology thatdetects bio threats is different
(05:40):
than the technology and thesensors. So if we go to Suffield
Research Center, which is whereCAF and DND does cutting edge
research and, development in thespace of both counter bio
threats and counter chemicalthreats, they're gonna be
working on different types ofsensors to, achieve as much
standoff and warning to thesoldier as possible to give them
(06:04):
time to either evade the threator protect themselves against
the threat.
Capt Orton (06:09):
And then we have nuclear and radiological, which
also seem very similar. What arethose threats?
LCol Hubble (06:15):
Right. So radiological and nuclear
different just the sense of youcould have weaponized or
radioactive material that is nota nuclear weapon. So nuclear
weapon would be designed andengineered for an attack as a
offensive weapon. We're talkingabout intercontinental ballistic
missiles, nuclear warheads thatare payloads designed for
(06:35):
militaries essentially. Then,radiological threats could be,
you know, wider spectrum of moreasymmetric radiological material
that could pose a hazard.
And often the response in termsof what we're doing is gonna be
similar in terms of detection,identification, and monitoring.
We're gonna want similarsensors, but they may be
different in other respects. Forprotection, we would be looking
(06:58):
probably at similar types ofprotection levels that protect
us against radiation.
Capt Orton (07:03):
Yeah. And I would guess detecting a nuclear blast
is generally pretty easy, butinvisible dirty bomb radiation
is probably pretty hard?
LCol Hubble (07:12):
So one of the things one of the capabilities
that we have in this area is asoftware called joint effects
modeling. And this softwareallows a CBRN analyst in a
collection center to take apotential threat and model what
would happen if this weaponexploded in a given area. So
they can then take weather dataand take, temperature data and
(07:34):
all that, and put it togetherwith the effects that are known
for specific weapon systems, andthen predict hazard areas. And
they would use this to informcommanders on responses in terms
of risk mitigation and forceprotection levels that need to
be adopted.
Capt Orton (07:50):
These things, biological, chemical, and
nuclear, all have vastlydifferent signatures and vastly
different mechanisms of actionin terms of harming people. How
do you come up with protectionagainst such a wide spectrum of
things in the context of whatwe're talking about and also
detection methods?
LCol Hubble (08:10):
Yeah. With detectors, I mean, we take the
approach of developing by chem,bio, rad, essentially. So each
of those will have their owndetectors. But once within bio,
you want a bio detector thatdetects as many bio threats as
possible and same thing with theother areas of the discipline.
With respect to protection, youknow, you do get into trade
(08:32):
offs.
So one of the key trade offs isthe thermal burden that is
applied to the individual. Soeverybody knows well, a lot of
soldiers would understand why wedon't train for long periods of
time in SCVRN suit. It's becauseof the ergonomics and the
thermal load, which we areactively working through our
minor capital projects and evenour next generation low burden
(08:53):
individual protective equipmentproject, which is a major
capital project. We are lookingat ways to reduce that thermal
burden. In other words, makeprotective equipment or clothing
more ergonomic.
The issue obviously is you maketrade offs, and so you won't
have a suit necessarily thatprotects you against radiation
to a high level if it's alsogonna protect you against
(09:17):
chemical, and it's also gonnahave a low burden, for
ergonomics. So in that wholespace, we will have to make some
choices. We have, in the past,focused on chemical threats,
because of the prevalence oftactical chemical weapons that
our adversaries possess andpossessed in the past. But in
the future, we may have to havemultiple suits that you pull off
(09:38):
the shelf based on the toolboxapproach. What is the current
threat?
Capt Orton (09:42):
And this brings up everybody's favorite topic of
conversation, which comes downto kit. And I think it's fairly
well known that throughout the1000 of years that soldiers have
been doing soldier stuff thatyour average weight for a
soldier is about x pounds,whatever that is.
LCol Hubble (09:58):
I think
Capt Orton (09:58):
it's something like in the 65 to 70 range.
LCol Hubble (10:01):
Right.
Capt Orton (10:01):
And so you're constantly doing the dance of
what that amount of weight isfor body armor, CBRN equipment,
weaponry, etcetera, etcetera,etcetera. And it's this constant
dance of making sure that youhave everything that you need
while at the same time stillbeing able to travel and not run
out of steam to get there andthen do the fight.
LCol Hubble (10:21):
Yeah. I mean, I think with the CBRN equipment,
it's generally you know, basedon the threat level, we push
that equipment to the echelonthat it needs to be at. So if it
needs to be right on the soldieror right in the in the rucksack,
then that's a pretty high threatlevel because of all the other
things that are in the rucksackthat are dealing with other
threats like, you know,ammunition and NVGs and all
(10:42):
those things. So luckily, in therecent past, we haven't had to
burden the soldier with a CBRNsuit in a rucksack. But it can
be, you know, at their CQ, attheir company quarter master,
not far away.
You know, a couple tacticalbounds away and in time and
space not that far away. Butthat's why we're looking for
standoff and warning timethrough sensing, through
(11:03):
knowledge management, throughour networks, and basically,
situational awareness so thatwe're not surprised. And if
there is gonna be somethingthat's coming that we have time
to to prepare.
Capt Orton (11:14):
There's something to be said about the value of
having the equipment on hand,but there's other protections,
like just generally being awareof what capabilities the enemy
has. And that works both in theCBRN sphere and also in
conventional warfare, like, youknow, whether it's weapons range
bands or types of equipment andso on. Yeah.
LCol Hubble (11:33):
And one one of the protective layers that I didn't
actually have any idea aboutbefore I got into this job was
the medical countermeasures. Sothere's a whole stockpile and
there's a whole system ofmedical countermeasures where
they've done a threatassessment. They figured out
what chem threats, what biothreats are kinda most
prevalent, for example. And theypurchased in the stockpile,
(11:54):
medical countermeasures. So ifyou're going into a specific
theater with a higher threat, insome cases, you'll be deploying
with medical countermeasures.
And those are sometimes preexposure, and in a lot of cases,
they may be post exposure. Butthey're designed to preserve
your life and to bring you backinto, you know, recovery. So,
you know, we think of the suitsand we think of the masks, but
there's another layer that ispretty important as well.
Capt Orton (12:17):
So when I think about Sierra, and we're kinda
talking about it, is, like,running around with a gas mask
on, and you're just huffing, andyou maybe your goggles are
fogging up because you'rewearing this rubber thing on
your face. And it's reallydifficult sometimes to work with
this stuff. You were talking alittle bit about balancing
combat effectiveness withprotection. How do we examine
(12:38):
that?
LCol Hubble (12:39):
It is the probably the number one modernization
agenda, I would say, of the nextgeneration of physical
protection equipment is toreduce the burden. So with the c
5 mask, they did reduce theburden. So they reduced the
breathing burden. So you knowhow you have to use extra force
to breathe in through, c 7, c 8canister? Now with the c 5 mask,
(13:04):
that burden is reduced.
So it takes less effort tobreathe in with that mask. And
there's other kind of ergonomicimprovements in terms of what
you can hear in the masks withthe sound system and what other
people can hear from you with abit of amplification. So there's
some important improvements tothe c five mask. And we're doing
the same idea with the materialsthat we're gonna use for any
(13:26):
suits and anything that thesoldier has to wear on their
body. We're very muchconsidering thermal burden and
ergonomics as one of the keydeciding factors.
I mean, protection levels aswell because you don't wanna
reduce protection levels. But atsome point, you need the soldier
to be able to operate for acertain amount of time.
Capt Orton (13:45):
I feel like since we're talking about kit, let's
talk about something real quickthat near and dear to a lot of
people's hearts up untilrecently, beards.
LCol Hubble (13:53):
Right.
Capt Orton (13:53):
What's the deal with beards and gas masks? Do you
have any searing insights onthat?
LCol Hubble (13:58):
Yeah. So we've looked at that. We are studying
it. So a few years back, we haddirection and guidance to
consider all faces and andpeople with bona fide or
legitimate religious,accommodations with turbans and
beards that are there forreligious reasons and so on. So
we, working jointly with DRDC,developed a project called the
(14:21):
C5 Bravo mask.
And that's based on the C5 mask,but it's a mask that's intended
to have a proper seal withoutnecessarily requiring a shaven
face that fits a certain mold.So right now, it's based on a
hood pattern. The hood kind ofmelds with the mask, and you get
(14:41):
a whole body seal essentiallythat keeps things out. That mask
is still in early stages ofdevelopment. But there's another
solution that has been testedand I believe we have confidence
in it.
It's a, a PAPR solution. Andit's a little air blower that
fits onto your mask and createspositive pressure on your mask.
And what it does is instead ofair filtering in through the
(15:04):
leaks, air filters out throughthe leaks. So this has been used
successfully at Canadian ForcesLeadership and Recruit School
for people that don't have agood mask seal with their c 4
mask, for example. And it can beused in operations as well for
that same purpose.
So there is another solution forpeople with beards, for example,
(15:25):
you can shave. If you need toand if it's gonna save your
life, you know, militaryleadership have said that and
they've preserved thoseregulations in the CF dress
manual, and the CAF has reservedthe right to tell people to
shave for life saving purposes.But at the same time, we're
actively pursuing equipmentsolutions to reduce the burden
on people that have legitimateeither physical reasons and
(15:49):
differences or religious orsocial reasons.
Capt Orton (15:53):
You know, it's interesting about the different
approaches that we use becausefor anybody who's even been
exposed to something like, CSgas as part of our training,
it's not a great time if youdon't have a good sale. That's
what I'll say. And People reallysense it, and I think one is
well motivated to create theconditions for success,
particularly when exposed tohighly dangerous items too.
LCol Hubble (16:15):
Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I remember last year do
you remember when we had thewildfire smokes here?
Capt Orton (16:19):
Yeah. Of course.
LCol Hubble (16:20):
You know, that was a time when you stopped taking
clean air for granted and youstart saying, well, okay. I'm
like, what's the right mask towear here? Because clearly just
breathing in, you know,particulate matter is not the
best idea here. So I thinkpeople are really fond of clean
air. Yeah.
Capt Orton (16:36):
That sounds a way of putting it. So, you know, you've
got your regular everyday bignuclear bombs that can level the
city, but we also haveconventional civilian attacks
like subway gas attacks andthings like that. In terms of
our role, the military's role,how do we balance that with
civilian infrastructure andnatural events, like, you know,
(16:57):
radiological incidents andnuclear power plants and so on
and so forth? Where do we fitinto that?
LCol Hubble (17:02):
For one thing, it's all a civil military problem.
I'm not aware of too manydisasters that happen that don't
have both a civilian responseand some level of military
response. Even the pandemic, welook back and we had, I would
say, a significant militaryresponse to Yeah. In a civilian
led environment. And, my CBRNcounterparts in Europe are
(17:22):
proposing very clearly that theysee an equal partnership between
civil military in terms ofresponse to CBRN incidents.
It's gonna be disastermanagement. It's gonna be risk
mitigation and hazard mitigationin a kinda whole of government
approach. What other resourcesexist outside
Capt Orton (17:39):
of our structures that we would connect into?
LCol Hubble (17:41):
I'm thinking of especially a first responder
concept where, you know,firefighters and if you look at
Capt Orton (17:47):
Yeah. Of course.
LCol Hubble (17:47):
I I wasn't at Chernobyl, but I watched I
watched the Netflix series. Youknow, the first folks that get
the call to go check it out andgo do something about it are the
firefighters. And they areprotected to a certain degree,
certainly now more than theywere then. But they have
detectors. They have the abilityto sense a little bit and, do
situational assessment, and theyalso have reach back so they
(18:09):
can, you know, take samples andfigure out what stuff is.
What we don't wanna happen is,you know, people sensing by
falling down and and becomingcasualties. So we want to make
sure that within the CAF, interms of first responders within
the CAF, our health services,our MPs, and so on, we want them
to be equipped. And then withinthe larger structure, we would
(18:30):
expect that we would fit into assecond responders. So there'd be
within Canada, especially,there'd be a civil response
initially, and then the militaryresponse would kind of fit into
that. But we would need the sameor at least complementary
capabilities and some level ofmutual understanding to be able
to work together.
So the operational example ofhow we've kind of envisioned
(18:52):
that is written into contingencyplan Rubicon, which is the
operational level plan thatsays, here's how we would assist
the civil authority in managinga CBRN disaster. But that's just
a contingency plan that changesonce an actual incident happens
because everything becomesspecific to the province, the
municipality, the type ofincident that occurred,
(19:13):
etcetera.
Capt Orton (19:13):
Just like COVID, really.
LCol Hubble (19:14):
That's right.
Capt Orton (19:16):
So that's the planning side of the house. And,
you know, we also have exerciseprecise response, which is
basically the Canadian ArmedForces led major CBRN specialist
response. You got a bunch ofallied countries with NATO using
live agents. But for us, formilitary members, CBRN is kind
of, like, woven throughout ourtraining. You know, usually,
(19:38):
when you're doing an exercise,there's always a bit about it.
When you do your basic training,you cover it. We do annual
refresher training. There'sadditional exercises that take
place that focus more on it. AndI was gonna say, you know, why
is that ubiquitous? But I guessnow that we're talking about it,
it seems fairly obvious.
But how do we incorporate thatinto our training, and why do we
do it that way?
LCol Hubble (19:58):
I think we've succeeded in weaving it into the
initial training of the soldierat Canadian Forces Leadership
Roomwork Crew School in SaintJean. And I think we've
succeeded in making sure thatit's a baseline to go on
deployment with the individualskills of the gas hut and so on.
But I would say that in the last5 to 15 years or even longer, as
we went through a period ofcounterinsurgency fighting where
(20:19):
there was, you know, very highID threat and maybe a lower CBRN
threat. And then, you know, avery conventional threat of
firefights and conventionalmunitions threats. I think it's
my perception and and theinformation I have is that in
collective training and andtraining exercises that the
amount of CBRN injects and taskcompletion has been relatively
(20:41):
low compared to historicals ifwe look back into, you know, the
nineties, the eighties, andbefore that.
So it is interesting to hearyour perspective in that regard.
I think as we look at OpryAssurance, for example, and
training in that theater and forthat theater, I think it will be
important. I think our allieswill see it as important in the
multinational context. And,that's certainly what we've got
(21:03):
from, reading the NATO CBNDefense Policy from 2022 where
they say that we need to, trainthis, we need to be more
resilient, we need to workharder and better at being
prepared and also preventing andprotecting and recovering from a
CBRN threat.
Capt Orton (21:21):
You know, when I look at maybe some of my
training experiences and kindahow we talk about how chemical
warfare happens, If you knowthere's a threat, like, if
there's an intelligence reportof some sort of CBRN threat in
your area, and then you seeyellow smoke blowing towards
you, it doesn't take a genius tofigure out what that might be.
LCol Hubble (21:40):
Mhmm.
Capt Orton (21:40):
What other mechanisms of detection exist so
that people can see what'shappening and take appropriate
actions?
LCol Hubble (21:46):
Yeah. For one thing, I happened to go visit
the Comprehensive Test BandTreaty Organization in Vienna
Oh. Which monitors seismicactivity across the world using
acoustic sensors undergroundand, you know, other acoustic
sensors. And the whole purposeof that is to make sure that if
anybody tests a nuclear weaponanywhere that, it's not done in
(22:06):
secrecy, that that it will beknown and it will be reported to
the tree organization. They havea great operations center.
And as we are visiting thelocation, we're seeing actual
seismic activity being reported.In this case, it was in Japan.
It was naturally occurringlikely, you know, low level
earthquakes, that are constantlykinda happening there anyway.
(22:27):
But at the very basic level atnuclear detection, the CBTO
tracks any explosion of any kindof size, to the point where
their sensors went off andreported the Beirut explosion,
for example.
Capt Orton (22:38):
That was a big one.
LCol Hubble (22:39):
It was a big one. Yeah. And so Canada is actually
part of that. NRCan, NationalResearch Council Canada,
receives that data. And ourintelligence folks are able to,
absorb that data if they need toas required as well.
So but that's at the, you know,kind of strategic global level,
really. When we get to thetactical level, we are about to
(23:00):
purchase a chemical agent sensorthat does standoff detection. So
the gas cloud you talked about,we're looking at purchasing an
optical type sensor that's gonnasee that cloud at 5 k or line of
sight, detect it, a warning goesoff, and then a computer system
and a duty officer are reportingthat and then sending out force
(23:22):
protection advice to commanderson the ground that are gonna
then either, you know, protectthemselves or evade the threat.
Capt Orton (23:30):
You gotta appreciate then that seismic thing that you
just described. It tells thestory of the bigger intelligence
picture, which is it can bereally hard to hide these things
because there's all sorts ofindicators. You have weapons
labs, you've got scientists,you've got big facilities, and
all of these things are advancedwarnings that the enemy has some
type of CBRN weapons. So youkinda know something before a
(23:53):
cloud of gas is hitting thetroops.
LCol Hubble (23:56):
So we're absolutely trying to take an approach where
the soldier is not the sensor.
Capt Orton (24:00):
Right. Well said. You know,
LCol Hubble (24:02):
And we're in a sensor rich environment. There's
satellite coverage of the entireglobe. There is, like I
mentioned, the seismic coverageof the globe. There's sensors
everywhere. Our capability thatwe have is called sensor
integration and decisionsupport.
And that's a software systemthat links our computers with
our sensors and allows a CBRNanalyst to, receive NATO reports
(24:25):
for strike warnings, hazardwarnings, CBN reports that are
specific to incidents that haveoccurred or are expected to
occur. It allows us to do whatyou just mentioned, which is
make sure that we know what'shappening around us and turning
all sensor data that are pickingup clear indications or
indications and making thatusable for commanders on the
(24:47):
ground.
Capt Orton (24:48):
So with all these things that we've talked about
up to this point, what hasgrasped you the most about kind
of what you've learned over yourtime dealing with these
materials? Like, what's the keytakeaway here?
LCol Hubble (25:01):
I think an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure, with CBRN, so in otherwords, a little bit of training
goes a long way. A little bit ofequipping goes a long way. Zero
equipping and zero training isnot a great option.
Capt Orton (25:17):
Yeah. Yeah. That's good.
LCol Hubble (25:18):
So I think it's that prevention aspect of being
prepared. And even though wewish these things will not
happen, we look at the doomsdayclock at, you know, one second
to midnight or whatever it iscurrently. And, you know, these
are the atomic scientists of theworld telling us that we're
close enough to disaster in alaundry list of things that
(25:40):
maybe we should take time to beas prepared as we can be with
the limited resources that we dohave.
Capt Orton (25:45):
Hope is not a COA.
LCol Hubble (25:47):
Hope is not a COA. That's right.
Capt Orton (25:48):
Yeah. Hope is not a Course of Action. It doesn't
work. You gotta work for it.
LCol Hubble (25:53):
Yeah. That's right.
Capt Orton (25:54):
Alright. Well, thank you so much, sir, for being on
the podcast. Really appreciateit.
LCol Hubble (25:57):
I had a great time. Thanks thanks for having me.
Capt Orton (26:00):
That was Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan
Hubble from the Directorate ofCBRN Defense. And I'm Captain
Adam Orton for the Canadian ArmyPodcast. Orton out.
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