New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

[Maxman1]

The unfunded, unapproved corvette program that we have no credible plan how to crew it or support it? Right now we have 15 CSCs on the books with crews for about 7ish CPFs, more AOPVs incoming that we don't have crews for, 8-12 subs when we can't crew 4 existing subs. Oh, and 2 JSS we have no crews for either.

On the support side we don't have jetty space for that fleet, FMFs and 2nd line support to fix them, school capacity to train and sustain that many sailors, and 3rd line capacity for managing the ISSC (and again, no credible plan to build up to that either).

Adding in Corvettes is a fever dream in an already Pollyannish future fleet plan, if you look at inconvenient real world practical issues.

There is a plan:

 

[Czech_pivo]

The unfunded, unapproved corvette program that we have no credible plan how to crew it or support it? Right now we have 15 CSCs on the books with crews for about 7ish CPFs, more AOPVs incoming that we don't have crews for, 8-12 subs when we can't crew 4 existing subs. Oh, and 2 JSS we have no crews for either.

On the support side we don't have jetty space for that fleet, FMFs and 2nd line support to fix them, school capacity to train and sustain that many sailors, and 3rd line capacity for managing the ISSC (and again, no credible plan to build up to that either).

Adding in Corvettes is a fever dream in an already Pollyannish future fleet plan, if you look at inconvenient real world practical issues.

Interesting comment about the Jetty space because I had brought that up about 2-3 weeks ago and was assured that wasn’t an issue at all.
Do tell your thoughts/concerns on that.

 

[Czech_pivo]

At the risk of cursing the CSC project, is it not possible that the Corvette programme is being opened because the GoC has told the RCN behind closed doors "CSC cost too much, find a more affordable solution" already?

Here’s a devilish idea, the GoC builds only the first 3 CSC’s and then builds 10-12 of those ‘Corvettes’ and put us right back to the year 1996 - 3 Tribals, 12 Halifax’s and 2 JSS…..

 

[Navy_Pete]

At the risk of cursing the CSC project, is it not possible that the Corvette programme is being opened because the GoC has told the RCN behind closed doors "CSC cost too much, find a more affordable solution" already?

Sure, and I think most people expect the 15 to be cut to 12ish, which still leaves us with a giant gap in number of people to operate them anyway. Trades are running at 60%, and we expect them to not only get fully up to REMAR, but grow? The Corvette 'project' is an internal good ideas club thing the RCN is kicking around that has no support from the GoC; from Canada's perspective the MCDV replacement is the AOPVs.

You're right. We should just give up. Why plan for or discuss the future where we can work ourselves out of this low point. No need to aspire for more. Its not like with work, a future plan and some luck 80% of these problems can be solved over the 20 year period this build up would take place. Those 7xCPF's by your own posts will NOT make it to where they will be replaced by the CSC's. So no need to fill the gap, despite the fact that the one CPF DWP budget is approaching ~$1/2 a billion, and we have three in DWP at one time.

Basically its impossible to recruit, we can't train anyone, no civis to work at FMF, and no way we could build fast enough to replace fleet rust out we might as well just quit now.


No that would have leaked already in the Hill Times or something. This has VAdm Topshee written all over it.

How often do we get beat around the head with having SMART goals, then the organization wants to have completely unacheivable and unrealistic goals with no credible plan to get there? If we stood up a program tomorrow, they won't be ready before CSC anyway, so it's not a gap filler project. It would be at least a decade too late, and something the RCN should have prioritzed ten years ago when they turned off the MCDV life extension. WIth how the NSS is structured they would go to VSY as a post-polar project. Just the project approval phase alone would take several years.

The current future fleet on the books is already very ambitious, maybe they should just stop piling on? The corvette project is taking up some resources, when there are a lot of critical things that need doing to support the current fleet that aren't going anywhere due to lack of staff, and a lot of very fundamental things about getting the CSC trades and training sorted out are piling up (along with HT trade, steward plan and other long running occupation reviews).

With new ships coming online, you find that recruiting and retention issues will decrease. Same if we had new subs, if we can start delivering new subs by the time the first CSC is being launched, you likely find that you will have far more interest. not to mention you can now advertize "Bleeding Edge tech" which will attract the younger generation. Hopefully by the time the first CSC and Sub arrives, we will have reduced many of the bottlenecks in recruiting. With CFP self-divesting, you might gain some retention as you might actually have two crews for each of the remaining ships.

Retention, maybe, but recruiting has been a disaster for the RCN since the CPFs were new. Critical trades are at 60% and falling pretty rapidly, and recruiting a new person doesn't replace someone with a decade of experience that leaves. I think if half the CPFs self divest, that will give us breathing room to actually crew the ships to the required level to keep them maintained and operating safely, not having multiple crews. A lot of ships are sailing with the absolute bare minimum if your automated systems and remote detection works (usually doesn't), so really only the deployers that are fully crewed.

It takes about 15 years to generate the senior people on the crew, and five to ten years to generate the bulk of the positions. Getting new ships might help a bit, but is still to late for us to catch up to the giant gap we already have.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Interesting comment about the Jetty space because I had brought that up about 2-3 weeks ago and was assured that wasn’t an issue at all.
Do tell your thoughts/concerns on that.

Both dockyards have some projects to give more jetty space for AOPs and JSS, but the dockyards are pretty much full, with no real room to expand, and stacking ships is a big practical issue for doing SWPs and all the conflicts you get with different types of work on the go and the standoff distances required. It's doable just needs a huge amount of coordination and you lose a lot of production time as well everytime you have to move a ship during repair periods, and if you have ships at remote jetties (like some of the ones in Dartmouth) you are essentially in exile from getting FMF support (as well as being difficult to get to without a car). All the replacement ships on the docket are just physically bigger as well, so takes up more real estate compared to teh ships they replace.

The actual jetty infrastructure is pretty old as well, so a lot of them need signficant repairs to the structure, and hook ups (power, sewage, pressurized air, water etc). Those are RPOps issues, not capitol projects, and a result of long standing underfunding of RPOps (same as all the other bases, just that ships have a lot more infra required when they are parked compared to a vehicle or plane).

 

[Grimey]

Here’s a devilish idea, the GoC builds only the first 3 CSC’s and then builds 10-12 of those ‘Corvettes’ and put us right back to the year 1996 - 3 Tribals, 12 Halifax’s and 2 JSS…..

Slight correction. We had 4 Tribals in ‘96. Huron wasn’t parked until 2000.

 

[Kirkhill]

^^
In a wartime scenario we'd just do Ships Taken Up With Trade (STUFT) like the Brits did for the Falklands.
But as outlined in this article there is a whole host of issues that would need to be addressed.

Lessons for a Wartime Navy: STUFT Vessels in the Falklands War

The United States should take lessons on commercial ship conversions from the Falklands War.

www.usni.org

So in the end, I say screw it. Disband the Army and our contribution will be the protection (surface, subsurface and airborne) of the fleets of commercial ships heading to the warzone.

The Brits had a merchant fleet trading from which ships could be taken up. They also had surplus sailors, some of whom were used to signing militarized contracts with the RFA. The civil contractors and insurers were also used to the rules of the game.

Canada doesn't have the fleet, hence the value of @Oldgateboatdriver 's suggestion.

 

[FJAG]

Also, what you and Kirkhill are proposing may be autonomous, but they are far from inexpensive. The hulls and propulsion systems may be cheaper than a full blown frigate or destroyer, but the missile loadout you are talking about (128 + AA missiles) will set you back anywhere between 500 and 700 million dollars, so overall, your "inexpensive" wingman will cost you about 1B$, sit unused in harbour for 30/40 years just in case, and in any event cover only one potential threat while providing no capability in the meantime to carry out any of the other missions of the Navy.

But if you do not buy sufficient weapon systems then where will you be on Day 1 - putting in an order to a factory that doesn't exist with a lead time to produce of years. That's my whole point. Conflict requires weapon systems. Without them you are a bathtub navy. Honestly, I don't know how many are enough for war or even training properly but if there is one thing Ukraine is teaching is that projectiles - in quantity - matter.

The primary consideration in building any fleet (or army) is how many weapon systems are needed and how best can they be delivered. Are 15 CSC's enough. Maybe 10 CSCs and 20 weapons carriers for the price of 5 CSCs is the answer. And how do we produce a continuous supply of the weapons? To me the problem is that we aren't asking the right questions else we would be building a domestic anti-ship and anti-air missile industry.

And incidentally I feel the same way about the army. The army is much more concerned about protecting PY fiefdoms than building a force around the equipment and munitions needs for a future conflict and the right mix of Reg and ResF personnel to operate them. A retired CDS said this to me with respect to the initial Advancing with Purpose transformation:

All in all ... it didn't make sense from a combat development perspective, it was a fiscal exercise, and then the management of the remainder ...

That's because

In Canada, we tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater really easily because we've got this much money and this much of a job. And we focus on the immediate and the urgent

We focus on systems that are the bare necessity for developing the immediate core competencies of the force that is needed at the moment to support our peacetime missions but do so at the expense of the equipment that we have and the arsenal that we maintain for the future.

Also, as regards the Norwegian S-90-H, they are not really patrol vessels, but assault boats. Once again, this is amphibious warfare: When the Army asks for it, the Navy will go into it, but so long as the Army does not ask the government for the capability, it is wasted money for the Navy to do it on its own. Moreover, with the coastlines we have and, what you have in mind would require such numbers as to be incredibly demanding in manpower, maintenance and support, the whole to address an insignificant threat in the Canadian context - as opposed to the Norwegian one.

Norway's coastline is not inconsequential. It's mainland, with fjords, shoreline alone is 72,000 kilometres for a population of 5.5 million. Canada's Pacific shoreline is appx 25,000 kilometres. The Atlantic one is 42,000 kilometres and Canada's total is 243,000 all with a population of 40 million.

We have AOPS for the high Arctic but need better systems for patrolling the left and right coasts. I only brought out the S-90 as an example. It's only an assault boat when manned by a 21-man platoon. It can also do patrols carrying just its own crew of three and a few police or coast guard or troops. That's a navy and not an army task.

The range is a bit limited and could use some jacking up but all in all, you're right, it needs a support infrastructure. It would be ridiculous to operate all of them out of Halifax or Victoria considering the range. You could , however, base them out of small marinas up and down each coast and crew them with full and part-timers who live in the local communities. Tie them into a system with the Rangers as well.

As for threat? Does Norway currently have a higher threat than Canada? Or is it just good forward planning to have a force that is trained and equipped and in place to meet a threat when it occurs?

I sometimes think that the CAF slips into the same solutions as yesteryear with a few tweaks here and there to update technology. Whether that's fiscally driven or lack of vision and risk taking, I don't know. My guess is that for one less CSC, you could buy two fleet of S-90s and for the one ship's PYs you could crew both fleets with the full-time sailors needed.

Anyway. Just running shit up the flag pole here.

 

[Kirkhill]

No. The Navy is there, and has been there for a long time. Our frigates can seamlessly come into any US naval group, such as a Carrier Strike Group or an Amphibious Ready Group, etc. This very capacity to inter-operate with the Americans, which few nations have, is the reason the RCN contingent in Gulf War I became the only non American Task Group Command.



I'll just say it one last time, considering how long the lead time for having new main battle tanks come off the line, we should be looking seriously at new solutions which increase combat ability and not looking for just another Small Logistic Vehicle Wheeled that will gobble up funds and stifle progress for the next two decades.

This above, FJAG, is the Army equivalent of what you are saying about the Navy. Also, what you and Kirkhill are proposing may be autonomous, but they are far from inexpensive. The hulls and propulsion systems may be cheaper than a full blown frigate or destroyer, but the missile loadout you are talking about (128 + AA missiles) will set you back anywhere between 500 and 700 million dollars, so overall, your "inexpensive" wingman will cost you about 1B$, sit unused in harbour for 30/40 years just in case, and in any event cover only one potential threat while providing no capability in the meantime to carry out any of the other missions of the Navy.

I understood that the Ukrainian problem was a lack of useful missiles on hand. The advantage of the PDS mk 70 is that it can be mounted on any deck or wharf, parking lot, beach or truck and launch any of a very large array of missiles. The missiles are in common service with armies, navies and air forces.

One set of missiles moved around from ship to ship is not a war plan. Warehouses full of missiles for ourselves and our allies would seem to be a sine qua non for peer to peer warfare.

Also, as regards the Norwegian S-90-H, they are not really patrol vessels, but assault boats. Once again, this is amphibious warfare: When the Army asks for it, the Navy will go into it, but so long as the Army does not ask the government for the capability, it is wasted money for the Navy to do it on its own. Moreover, with the coastlines we have and, what you have in mind would require such numbers as to be incredibly demanding in manpower, maintenance and support, the whole to address an insignificant threat in the Canadian context - as opposed to the Norwegian one.

With respect to the CB90 the payload is more than the JLTV the USMC is using for JSMs and Hero 120s. The boat is larger and has longer legs than many of the Autonomous RHIBs being brought into service for Fleet Defence around the world. Optionally manned by both the Navy and the Army doesn't seem ridiculous.

If we are talking a barge with propulsion and rudimentary "follow the leader" programming, then I am confident even Canada can make those faster than we can make the missiles loads for them.

As I said earlier, the limiting factor WRT modern warfare is the weapons systems production times, not the hulls. Having a bunch of USV hulls sitting unarmed, and rusting away in Halifax and Esquimalt would be a massive waste of resources.


That doesn't really prove anything, particularly when you consider how rare those accidents are.

As I said, completely* safe USVs are possible, they just aren't worth the opportunity cost of investment when we have more pressing priorities.


Great in theory, until you see what happens when systems not designed for use at sea are used at sea... The marine environment is likely the harshest environment for equipment on the planet. If you then make everything for the maritime environment, you end up with systems that are unnecessarily heavy/expensive for land use.

Should the CA and RCN look into using the same missiles, and environment appropriate versions of gun systems? For sure, if it makes sense for the operational needs of the branches, but forcing the CA or RCN to use a system that is not suited to their needs because it makes the supply system slightly less complex is not a wise idea.


I agree with what I think you are saying here. We should be platform agnostic, and focus on the weapons system rather than buying platforms and seeing what we can make fit.

*as safe as with human crews

Both the PDS mk70 and the Oerlikon 35 are fit for sea duty. The PDS is explicitly a joint project of the USN, the USMC and the US Army.
All that is asked of the navy is that they keep a clear deck on which to mount the launcher. Or maybe the ask should be of Marine Atlantic.

If developing expensive AI systems to control USVs to too much of a stress on the budget then why waste the money on a bleeding edge technology that may not even fit into our CONOPS anyway (see my post upthread: New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy).

The problem is: What if everybody else is sailing optionally manned vessels in company with UAVs and UUVs in 2035 and the RCN is still looking to squeeze 200 sailors into a single hull? Will the weapons fits and tactics be compatible?

Instead focus on the highlighted section of your post and buy containerized launchers that use the same missiles as used by the RCN and the CA's AD units. Extra munitions with flexible usage scenarios without committing to a specific platform. Need an an arsenal ship to accompany our Task Force? Take up a civilian ship with ample desk space and load it with containers. Need additional AD for Latvia? Load the containers on trucks. Running low on munitions for our ships or AD units? Pull the missiles out of the containers and use them as our war stocks.

Absolutely agree. In fact that is my proposition.

Sometimes the pursuit of the exquisite solution has less overall benefit than the adequate solution.

As a general personal opinion though I think those trying for "moon shot" applications for both AI and un-crewed solutions will likely be disappointed by the results (and the especially the cost). I think we're still at the point where we're better off investing in un-crewed/AI-enabled vehicles that are more like a munition than like the parent platform. More bank for the buck.

Here I have a problem. In 2020 terms the level of engagement in AI probably did look like a "moon shot". By 2024 the rate of development at large, outside of Canada has everybody scrabbling for the moon all at the same time. Since the gun went off in February 2022 many of the old assumptions are being set aside.

At very least Canada should be taking an inventory of Canadian national hulls, determining how they might be employed and what modifications can be applied.

And consideration should be given to how you are going to man any of those hulls and whether you are going to rely on training or automation to field them.

 

[Kirkhill]

Docksta CB90 | Saab

With more than 250 boats operating worldwide, CB 90 has been a success story since the first boat was commissioned.

www.saab.com

CB90 has a usable load of 6.5 tonnes, a length of 16.3 m and a beam of 3.8 m.

The USMC packs two NSM/JSMs on the back of a JLTV with a usable load of 5100 lbs (2.5 tonnes), a length of 6.2 m and a width of 2.5 m.

I believe that a CSC could launch 2x CB90 from its mission bay, each with 2-4 JSMs and a half-dozen Loitering Attack Munitions and despatch them over a combat radius of 150 NM at a cruising speed of 38 knots.

Or they could transport a small body of sailors or soldiers.