Canada's top sailor sure we could defend against Arctic trespassing with new ships, submarines and underwater surveillance technology.
nationalpost.com
Quite an interesting article regarding AOPS the sub program and some other technologies of note for the RCN.
The Admiral has some seemingly interesting ideas but I am not sure how feasible some of them really are in the end.
“They’re not intended to be front-line combatants,” Topshee said of the warships, dubbed AOPS (Arctic and offshore patrol ships). “They have everything they need for the missions that we anticipate that (they’ll) do. Were we to get into a wartime environment where we felt … they could come directly under threat, then there’s the capacity to install other weapons in sort of an ad hoc manner — very similar to how you would defend an army forward operating base.” But it’s not worth the expense of adding more weapons to the AOPS now because the threat doesn’t warrant it, he said.
I'm curious what this described ad hoc manner of weaponry installation would actually be? From what I can gather, the aft deck typically used for containers/cargo does not have sufficient space to mount additional gun or missile systems due to the two cranes/landing ship being in the way. It sounds like you would likely need to take up the flight deck area to mount any worthwhile weapon systems. Given how limited the sensor suite is aboard these ships regarding getting relevant fire control data, I question how useful putting weapons onto them even in a wartime scenario. Perhaps decoys and countermeasures to assist with defence but at that point, it's a bandaid on a broken leg and you likely have a sunken vessel.
He is entirely right regarding not adding weaponry when it isn't required though, all that accomplishes is taking up additional resources and making the ship worse at its job for little benefit.
“On both coasts we’re experimenting to make sure that these ships would have legitimate wartime roles if they needed to.”
On the east coast, the navy is focused on making sure the Arctic and offshore patrol ships have a full suite of mine counter-measures.
“The ship itself will never go into a minefield — 7,000 tons is not the type of thing you put into a minefield. But is a perfect platform for all of the sensors and effectors that you would deploy into a minefield to find the mines and disable the mines, working in concert with our clearance divers.”
With how mine warfare is going, I think the AOPS have a very valuable role to play supplementing/replacing the Kingston class/other NATO mine warfare ships in service. It seems the West is moving to largely attacking minefields at distance using a mix of different aerial, surface and sub-surface unmanned assets to keep vessels and personnel safe. AOPS can fit something like 6 20ft TEU's I believe on its aft deck in a maximum configuration and perhaps some on the flight deck as well? That alongside its two cranes, additional personnel quarters and small boat capability potentially make it a fairly potent mine warfare vessel. I am curious if you could use it as sort of an adhoc resupply vessel for smaller mine vessels, transferring supplies and fuel to keep them working at sea longer?
On the west coast, the AOPS are more focused on anti-submarine warfare. The navy’s experimenting now with towed arrays that can detect submarines from thousands of kilometres away.
“That way you’ve got a ship that’s not got the weapons to defend itself, but it’s looking for a submarine that’s so far away the submarine doesn’t even know it’s being hunted,” Topshee said, noting the ship could feed information to the Royal Canadian Air Force to help it attack the sub.
While arrays can’t be towed in ice, he said the navy is eyeing sensors that could be rapidly deployed on the ocean floor and autonomous vessels that can patrol for submarines under the ice and report back quickly on what they find.
This sounds a lot more questionable to me, given the fact that an icebreaking hull form is inherently a poor platform for ASW given its lack of acoustic mitigation and low overall speed. From what I can recall as well, AOPS isn't yet capable of meaningful Cyclone helicopter operation and cannot keep the helos aboard for extended periods of time due to a lack of maintenance facilities. Given how few of these helicopters we actually have as well, is it really a great idea to tie valuable airframes to these questionable platforms?
I'm very curious what kind of towed array you can fit on a ship like AOPS after the fact that can detect submarines from thousands of kilometres away? That sounds like a seriously capable system if it can be put into a reasonably sized package. The unmanned systems to hunt submarines seems a bit more reasonable, I think there is a lot of potential for experimentation with the future River class and its substantial mission bay. Unmanned systems for this sort of role seems like a great way to extend the sensor net of ASW vessels in general even if they aren't being used to launch attacks themselves.
Topshee calls those icebreakers, though he concedes they’re not heavy icebreakers.
“They break four-and-half feet of ice,” he said. “They operate across the Arctic (with) incredible capability that we use to make sure we have full control (and are) aware of everything that’s happening in the Arctic. We can execute sovereignty and security functions anywhere we go, and the threats are growing. China’s in our Arctic every year. Russia is routinely in the approaches to our Arctic. We are seeing an increase in shipping through the Arctic.”
So much for being a "slushbreaker" eh? I think these ships have some serious value to bring to the RCN especially with testing roles, equipment and tech that may transition to the River class vessels and the CMMC in the future. From what I have seen and heard, the standard of accommodation on these ships is a generational leap over anything in the Navy now or previously. That alone is a big recruiting draw compared to being squeezed into a Halifax or Kingston class vessel like sardines.
shipsforcanada.ca
