Royal Canadian Navy Discussions and updates

Delta204

Active Member
My comments regarding expeditionary are related to having frigates deployed far from home for extended durations acting in a presence and enforcement role.

I am not advocating an amphibious capability as that time passed when CDS General Rick Hillier retired. As much as I would have loved to see a BHS like the Red Mistrals in RCN livery I know its unlikely. Absalons flex deck can at least provide a limited ability to move hardware and people. I think of non combatant evacuations, SOF support, initial HADR responses. In no way could we mount an over the beach type of operation. I am talking ramp to dock type situations at best.

I hope we don't give up our ability to deploy a Canadian task group but I fear that we will end up as a navy of single deployments.

Very well, this is understandable. I appreciate the clarification!

I guess I don't have the same hope as you about having RCN task groups floating about giving the world "more of Canada" (as today's politicians like to say). Maybe I've resigned myself to the fact that this is likely to never happen but I'm fine with having a Navy of single deployments - but we should be careful not to undersell the RCN. Going back to the USN integration - the RCN does it just as good if not better than anyone else!

See here for a recent example: Canadian Sea Combat Commander’s RIMPAC role : Pacific Navy News

I assume and hope that the future CSC design will allow the RCN to continue this strong tradition.

Hopefully the RFP is released shortly as has been speculated. Perhaps in a few months the suspense will all be over!
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
As far as the original JSS was concerned that whole debacle illustrates the ineptitude of all involved in the acquisition. There appeared to be no willingness to compromise. Army wanted transport of a battalion with kit. Navy wanted full AOR as it had with Protector and Preserver hence a 30000 ton behemoth that couldn't be built. But alas the Dutch built a compromise in the Karel Dorman. Able to do transport and act as an AOR. Doesn't do either exceptionally well but gets the job done.
Indeed the JSS was a real cluster ?uck and the Maritime Helicopter Replacement isn't far behind. The Karel Doorman would have been a good compromise and at one point the Dutch government had a brain fart and planned to sell her due to budget problems. Fortunately for them, this decision never happened and our procurement people could never take advantage of such an opportunity even if the Dutch did proceed with a sale.:(
 

Novascotiaboy

Active Member
RFA Largs Bay, Karel Doorman and the Red Mistrals IMHO were all missed opportunities that Canada should have stepped up for.

The continued decline in our Navy, Preserver paid off today, is a result of successive government failure to recognize the importance of a balanced military able to support government policy. Sending our uniformed personnel into harms way without appropriate resources is criminal.

We hitch hiked our way to Afghanistan. We had to play second fiddle in the first Gulf campaign because of our lack of resources. We sent a frigate to Haiti after the earthquake. We had to wait for the damn ferry to send the Army to Newfoundland after a hurricane a couple of years ago.

Organic RO/RO transport capacity is worth its weight in gold when all other means are unavailable or destroyed. Military assets are not just for offensive actions. Large cavernous amphibious type vessels such as LPD's, LHD's and MRV's can and should be the force multipliers that government can utilize for both soft and hard power projection.

Maybe the Dutch are on to something. They have structured their fleet with two large amphibious ships, one JSS, six frigates, four OPV's, four submarines and three dozen minor vessels and 9000 members.

We have the same number of members 12 frigates, one destroyer, four submarines and no support ships as of today plus minor vessels. On order are 5 or 6 AOPS and three AOR .

We are by no means able to compare apples to apples between our two nations. The physical size of our coastal responsibilities plus our global commitments requires a more robust fleet. The vastness and emptiness of our northern regions bely the need to ensure we have a physical presence available. I agree aerial surveillance is the best way to keep an eye on the area but we still need the ability to prosecute onsite if required. As a maritime nation with so much of our major centres accessible from the sea it makes sense for our nation to have the ability to assist its own from the sea, or great lake (our inland seas).

The Americans are toying with the idea of upgunning LPD's and using them in non traditional ways. The Dutch and the Brits (Poms as Ngati would say) are using their Bay and Enforcer classes as motherships, sea bases, to support operations as diverse as counter narco and anti pirate and refugee interdiction and support. They do this because they have the asset as well as the inherent flexibility that these platforms provide.

Using the rule of three's a fleet of 15 hulls provides 5 in a high state of readiness actively involved or ready to deploy, five hulls in training, and 5 hulls in various stages of refit or maintenance.

I watched this 32 year old CBC documentary hosted by Terrence McKenna detailing the challenges faced by our troops because of a lack of investment, the navy the worse off.

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j...y-guns&usg=AFQjCNGZ_NVEIjhf9c8jjCfyjR3W_af2EQ

Here we are three decades later and we are facing the same problem.

Unlike the Dutch who sell off their 20 year old hulls and refresh their fleet we are performing midlife refits in order to keep these hulls long past heir design life.

More jobs keeping old stuff going than investing in new hulls.

So now that my rant is over I wonder if its time for a total change to what we expect our navy to be able to accomplish.

Using the last 20 years as a basis of operations I see the following as important;
-deployed presence and enforcement patrols in a low to moderate threat environment
-support to peace making up to high threat
-full on war fighting potential at high threat
-HADR

Going back to a previous post I suggested a mixed fleet that I feel would serve us better. In order to allow the deployment of two Task Groups plus individual taskings I would like to see
two Queenston AOR (even though I dislike the names)
one Resolve AOR / HADR support
six highend ASW frigates based on the German F125 class c/w VLS ESSM
eight General Purpose Absalon frigates as built by Denmark
three Holland class OPV for deployment to low threat situations
six Dewolf class AOPS for the Arctic
minimum of four submarines

As much as I feel we need a class of LPD or LPH or Dutch JSS its about as likely to happen as there is of an increase to 2% of GDP for defence.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
Two percent of GDP is close to 36 billion dollars. That amount spent every year would go along way to shore up our armed forces. Unfortunately, as former PM Mulroney said, Canadians are a bunch of whiners. Citizens here want endless social handouts and don't give a $hit about national defence. We will be luckly to manage 1% with junior. :eek:
 

John Newman

The Bunker Group
As much as I feel we need a class of LPD or LPH or Dutch JSS its about as likely to happen as there is of an increase to 2% of GDP for defence.
I think that's the big problem (or one of the bigger problems, apart from the apparent dysfunctional procurement system) for Canada, simply the amount of $'s allocated to defence, or lack of.

Canada is spending closer to 1% of GDP, Australia is spending closer to 2% of GDP, and with both the A$ and the C$ being almost at parity in 'real' dollar terms the difference is rather more stark, Canada (to the best of my knowledge is spending a bit over $20B this year, Australia for the current financial year is spending a bit over $32B.

That's more than 50% more in similar/same dollars, this year, and the gap will probably widen in the years to come too.

I would hate to think what the procurement plan would look like if we (the RAN) was faced with the same financial limitations as the RCN faces, scary thought!!

Sadly, and I hate to say this, but unless more $'s are allocated or Canada can become very 'creative' with defence procurement, the RCN will continue on the slide and become a mere shadow of its former self.
 

John Newman

The Bunker Group
Two percent of GDP is close to 36 billion dollars. That amount spent every year would go along way to shore up our armed forces. Unfortunately, as former PM Mulroney said, Canadians are a bunch of whiners. Citizens here want endless social handouts and don't give a $hit about national defence. We will be luckly to manage 1% with junior. :eek:
Hi John,

Far be it for me to ever defend 'Junior', it would be like me defending 'Gillard', never ever ever going to happen!!

But from the time I've been following Canadian defence matters (from this side of the Pacific), it appears to me (in more recent times), that both the right and left of Canadian politics have both been responsible for defence spending being closer to 1% of GDP than anywhere 'north' of that figure.

Fortunately here (other than during the days of the Gillard experiment), both the left and right appear to be on a similar path when it comes to defence spending and procurement.

Not that the left and right of politics here agree on much, and they certainly don't, but at least at the moment they appear to be far closer together on defence (and I hope it stays that way for many many years to come too!!!).

The problem for Canadian defence procurement (just my opinion of course), is that while both sides of your politics are sticking to spending closer to 1% of GDP, it probably doesn't matter who is in Government, the picture for defence looks equally bleak to me!!
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
John, you are correct that both the Liberals and Conservatives have terrible records when it comes to managing and funding the defence portfolio. However, the decline in percentage of GDP spent on defence started with junior's as old man. He massively increased Canada's debt from the late sixties to throughout the seventies. The huge interest rates during this period further compounded the debt to the point where defence became the sacrificial lamb at budget time for all subsequent governments. Fast forward to today and we now have junior spending an estimated 5 billion (during the next 4 years) on largely unvetted Syrian refugees. How many F-35s would that amount buy. He is currently running a huge deficit and this will continue for years (and this is with only 1% of GDP being spent on defence). The only positive comment on his economic record is it isn't as bad as the Liberal government running the province of Ontario, Canada's former economic engine. Scary thing is many of the Ontario Liberal brainfarts are now up in Ottawa advising junior. Junior will likely fall below the 1% threshold based on how poorly Canada and Ontario are currently managed.:flaming
 

Novascotiaboy

Active Member
The last year that Canada spent 2% or more of GDP on defence was 1969 /70. Before that it was as high as 7.8% in 1954. Since 1969/70 the figure has been between 2% and 1% or less.

http://ploughshares.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/WP3.1.pdf

For almost 50 years we have allowed our military to whither to arguably its lowest level of capability. Although there have been some very good investments namely air transport these were all as a result of not being able to perform as expected because the previous assets were clapped out or in capable of performing the task.

The powers that exist have allowed all three supply ships to retire without replacement. All four destroyers will be retired without replacement by 2017.

Hundreds of millions if not billions have been wasted on trying to purchase or maintain military hardware by inept politicians and beauracrats. The limited funds of our military budget are wasted supporting a bloated top heavy administration.

It will be a very hard lesson for those in charge when we need our military and it's not there to help.

The motto of the RCN is "Ready aye Ready". Maybe it needs to be changed to "Ready but alas Unlikely".

So so sad what has happened.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
The design tender for Canada's CSC is expected to be out tomorrow. The article mentions the design cost could be upwards of $10 billion so that's a pretty big bite out of the old total budget number of $26 billion. Either more money is going to have to be put into the pot or the build number is going to significantly lower than the 15 ships first planned for. Next year will be a hot summer (expected date of outcome).:fly

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/c...nadas-next-multibillion-dollar-warship-design
 

vonnoobie

Well-Known Member
The design tender for Canada's CSC is expected to be out tomorrow. The article mentions the design cost could be upwards of $10 billion so that's a pretty big bite out of the old total budget number of $26 billion. Either more money is going to have to be put into the pot or the build number is going to significantly lower than the 15 ships first planned for. Next year will be a hot summer (expected date of outcome).:fly

Federal government set to launch competition for Canada’s next multibillion-dollar warship design | National Post
I have to ask, Could the media be confusing them selves in regards to various program costs? Could the $10 billion be build price for the hull's or something along those lines. I don't see $10 billion for blueprints having anything to do with reality.
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
I have to ask, Could the media be confusing them selves in regards to various program costs? Could the $10 billion be build price for the hull's or something along those lines. I don't see $10 billion for blueprints having anything to do with reality.
Irving is actually involved with the tender process (albeit with adult supervision by the PWGSC and the RCN). Once the design is selected (which likely includes other stuff), Irving, in conjunction with their partners, will then prepare a build price to the government. I think this the process. We will know more shortly.
 
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spoz

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
The article mentions the design cost could be upwards of $10 billion so that's a pretty big bite out of the old total budget number of $26 billion. [/url]
That's an order of magnitude more that Australia paid Navantia for the F100 design, Australianisation mods and involvement in the build process; and I don't think we got any of that particularly cheap. It's also an order of magnitude greater than the total of all the pre build phases for the Hobart Class even translating those to 2016 values. It has to be for more than the design - might it include platform long lead time and combat sytems equipments, for example?
 

hauritz

Well-Known Member
That's an order of magnitude more that Australia paid Navantia for the F100 design, Australianisation mods and involvement in the build process; and I don't think we got any of that particularly cheap. It's also an order of magnitude greater than the total of all the pre build phases for the Hobart Class even translating those to 2016 values. It has to be for more than the design - might it include platform long lead time and combat sytems equipments, for example?
I am curious ... when you buy the design rights is it based on the number of ships you plan to build, or is it a fixed one-off fee regardless of ship numbers?
 

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
It has to be for more than the design - might it include platform long lead time and combat sytems equipments, for example?
It is just too early to say. The tender may indeed specify that the design should include acceptable combat systems together with integration costs along with propulsion packages and generator requirements etc.
 

Novascotiaboy

Active Member
John you have the same view of the libtard government as I and unfortunately this is just a continuation of smoke and mirrors propaganda that follows Canadian defence matters.

Far too much treasure is spent on anything but actual hardware or capability.

HMCS Halifax was laid down in March 1987, almost 30 years ago. She was commissioned in 1992. Our old steamers served on average 30 years. Even if the first replacement hull were to be laid down in 2020 it won't likely commission until 2025. Again by that point there is the likelihood that even the CPF's will already be going out of service before replacements are ready.
 
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