Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ship AOPS

[Oldgateboatdriver]

No.

Whilst there are tons of autonomous systems and "fixed" systems in existence, you must always think of the Arctic environment in binary terms: Ice Period (IP) and No Ice Period (NIP).

During the NIP, systems found in the South will work fine up there, including such systems as a standard warship or submarine. It's ice free and open so you just go with what you have (that, BTWE, is the period where the immense majority of "foreign" traffic occurs - be it cargo vessels, fishing vessels, research vessels or, God forbid, Cruise ships.

The IP is completely different: You just don't know what you are facing. The various "passages" between the Islands of the Canadian Arctic archipelago are not - repeat not - all very deep or wide and you just don't know deep the ice goes. And in many areas, the ice will go all the way to the bottom, crack and fall down to the sea floor when the tide goes out and refloat when it rises again, etc. etc. It is murder on any equipment you want to leave on the bottom and for any autonomous system, it completely prevents surfacing or sticking anything up to either take a fix or report on activity. Those, BTW, are also the reasons why there is little to no use whatsoever of the Canadian Arctic archipelago waters in winter by any "non-Canadian" vessels or submarines: It's too dangerous. That is not to say there are no submarines operating under the Arctic Ocean, but that is deep open ocean waters (though ice covered) that is North of the Canadian Arctic archipelago and thus, International waters.

 

[Underway]

Or, hear me out; where we have known route with choke points, we simply install underwater arrays to listen continually at a fraction of the cost and without putting sailors in harms way. Those could include an active mode pretty easily. Similarly, we could install some kind of physical barrier.

If China wants to send subs there, they will send subs there, but they don't need to put them under the Artic to be any kind of real threat. China and Russia have the entire Pacific to hide a submarine, not sure why they would go up under the Artic. They could get much closer to actual targets in North America and be able to fire from anywhere without having to worry about ice, or being unable to surface if something goes wrong.

We're getting worked up over a weird non-threat, that the AOPs really isn't set up to do, when there are plenty of more likely real threats that the RCN would struggle with (like actual combat that was more than a single volley or post battle repairs)

You need a variety of sensors, fixed, temporary, and mobile. Fixed sensors are difficult in the Arctic, particularly in the west so you'll need short term ones.