Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee - Feature Interview Canadian Defence
Great interview with the head of the Navy in Canadian Defence Review Magazine a few months ago, I've picked out some sections I think would interest folks here.
CDR: "What do submarines mean to the Royal Canadian Navy, and what kind of timelines are you tracking for the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project?"
VAdm Topshee: "I talked about how every Canadian expects us to know what’s on and under the waters around Canada, and especially our Canadian waters, including our exclusive economic zones. If we’re serious about owning those waters, about controlling who can come into those waters, then the best capability for that is a submarine. And if we want to be able to protect all three of our oceans simultaneously, which is the expectation, then you need a fleet of 12, because that ensures that you have at least three available for operations and able to do any mission a submarine might need to take on at any time. Ideally, we’ll have three others to support training, force generation, potentially a deployment elsewhere, and to make sure that if one of those three high readiness submarines has a problem, there’s another to replace it. There’ll be three that are in depot level maintenance, and then three that are in lower levels of maintenance cycles because submarines are incredibly complex vessels. That ratio of four submarines to maintain one at high readiness is the internationally accepted standard.
The submarine we own today was a used submarine that was designed to do one thing for us, and that was preserve our ability to generate submariners and maintain the knowledge and skills required to successfully operate a submarine force. By that metric, it has been successful. We have over 200 qualified submariners currently in the Royal Canadian Navy. That’s the seed corn, the nucleus, of the sailors that we need for the future fleet, and we can grow that into enough sailors to operate 12 submarines. So I’m optimistic. The government seems to be as keen on this project as we are. The Prime Minister has been clear in his comments that the plan is to buy up to 12 conventionally powered submarines, and I’m hopeful that that project is moving at pace, and hopefully it will continue to move at pace.
What’s driving the timeline? It generally takes seven years to build a submarine from the moment you sign a contract. We will be retiring in Victoria class early in the 2030s, and 2035 at the latest, so the clock is ticking. We have to make a decision because we need to start building a submarine, because that day where the submarine is delivered is just the start of us learning to operate it. So from my point of view, I would love for us to be able to get to the place where we’ve made a decision about the right submarine for Canada, ideally by the end of the year. It’s a very ambitious timeline, but it is achievable."
The want to have the decision made on either the Type 212CD or the KSS-III Batch II before the end of 2025 is very ambitious, and lines up with many of the rumours I've heard that this will ultimately be done by a government to government sole source contract. This program is moving incredibly fast for Canadian procurement standards and I hope we can stick to this supposed timeline. It seems to be an open questions who the program will be awarded to, as both parties have put a lot of work into selling themselves and gaining favour.
CDR: "The Navy has announced it is starting to pay off the MCDV fleet. What do you want to see as a replacement of the MCDV?"
VAdm Topshee: "
The Kingston class has been fantastic since its introduction into service in the 1990s. They’ve deployed to places no one ever thought they would go. The name gives it away: Maritime Coastal Defence Vessel. They were not supposed to ever go to Hawaii or repeatedly cross the Atlantic. They’ve proven to be remarkably flexible in what they’ve done.
The problem I face as we look at building the River Class Destroyers to take over the response capability of the main surface combatant from the Halifax class, and we recognize that we’ve got the Harry DeWolf class that can go up in the north, is there’s a gap between those two. We need something that can deal with most threats that isn’t going to provide air defence or protection to anyone else, but can defend itself in a fight, and is not afraid of ice. So not an icebreaker, but can go to the ice edge and can rip about at speed near ice. That should be consistent with a hull form that still allows it to have a sonar and still allows it to move with enough speed to be relevant as a combatant. It’s basically the same capability set that’s currently in the Halifax class, shrunk down to a smaller package with an ice edge capability, roughly a Polar Class 6. So that’s what we’re talking about as a Continental Defence Corvette, and we’re working to develop the high-level mandatory requirements for what exactly that would look like. We deliberately chose the name Corvette because we’re trying to indicate that it’s a tier of combatant — it definitely can fight, but it’s not the thing that’s the heart of the fleet."
Saying they want a Polar Class 6 rated corvette for operations in the Arctic is a significant departure from prior comments, as this rating will require serious modifications to the design. The AOPS are Polar Class 5 rated on the majority of the hull, with a further reinforced Polar Class 4 bow section. The Canadian Coast Guard's new offshore oceanographic and hydrographic survey vessel is also rated for this same class, which allows summer/autumn operation in medium first-year ice which may include old ice inclusions between 70 to 120 cm (2.3 to 3.9 ft). All of this additional weight, hull changes, etc on top of the vessel still being able to have a sonar, able to defend itself and move at speeds relevant to be a combatant is going to result in a complex, expensive and most importantly, a bespoke design at the end of the day.
We have moved far beyond a replacement for the Kingston class, we are approaching what looks to be a replacement for the Halifax class given how Topshee apparently wants the same capability set as they have but shrunk down and ice capable.
Navy commander wants 'Canadian from the core' corvette fleet
"Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee tells The Canadian Press he’s looking for ships with a long range that pack a punch in combat and can also deal with Arctic ice.
That likely will result in a set of requirements unique to Canada’s military.
Topshee says the navy wants the ships to be “Canadian from the core” and “absolutely built in Canada,” wherever possible.
The navy is still in the early stages of its search for a dozen or more corvette warships that would be smaller than frigates - one of the next major procurement projects the military is expected to pursue after it settles on a new fleet of submarines.
The current Kingston-class coastal defence vessels are approaching the end of their lifespans, with eight of the twelve ships leaving service this fall and the rest expected to retire by 2029."
It also seems like they want this design to be Canadian designed, Canadian built and equipped with as much Canadian equipment as possible. Alongside what I discussed above, this will seemingly lock us into a bespoke or heavily modified design that will need to be built domestically. I would expect maybe as low as 4-6 of these ships to be procured, and they somehow need to replace 12 Kingston class vessels in their low cost patrol, training and mine warfare roles? Consider me skeptical.
CDR: "Would you want it to have a flight deck that would be able to accommodate a Cyclone helicopter?"
VAdm Topshee: "The Cyclone has been a colossal disappointment. I’m exceptionally disappointed in Lockheed Martin/Sikorsky. I think they’ve delivered an absolute lemon. It is amazing what the incredible aviators at 12 Wing manage to do with it. The availability, the maintenance, the cost, it all needs to get better — it needs to get drastically better. And for all of those reasons, there’s no world in which I will design a Canadian Continental Defence Corvette to carry a Cyclone helicopter, because there’s no world in which I see that becoming a useful helicopter, and if that changes, great, but by the time it does, we’ll probably be really good at uncrewed and remotely operated systems."
This is the most surprising part of the article personally, absolutely putting the Cyclone on blast finally and calling out the utter incompetence from Lockheed/Sikorsky/Govt that has put us in a situation where our aircraft have outdated data links and operational reliability/safety issues. I would like to see the Cyclones be replaced at this point sometime soon, as they seem to be a lost cause. Merlin seems to fit our needs fairly well, and would be a final slap in the face to Jean Chrétien's nonsense all those years ago. Perhaps the Seahawk is on the table as well, as Lockheed could use it to right the wrongs of the Cyclone and still keep a customer as well?
lol (Like Germany or South Korea will do for Canada r/ the new subs...)
