New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

[Czech_pivo]

The faster we hook ourselves into that ecosystem the better.

It sure looks like that from the 10,000 ft level, without going there and getting into the weeds.

 

[Underway]

We brag about how all regions in Canada are brought into the fold for supplies parts/materials needed for the JSS or AOPS, but yet this leads to much higher costs and timelines to deliver a product. It also reduces the 'ownership' in ensuring that the suppliers deliver consistently a quality product.

Does it? I don't think it does lead to higher costs. That's a function of industrial output from our yards. We build more ships prices go down. Also Hanwha have vertically integrated a lot of their stuff, we haven't done that.

We don't yet know about the full ramifications of how Seaspan is building nor the change Irving is making for CSC. AOPS started rough, but it looks better the long the yard builds. Think about it this way. The average time a Korean has been in a yard building a ship has been 16 years. The longest time a Canadian has been in a yard building a ship has been 10.

We also have a cultural bias in Canada against the big shipyards and big procurement projects with incorrect, incomplete or just assumed incompetence where it may not be warranted. There is a reason Canada doesn't build stuff anymore. Because people want to tear them down when they do.

 

[lenaitch]

“All of our programs are a mess,” US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan told a US House hearing in June.

Because . . .

1. It's all Obama's/Biden's fault.
2. Too many DEI hires.
3. Too many women.
4. All the bad shops and yards are in Blue states and need to be moved.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Does it? I don't think it does lead to higher costs. That's a function of industrial output from our yards. We build more ships prices go down. Also Hanwha have vertically integrated a lot of their stuff, we haven't done that.

We don't yet know about the full ramifications of how Seaspan is building nor the change Irving is making for CSC. AOPS started rough, but it looks better the long the yard builds. Think about it this way. The average time a Korean has been in a yard building a ship has been 16 years. The longest time a Canadian has been in a yard building a ship has been 10.

We also have a cultural bias in Canada against the big shipyards and big procurement projects with incorrect, incomplete or just assumed incompetence where it may not be warranted. There is a reason Canada doesn't build stuff anymore. Because people want to tear them down when they do.

Understood.
I disagree with the distance/cost argument. There is a reason why manufacturing facilities insist on their suppliers co-locating near their facilities - time/distance does directly translate into money/savings.

I'd like to point out again the amount of money that Hanwha dropped into 1 facility, 5 billion USD, of their own money, and compare that to what Seaspan/Irving invested. Lets see if Irving or Seaspan comes back to the Feds in the next 6-15 months about the need to expand this facility or refurbish that facility and directly ask the Feds for 'grants' or 'long term loans with no tax' or 'tax holidays'.

There is definitely a Tall Poppy Syndrome within Canada - not just at a company level but 100% at an individual level.

 

[Kirkhill]

This could be under "replacing the subs" but its implications are broader. Broader even than ships to be honest.

The title could just as easily have been "nobody needs Canadian-made (ships, tanks, aircraft, LAVs, cars)".

Chris Selley: No one needs Canadian-made submarines

If foreign subs are fine, why not foreign frigates and destroyers? Or even ferries?

nationalpost.com

"No Canadian politician defends corporate welfare; the vast majority will rail against it, if you ask them. And pretty much every politician, once they come to power, doles out corporate welfare like mad. It’s not a concession to economic or practical or even political reality so much as it’s a failure of imagination.

Canadians are perfectly happy using foreign-built stuff. By rights, politicians should be proud of all the money they’re not spending by simply letting that happen."

 

[childs56]

Does it? I don't think it does lead to higher costs. That's a function of industrial output from our yards. We build more ships prices go down. Also Hanwha have vertically integrated a lot of their stuff, we haven't done that.

Anything built for the Canadian Government has a higher cost, history has shown they will cost overrun, delay and cancel projects as they get going. For a supplier to tool up, manufacture they need a definite assurance their investment wont be negated by project cancellation or interference.

We don't yet know about the full ramifications of how Seaspan is building nor the change Irving is making for CSC. AOPS started rough, but it looks better the long the yard builds. Think about it this way. The average time a Korean has been in a yard building a ship has been 16 years. The longest time a Canadian has been in a yard building a ship has been 10.

That is who's Fault? Honestly they have been doing overhauls on both coasts and building smaller vessels. The transition should not have been so bad. But it was and is.

We also have a cultural bias in Canada against the big shipyards and big procurement projects with incorrect, incomplete or just assumed incompetence where it may not be warranted. There is a reason Canada doesn't build stuff anymore. Because people want to tear them down when they do.

That is your opinion, one of the reasons why Canadian Shipyards have a hard time gaining long term work is theses issues you eluded to above. They have created a complexity of cost overruns, poor workmanship and built their own reputation internationally themselves.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Seaspan has a good rep for repairs and refits. Vancouver Drydock Company works on a much different mindset, then the Pemberton Yard.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Link to Noah’s interview with VA Topshee


Lets Talk with Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy

 

[GR66]

Putting this here as it discusses several ship types...

Excerpts from Vice-Admiral Tophsee's talk at the Canadian Seapower 2025 Conference in September (as reported in the Fall Starshell issue).

Some interesting comments on the type of fleet he'd like to see:

The Navy that Canada is building, he noted, includes that capability, through its development of a network of sensors, both mobile and fixed, enabled by autonomous and uncrewed vessels and systems.

The River-class will enable the Navy to ?stay on the cutting edge,? serving as a "purpose-built anti-submarine warfare ship" that also offers "a really capable anti-air platform, surface capability, strike capability" with its suite of aerial, surface, and subsurface uncrewed systems. It is, according to Admiral Topshee, "a true destroyer" and "a front-line combatant that can go anywhere Canada needs it to, anywhere in the world."

For Admiral Topshee, it is submarines that constitute the centre piece of maritime deterrence and sovereignty. "The most effective deterrent in our waters," he said, "is something that brings the stealth, persistence, and, most importantly, the lethality to make sure that we always control what happens in our waters."

In response to a question from the audience on the government's decision to pursue the procurement of conventional submarines over their nuclear-powered alternative, Admiral Topshee pointed to the "tremendous cost" of nuclear submarines with respect to securing the requisite reactors, the extensive shore infrastructure that would be required, and the associated likely need to construct new bases on each coast. The crewing requirements for nuclear submarines, which demand crews three to five times larger than those of conventionally powered submarines, would also present a challenge. While such nuclear submarines have traditionally "offered a dramatic advantage" with respect to their under-ice capabilities, the Admiral noted that technological evolutions mean that both submarines now under consideration have lithium-ion batteries that charge faster and discharge at a lower rate. Also equipped with air-independent propulsion systems, the conventional submarines currently under consideration for Canada's fleet boast submerged endurances - without exposure - that amount to weeks, rather than days. He has "confidence that we would be able to operate either submarine under the ice."

Admiral Topshee also discussed Canada's most recent new capability, the Harry DeWolf-class Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessels (AOPVs), which he identified as being "fantastic ships." Citing HMCS Margaret Brooke's recent voyage from the Arctic to Antarctica, and HMCS Harry DeWolf's circumnavigation of North America via the Northwest Passage, he identified these vessels as "the icebreakers we need to make sure we can patrol anywhere in our Arctic in the navigation season, and anywhere around our Arctic" during the winter months. However, he also stressed their limits: "They're not combatants. That 25mm cannon is impressive and useful, but you can put a LAV on the flight deck and you'd get the same combat power."

What the RCN thus needs is "something that brings the war fight to the ice edge," especially given that the thin hulls of both the Halifax- and River-class are unable to withstand much ice. To fill this gap in Arctic capabilities, Admiral Topshee proposed a new Continental Defence Corvette - a smaller, ice-capable combat vessel that would bridge the gap between patrol vessel and destroyer and reflect the nation's "unique Canadian requirements" by combining the endurance, range, and hull strength that are so imperative for Arctic operations. While he acknowledged that it would be a "stretch" to refer to the 2,500- to 4,000-ton vessels the RCN has in mind as corvettes, he argued that possessing "a surface presence that has real capability" is integral to deter and defend as other actors like China increase their Arctic presence. A fleet of between eight and 20 corvettes would offer this presence and capability. They would allow the RCN to bring the fight "right to the ice edge, into the ice," marrying combat power with ice capability and an extensive range to enable the Navy to operate, for instance, throughout the Gulf of St. Lawrence at any time of year.

Of course, combat power is of little value without the ability to sustain it. Currently, Canada is constructing two Protecteur-class ships in Vancouver's Seaspan Shipyards. However, as Admiral Topshee insisted, the RCN effectively needs four - potentially five, according to its latest fleet mix study, if the RCN were tasked with defending both coasts while also sustaining a screen of destroyers and frigates to protect against submarine activity. Given the RCN's current budget for only two such vessels, he suggested there is "some work to do there."

This fleet composition, Admiral Topshee argued, would be critical if Canada needed to patrol and protect against surface action groups and submarines and ensure they remained out of missile range on the coasts. The Corvettes would hunt the submarines to the ice edge, the River-class destroyers would offer the air defence to protect those Corvettes, and the Protecteur-class would sustain both. That, the Admiral insisted, "is the threat we're looking at, where there is a clear and present challenge to our waters, and we need to be able to maintain that screen out there all of the time. And if you don't think that's real," he cautioned, the Russians currently possess the ability to deploy submarines off both coasts at once, and the Chinese - in compensation for their support for Russia's illegal war in Ukraine " are acquiring advanced submarine quieting technology that could severely complicate efforts to locate Chinese submarines. In such an environment, and given the Chinese proclivity for rapidly building submarines and warships, "we need to be ready and build the fleet that will defend our shores and make it meaningful."

Returning to the RCN's Arctic capabilities, Admiral Topshee also revived the concept of a heavy icebreaking Polar Class 2 amphibious vessel - a heavy icebreaker capable of disaster response and power projection in the High North. "Maybe it's time for us to think seriously about a heavy icebreaking amphibious ship," he mused, acknowledging that it currently has "no policy cover and no funding whatsoever, and not even a project title." Referencing recent discussions on Arctic basing, he noted that th eonly ice-free port in northern North America is Nuuk, Greenland, and that both Canada and the US lack useful Arctic ports. All of Canada's northern ports possess "serious flaws" and do not constitute effective military facilities "except for [during] a brief period of time in summer." For instance, Iqaluit's deep-water port freezes in the winter and has a 10-metre tidal range. This effectively leaves St. John's and Prince Rupert as Canada's most northerly ice-free ports. Therefore, if the RCN needed to operate in the North or deliver aid to a community in distress, it "would need something that could break ice to get up there and then deliver that assistance over the...shore, over the ice, without port infrastructure" - effectively, an amphibious ship. Two such vessels, stationed in Halifax, would represent "game-changing capabilities" for the CAF and Government of Canada. They would offer "a capability that would bring relief and aid and enable whatever the Government of Canada needed to do in the Arctic by mobile basing any time of the year."

Reflecting upon the Navy's physical capital, Admiral Topshee noted that the funding was there for infrastructure expansion at its major bases in Esquimalt and Halifax. Beyond those bases, he pointed to the 24 Naval Reserve divisions, spread across Canada, that comprise the RCN's "recruiting engine" and which continue "to recruit and grow." His vision for the Naval Reserves would see them growing even further. He envisages each of the Reserve divisions becoming "a hub for recruiting, enrolling, and training" sailors, and foresees expanding its footprint to new locations across Canada, including by transforming existing detachments into complete Naval Reserve divisions. He lauded the ability of these divisions to enable Canadians to join the Navy "close to home, to ease the transition to service," by allowing them to work where they live. There is also the potential for the Reserves to leverage nearby post-secondary institutions to expedite training.

Admiral Topshee envisages further enabling these Naval Reserve divisions through the acquisition of a training fleet of between 24 and 30 Orca-like vessels (with, he optimistically noted, would have an improved black-water capacity compared to the Navy's current Orca fleet). Each Naval Reserve division "that touches water," he proposed, could host one such vessel, to "put people to sea early in their training" and "build a cadre of experienced sailors." In addition to training Canadians, the commissioning of this fleet would enhance the Navy's sovereignty enforcement and surveillance along the nation's coasts, along the St. Lawrence Seaway, and in the Great Lakes.

No doubt that he certainly has a grand vision for the RCN. Will be interesting to see how much of it can become reality.

 

[Nvlgzr]

GR66, thanks for the posting.

“and the Protecteur-class would sustain both.”

Topshee has mentioned that the Corvettes will need to be rated PC6 minus. If so, won’t future AORs need to be similarly rated to provide support to warships operating in the Arctic.

 

[Halifax Tar]

@GR66

Of course, combat power is of little value without the ability to sustain it. Currently, Canada is constructing two Protecteur-class ships in Vancouver's Seaspan Shipyards. However, as Admiral Topshee insisted, the RCN effectively needs four - potentially five, according to its latest fleet mix study, if the RCN were tasked with defending both coasts while also sustaining a screen of destroyers and frigates to protect against submarine activity. Given the RCN's current budget for only two such vessels, he suggested there is "some work to do there."

Admittedly I am biased towards my big beautiful tankers, to me this the most important part of that article.

Having said that sustainment goes much further back than the RAS station at sea. We need warehousing space, spares to put in that space, training establishments, infrastructure, and lastly and most importantly we need people.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Not to mention the one thing escort captains always want: Fuel!

To paraphrase Napoleon: Amateurs destroyer captains talk about driving with panache, professional ones about driving topped-up.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Not to mention the one thing escort captains always want: Fuel!

To paraphrase Napoleon: Amateurs destroyer captains talk about driving with panache, professional ones about driving topped-up.

I had a Captain tell me once he will never miss an opportunity to fuel or store ship. Logistics keeps up on station.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Anything built for the Canadian Government has a higher cost, history has shown they will cost overrun, delay and cancel projects as they get going. For a supplier to tool up, manufacture they need a definite assurance their investment wont be negated by project cancellation or interference.

That is who's Fault? Honestly they have been doing overhauls on both coasts and building smaller vessels. The transition should not have been so bad. But it was and is.

That is your opinion, one of the reasons why Canadian Shipyards have a hard time gaining long term work is theses issues you eluded to above. They have created a complexity of cost overruns, poor workmanship and built their own reputation internationally themselves.

Seaspan at VDC has on average 1-5 vessels in getting repairs/refits, the majority are US flagged. Seaspan actually has a good international rep for repairs and refits.

 

[Kirkhill]

It sounds as if, for the CDC, he might be looking for something like the Rasmussen (205O tonnes fully loaded, PC6, 70 m, crew of 18 + 25, helo deck, mini CB90, 1x 76, 2x 12.7, ESSMs and torpedos) but perhaps with a bit longer legs.

Knud Rasmussen-class patrol vessel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org