6 Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels being no longer Mothballed

[GAP]

And the irony in all this is......wait for it....

They are going to do it anyway.  There's more than one way to skin a cat, and over the next few months you'll see it. They can call it Mary Poppins or something equally preverbial, but you will now find all ships tied up enough to equal what they were going to save....just spread out, and out of the public's and MSM's eye...

 

[Old Sweat]

It seems to me from following this thread over the past little while, that Admiral McFadden took the course that was going to result in the most cost and operationally effective solution. There are not the crews available to keep all the vessels in service at rotating standards of acceptable readiness. That opinion is far out of my lane, and I apologize for it if I totally misread the situation.

 

[Infanteer]

This is all pretty neat....are we going to get that Big Honking Ship?

 

[Edward Campbell]

I have no basis upon which to critique McFadden operational decision; I am pretty sure he won a major political battle for the Navy (NDHQ politics) which means at the expense of the Army, Air Force and purple/common support services given the zero-sum budget position with which DND must cope for at least the next couple of years.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This is all pretty neat....are we going to get that Big Honking Ship?

My guess is that the Navy is going to have a few problems steering anything past the 'grownups' for the next couple of years - memories are long in NDHQ. There are a lot of people in Ottawa who resemble the Bourbon kings of France in that they remember everything but learn nothing.

 

[rormson]

Hats off to the Admiral. He should put all of our vessels in port until he gets the cash he needs to run the Navy right and the CDS (if he were like Hilliard) would be in lock step with him. As it has been said within army.ca forums many times in the past nothing short of a major security incident in this country with get Canadians to pull their heads out of their rear ends about the need for proper, sustainable budgeting for the forces. Until then the politicians won't fund any branch of the CF properly. 

 

[MARS]

It seems to me from following this thread over the past little while, that Admiral McFadden took the course that was going to result in the most cost and operationally effective solution. There are not the crews available to keep all the vessels in service at rotating standards of acceptable readiness. That opinion is far out of my lane, and I apologize for it if I totally misread the situation.

No Sir, you have not misread the situation at all.  In fact, you nailed it.  For years we have been rotating crews at too high a rate.  Individual augmentees are sent to a ship often just for the Work-Up period and then sent to another ship (likely abouut to undergo Work-Ups).  By the time the ship that passed whatever WUPs (Mission, Directed or Full) embarks on her mission, it has lost a good number of her worked-up crew.

E.R Campbell is also correct - this was not done in secrecy.  This thread started on 3 May, Chronicbny said that the west coast briefing had been held the week prior, and the UNCLAS letter announcing the way ahead was dated in late April.

GAP is also correct - this will very likely happen in phases in much the same way we have been slowly and quietly tying up KINGSTON-Class ships for a while now.  We have never been running 12 ships (for any significant period of time) and we haven't been running 10 for a while.  The drop to 6 was actually a loss of 2, not 6.

No, all we have here is an Operational Commander, who made a sound (not just fiscally sound, but operationally sound) operational decision, as was his purview, indeed his responsibility, and who was then overruled when it became politically embarrassing.

edited for grammar

 

[Dissident]

What amazes me is that the mothballing of the MCDVs was being discussed two months ago when I got on the ground at Veture NOTC. All the (reserve) Navy types I am surrounded by were discussing it and trying to come up with employement solution. All the sailors on base were talking about it.

This now becomes an issue? Really? Really? Are communications at higher level that difficult?

 

[SeanNewman]

Hats off to the Admiral. He should put all of our vessels in port until he gets the cash he needs to run the Navy right...

That sounds very brave and macho, until you realize that he has orders to perform tasks just like any other rank.

It would be like a Private looking at a Sgt and saying "Well you haven't given me enough sleep so I'm staying right here in my sleeping bag".

How far do you think that would go?  About as far as an Admiral parking all of his Canada's ships in protest.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

That sounds very brave and macho, until you realize that he has orders to perform tasks just like any other rank.

It would be like a Private looking at a Sgt and saying "Well you haven't given me enough sleep so I'm staying right here in my sleeping bag".

How far do you think that would go?  About as far as an Admiral parking all of his Canada's ships in protest.

It can and has been done if a ship can't sail for safety reasons. A ship cannot just take in her lines and sail willy nilly, there has to be certain checks in the box made prior to that. A ship has to be able to meet her Watch and Station bill requirements, why else do you think we have sailors from sometimes 3 or 4 other ships sailing with us, when a ship does a major deployment? :

 

[SeanNewman]

It can and has been done if a ship can't sail for safety reasons.

Well of course, but that's very different than what was suggested above which was more of a machismo stand off.

 

[drunknsubmrnr]

It can and has been done if a ship can't sail for safety reasons. A ship cannot just take in her lines and sail willy nilly, there has to be certain checks in the box made prior to that. A ship has to be able to meet her Watch and Station bill requirements, why else do you think we have sailors from sometimes 3 or 4 other ships sailing with us, when a ship does a major deployment? :

That can be waivered by higher authority. It's just not done very often.

I suppose the Admiral could stop issuing waivers if he felt shirty, but I dunno how long he'd be the higher authority after that.

 

[Stoker]

Lots of scrambling going on right now to try and crew the ships for the summer, looks like a lot of pers put their component transfers in when they were told that they were putting 3 ship's alongside. We have at least 20 going right now.
In the mean time people are being pulled off their career courses to sail this summer. I can see a lot more people quitting and CTing over this.

 

[krustyrl]

WoW ...no kidding. !  Certainly not good news at all.     
Interesting to see what happens when the dust settles on this one.     

 

[Stoker]

The sad thing is that the oldest hull is 15 years old, operational life for the platform is 25 years. If the navy dropped a few bucks into the hull for needed upgrades the ships would be good to go. Compared to the money that is being spent on the subs, its a drop in the bucket and an excellent return for the navy.

 

[Lex Parsimoniae]

Compared to the money that is being spent on the subs, its a drop in the bucket and an excellent return for the navy.

Not this argument again.  The govt funds the submarines because of their strategic value.  Head over to Jetty NC and read the citation for CORNER BROOK's Canadian Forces Unit Commendation (an extensive European deployment, an Arctic Sovereignty mission, several international and domestic exercises, plus an operational mission in the Carribean) for an example.  If the Victoria Class was to be removed from service then the govt would no longer provide that funding.  It would not automatically become available for the navy to spend on other projects.  IMHO, the Kingston Class suffer from a lack of a defined strategic purpose (as does NAVRES but I digress).  I am unconvinced that spending more money on updating a 15 knot hull provides any substantial return on investment.  How would you see the Kingston Class being used in the future now that the Orca Class have taken on the training role?

 

[Stoker]

Not this argument again.  The govt funds the submarines because of their strategic value.  Head over to Jetty NC and read the citation for CORNER BROOK's Canadian Forces Unit Commendation (an extensive European deployment, an Arctic Sovereignty mission, several international and domestic exercises, plus an operational mission in the Carribean) for an example.  If the Victoria Class was to be removed from service then the govt would no longer provide that funding.  It would not automatically become available for the navy to spend on other projects.  IMHO, the Kingston Class suffer from a lack of a defined strategic purpose (as does NAVRES but I digress).  I am unconvinced that spending more money on updating a 15 knot hull provides any substantial return on investment.  How would you see the Kingston Class being used in the future now that the Orca Class have taken on the training role?

Lex I never said I think we should not fund the Victoria Class, all I said was compare the money being spent on one class to another. The money needed to upgrade is a drop in the bucket what has been spent and will be spent.I do agree that the subs are strategic assets and are funded because of that, however have they really gone to sea that much in the last decade?. If you want to throw out sailing stats last time I checked the Kingston Class has deployed to Europe 3 times, numerous Arctic Sovereignty missions, numerous international and domestic exercises and a number of Carribean deployments, not to mention what the west coast fleet does. While it's nice to say we have subs, how many can we deploy in a moments notice?
As for a defined strategic purpose, the ship's have been and still remain a mine countermeasures platform as several of the ship's are now. As for updating a 15 knot hull, as a 15 knot hull we have been plenty busy the last 15 years doing lots of things that would be a waste to send a destroyer or CPF to do. It's a no brainer that when you compare the cost of operating a MCDV and a CPF, the military is getting a large return on their investment.
Since the Orca Class have taken over the MARS IV courses, I personally would like to see the ship's be utilized a little less and give the crews a break.  While the MCDV's conducted MARS IV courses each year, the ship's did plenty of other things. As the ship's were told several weeks ago, op tempo will probably increase for the ship's why? because they are a cost effective alternative to the bigger ship's.
I know they will never tie up the subs after the enormous amount of money spent on them, however to ignore the versatility, usefullness and cost savings of the MCDV's is a mistake.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Its too bad we never took advantage of the Danes when they were commissioning the Flyvefisken class.

 

[jollyjacktar]

Its too bad we never took advantage of the Danes when they were commissioning the Flyvefisken class.

That looks and performs like the MCDVs should have.  Yes, it is indeed a shame.  But, we MUST buy Canadian.  Mustn't we?  Same could be said of the Dutch JSS, or Australian seeing as the Navy is bound and determined to go this route.  Would get it cheaper and sooner.

 

[Lex Parsimoniae]

That looks and performs like the MCDVs should have.  Yes, it is indeed a shame.  But, we MUST buy Canadian.  Mustn't we?

Don't know about that - the Federal Government has no problem going offshore when it comes to ferries for Marine Atlantic:  http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/05/21/nl-ferries-chartered-521.html