Canada settled on 15 RCDs when the world seemed a lot safer. Seems like the solution in a more dangerous world isn't cutting your bare minimum number of world class destroyers...
I get what you're trying to propose, but it just doesn't make sense for the RCN to lose capability just to add a few more hulls.
Australia is trying to make budget room for SSNs, so they have to make cuts elsewhere. In their case, cutting surface ship capability in favor of SSNs makes some sense. The US is looking to get more constabulary presence around the world, so going with a less capable frigate makse sense for them. It frees the ABs to be the escorts they were always intended to be.
Not just when the world seemed a lot safer but, more particularly, Canada seemed a lot safer. The perception was that war was something thar would happen "over there".
Now we are being forced to contemplate a real defense of the homeland and living up to our international responsibilities.
I suggest that those international responsibilities begin with covering off the areas that have been agreed as being our responsibilities in peace and war - the SRRs.
What does it take to command those areas? Not just respond to an occasional incident but be able to sustain a sufficient presence, on our own, that we discourage challenges most of the time and defeat challenges all the time.
We shouldn't have to rely on the Americans to back us up. They have got their own direct respobsibilities.
The other thing that has changed since 2018 when we selected the Type 26, is the development of Atlantic Bastion, or at least the public announcement of the strategy by the UK.
That butts up against, and overlaps with, our Halifax SRR. The Brits, Norwegians, Danes, Dutch and the rest of the Euros are going to be actively engaged east of Greenland.
We are responsible for the waters west of Greenland.
And we are also resonsible for the air space above those waters.
.....
And all of this brings us back to Greenland.
Who secures Greenland?
And what does securing Greenland mean?
Even in WW2 Greenland was a contestable threat. The convoys would have had a lot tougher time of things if the Germans had been able to fly their Kondors from Greenland.
As it was shots were exchanged on Greenland dealing with weather stations established by the Germans, the same type of stations that were established in Canada.
Add in the ability of Gerrman subs to penetrate the St Lawrence to Rimouski
And think what even a small team of people ashore can accomplish with today's technology.
And how many people does it take to secure our coasts, and Greenland's, against those pinpricks, and to dislodge them?
....
Are the RCD's the right keystone for those waters?
We are looking at subs, P8s, F35s, MQ-9s, JORNs, Light infantry battalions, helicopters, Hercs, Satellites, mines ant all sorts of UxVs operating in all domains.
And one old tanker can act as a Forward Operating Location for UxVs launched from elsewhere.
But do you even need to be that conspicuous? What can be accomplished from a hotel room?
