Royal Canadian Navy Discussions and updates

[StingrayOZ]

Australia enquired with the UK regarding purchasing/building SSN’s, but the UK then needed the US to sign off due to the terms of their 1958 MDP that allowed the sale of an S5W reactor that went in HMS Dreadnought.

Oh the UK definitely got its reactor and stuff earlier. But that was in the 50's.

AFAIK AUKUS is a new thing. It wasn't expanding the existing arrangement the UK and US had, which again is from 60+ years ago. Uk had/has strong sovereign capabilities, Australia is weak in that, no nuclear industry, and we haven't build a sub in a quarter of a century. We are very interested about US basing and servicing US submarines, the UK isn't terribly interested in that.

AUKUS is new thing, spurred by Australia's submarine aspirations, and we went to the Americans (which we would need to even if we want British stuff). The British don't have spare submarines, or spare capacity, even their reactor capabilities are undergoing renewal, so they are even available at the moment. The British didn't need a new agreement for what they are doing and with their submarines. There reactor and supply were already negotiated before AUKUS. Future may change, and a new agreement between UK-AU-US has media potential.

Of course with such things the truth is murky.. Boris Johnson claims a lot of stuff, he claims he invented to annoy the French. The french recalled Australian and US ambassadors but not UK. I am sure the whole AUKUS thing isn't just about annoying the French.

To Boris Johnson, Brexit is vindicated by AUKUS

History is written by the victors, and in the former UK prime minister's memoir 'Unleashed', AUKUS is cast as a singular achievement of Brexit.

www.crikey.com.au

Don't want to get too bogged down in AUKUS. Its a Canadian thread. AUKUS isn't relevant.

Super interested about the Canadian submarine program.

 

[swerve]

...
Of course with such things the truth is murky.. Boris Johnson claims a lot of stuff, he claims he invented to annoy the French. The french recalled Australian and US ambassadors but not UK. I am sure the whole AUKUS thing isn't just about annoying the French.

To Boris Johnson, Brexit is vindicated by AUKUS

History is written by the victors, and in the former UK prime minister's memoir 'Unleashed', AUKUS is cast as a singular achievement of Brexit.

www.crikey.com.au

Don't want to get too bogged down in AUKUS. Its a Canadian thread. AUKUS isn't relevant.

Super interested about the Canadian submarine program.

BoJo isn't quite in Trump's class, but he's still not someone you should ever believe without independent confirmation. More than once he's been sacked from jobs for lying.

 

[CorvetteCrunch]

Getting back to the Canadian Navy. I think Canada will have to assess some local capability for production of so many submarines. Korea is looking for a strong partnership with a yard in North America. Any Japanese offering will have to be locally produced, because Japan buys all the submarines it can produce and selling one, would mean a reduction in a capability they are trying to desperately expand.

The only reason that this submarine procurement is moving forward is the fact that we can send this procurement off abroad. If you look at the procurements of the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship, Canadian Surface Combatant and Joint Support Ship, you can see that all three programs share in cost overruns, delays and developmental costs due to their nature as domestic build programs. This is doubly so considering all three of these programs also engaged in major rebuilding of their shipyards infrastructure and work force due to a previous lack of work, the same we'd be dealing with in this situation with a submarine yard. Even with Korean assistance, any attempt to set up domestic submarine production is going to see significant program cost bloating, major delays and likely considerable quality control issues. With so many concurrent major procurement programs ongoing throughout the Navy, Airforce and Army, we do not have the bandwidth to work up another shipyard to build modern conventionally powered submarines. This is why the RCN and Canadian Govt is rushing down a path towards a largely off the shelf procurement abroad, something rarely done in our system.

Canada's primary three shipyards (Irving in Nova Scotia, Seaspan in British Columbia and Davie in Quebec) are all entirely at capability with Navy and Coast Guard contracts for the next few decades typically, so there is no slack for additional work. The only remaining yard I can think of off the top of my head is Ontario Shipyards (formerly Heddle) that is on Lake Ontario. This yard is set up largely for repair and refit work, considering local production/assembly of modern military submersibles is a huge leap. Canada has never actually produced submarines itself in its history, with the closest being assembling submarines from prebuild parts sent from the US during WWI. Our current submarine refit and repair infrastructure in the country has issues maintaining our Victoria class boats competently, I shudder to think of the issues an unexperienced Canadian yard will come up with. Even at the end of the day if you get this yard up and running smoothly, it'll certainly have to be staffed with a large portion of domestic Canadian employees which entirely will destroy any cost savings brought by South Korea's far lower pay and benefits.

If South Korea or Japan cannot accommodate our orders and timeline, we'll have to go elsewhere to find somebody who can or adjust our requirements.

 

[John Fedup]

The only alternatives to Japan and SKorea are European so the high wage/benefit costs will be similar to Canada. I really don’t see Japan wanting to chase this build opportunity due to their own needs. Losing Australia’s frigate requirement to SKorea might change this however but I think the Mogami will win it. SKorea is the best option assuming there is capacity for their expanding requirements and an export order for 12 RCN subs. Big if IMHO. Will the next government or more likely the following government after it still be committed? Another big if and then there is the possibility $hit will hit the fan before any decision or delivery happens.

 

[CorvetteCrunch]

Not sure if it was shared here but the Commander of the RCN, Vice Admiral Angus Topshee, recently had an interview with the Canadian Defence Review and shared some interesting points regarding current and future procurement programs.

FEATURE INTERVIEW - Vice-Admiral ANGUS TOPSHEE - Canadian Defence Review

CDR: What lessons has the Royal Canadian Navy learned from operating the Victoria-class, and how do you foresee the Navy applying those lessons to the new class of Canadian Patrol Submarines?

VAdm Topshee: Availability — that would be the number one lesson I take from the Victoria-class. It doesn’t matter how good the submarine is, if it can’t get out of the harbour, it’s of no use to anyone. So for us, this is all being driven by two things: one, we need to replace the Victoria-class as quickly as we possibly can. And two, whatever that solution is, it needs to have a maintenance package that ensures an availability that’s greater than what we’ve achieved with our current submarines. So, how will we achieve that? Well, the first thing is that we have committed that this is intended to be a military off-the-shelf procurement — buying a submarine that is in production. So not a design, not a concept, but something that actually exists and buying it as is. We have about 215 qualified submariners in Canada — we are not going to adapt a submarine to them, we are going to adapt them to the submarine that we buy because we are too small of a force to do it any other way.

Whoever builds that submarine, we need to make sure that they build a maintenance enterprise in Canada, on both coasts, to sustain submarine operations. 70% of the value of the submarine contract is not the acquisition, it’s the in-service support here in Canada, and that is where we’ll see the Canadian jobs, the Canadian technology growth, and the Canadian benefits. So that’s really our focus. From my point of view, very selfishly, getting that right ensures that we get boats that can do the job and will be available when we need.

The section regarding the importance of developing the maintenance and upkeep infrastructure in Canada is something to note, whatever partner we choose will very likely be expected to assist to various degrees in this matter. Hopefully the Navy will keep to this idea of an off the shelf procurement and not fall into Canadianization. I have a hard time seeing the RCN being able to break itself away from the US submarine ecosystem but perhaps it will happen.

DELIVERY TIMELINE FOR CANADIAN SURFACE COMBATANT

CDR: When are you expecting the first CSC?

VAdm Topshee: We’re doing everything we can and I wish I could accelerate it further. If everything goes according to plan, we are looking to cut steel on the first one in April of next year. The difference between the production test module and the cutting steel on the first ship is the production test module is proving Irving’s readiness to build the ship — doing the things that they haven’t done before in terms of steel work, armour plating, specific types of cuts and welds and fabrications that they have not done for the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships. So that’s all the stuff that they’re proving right now, that they can convert the detailed design drawings into actual production output so when they hit start, so to speak, that the parts are delivered to the right places, and cut and assembled in the right way, and that the workers and the production material are all aligned and arriving and sequencing through the production process properly.

We’re estimating that the first operational deployment of the River-class destroyer, the HMCS Fraser, will be about 2035, so we’re still 10 years away from that which is an incredibly long time, and that’s just the first one. We know the Halifax-class has to keep going until 2040.

We’ve been making decisions to give precedence to schedule above pretty much all else, while balancing cost, obviously, and that means that we have favored systems that have already been proven, that are in service and that have already been integrated into the core systems that will be a part of the River-class destroyer. So, everything we can do to bring this along as quickly as possible is being done.

Requiring the Halifax class to soldier on until 2040 is going to be rough, considering the oldest vessel is currently 32 years old and the newest is 28. In 2040, the oldest will be 43 years old and the newest will be 39. The ships were not designed with this kind of service life in mind and already have been routinely abused throughout their lives, I'd imagine the RCN is going to have to eventually start retiring vessels prior to the River class entering service in numbers due to mechanical failures or we are going to have to wind down deployments of the fleet.

CANADIAN MULTI-MISSION CORVETTE

CDR: You have mentioned that the Navy has needed to prioritize the Halifax-class over the MCDVs. Is that still the case and what does that mean for the Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels (MCDV’s)?

VAdm Topshee: I think what it means is we need to get out of the old ship business as quickly as we can. You may have seen some remarks by the Minister a couple of weeks ago where he says he’s waiting for me to deliver a recommendation with respect to the future of the MCDVs. When you look at that class, the reality is that they were designed to last 25 to 30 years. We’re at that window and they have been absolutely fantastic. They’ve got a new lease on life right now with the off-board systems and technology that we’ve got for Mine Counter-Measures. In fact, I’m really proud of the fact that HMCS Shawinigan and Glace Bay are deployed right now with the Standing NATO Maritime countermeasures group in Europe, so it’s fantastic to see that that platform can still be relevant today. But when you step back, and you look at what it is, a Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel is effectively an offshore support vessel. It’s the type of vessel that is used routinely around the world to support the offshore industry. It is something that, if we really needed to get more of them, we can do so quite quickly. They’re not heavily armed nor are they designed to survive a massive conflict. MCDVs have a couple of machine guns and some sophisticated communications systems. We can replicate that quite quickly, and we’re really confident in the offboard systems. I think our number one question is whether or not we need to be out of the MCDV business? Should we make sure that we are transitioning to the future fleet, that we are embracing autonomy, uncrewed systems, remotely operated things, and all sorts of other systems that can go on to vessels of opportunity that are not necessarily part of the Navy fleet.

CDR: Is there going to be a follow on to the class? People have been talking about a Corvette type ship.

VAdm Topshee: The nuance that I would offer is that the MCDV replacement will not be an MCDV. We have started some theorizing around what would a Canadian Multi-mission Corvette look like? It’s a nod to our history — I love the fact that we were a corvette and destroyer navy in the Second World War. What we’re probably building is something that’s going to be more capable than what might come to mind with a corvette because it has to be a real warship. The driving philosophy behind whatever comes is that it needs to be what we could not quickly replicate in a time of war. I think what we need to make sure we do with what’s being called the Canadian Multi-mission Corvette, is figure out the core sort of warship systems that we need to have, the type of thing that you can’t build quickly in wartime. The first part of any project is always that sort of initial identification of requirements, and that’s very much the phase of the thinking that we’re at right now.

The rumors circulating about the Kingston class replacement transitioning from an OPV into a Corvette with some kind of combat potential are interesting. I have heard that alongside unmanned/minimally manned vessels acting as off platform missile magazines for the River class, a potential Corvette class may see a similar role working alongside the main combatants. With the talk of the Kingston class potentially being mothballed or decommissioned entirely in the near future, I am somewhat apprehensive about the viability of a second line combatant type vessel especially as there is seemingly problems with getting it funded, designed and built with how few staff the RCN has at Ottawa regarding procurement alongside how the National Shipbuilding Strategy is currently setup.

 

[CorvetteCrunch]

The Canadian Surface Combatant program is another that seemed to burn bidders publically.

Failed Canadian Warship Bidder Takes Legal Action

Alion Science and Technology has launched a Federal Court appeal in an attempt to overturn the Canad...

maritime-executive.com

I missed this awhile ago but this is effectively a nothing burger. It is very common place for bidders to get angry and litigious once they lose military contracts, this is basically no different. Looking at the Dutch bid especially, it really should not be a surprise that a primarily air warfare based frigate design that was originally designed and built in the late 1990's lost out to an ASW focused design that is far more modern. Given the uncompetitive nature of the bids at the time, it seems self evident that the RCN/Canadian Govt modified their requirements to allow the Type 26 to complete in the competition. Without this change, it would have been F-105 vs De Zeven Provinciën, two dated designs overly focused on AAW for Canadian requirements. FREMM wasn't considered as an official bid given the stunt that their parent companies attempted to pull on the Canadian Govt, so changing the requirements was basically required at such a point to maintain the feasibility of the program.

 

[John Fedup]

I see a future corvette as a threat to getting 15 River class destroyers.

 

[StingrayOZ]

If South Korea or Japan cannot accommodate our orders and timeline, we'll have to go elsewhere to find somebody who can or adjust our requirements.

Ok wow. Your quote explains Canadian thinking.
This may not be obvious to outside observer. That will be an interesting project to watch.

I see a future corvette as a threat to getting 15 River class destroyers.

These are very long projects, one would imagine at some point things will change. As an Australian this is sounding awfully familiar. Resources including crews and money and ship yard capacity only go so far.

 

[Underway]

Ok wow. Your quote explains Canadian thinking.
This may not be obvious to outside observer. That will be an interesting project to watch.



These are very long projects, one would imagine at some point things will change. As an Australian this is sounding awfully familiar. Resources including crews and money and ship yard capacity only go so far.

The conversation has a lot of similarities to Australian Tier 2 pivot and the UK Type 31 pivot where Type 26 derivative orders were reduced in favour of a less capable frigate order with the goal of more hulls.

So what "warfighting capabilities" exist that aren't modular that need to be built up? This could conceivably look like the Dutch sidekick ship or the LOSV programs (USN and RAN). Or it could be an Arsenal ship concept or stealth corvette. There also might be OPVs with spectacular overtuned sensors (Dutch Holland Class) for the ship size and space to take on weapons modularly. There is a strong requirement for powerful EW as well and no one is talking about EW Sidekicks.

 

[John Fedup]

Australia and the UK both have destroyers now so having Tier1 and Tier 2 frigates isn’t quite as dramatic a downgrade compared to a reduced River buy and a Tier 2 frigate for Canada. A Tier 2 frigate program will mean delay, reduced capability, and will likely be a complete C-F that will save no money.

 

[Underway]

Australia and the UK both have destroyers now so having Tier1 and Tier 2 frigates isn’t quite as dramatic a downgrade compared to a reduced River buy and a Tier 2 frigate for Canada. A Tier 2 frigate program will mean delay, reduced capability, and will likely be a complete C-F that will save no money.

25ish year build for 15 ships. I think that its possible that the River Class as it's currently is constructed doesn't last the full 25 years. But what I don't see is that Irving stops building ships.

The CRNC's comments look to me more like the Destroyer Frigate navy of the 90's to 2015's. I can see the initial 3 CSC's being the current design and the following four batch II ships being an evolution to make them more AAW.

I see it more probable that there is never an MCDV replacement at all. If the RCN was asked to cut programs to meet future budget targets the MCDV replacement would be first to go as its not even funded. Next would be numbers of submarines. The absolute last thing would be the River Class because that has political costs to cancelation and is the entire future of the RCN. The navy would fight like hell to keep it going and there are now a lot of beds being feathered by that project across the country.

 

[John Fedup]

@Underway If a AAW version is in the cards, I sure hope the design process is proceeding at full speed. What about the 7 remaining ships, larger versions of the River?

 

[Underway]

@Underway If a AAW version is in the cards, I sure hope the design process is proceeding at full speed. What about the 7 remaining ships, larger versions of the River?

We're a long way from the design process for a dedicated AAW ship. First River is cutting steel in April, 7 year build, then 3 years till their first deployment (2035). There are definitely iterations of the design that looked at more VLS. I've even heard discussions of 57mm instead of 127mm with 8-16 more VLS added (127mm and magazine takes up a lot of space).

We can't compare to the Hunter class too much either, as they have a different hull size and internal loadout (which restricts their top speed as well). The advantage is that Canada, UK and Australia are all sharing information constantly and look at each others solutions to similar problems. So if the Ozzies create a solution that has significantly more VLS (like the BAE offering to replace the Hobarts) then that's something to look at.

I think an expedient solution is to replace the mission bay with VLS but that comes with a lot of negatives, such as losing the flexibility and future proofing that provides, as well as the ever present weight considerations.

That being said the current AAW setup in a self defence configuration will be extremely robust. We're looking at up to 96 ESSM2s, 42 RAM for hard kill self defence, then you add on the decoys (DLF/SOPD, Nukla), jamming (RAVEN, laser dazzling), chaff/flare launchers. SPY-7, AEGIS, IR early warning systems, and 127mm.

Probable loadout will be 16 SM2's with 32 ESSM2s and the 42 RAM. And she's going to sail with 2-3 others with similar loadouts.

Ships absolutely bristling with self defence capabilities. This is an extremely capable platform. Lets not get too down on it as is the Canadian tradition. Its a well rounded ship.

 

[Sender]

We're a long way from the design process for a dedicated AAW ship. First River is cutting steel in April, 7 year build, then 3 years till their first deployment (2035). There are definitely iterations of the design that looked at more VLS. I've even heard discussions of 57mm instead of 127mm with 8-16 more VLS added (127mm and magazine takes up a lot of space).

We can't compare to the Hunter class too much either, as they have a different hull size and internal loadout (which restricts their top speed as well). The advantage is that Canada, UK and Australia are all sharing information constantly and look at each others solutions to similar problems. So if the Ozzies create a solution that has significantly more VLS (like the BAE offering to replace the Hobarts) then that's something to look at.

I think an expedient solution is to replace the mission bay with VLS but that comes with a lot of negatives, such as losing the flexibility and future proofing that provides, as well as the ever present weight considerations.

That being said the current AAW setup in a self defence configuration will be extremely robust. We're looking at up to 96 ESSM2s, 42 RAM for hard kill self defence, then you add on the decoys (DLF/SOPD, Nukla), jamming (RAVEN, laser dazzling), chaff/flare launchers. SPY-7, AEGIS, IR early warning systems, and 127mm.

Probable loadout will be 16 SM2's with 32 ESSM2s and the 42 RAM. And she's going to sail with 2-3 others with similar loadouts.

Ships absolutely bristling with self defence capabilities. This is an extremely capable platform. Lets not get too down on it as is the Canadian tradition. Its a well rounded ship.

Not to mention two of these: https://electronics.leonardo.com/documents/16277707/18421316/MARLIN+30_new.pdf?t=1618842731728

 

[shadow99]

I see a future corvette as a threat to getting 15 River class destroyers.

I too see a corvette program as a threat from the pollies point of view, but the reality is we need hulls in the water sooner than 2035.

With the high manpower requirements for the Halifax class, retiring just 1 would free up enough manpower for 3 corvettes of 70 personnel each.
As a bonus, the retired Halifax would be used for parts on the remaining ships.

Team Vigilance Team Vigilance | Next Generation Naval Vessel has a design that will hold 4 40ft containers on the stern deck fulfilling the roll of additional VLS cells.
This build would not impact the the other ongoing naval programs since it would be built in Ontario.

Vigilance seems a little bit too small for the weapons its outfitted with, but would be useful for missions not requiring a high end Destroyer.

 

[CorvetteCrunch]

I will point out that a corvette program for the RCN strictly does not properly exist at this point, we've just heard musings from the RCN's Head alongside the Vard Vigilance proposal. The program has been ongoing behind the scenes seemingly for sometime, although largely just information gathering with crews of MCDV's to see what they wanted in a replacement. From what I have gathered, it was originally viewed as an OPV but has morphed into a corvette. With that being said, this program it is not currently funded, nor is it included in the defense policy, it has not progressed to the very basic steps of our procurement processes and it has minimal staff assigned to it.

Nothing is likely to happen anytime soon, especially with the submarine program eating up the valuable and few procurement officials that Canada has for these types of programs. It seems that Vard received insider info pointing towards the RCN wanting more of a corvette than an OPV, so they modified their existing Vigilance proposal to meet that perceived requirement. The market for small vessels of this type is flooded already and I have heard that Vard's proposal has some issues regarding range and top speed, there is the fact that the River class destroyers have dropped CAMM and ExLS as well. It would need to see a RAM launcher mounted instead in all likelihood.

There is also no shipyards available under the National Shipbuilding Strategy to build these vessels for quite sometime, meaning they'd need to bring another shipyard into the strategy, go abroad or modify the strategy. As it stands right now, any vessel over 1,000t needs to be built by Irving, Davie or Seaspan.

 

[shadow99]

I will point out that a corvette program for the RCN strictly does not properly exist at this point,...

Thanks for the background info on Vigilance. Lacking speed and range seems like a waste of money now.

 

[Underway]

I will point out that a corvette program for the RCN strictly does not properly exist at this point, we've just heard musings from the RCN's Head alongside the Vard Vigilance proposal. The program has been ongoing behind the scenes seemingly for sometime, although largely just information gathering with crews of MCDV's to see what they wanted in a replacement. From what I have gathered, it was originally viewed as an OPV but has morphed into a corvette. With that being said, this program it is not currently funded, nor is it included in the defense policy, it has not progressed to the very basic steps of our procurement processes and it has minimal staff assigned to it.

This is SOP. The submarine announcement and program came from the exact same process. The statement that the "Defense Minister is waiting for the RCN's MCDV replacement plan" (paraphrased), is telling me that the Government is asking questions that the navy needs to answer. Essentially the RCN does its research and then gives an appropriate answer.
Then the minister takes this to cabinet.

At the very least a plan for what we're going to do with the MCDV's is reached (divest, refit, replace, etc.).

 

[Underway]

Team Vigilance Team Vigilance | Next Generation Naval Vessel has a design that will hold 4 40ft containers on the stern deck fulfilling the roll of additional VLS cells.
This build would not impact the the other ongoing naval programs since it would be built in Ontario.

VARD's claim to fame in the OPV market is that they build ships to civilian standards to get things cheap and quick out the door. Its right on their website their philosophy. This doesn't seem to meet the RCN requirement for a "warfighting capability". So they may have to pivot. It's not like their parent company doesn't have designs that would fit this requirement though.