Canadian River Class Destroyer Megathread

[Colin Parkinson]

Oh it sucks, but lets say a couple of Halifax's are deemed unsafe to go to sea, then suddenly the idea sucks less.

 

[YZT580]

We don't have enough personnel to staff a project completely and I believe that was mentioned here a few times before. We generally don't take a half assed approach to building a ship because that's exactly what you are doing, we don't figure out out things on the fly either. We don't even know if we had a design chosen which we don't, where it would even be built. Its not even funded. That's a lot of things to get into place before we can even think of cutting steel.

Where do you get off suggesting I am talking about doing something half-assed? If there aren't people who have been sitting at desks for years now trying to imagine the future Canadian fleet I would be very much surprised. They may need to contract the blueprints but they probably have a good idea of what they want to see. If they haven't done any homework there are any number of frigate designs out there to chose from. But we won't because we are too afraid to be wrong. Or are we afraid to have the wherewithal to actually take a stand somewhere. 29 years ago we joined the F35 development programme. The first squadron is supposed to be operational in 2029 so 32 years from day 1 but day 1 was only after considerable discussion so add another couple of years and even then it'll be another 4 years after that before we could afford to send a 6 pack on mission. And we still haven't made a decision on how many we will eventually order. In the meantime the aircraft we are flying look great at an airshow and they have been significantly improved but they are well past their best before date. By the time the first River Class is commissioned the last Iroquois will have been gone for at least 15 years. That's a long time to operate without a major naval combatant for a country fronting on 3 oceans. From the plans that I have read as each ship is commissioned a Halifax will be retired so our net gain will be zero.

 

[Stoker]

Oh it sucks, but lets say a couple of Halifax's are deemed unsafe to go to sea, then suddenly the idea sucks less.

That's why were spending over 500M to refit each ship so that won't happen. Makes lots of sense hey? Your solution is not really a solution that they would consider. If it were we would would buy the whole lot overseas.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

That's why were spending over 500M to refit each ship so that won't happen. Makes lots of sense hey? Your solution is not really a solution that they would consider. If it were we would would buy the whole lot overseas.

That was what the RN was doing until they drydocked their ships and realized how bad they were.

 

[Stoker]

That was what the RN was doing until they drydocked their ships and realized how bad they were.

Good for them