One aspect of, how shall I say it (?) , for me, is what I perceive as a
lack of more detailed exploration and a lack of debate of operational implementation aspects surrounding an agreed approved procurement of 12 conventional (AIP-Lithium battery propulsion) submarines.
I suspect part of the reason for such is there is no contract yet for the new submarines, and part of the reason might be because Defence policy/international liaisons are potentially affected, and such has yet to be decided at senior Defence nor decided at government levels. Aspects that come to my mind are:
- deployment plans of East Coast submarines to co-ordinate with NATO (does this mean monitoring GIUK gap in coordination with other navies)? What does it mean in regards to regular NATO exercise support ?
- deployment plans of West Coast submarines with Asean country navies? strategic placement/patrols in any particular spots?
- how Arctic Ocean deployment is to be done? Do East and West coast yearly (bi-yearly?) alternate in responsibility to provide a Canadian submarine to the Arctic ocean (presumably only (? - or mostly) during summer months).
- will there be a mobile Arctic base ship (submarine tender capable) to support an Arctic deployed Canadian submarine, so to increase its duration time and increase its Arctic presence?
- and if an Arctic mobile base ship approach decided, will a selected few northern Canadian civilian airports have a small amount of defence infrastructure added, so to be able to accept incoming transport military aircraft from southern Canada, and able to support helicopters that transit to/from a northern airfield to any potential mobile Arctic base ship (again to better support Arctic deployed submarine and crew)
- more in depth/classified liaison with both RN and USN submarine forces in regards to co-ordinating Arctic deployments (and more sharing of intelligence), so to avoid any conflicting or needless risky overlap of Arctic submarine deployment. In this regards, maybe even liaison with Norwegian/German navies and their Type-212CD may be a factor
The elephant in the room, of course, is how will the RCN man the submarines? I appreciate the 'Field of Dreams' ( 'If you build it, they will come' ) logic, but I can't help shake the view point that more than that is needed. What I see as a "Crisis of Invisibility" of the Canadian Armed Forces, and in particular the 'RCN' need to overcome, such that the public better understands and appreciates the RCN, such that both recruitment and retention of sailors will have more support from the public.
Perhaps the other elephant in the room, is how will the RCN command structure be changed to address having 12 submarines? or does the command structure need be changed? I can only assume and hope, the RCN is giving this serious thought, and hope that a well thought approach has been decided upon, with implementation (if any desired) planned.
Some of the above could take years to sort and hence I do not believe one should wait for the first boat delivery, before plans both decided, and put into place. There could be long lead procurements associated with plans, and hence the need to sort some of this sooner rather than later.
