canadiandefencereview.com
South Korea is currently prohibited from conducting its own uranium enrichment under the U.S.-ROK Nuclear Agreement and relies on imports from the United States and other countries for its power generation fuel. While seeking to secure highly enriched uranium for nuclear submarine development, it requires U.S. consent in principle for nuclear fuel reprocessing and enrichment.
I'd like to see Davie actually start building ships in Canada and utilizing the hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars dropped on upgrading their Levis shipyard instead of continually farming work out to their increasingly large group of international shipyards. They finally get accepted into the National Shipbuilding Strategy and the first major program they get is immediately sent overseas.Canadian steel from Algoma in production for the Davie PolarMax heavy (PC2) icebreaker:
Davie and Algoma Steel Celebrate the Rolling of Canadian Steel
Davie and Algoma Steel celebrate rolling of Canadian-made steel for the Polar Max icebreaker at Algoma Steel’s facilities in Sault Ste. Marie.
Given this ship is being built currently in Finland, the steel must be being transported somehow. That aspect is not covered in the article above.
Davie is unlikely to get any warship contracts anytime soon given the competition from Seaspan and the total lack of results from their Levis shipyard, there is a contract with Transport Canada for a pair of ferries that was awarded in 2019 but they have not even finished the Preliminary design phase.
What about war planes? I heard they will build the Gripens, accumulate 200 of them parked in Mirabel, QC. without sending any to Ukraine nor Canada then use them to conquer Ontario. Scary stuff, can't imagine what they would do with 12 Corvettes, Niagara is cooked.
My view on fighter production would be the same. Frankly I don’t see much opportunity for Gripen production in Canada. With 16 F-35s ordered and commitment on long lead-time items for 14 more, how many Gripens would be needed to compliment 30 F-35s? IMHO, not enough to justify assembly or production in Canada….let alone Quebec.
Isn’t Brazil going to produce Gripens? Depending on how the Ukraine-Russia war ends, Ukraine would seem to be the best new production site, albeit risky.
Brazil is making Gripens right now. Production was very slow indeed to start, but the Brazilian line is about to deliver its first Gripen for Brazil & is scheduled to help build Gripens for Colombia. But a line able to help build 17 aircraft, & years late in delivering to its own air force doesn't sound as if it could scale up quickly for larger numbers. Embraer may be cautious about investing in more capacity, & I suspect SAAB is now wary of relying on it.
There was an abortive plan to build a production facility for Ukraine to license build the Gripen in Lviv up until 2014.
www.ctvnews.ca
www.navaltoday.com
The Super Hornet failed the final round of competition within the fighter program, and was also shown to be uncompetitive on price given the insane sticker shock for a limited interim fleet proposed years before. While the US Navy will continue operating them for quite sometime, the production line is also shutting down and they are not a great even medium term solution when you have offerings like the F-35 available. It is a better aircraft than the Gripen E/F for sure however, I think fundamentally buying any 4th generation fighter in 2026 is a losing proposition entirely.
The interim SH plan made more sense than used Hornets from Australia. The 18 planned would likely have become at least 40 or more given the current political environment. F-35s ordered from 2030 onwards, say 30-40 would get us to 2050-60 at which time 6th Gen could be an option. Gen 4+ jets like the F-15EX or SH combined with the F-35 is a decent CYA approach given LM’s performance with the F-35 program. The current conflict could show how well the F-35 holds up if it continues for another 1-2 months.
