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Anything on the small but bigger than 40' side that can do 25kts starts getting expensive to run. These can do a lot of your MCM tasks, but not the other stuff as well
Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels (MCDVs)
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KevinB
Army.ca Relic
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The .50’s are removable as they are in pintle mounts. Removing the Mk38 for the GL ones is what it was referring to above. So you’d get some without that gun for the Great Lakes, and yet have the ability to drop in a RWS (ideally a GUA-19 system) module plug and play if any where to be relocated to outside of the GLs.
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That's not really going to cut it working with a NATO group.Anything on the small but bigger than 40' side that can do 25kts starts getting expensive to run. These can do a lot of your MCM tasks, but not the other stuff as well
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Lake Superior says 'pffft'.
I used to live on the eastern shore of the Lake. It is truly spectacular in the autumn.
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I remember reading about that!
You would think that we’d have some Orca-like training vessels on the GL’s would make some sense, I mean you’ve got about 10 million Canadians all along the shorelines from Thunder Bay to Cornwall.
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But they will do the entranc
But they will do the entrances and approaches to your naval bases and major ports. I longed advocated for something like the new Belgium/Dutch vessel to be able to do MCM work further afield and support NATO & the US which is weak in that area.
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T
They certainly seemed excited by the recent AOP's visit. I always assumed they had a training squadron on the lakes as it seem just so obvious, apparently not.
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Do they have degaussing, the ability to launch and recover a Momba? Can they carry a dive team with workshop and decompression chamber? Can they embark all MCM packages including Sea Fox? Can they store safely explosives and detonators? Do they have ability to analyse that sonar data and be able to share it secure? That's the sort of stuff we currently do. Yes it sounds easy but really its not.
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I have seen boats like these fishboats, carry explosives, commercial divers (without decompression chamber as most commercial dive operations don't have one handy). Run sidescan and ROV. Comms would be whatever the RCN puts on them. Analysing data would require some training, but again that would be up to the RCN to decide. Since they be operating in the same area pretty much all of the time, they would get to know it pretty quick. With the MCDV going out the door, if a conflict happens in the next few years, this is what you are going to have to use, as don't have a lot of other options.
There is this as well that I suspect the RCN would take over. Whatever you do, until the RCN buys a dedicated MCM vessel you have to make do and I suspect the AOP's will have a lot on their plate as well beyond doing repetitive scans of St of Juan De Fuca to Vancouver harbour and the St Lawrence Seaway.
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Yes you probably have in the civilian world, but this is not the civilian world. You suggest that we could just use fishboats or small commercial hulls for mine countermeasures now that the Kingston Class are going out of service but we still will have that capability for a few more years. Sure, you can hang a side scan or a small ROV off a workboat, but that doesn’t suddenly make it a naval MCM platform and that's what I'm talking about. Off our harbour approaches you could probably maintain a small capability with heavy shore support. Anything else its not going to happen because you need that self contained capability especially overseas.I have seen boats like these fishboats, carry explosives, commercial divers (without decompression chamber as most commercial dive operations don't have one handy). Run sidescan and ROV. Comms would be whatever the RCN puts on them. Analysing data would require some training, but again that would be up to the RCN to decide. Since they be operating in the same area pretty much all of the time, they would get to know it pretty quick. With the MCDV going out the door, if a conflict happens in the next few years, this is what you are going to have to use, as don't have a lot of other options.
There is this as well that I suspect the RCN would take over. Whatever you do, until the RCN buys a dedicated MCM vessel you have to make do and I suspect the AOP's will have a lot on their plate as well beyond doing repetitive scans of St of Juan De Fuca to Vancouver harbour and the St Lawrence Seaway.
Those civilian hulls aren’t degaussed, shock-rated, or compartmentalized. One mine detonation or even a magnetic influence sweep and you’re looking at total loss. They also lack redundancy, endurance, and damage control systems, some of which were designed into the Kingston Class for a reason. It’s fine for survey or training tasks in benign conditions, but not for sustained operations or actual mine warfare.
The RCN’s route survey work in the past was tightly integrated, calibrated sonars, encrypted networks, and trained operators who could interpret what they were seeing. That’s not something you replicate by “making do.” It takes dedicated gear, training, and system integration. It's much more than throwing some gear in a long liner or fish boat. It also takes a lot of experience and training analyzing data looking for mine like objects.
To be fair, the RCN isn’t asleep at the wheel. The Autonomous Mine Countermeasures (A-MCM) and Remote Naval Autonomous Systems (RNAS) programs are already trialing, SeaFox, and ARCIMS systems that can be embarked on the AOPS, frigates, or even JSS. We already have REMUS operating in theater. That’s a good step, but it’s still a stopgap.
The Harry DeWolf-class will already have their hands full with Arctic sovereignty, SAR, and northern logistics. Expecting them to spend months doing repetitive seabed scans in confined waterways isn’t realistic. If anything, we need a purpose-built MCM vessel to take that load off the AOPS , a proper low-signature, shock-resistant, modular platform designed from the keel up for that mission set. What you posted pictures of is not it.
Jury-rigged fishing boats might fill a temporary niche, but they won’t build or sustain a credible MCM capability. If we’re serious about protecting our approaches, ports, and subsea infrastructure, we need a purpose-built solution, not another round of “make do with what we’ve got.”
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We are in agreement that you don't want to tie 2-4 AOP's down just to keep the ports and routes clear. On the West coast alone you have 240nm to survey on a regular basis. We are in agreement that we need better MCM, but even with dedicated crew and vessels, you will need to bring civilian vessels in.
I worked on reviewing the data for a proposed 130km undersea pipeline to Prince Rupert, it's impressive what a small research vessel can do with modern sensors. These vessels would likely do the routine sweeps of the route and highlight anything new or odd to a navy vessel to investigate.
I also assume that China would find a way to plant smart mines on the westcoast prior to invading Taiwan and then activating one or two of them.
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We haven't surveyed harbors in years and we had all the time in the world to build that capability. It's something we don't do too much anymore and really what your talking about is route survey. Sure bring in all the civilian boats you want, its not really a MCM capability in the sense of what we have currently. You probably won't see AOPS doing anything with that as well or the Kingston Class.
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Post in thread 'RN Project Cabot and Atlantic Bastion' RN Project Cabot and Atlantic Bastion
RN looking at 2 UxVs
The surface sloop Type 92 - largely a RRB to secure comms to underwater vessels but also for towing sonar arrays.
The subsurface Type 93 - an XLUUV
The 92 seems to be some variant of an unmanned 40m Offshore Supply Vessel.
On the minesweeping front the RN seems to be betting heavily on the Atlas ARCIMS system.
www.navylookout.com
www.navylookout.com
RN looking at 2 UxVs
The surface sloop Type 92 - largely a RRB to secure comms to underwater vessels but also for towing sonar arrays.
The subsurface Type 93 - an XLUUV
The 92 seems to be some variant of an unmanned 40m Offshore Supply Vessel.
On the minesweeping front the RN seems to be betting heavily on the Atlas ARCIMS system.
Royal Navy receives first fully autonomous end-to-end mine warfare system - Navy Lookout
In February, the Royal Navy received its first serial production Maritime Mine Counter Measures (MMCM) system—an advanced suite of technologies designed to locate, classify and neutralise naval mines, operated either autonomously or via remote control. Under the MHC programme, mine warfare...
www.navylookout.com
In focus: Royal Navy minesweeping capability restored - Navy Lookout
The RN has re-established a minesweeping capability for the first time in nearly two decades with the acceptance of three USV-based autonomous Combined Influence Sweep systems, developed and delivered under the Mine Hunting Capability (MHC) Block 1 programme. Old threat, new tools Traditional...
www.navylookout.com
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