Continental Defence Corvette

[Stoker]

Do we really need an MCM capability?

Are we worried about mines in our waters? Not really, and if there are mines in our waters, they will be few in numbers; send the CLDs.
Are we worried about heavy mining in other peoples waters? Possibly. Either stay outside the mine field and launch Tomahawks and/or long range NSMs, or, tell the country we're there to help it's their responsibility to make the Q-routes and/or clear the harbour entrance.

I just can't envision a scenario where we really need a highly capable MCM capability. Right now, IMO, our MCM capability serves nothing more than a diplomatic purpose. We send MCM units to our NATO partners to show we are "helping, friendly, and committed". But if a war actually broke out and the "enemy" established a significant threat, we're not sending an AOPS to clear the mines; it would just get blown up by a long range ASCMs the second it showed up near the minefield.

Sure, ask industry to develop a mine clearing capability that can be strapped onto the CDC; BUT, do not sacrifice a single ounce of core warfighting capability to "make it work".

End rant.

You are correct that an AOPS would not be used in a real MCM scenario and frankly, I hope it never is, because it shouldn’t be but that's part of our answer for the lost of capability of the Kingston with not direct backup. That observation, however, actually reinforces the case for a dedicated and credible MCM capability rather than weakening it.

In your rant you make a lot of assumptions here. Before a single MCM vessel sails on Op REASSURANCE, we already exercise scenarios where Canadian ports are mined, Halifax, Esquimalt, approaches, choke points, anchorages. We do this because the threat is credible, cheap for an adversary, and disproportionately disruptive. Sea mines remain one of the most cost effective naval weapons ever devised, and no serious navy assumes “there won’t be many” or that CLDs alone solve the problem particularly against influence mines, buried mines, or deliberately complex denial fields. The risk will even escalate in the future with the introduction of AI in the new generation of smart mines.

MCM is not about having lightly armed ships into missile envelopes. It is about access, assurance, tempo, and freedom of manoeuvre, clearing approaches, opening Q routes, and enabling follow on forces and logistics. That capability is also perishable. The planning, classification, disposal skills, and command and control expertise cannot be surged once a crisis starts. This is exactly why NATO maintains standing MCM groups and why sailors in those formations remain deeply committed to the mission they understand that if you let the skill weaken, you don’t suddenly regenerate it when ports suddenly need to be opened.

Reducing MCM to “just diplomacy” also misses the point. Yes, deployments reassure allies and it helps meet our NATO commitments, but they also ensure Canada can operate in mined environments alongside NATO, rather than relying on others to clear the very harbours and sea lanes we intend to use. Telling a partner nation “it’s your responsibility to clear the harbour” while we sit offshore launching long range weapons assumes a lot. It assumes permissive access, unlimited standoff options, and zero political constraints none of which are guaranteed.

Finally, framing MCM as something that competes with “core warfighting capability” is not really valid. Access is warfighting. Sustainment is warfighting. Modular MCM solutions on future platforms make sense but only if they are built on an existing, practiced MCM culture and that comes with a dedicated MCM capability. Without that foundation, you are not fielding a capability; you are bolting equipment onto a hull and hoping the skill appears when needed and hope for the best.

I think its safe to say that we all hope we never have to do serious MCM at home or abroad. But hope is not a plan and mines remain cheap, effective, and likely. Ignoring that reality is how navies relearn old lessons the hard way.

 

[IKnowNothing]

Finally, framing MCM as something that competes with “core warfighting capability” is not really valid. Access is warfighting. Sustainment is warfighting. Modular MCM solutions on future platforms make sense but only if they are built on an existing, practiced MCM culture and that comes with a dedicated MCM capability. Without that foundation, you are not fielding a capability; you are bolting equipment onto a hull and hoping the skill appears when needed and hope for the best.

Looking at 12 CDC's, would it make sense to have a subset of them be the de-facto MCM fleet with their flex payload dedicated to such on a semi-permanent basis? And if so, how many? If it's 3 gets you 1 available at all times, is that enough Nationally with war-time surge, or does it need to be 3->1 on each coast?

 

[Rainbow1910]

Finally, framing MCM as something that competes with “core warfighting capability” is not really valid. Access is warfighting. Sustainment is warfighting. Modular MCM solutions on future platforms make sense but only if they are built on an existing, practiced MCM culture and that comes with a dedicated MCM capability. Without that foundation, you are not fielding a capability; you are bolting equipment onto a hull and hoping the skill appears when needed and hope for the best.

Not having reliable access out of your ports and along your coast/sealanes due to mines precludes your ability to realistically fight in the first place.

 

[Stoker]

Not having reliable access out of your ports and along your coast/sealanes due to mines precludes your ability to realistically fight in the first place.

Yes I would imagine that would be an issue.

 

[Stoker]

Looking at 12 CDC's, would it make sense to have a subset of them be the de-facto MCM fleet with their flex payload dedicated to such on a semi-permanent basis? And if so, how many? If it's 3 gets you 1 available at all times, is that enough Nationally with war-time surge, or does it need to be 3->1 on each coast?

No one really knows how many ships we'll end up getting. I suspect when the reality of sticker price hits we'll have significantly less than 12.

 

[Czech_pivo]

No one really knows how many ships we'll end up getting. I suspect when the reality of sticker price hits we'll have significantly less than 12.

Yup, Canada being Canada again.

 

[Stoker]

Yup, Canada being Canada again.

No I would think practicality. We reasonability don't have enough sailors that's a given even with the increase in recruiting. We also won't see anything happen to the project until the submarine project gets finished. The project is not funded or planned and there is good reasons for that.

 

[Czech_pivo]

No I would think practicality. We reasonability don't have enough sailors that's a given even with the increase in recruiting. We also won't see anything happen to the project until the submarine project gets finished. The project is not funded or planned and there is good reasons for that.

The recruiting side is a bit early to forecast 7-12yrs out what it will be. The pay raises are barely a few months old.

The reason its not funded or planned currently is because the entire CAF is attempting to walk, chew gum and pat their heads again. For decades its only been able to do 1 of those due to funding and political rot.

There has to be will within the CAF and Canada to dare to dream big again and remember what we have achieved in the past. Otherwise, we might as well throw in the towel and join the US.

 

[YZT580]

Looking at 12 CDC's, would it make sense to have a subset of them be the de-facto MCM fleet with their flex payload dedicated to such on a semi-permanent basis? And if so, how many? If it's 3 gets you 1 available at all times, is that enough Nationally with war-time surge, or does it need to be 3->1 on each coast?

We have a lot of ports on both coasts.

 

[Stoker]

The recruiting side is a bit early to forecast 7-12yrs out what it will be. The pay raises are barely a few months old.

The reason its not funded or planned currently is because the entire CAF is attempting to walk, chew gum and pat their heads again. For decades its only been able to do 1 of those due to funding and political rot.

There has to be will within the CAF and Canada to dare to dream big again and remember what we have achieved in the past. Otherwise, we might as well throw in the towel and join the US.

It’s still far too early to forecast recruiting 7–12 years out, but it’s also not accurate to say the pay changes aren’t having an effect yet. Recruiting was reportedly up about 50% last year, and CFLRS ran more courses than at any point in its history, which strongly suggests the incentives are already moving the needle. On the retention side, there’s an immediate behavioural change as well, many people, myself included, are choosing to stay long enough to collect the extra $6K and pad pensions. That’s not a long term cultural fix, but it is a short term stabilizer, and right now that matters.

Where the critique absolutely holds is on capacity. You can recruit all the sailors you want, but if they can’t get trades training in a timely manner, it’s all for naught. That bottleneck is the real risk, not the lack of interest in joining. The CAF is once again being asked to modernize, expand, and sustain operations simultaneously, after decades of underfunding and political drift. None of this works without real will inside the CAF and in Ottawa to invest consistently and dare to plan beyond the next crisis.

 

[Underway]

It’s still far too early to forecast recruiting 7–12 years out, but it’s also not accurate to say the pay changes aren’t having an effect yet. Recruiting was reportedly up about 50% last year, and CFLRS ran more courses than at any point in its history, which strongly suggests the incentives are already moving the needle.

New BMQ location is Aldershot NS, same as for Borden ON. I assume Maritimers will end up in Aldershot.

On the retention side, there’s an immediate behavioural change as well, many people, myself included, are choosing to stay long enough to collect the extra $6K and pad pensions. That’s not a long term cultural fix, but it is a short term stabilizer, and right now that matters.

It's certainly going to cover the next 5ish years, and that might be just what we need in some trades.

Where the critique absolutely holds is on capacity. You can recruit all the sailors you want, but if they can’t get trades training in a timely manner, it’s all for naught. That bottleneck is the real risk, not the lack of interest in joining. The CAF is once again being asked to modernize, expand, and sustain operations simultaneously, after decades of underfunding and political drift. None of this works without real will inside the CAF and in Ottawa to invest consistently and dare to plan beyond the next crisis.

Preach.

 

[Navy_Pete]

The recruiting side is a bit early to forecast 7-12yrs out what it will be. The pay raises are barely a few months old.

The reason its not funded or planned currently is because the entire CAF is attempting to walk, chew gum and pat their heads again. For decades its only been able to do 1 of those due to funding and political rot.

There has to be will within the CAF and Canada to dare to dream big again and remember what we have achieved in the past. Otherwise, we might as well throw in the towel and join the US.

Not really, the issue isn't even recruiting sailors; it's training throughput, which requires infra and people (as well as alternate paths like using colleges/trade schools with delta training). The RCN is at least already behind on what it needed, and only getting worse with the surge needed for just RCD and sub numbers (along with JSS and AOPs).

They can recruit 10k sailors tomorrow; 95% of them would sit around untrained until their initial contract ran out and provide no actual value.

That's a massive, known problem that's only been getting worse with letting the schools rust out harder than the fleet, but gets less attention from the Admiralty because there aren't shiny whizbangs at CANSEC for basic classrooms and places to turn wrenches.

We actually had a good chance to better align the Martech trade with commercial marine standards, which would mean they could fully take advantage of a much bigger pool of candidates and ramp up programs like the super stoker at Munn, but they deliberately went away from that because the 'training took too long'. So instead of training 100s of more people a year in a 2 year program with some delta training, we are capped at a fraction of that doing 18ish months of training.

Same idea with a lot of other trades, where it's suprisingly hard to PLAR over if you are doing the same type of thing commercially, now that the wages are more competitive and also comes with benefits and job security.

And that's just to actually sail them; also a big shortfall of people to do actual maintenance and repairs, LCMM work, 3rd line repairs etc. Not even a CAF issue; Thales and SNC had a hard time finding enough people as well, and in general we aren't doing a good job to generate new people for those existing positions either, and about to take a big experience loss as soon as the PS buyouts start as there are a lot of eligible people already burnt out in the FMFs, MEPM etc.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

It’s still far too early to forecast recruiting 7–12 years out, but it’s also not accurate to say the pay changes aren’t having an effect yet. Recruiting was reportedly up about 50% last year, and CFLRS ran more courses than at any point in its history, which strongly suggests the incentives are already moving the needle. On the retention side, there’s an immediate behavioural change as well, many people, myself included, are choosing to stay long enough to collect the extra $6K and pad pensions. That’s not a long term cultural fix, but it is a short term stabilizer, and right now that matters.

Where the critique absolutely holds is on capacity. You can recruit all the sailors you want, but if they can’t get trades training in a timely manner, it’s all for naught. That bottleneck is the real risk, not the lack of interest in joining. The CAF is once again being asked to modernize, expand, and sustain operations simultaneously, after decades of underfunding and political drift. None of this works without real will inside the CAF and in Ottawa to invest consistently and dare to plan beyond the next crisis.

A bit of economic downturn does not hurt the CAF recruiting and retention issues.

 

[Stoker]

Not really, the issue isn't even recruiting sailors; it's training throughput, which requires infra and people (as well as alternate paths like using colleges/trade schools with delta training). The RCN is at least already behind on what it needed, and only getting worse with the surge needed for just RCD and sub numbers (along with JSS and AOPs).

They can recruit 10k sailors tomorrow; 95% of them would sit around untrained until their initial contract ran out and provide no actual value.

That's a massive, known problem that's only been getting worse with letting the schools rust out harder than the fleet, but gets less attention from the Admiralty because there aren't shiny whizbangs at CANSEC for basic classrooms and places to turn wrenches.

We actually had a good chance to better align the Martech trade with commercial marine standards, which would mean they could fully take advantage of a much bigger pool of candidates and ramp up programs like the super stoker at Munn, but they deliberately went away from that because the 'training took too long'. So instead of training 100s of more people a year in a 2 year program with some delta training, we are capped at a fraction of that doing 18ish months of training.

Same idea with a lot of other trades, where it's suprisingly hard to PLAR over if you are doing the same type of thing commercially, now that the wages are more competitive and also comes with benefits and job security.

And that's just to actually sail them; also a big shortfall of people to do actual maintenance and repairs, LCMM work, 3rd line repairs etc. Not even a CAF issue; Thales and SNC had a hard time finding enough people as well, and in general we aren't doing a good job to generate new people for those existing positions either, and about to take a big experience loss as soon as the PS buyouts start as there are a lot of eligible people already burnt out in the FMFs, MEPM etc.

Yep cancelling of the program at Mun was a big mistake, they need to reinstate it ASAP. As well when the schools were reorganized they should of just knocked everything down and built new schools with state of the art training facilities. We would of been in good stead by now. The thing about Thales they recruited a lot of talent from the RCN and we still are losing people to them.

 

[dapaterson]

The CAF views the training system as a cost, not as an investment.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Yep cancelling of the program at Mun was a big mistake, they need to reinstate it ASAP. As well when the schools were reorganized they should of just knocked everything down and built new schools with state of the art training facilities. We would of been in good stead by now. The thing about Thales they recruited a lot of talent from the RCN and we still are losing people to them.

Not going to lie, coming up to my 25 and keeping Thales and a few others in mind. Probably would be telling the RCN the same specialist advice as the previous 5 years, but may actually listen with a corporate letterhead. Still can't believe the Mun program hasn't gotten stood back up, and we aren't partnering with more colleges on the Martech and other trades but what can you do (other than repeatedly recommend it, and also highlight the lack of SQEP impacting things like underlying assumptions for RCD crewing as part of recoverability assessments etc).

The CAF views the training system as a cost, not as an investment.

At least now instructors are marginally being recognized as high priority, but the trade schools on the RCN side have been falling apart my whole career, and even things like asbestos, electrical fires etc didn't get any real attention to the buildings themselves. Lot of infra coming down the pipes on the RCN side but at the moment don't see anything in the scope for the basic QL3/QL5, and more specialist training on specific equipment for platforms. Both DC schools also need a significant reinvestment, upgrade and instructor growth but none of that is on the table (although at least the live fire trainers from the PRO BOI are finally moving forward, even if the location, extra instructors and some other issues aren't clear).

 

[Stoker]

Not going to lie, coming up to my 25 and keeping Thales and a few others in mind. Probably would be telling the RCN the same specialist advice as the previous 5 years, but may actually listen with a corporate letterhead. Still can't believe the Mun program hasn't gotten stood back up, and we aren't partnering with more colleges on the Martech and other trades but what can you do (other than repeatedly recommend it, and also highlight the lack of SQEP impacting things like underlying assumptions for RCD crewing as part of recoverability assessments etc).


At least now instructors are marginally being recognized as high priority, but the trade schools on the RCN side have been falling apart my whole career, and even things like asbestos, electrical fires etc didn't get any real attention to the buildings themselves. Lot of infra coming down the pipes on the RCN side but at the moment don't see anything in the scope for the basic QL3/QL5, and more specialist training on specific equipment for platforms. Both DC schools also need a significant reinvestment, upgrade and instructor growth but none of that is on the table (although at least the live fire trainers from the PRO BOI are finally moving forward, even if the location, extra instructors and some other issues aren't clear).

Will hit my 37th this summer, don't think I'll go past 40. Got another year with the red hats and enjoy sailing on the remaining Kingston Class and AOPV's. Since we taken over the West Coast programs a lot more interesting ports. I won't be working past 60 if I can help it.

 

[dapaterson]

Readiness is personnel, equipment and materiel.

To be ready, the CAF needs reliable, scalable systems to generate all three, including the ability to surge production on little to no notice.

The current CAF mindset is fixated on defending status quo Potemkin units, and generating just enough to sustain a constabulary force.

The most important officers and NCMs in CAF sustainment are those instructing and commanding at the schools, with those doing force development a close second.

 

[NavyShooter]

There may have been a consensus of those of us who were ignored during the reorganization of CFNES to NFS(A) to "Let it fail".

Senior instructors attempted to input advice to the change initiative, but were shut down hard. Training Chiefs attempted, but the only space that had some success was DC DIV, where the direct fleet impact of staff reductions would have been felt in very short order.

"Not enough instructors to run a DCOTT = worse fleet readiness"

As such, much of the staffing at DC Div remained at pre-NFS(A) levels, but, the rest of the school was gutted.

The NET(A)/W ENG(S) Training section went from a P1, five P2's, and seven MS with a P1 at Standards supporting, to a P1, two P2s and two MS, with the Senior Instructor being their own "Standards" 13 - 5.

With 13 instructors, you could run 4 courses (QL3/QL5) with 2 instructors each and have spare people to send on leave, MATA/PATA, Nijmegen, Shooting Teams, PLQ, swap out with a buddy that needed a break from a ship, etc.

With 5, you have no depth of field - you can run 2 courses at a time with 2 instructors each (required for safety on electronics/powered systems) but you have no redundancy - what happens when MS Jones calls in sick? What happens when PO2 Smith goes on ILP?

The response was that any empty staff spots at the school would be filled by CFTPO'ing people in from the fleet....which is the opposite of how VCDS manning priorities actually work.

So, until you build up the instructor cadre again, you're going to be screwed for producing new techs.

And those of us who attempted input and were resoundingly told to 'shut up' by leadership were left only with the "Let it Fail" solution....and that has home to roost. Long after the leadership who imposed it have been given their awards and retired, the pieces are left to the Navy of Today to pick up.

It'll take a lot of work to rebuild what's been lost in the RCN's training system.

 

[Czech_pivo]

It’s still far too early to forecast recruiting 7–12 years out, but it’s also not accurate to say the pay changes aren’t having an effect yet. Recruiting was reportedly up about 50% last year, and CFLRS ran more courses than at any point in its history, which strongly suggests the incentives are already moving the needle. On the retention side, there’s an immediate behavioural change as well, many people, myself included, are choosing to stay long enough to collect the extra $6K and pad pensions. That’s not a long term cultural fix, but it is a short term stabilizer, and right now that matters.

Where the critique absolutely holds is on capacity. You can recruit all the sailors you want, but if they can’t get trades training in a timely manner, it’s all for naught. That bottleneck is the real risk, not the lack of interest in joining. The CAF is once again being asked to modernize, expand, and sustain operations simultaneously, after decades of underfunding and political drift. None of this works without real will inside the CAF and in Ottawa to invest consistently and dare to plan beyond the next crisis.

What are the chances of us sending over a few dozen sailors to the RN for training once their T26's start coming online?

They can send us sailors for the summer Arctic deployments on the AOPS's.