TKMS Type 212CD (Victoria class replacement megathread)

[oldcpu]

(3) Regardless, given the potential advantages of being able to replenish AIP reactants from a mobile platform (including an Arctic platform), that it is worth doing a serious study on such a possibility, where I would go a step further perhaps than you would go, and I would note such such an assessment include scaled (down) representative testing to validate such (or to prove such is far too unsafe, if that should be the case).

I am tempted to upload a map of the Arctic as seen with the North Pole in the center of the map.

Looking at such a map, in my view, makes it clear that the Bering Strait and the Hudson Strait/Labrador Sea are not the only access areas for Russian submarines to reach the Canadian Arctic. The Russians can deploy directly from their northern fleet bases into the deep Arctic. From there, their nuclear submarines can transit undetected under the ice pack—crossing the basins such as Nansen Basin, Amundsen basin, and Makarov basin—to emerge directly on the Canadian side of the Arctic ocean.

I think the idea of limiting future RCN AIP-equipped submarines, to just what some post as the choke points of the Bering Strait and the Hudson Strait/Labrador Sea, totally misses the point as to how Russian submarines, can access the Canadian side of the Arctic Ocean. Further, with global warming, more of the Arctic is anticipated to open up.

From my perspective, this re-enforces my view that longer deployment duration in the Arctic for AIP equipped submarines (and not only sitting silent on the edge of 2 different western hemisphere choke points), may be important, and I think for an AIP equipped submarine this means having a means of AIP replenishment in the Arctic. Such replenishment capability opens up a lot more time in Arctic waters, and if achieved, then possible aspects other than only AIP replenishment could then become the main limiting factors.