A few months ago it was speculated and rumored in various media that Irving had the inside track for the maintenance contract for the AOPS (and JSS). The thing about rumours is...apparently Thales won the contract back in December (pursuant to further negotiations).
Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ship AOPS
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Or they can reapportion all of the AOPS and their budget to the Coast Guard (amalgamated in the NATO 2% budget) and replace the AOPS money with CSC and JSS money. Making sure that all the new craft have "soft power" capable flex decks.
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jmt18325 said:
Probably wouldn't be a good design to replace any existing coast guard ice breakers.
Depending how they handle as sea boats, may be a good design to replace some of the old fisheries boats, and a good excuse to scrap the Grenfell.
Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
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This might be of interest to this subject http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/compass-points/2017/03/20/type-of-ice-affects-shipping-in-canadas-northwest-passage
Oldgateboatdriver
Army.ca Veteran
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Unfortunately, jmt, the AOPS are not a good match for the coast guard. They are a bit like a swiss army knife: they have many tools but none of them is even close to the real one in capacity.
They are hybrid vessels at best. Capable of operating in ice, but not really ice breakers - river or arctic ; capable of patrol, but nowhere close to the level of a proper OPV that would be preferred by the coast guard for fisheries protection; not really capable of towing, at least not any better than your standard warship is; reasonable SAR platform, but again, not as good as a dedicated platform for such duties; and finally, and that is the last nail in the coffin as far as coast guard is concerned, they are not work boats that can carry out navigation aids servicing.
Personally, I think Irving's idea is:
(1) Bad;
(2) a feeble attempt by Irving at stealing work that belongs to Seaspan;
(3) a gross misunderstanding by Irving of the Shipbuilding Strategy, which is aimed at helping the industry to rebuild and modernize - which Irving allegedly has done - so it can then compete and obtain its own work in the regular market, not so the Government of Canada can be the only actual constant provider of work.
So as far as I am concerned, Irving can go fly a kite: If it has a bit of slack between two different GoC orders, that is exactly when it is supposed to get off its fat a## and get itself some real work. Otherwise, there is no point in the God damn strategy, and we may as well start getting bids again on every piece of kit Canada wants to buy to benefit from the competition.
They are hybrid vessels at best. Capable of operating in ice, but not really ice breakers - river or arctic ; capable of patrol, but nowhere close to the level of a proper OPV that would be preferred by the coast guard for fisheries protection; not really capable of towing, at least not any better than your standard warship is; reasonable SAR platform, but again, not as good as a dedicated platform for such duties; and finally, and that is the last nail in the coffin as far as coast guard is concerned, they are not work boats that can carry out navigation aids servicing.
Personally, I think Irving's idea is:
(1) Bad;
(2) a feeble attempt by Irving at stealing work that belongs to Seaspan;
(3) a gross misunderstanding by Irving of the Shipbuilding Strategy, which is aimed at helping the industry to rebuild and modernize - which Irving allegedly has done - so it can then compete and obtain its own work in the regular market, not so the Government of Canada can be the only actual constant provider of work.
So as far as I am concerned, Irving can go fly a kite: If it has a bit of slack between two different GoC orders, that is exactly when it is supposed to get off its fat a## and get itself some real work. Otherwise, there is no point in the God damn strategy, and we may as well start getting bids again on every piece of kit Canada wants to buy to benefit from the competition.
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The AOPS ice class isroughly the same as what the coast guard calls a "light ice breaker".
Most of the coast guard light ice breakers are bouy tenders, they're typically tasked with ice breaking over the winter, but their primary job is bouy tending.
To be effective as a bouy tender, you need a lot of cargo space, a crane, and be manourverable. Being able to survive grounding is important as well.
The aops probably wouldn't be effective as a bouy tender.
Most of the coast guard boats have specific primary roles, not many of which the aops would be suitable for.
If it's a half decent sea boat, it might make a be ok as a replacement for the either (or both) the cape roger and the Cygnus, but it's really not ideal.
Might be an effective replacement for the Grenfell as well, which has no useful role, but when they tried to dispose of it, there was a big public outcry about "search and rescue" and "cuts to the coast guard" (it's an unreliable old piece of junk, it's a pig in fuel, and hasn't had a useful role since they stopped using diesel fuel at the lighthouses)
Given that (or so the legend goes) the Grenfell was bought to bail out the yard that built it, buying an aops and shoehorning it into a role that doesn't exist might be an ideal successor.
Most of the coast guard light ice breakers are bouy tenders, they're typically tasked with ice breaking over the winter, but their primary job is bouy tending.
To be effective as a bouy tender, you need a lot of cargo space, a crane, and be manourverable. Being able to survive grounding is important as well.
The aops probably wouldn't be effective as a bouy tender.
Most of the coast guard boats have specific primary roles, not many of which the aops would be suitable for.
If it's a half decent sea boat, it might make a be ok as a replacement for the either (or both) the cape roger and the Cygnus, but it's really not ideal.
Might be an effective replacement for the Grenfell as well, which has no useful role, but when they tried to dispose of it, there was a big public outcry about "search and rescue" and "cuts to the coast guard" (it's an unreliable old piece of junk, it's a pig in fuel, and hasn't had a useful role since they stopped using diesel fuel at the lighthouses)
Given that (or so the legend goes) the Grenfell was bought to bail out the yard that built it, buying an aops and shoehorning it into a role that doesn't exist might be an ideal successor.
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Stop me if you've heard this one:
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/8680/this-is-russias-warship-being-built-specifically-for-fighting-in-the-arctic
While we are at it, I thought this was kind of cute too:
https://youtu.be/IIwz9wdZ2_s
Just the thing for the back end, eh?
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/8680/this-is-russias-warship-being-built-specifically-for-fighting-in-the-arctic
While we are at it, I thought this was kind of cute too:
https://youtu.be/IIwz9wdZ2_s
Just the thing for the back end, eh?
Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
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LOl Canada should buy those just so people will go "WTF is Canada losing it?"
Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
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Maybe, the CCG senior management is highly opposed to "militarizing" the Guard. The question will can they still do CCG stuff. Basically a ship for them is a travelling construction site, lowbed and crane. Even SAR is a dirty word for many of them and they dislike anything that pulls a ship away from a scheduled task. These 2 video's shows you what most of a buoy tender bread and butter is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIgjcbOkoag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_APi4k3HuA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIgjcbOkoag
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_APi4k3HuA
Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
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The crews and some of the Captains love new and exciting challenges, they not be big on anything guns and lot's of repetitive training (like boarding parties). Most of the fisheries patrols on the West Coast are in the small vessels and inside waters, I can't speak for the east coast guys. The smaller vessels are tasked mainly with things like SAR, Emergency Response (ER) or Fish patrols and and they will primarily do that one thing. The primary ER guys are either based in Victoria, Sea Island or Prince Rupert and then gather and travel to the site from one of those bases, plans are for another base as well. Again not sure how the East coast does it, Pacific looks after Western Arctic and East Coast looks after the other half. Both coasts do thing very differently, ice on the west coast outside of the arctic is almost non-existent, whereas the east coast, it's a big part of their job as well.
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Colin P said:
Cygnus, Cape Roger, and Leonard J Cowley, are the intended patrol vessels for the Grand Banks, though any one of the larger vessels may also find themselves filling in.
Cygnus and Cape Roger are both in need of replacement, the Cowley is in good shape, but it's still 33 years old.
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So, would there be a problem if the number of vessels dedicated to "patrol" - generically speaking - were increased and/or modernized and/or enhanced? If the Coast Guard already has three deep water patrol vessels, all long in the tooth, could the AOPS replace them and extend their patrol range and capabilities?
Kind of related - I have started to think of Canada as a two-coast country - just the way it used to be. The West Coast is obvious - Esquimalt to Rupert. But my version of the East Coast starts at the Lakehead and ends at Yellowknife (or Hays River). That stretch of water is uninterrupted by external political realities and navigation is entirely dependent on the designs of the vessels the Government chooses to employ in the area. (The Mackenzie requires a craft with a draught of no more than 1.4 m - like Eckaloo, Dumit and the tugs that used to operated by NTC - or that CB90s could navigate).
It seems to me that one "navy" for the entire East Coast makes sense but that that "navy" needs a large variety of craft to operate in all the varied waters on that coast.
The West Coast "navy" would be a much smaller and uniform fleet.
Kind of related - I have started to think of Canada as a two-coast country - just the way it used to be. The West Coast is obvious - Esquimalt to Rupert. But my version of the East Coast starts at the Lakehead and ends at Yellowknife (or Hays River). That stretch of water is uninterrupted by external political realities and navigation is entirely dependent on the designs of the vessels the Government chooses to employ in the area. (The Mackenzie requires a craft with a draught of no more than 1.4 m - like Eckaloo, Dumit and the tugs that used to operated by NTC - or that CB90s could navigate).
It seems to me that one "navy" for the entire East Coast makes sense but that that "navy" needs a large variety of craft to operate in all the varied waters on that coast.
The West Coast "navy" would be a much smaller and uniform fleet.
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Chris Pook said:
To what end? The role of those particular is to conduct fisheries patrol on the grand bank. They're effective now, and there's more than enough ships (for that role) two of them are just in need of replacement (One came close to sinking in St. John's harbour a few years ago due to rust out... coincidentally, she was in the harbour at the time due to having found damage to the life boat... it was a combination of having portable pumps on board for SAR, and being tied up a few hundred feet from a dry dock that saved her)
