New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

[Halifax Tar]

By budget do you mean the main estimates? Supps A? Supps B? Supps C?

Are we talking about cash based accounting or accrual accounting?

But, broadly speaking, I think the metric is "how close without going over did DND/CAF spend" since it would be technically illegal to overspend by even 1c.

I remember an article where the CAF couldn't spend its budget and sent some back to the Gov coffers ?

 

[Underway]

At the least the AOPS deserves a Smart S radar and MASS for some self defense.

I'm not picking on you, as others point out this sort of thing, but this is a good comment to follow down the rabbit hole.

Smart S would require:
-5 more crew to operate the system,
-2 maintainers
-changes to the AOPS electrical load (does it have spare capacity or do we have to do load shedding of other systems to make this work).
-A space to put the Smart S cabinets with their cooling (changes to the cooling system and chilled water system, there is no spare capacity on AOPS for this).
-Mast redesign to place it in an appropriate spot that could resist the ice that will build up in the arctic.
-Identify Friend or Foe interigator cabinet, associated cooling and power (as thats a seperate cabinet to the SMART S processing one)

MASS would require:
-MASS ammo magazine
-minimum 4 launchers at appropriate spaces around the ship, perhaps 6 for a ship of that size...
-again more electrical load on the ships plant
-a passive electronic warfare sensor to identify whatever missile is coming at the ship, with its own antenna and cabinet, and cooling (otherwise MASS is just a party machine with expensive confetti and fireworks. MASS only works if you ID the missile and use the appropriate defensive timing and patterns to avoid being hit)
-5ish people to crew the EW sensor and EW supervisor positions over all the watch rotations
- 1 maintainer

Both those systems would be useless without a Combat Management System to integrate them together which would require:
-at least two cabinets with associated power and cooling in different space than the radar, IFF one and a different space than the EW cabinets (for security purposes)
-4-5 consoles in the now SINGLE purpose ops room (when from multi purpose reconfigurable to non-configurable)
- no increase in crew as the Radar Techs are also able to work on
the CMS.

So we have added 5 cabinets, 3 chilled water systems (probably need about 50 tons of chilled water to do that), 12 crew, new spaces for this equipment, taken over a multi use space, 4ish consoles, a mast redesign, two new antenna, and a magazine space.

For almost no survivability imprvements.

 

[Underway]

Potemkin facades

Oh deep cut. I love this.

 

[dapaterson]

I remember an article where the CAF couldn't spend its budget and sent some back to the Gov coffers ?

Yes. Every department lapses some money - overspendign is illegal, so the goal is to get as close as possible without going over.

However: Departments are given the ability to carry over funding, year to year, within limits. So even if DND/CAF don't spend every last cent (talking PO&M here, mostly; votes 5, 10 and 15 are different animals) unspent amounts can be taken into the next FY.

The real question is "how much lapses after taking into account the carry forward".

And while often the amounts sound big, they are a (relatively) small percentage of the (huge) DND budget.

Part of this is a problem of comptrollership - people want to hold their money until the last minute even when they objectively know that they will not be able to spend it. Or they track on "Unit_Spreadsheet_Don-edits-boss-reviewed-version3-updated.xls" instead of in the departmental financial system.

Part of it can be deliveries under contracts coming in late. Or the old familiar "It's April 9th, I have spare money, so I won't recover your costs for last FY so my accounts balance, and you now have money you had marked as spent months ago with no way to spend it".

 

[Prairie canuck]

I'm not picking on you, as others point out this sort of thing, but this is a good comment to follow down the rabbit hole.

Smart S would require:
-5 more crew to operate the system,
-2 maintainers
-changes to the AOPS electrical load (does it have spare capacity or do we have to do load shedding of other systems to make this work).
-A space to put the Smart S cabinets with their cooling (changes to the cooling system and chilled water system, there is no spare capacity on AOPS for this).
-Mast redesign to place it in an appropriate spot that could resist the ice that will build up in the arctic.
-Identify Friend or Foe interigator cabinet, associated cooling and power (as thats a seperate cabinet to the SMART S processing one)

MASS would require:
-MASS ammo magazine
-minimum 4 launchers at appropriate spaces around the ship, perhaps 6 for a ship of that size...
-again more electrical load on the ships plant
-a passive electronic warfare sensor to identify whatever missile is coming at the ship, with its own antenna and cabinet, and cooling (otherwise MASS is just a party machine with expensive confetti and fireworks. MASS only works if you ID the missile and use the appropriate defensive timing and patterns to avoid being hit)
-5ish people to crew the EW sensor and EW supervisor positions over all the watch rotations
- 1 maintainer

Both those systems would be useless without a Combat Management System to integrate them together which would require:
-at least two cabinets with associated power and cooling in different space than the radar, IFF one and a different space than the EW cabinets (for security purposes)
-4-5 consoles in the now SINGLE purpose ops room (when from multi purpose reconfigurable to non-configurable)
- no increase in crew as the Radar Techs are also able to work on
the CMS.

So we have added 5 cabinets, 3 chilled water systems (probably need about 50 tons of chilled water to do that), 12 crew, new spaces for this equipment, taken over a multi use space, 4ish consoles, a mast redesign, two new antenna, and a magazine space.

For almost no survivability imprvements.

Thanks for the informative response, much appreciated.
However, yes there's always a howvever, without knowing the load these systems would draw it makes it difficult to calculate the feasibility of installing them. Based on the potential generated output of the existing plants (8 to 9MVA estimated) there should be ample capacity in the sense of electrical load. From the line drawings I would say after relocating the XO and Coxswain there's also sufficient room for the cabinets. As for the 50 tons of chilled water well that equates to having a 14,000 gallon tank so I'm not sure that's what a Halifax with a Smart S carries around with it.
I just feel if you're going to have a patrol out there on picket in the arctic it should be able to detect and protect itself from threats. If there's another way an AOPS can do this by itself the please by all means share.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Thanks for the informative response, much appreciated.
However, yes there's always a howvever, without knowing the load these systems would draw it makes it difficult to calculate the feasibility of installing them. Based on the potential generated output of the existing plants (8 to 9MVA estimated) there should be ample capacity in the sense of electrical load. From the line drawings I would say after relocating the XO and Coxswain there's also sufficient room for the cabinets. As for the 50 tons of chilled water well that equates to having a 14,000 gallon tank so I'm not sure that's what a Halifax with a Smart S carries around with it.
I just feel if you're going to have a patrol out there on picket in the arctic it should be able to detect and protect itself from threats. If there's another way an AOPS can do this by itself the please by all means share.

And do what exactly with the radar data? Adding weapon systems would similarly require a lot of add ons and major changes, and crew (which we don't have).

You add crew, you need to beef up all the hotel services, water storage etc etc

And if you do all that, it's still a non combatant, with no combat recoverability built in, so take one hit and it's going down.

Electrical power generation capability does not also mean you can actually run produce all that power at once and actually use it for equipment, as your entire electrical power distribution system is a limiting factor, plus a lot of that is for specific things like propulsion.

If we want more actual fighting ships, we need to get rid of AOPs to free up the crews and get replacement ships, which basically you'd need to buy direct from a different country if you want them fast.