New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

[Infanteer]

Infanteer, the last time we created a domestic warship industry from nothing was  for the HALIFAX class frigates. We built a nice brand new yard for the Irving's, and then paid them to close it down after the last ship came out and no follow on plans were in place.

As for the SAINT-LAURENT's, we did not develop a domestic warship industry from nothing with them. They were the first large warship fully designed by Canadian yards, but were built by an industry that was barely 5 years out of building hundreds of them for WWII and thus, still had all the technological knowledge, qualified manpower and effective yards (SAINT-LAURENT was laid down less than five years after the end of the war).

Ack.  I seem to recall reading somewhere that we had to import British shipbuilding expertise for the St Laurents as the domestic industry had eroded enough since the end of the Second World War.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

The yards were doing fine at that time. You understand that after the war, a lot of replacement cargo ships were needed to replace the "quick fix" liberty ships with proper and adapted cargo and tankers. No competition from Asian or continental European yards at that time, so lots of work in North America.

However, even during WWII, Canadian yards had never developed the capacity to design warships. They merely bought out British designs and built them from acquired plans. This is where they got some help for the Sallyrands. In fact, they got great help from a leading British warship designer who did not appreciate that many of his more forward ideas were not accepted when designing the Type 12 frigates in England. He emigrated to Canada and Vickers, in Montreal, grabbed him right away. He was instrumental in the design of the SAINT-LAURENT's, and, interestingly enough, it impressed the British sufficiently that they incorporated a lot of that same thinking in their Type 12 follow on class, the LEANDER's.

As we say in French: "No one is a prophet in his own country".  ;D 

 

[NavyShooter]

Shades of the Lewis gun?

[/size]

History

The Lewis gun was invented by US Army Colonel Isaac Newton Lewis in 1911, based on initial work by Samuel Maclean.[1] Despite its origins, the Lewis gun was not initially adopted by the American military—most likely because of political differences between Lewis and General William Crozier, the Chief of the Ordnance Department.[2] Lewis became frustrated with trying to persuade the US Army to adopt his design and so ("slapped by rejections from ignorant hacks", as he said),[3] retired from the army. He left the United States in 1913 and headed to Belgium, where he established the Armes Automatique Lewis company in Liège to facilitate commercial production of the gun.[4] Lewis had been working closely with British arms manufacturer The Birmingham Small Arms Company Limited (BSA) in an effort to overcome some of the production difficulties of the weapon.[1]
The Belgians bought a small number of Lewises in 1913, using the .303 British round, and in 1914, BSA purchased a licence to manufacture the Lewis machine gun in England, which resulted in Col. Lewis receiving significant royalty payments and becoming very wealthy.[3] Lewis and his factory moved to England before 1914, away from possible seizure in the event of a German invasion. The Belgian Army acquired only a handful of his guns, probably only just in double figures.

They were not on general issue in the Belgian Army. They were used only in a few forays by motor vehicles, south of Antwerp, against the flank of the invading German Army.
The onset of World War I increased demand for the Lewis gun, and BSA began production (under the designation Model 1914). The design was officially approved for service on 15 October 1915 under the designation "Gun, Lewis, .303-cal."[5] No Lewis guns
were produced in Belgium during World War I;[6] all manufacture was carried out by BSA in England and the Savage Arms Company in the US.

(Source is the ever-useful Wikipedia....sorry)

 

[Good2Golf]

Thanks, OGBD, "batch" is the word I was looking for (and Infanteer, too, I suspect). We don't necessarily need many classes of ships, a few classes, with "batches" with each, and each batch being a slightly improved version, is the idea for which I was searching.

[Cliff Clave trivia]

Not to overly Americanize things, and as a light blue (well, sort of) guy, I find it interesting that the US Navy refers to the progressive phased development of ships as "Flights" (ref: [amongst many] Arleigh Burke Flights-I, IA, II, IIA, III info )

[/Cliff Claven trivia]

 

[jollyjacktar]

Well, they are in Squadrons.

 

[NavyShooter]

We have 2 flights of Frigates, FFH-330-335, and FFH-336-341.

They have different versions for the incident boards, physical layout is not the same.

Of note as well, they WERE designed with space for expansion, in fact, for those that know the 400Hz power generation system, the 'missing' SFC-7 was actually fitted 'for' but not 'with', and the breaker for it is in the Stbd Side flats, outside 4 Mess.  It was to give the ship an additional SMI-E (Shipboard Missile Interface Equipment, now replaced by the EIC's) to allow us to carry an additional pack of VLS missiles.

NS

 

[dimsum]

We have 2 flights of Frigates, FFH-330-335, and FFH-336-341.

They have different versions for the incident boards, physical layout is not the same.

Of note as well, they WERE designed with space for expansion, in fact, for those that know the 400Hz power generation system, the 'missing' SFC-7 was actually fitted 'for' but not 'with', and the breaker for it is in the Stbd Side flats, outside 4 Mess.  It was to give the ship an additional SMI-E (Shipboard Missile Interface Equipment, now replaced by the EIC's) to allow us to carry an additional pack of VLS missiles.

NS

Interesting - where would have the extra missiles been housed?

 

[NavyShooter]

This was the 'planned' 30 foot extension.  (This was considered for the last 6 ships but not actioned.)

 

[MarkOttawa]

jollyjacktar:

Well, they are in Squadrons.

Indeed, much aviation terminology stems from naval--aircraft commanded by a captain with a first officer.  And note RAF ranks after merger of RNS and RFC, e.g. Wing Commander, Group Captain, Air Commodore:
http://www.rafweb.org/Ranks-Uniform/Ranks1.htm

"Reeve, Banneret, Fourth-Ardian, Third-Ardian, Second-Ardian, Ardian" anyone?

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Eland2]

The yards were doing fine at that time. You understand that after the war, a lot of replacement cargo ships were needed to replace the "quick fix" liberty ships with proper and adapted cargo and tankers. No competition from Asian or continental European yards at that time, so lots of work in North America.

However, even during WWII, Canadian yards had never developed the capacity to design warships. They merely bought out British designs and built them from acquired plans. This is where they got some help for the Sallyrands. In fact, they got great help from a leading British warship designer who did not appreciate that many of his more forward ideas were not accepted when designing the Type 12 frigates in England. He emigrated to Canada and Vickers, in Montreal, grabbed him right away. He was instrumental in the design of the SAINT-LAURENT's, and, interestingly enough, it impressed the British sufficiently that they incorporated a lot of that same thinking in their Type 12 follow on class, the LEANDER's.

Interesting. And to think that I once thought that the St. Laurent class of ships were derived from the design of the Leander class, not the other way around. I mean, it seemed to me to be a reasonable way to think considering that much of what the Canadian military acquired in terms of military hardware in the decades that followed the Second World War was of British provenance, if it wasn't American, and very little of it was of Canadian design and manufacture.

Even as a young reservist in the late 1970s, I couldn't help but notice how schizophrenic our kit procurement seemed to be. Wearing a US M1 helmet while carrying a C1 SMG (which was basically a copy of the British Sterling SMG) that mounted a FNC1A1 bayonet (again, of British design) and '58-pattern webbing (also British in design) and operating a Plessey-built C42 radio set that was made in England, all while wearing combat clothing (or coveralls) and boots of Canadian design and manufacture (and the combat boots then weren't truly of Canadian design, they were actually Norwegian-pattern, with the way the upper part of the boot was sewn onto the lower).

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

A common misconception - that the SAINT-LAURENT were derived from the LEANDER.

HMCS SAINT LAURENT:

Laid down: November 1950
Launched: 1951
Commissioned: October 1955

HMS LEANDER:

Laid down: April 1959
Launched: 1961
Commissioned: March 1963

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Interesting. And to think that I once thought that the St. Laurent class of ships were derived from the design of the Leander class, not the other way around. I mean, it seemed to me to be a reasonable way to think considering that much of what the Canadian military acquired in terms of military hardware in the decades that followed the Second World War was of British provenance, if it wasn't American, and very little of it was of Canadian design and manufacture.

Even as a young reservist in the late 1970s, I couldn't help but notice how schizophrenic our kit procurement seemed to be. Wearing a US M1 helmet while carrying a C1 SMG (which was basically a copy of the British Sterling SMG) that mounted a FNC1A1 bayonet (again, of British design) and '58-pattern webbing (also British in design) and operating a Plessey-built C42 radio set that was made in England, all while wearing combat clothing (or coveralls) and boots of Canadian design and manufacture (and the combat boots then weren't truly of Canadian design, they were actually Norwegian-pattern, with the way the upper part of the boot was sewn onto the lower).

In Germany our troops ended the war and spent I think to 1955 using British kit, when we moved south we converted to US kit such as deuces, 3/4 tons, 105mm and 155mm howitzers to replace the CMP's, 25 pdrs and 5.5". Then we ran Centurions with M113's   

 

[GR66]

There are a number of companies that have "families" of small combattant designs...corvettes to small frigates (I'm thinking Blohm+Voss' MEKO family or DCNS's Gowind family).  Some of these look interesting but they seem to lack some of the things I think are key to a nation with our size of maritime territory (range, endurance, hanger space for larger maritime helicopters, etc.).

Would it make any sense for Canada to partner with one of these companies to add a model at the large end of one of these families that meets our specific needs (range/endurance/MH) and at the same time expands the size of their existing family of ships.  We could have a long-term purchase plan of flights of these vessels that are built and fitted-out in our own shipyards in order to maintain our shipbuilding capacity over the long term. 

At the same time we could possibly also license-build these larger hulls for the "parent" company of the family of ships (for fitting out in their own shipyards to their customer's specs?) for any of their customers that may want a larger vessel (flagship?) to supplement their smaller ships in the same family.

This kind of approach may mean that we might want to have more than just a single CSC class of ship.  Perhaps this smaller, modular-built multi-purpose small combattant plus a larger, more capable "destroyer"-type vessel with area air defence capability which we'd either build in small lots domestically, or maybe purchase the base hulls from an existing foreign class and fit them out in our own shipyards. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

meanwhile down under

http://gcaptain.com/australian-shipbuilding-jobs-safe-under-new-naval-frigates-program/#.VcEZcfmnRyE

 

[MarkOttawa]

US $40 million for vessels other than subs--cost of insisting on building in Oz (rather like us):
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/naval/ships/2015/08/04/australia-build-new-naval-fleet-65b-package/31107267/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[dimsum]

US $40 million for vessels other than subs--cost of insisting on building in Oz (rather like us):
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/naval/ships/2015/08/04/australia-build-new-naval-fleet-65b-package/31107267/

Mark
Ottawa

Also a massive political side too - South Australia had lost a lot of car (and related) manufacturing jobs after Holden shut its plant in Adelaide.

 

[MarkOttawa]

RAND corp. study:

Australia's Naval Shipbuilding Enterprise
Preparing for the 21st Century
...
Key Findings

Australian Policymakers Face a Trade-Off Between Paying a Price Premium and Benefiting from Broader Economic Development

    The Australian government must choose among three options: build the naval surface ships on Australia's acquisition list entirely in-country, build them partially in-country and partially overseas, or have them built at shipyards overseas. Each strategy carries costs and risks.

    Our examination concludes that domestic production of naval ships in Australia currently carries a price premium — estimated to be between 30 to 40 percent compared with similar ships built abroad.

    The premium to build in Australia could be lower than the 30 to 40 percent range if Australia adopts a continuous build strategy to avoid rebuilding an industrial and management capability with each new ship program, starts with mature designs at the onset of production, and minimizes changes during production. With such measures (and a cultural shift in industry toward continuous improvement), we can envision this premium being cut in half.

    Our examination of shipbuilding's economic effects suggests that there may be economic benefits associated with shipbuilding, especially when it occurs in areas that would otherwise have slack in their labor forces. The benefits are unclear and are largely dependent on broader economic conditions in Australia.

Recommendations

    The Australian government faces a trade-off between paying a price premium for indigenous production and benefiting from some broader economic development from such production. The 30- to 40-percent price premium for building in Australia could drop to approximately half that level over time with a steady production program that leads to a productive workforce.

    Supporting an Australian shipbuilding industry that is cost-effective will require specific steps, including filling the gap between the end of the air warfare destroyer program and the start of Future Frigate construction and adopting a continuous build strategy that starts a new surface combatant every 18 months to two years. There will be some challenges with replacing the Anzac-class ships in a timely manner, but those challenges can be overcome with careful management of the current and future fleets...
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1093.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Infanteer]

Great link - I just skimmed it (it's a monster at just under 300 pages) but there is clearly a lot of useful data in there.  I'd like to see a Canadian think-tank use it as the basis for a similar Canadian study to help better define the metrics of the NSPS.

 

[MilEME09]

Great link - I just skimmed it (it's a monster at just under 300 pages) but there is clearly a lot of useful data in there.  I'd like to see a Canadian think-tank use it as the basis for a similar Canadian study to help better define the metrics of the NSPS.

If done right I could see continuous shipbuilding here in Canada if we planned it right to replace surface combatants, submarines, support ships, etc... in a timely fashion combined with upgrades, and long term maintenance. In theory we could keep the shipyards open indefinitely and after a few years make them also competitive on the international market.

 

[MarkOttawa]

MilEME09:

...competitive on the international market.

I suspect that is never never land.

Mark
Ottawa