Canadian Surface Combatant RFQ

[Happy Guy]

We all don't actually believe this, don't be so divisive using such a broad stroke of your fellow countrymen. Even if this was true, then that would be the bulk of the population not wanting a CAF. In that case, then it should be abolished or reformed into an organisation that can fit Canadians' desire.

Canadians don't like the CAF to be ill-suited to the job, they don't wanna see caskets and the gov't doesn't want headlines saying they could've prevented the death. Canadians don't understand the CFs job or tools and nobody has shown any will to remind people of what the CF does and why it needs to keep doing it (and much more). Instead, they only see the damage control side, and no gov't really see the need to spend Billions on a subject that so few care about, regardless of its importance.



You mean voters who care about Trans and LGBTQ+ rights of human beings??? Yes...what out of touch people they are, the vast majority of Canadians and their families.


Back on topic...

I was being facetious about Liberals or NDPs not serving in the CAF, but you are right in pointing out that this broad brush statement is incorrect.
LGen Leslie and LCol McCrimmon are two of the most prominent recent former CAF mbrs, that I know of, who later became elected Liberal Mbrs of Parliament. Then there is the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson (CAMC, RFC, former Prime Minister), Mr. Barney Danson (QOR, former MND), Mr. Gilles Lamontagne (RCAF Bomber Pilot, former MND) and Mr. James Richardson (RCAF Pilot, former MND) and Mr. Paul Hellyer (Gunner, former MND) are the more famous ones that I can recall.

I do not know of any NDP MPs who served in the CAF, except that Mr. Ed Broadbent's son - Paul, joined the Reg F and I think he became a Comms Rsch Op. I briefly knew Paul when we served together in the Militia.

Cheers

 

[Halifax Tar]

I was being facetious about Liberals or NDPs not serving in the CAF, but you are right in pointing out that this broad brush statement is incorrect.
LGen Leslie and LCol McCrimmon are two of the most prominent recent former CAF mbrs, that I know of, who later became elected Liberal Mbrs of Parliament. Then there is the Right Honourable Lester B. Pearson (CAMC, RFC, former Prime Minister), Mr. Barney Danson (QOR, former MND), Mr. Gilles Lamontagne (RCAF Bomber Pilot, former MND) and Mr. James Richardson (RCAF Pilot, former MND) and Mr. Paul Hellyer (Gunner, former MND) are the more famous ones that I can recall.

I do not know of any NDP MPs who served in the CAF, except that Mr. Ed Broadbent's son - Paul, joined the Reg F and I think he became a Comms Rsch Op. I briefly knew Paul when we served together in the Militia.

Cheers

Harjit Sajjan - Architect of Op Medusa and savior of Afghanistan.

 

[Dale Denton]

I suspect CF service is valued on an MPs resume but not given much credence in gov't/cabinet circles once elected. Think of the changes (i'd hope) our former MND might've had in mind once in Cabinet, and then think of the progress how many years later...

Back to CSC...kinda.

Nobody has anyone done a decent job of articulating to Canadians:

Why we need a warship like this - Existing warships are 'near-death' due to old age and obsolescence.
Why it costs so much - Ship has to kill things real good from as far away as possible. It ain't cheap.
Is it worth it? - Our friends pay near the same (???) for similar ones, and they won't like us if we don't build them, and the money goes back into Canadian wallets.

We need a public debate on what we want our CAF/RCN to do and how to sustain it long-term. Ireland is going through a similar conversation after the recent Russian presence and a gov't commission acknowledging the unsustainability of the status quo. At least a new White Paper would make headlines to take a temp reading from the public for future defence spending...

Now would be a good time to hire-out an accounting firm to build a Defence Procurement agency from the ground up. I'm surprised the gov't hasn't come up with this earlier (I mean acted on it...), it would be a great way to dump responsibility of cost/time overruns to an arms-length agency than on the PMs feet.

 

[Czech_pivo]

I suspect CF service is valued on an MPs resume but not given much credence in gov't/cabinet circles once elected. Think of the changes (i'd hope) our former MND might've had in mind once in Cabinet, and then think of the progress how many years later...

Back to CSC...kinda.

Nobody has anyone done a decent job of articulating to Canadians:

Why we need a warship like this - Existing warships are 'near-death' due to old age and obsolescence.
Why it costs so much - Ship has to kill things real good from as far away as possible. It ain't cheap.
Is it worth it? - Our friends pay near the same (???) for similar ones, and they won't like us if we don't build them, and the money goes back into Canadian wallets.

We need a public debate on what we want our CAF/RCN to do and how to sustain it long-term. Ireland is going through a similar conversation after the recent Russian presence and a gov't commission acknowledging the unsustainability of the status quo. At least a new White Paper would make headlines to take a temp reading from the public for future defence spending...

Now would be a good time to hire-out an accounting firm to build a Defence Procurement agency from the ground up. I'm surprised the gov't hasn't come up with this earlier (I mean acted on it...), it would be a great way to dump responsibility of cost/time overruns to an arms-length agency than on the PMs feet.

The big, big difference between us and the Irish is that they don't have legal obligations under NATO and NORAD to have a set min. # of 'combat ready' warships at any given moment - we do.
The issue is for us, for decades we have done the absolute barest minimum of meeting these responsibilities and quite possibly failed to meet the 'spirit' of these legally binding obligations.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Now would be a good time to hire-out an accounting firm to build a Defence Procurement agency from the ground up. I'm surprised the gov't hasn't come up with this earlier (I mean acted on it...), it would be a great way to dump responsibility of cost/time overruns to an arms-length agency than on the PMs feet.

Please god no... we already know internally exactly where the delays are and have multiple reports from various outside experts, and everytime we get one the process actually gets worse and slower from all the 'streamlining' and fixes. DPS is a prime example, there is something like 5 core departments and 9 or 10 related stakeholder departments now involved. Some of them don't ever participate unless they are trying to slash your tires and kill something to push support towards their pet project.

The problem isn't that we don't know what to do, it's just that there is a lack of political will to merge portions of 4 departments and internal resistance from the various mandarins that have built their little empires (some of them by sniping at various DND procurements and adding into the delays). A lot of it is backed up by entrenched policies, processes etc by people who have no interest in defence procurements being successful.

An 8 year term with a benevolent dictator would be needed to burn through a lot of it, and someone also needs to kick TBS in the ass while they are at it.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I suspect CF service is valued on an MPs resume but not given much credence in gov't/cabinet circles once elected. Think of the changes (i'd hope) our former MND might've had in mind once in Cabinet, and then think of the progress how many years later...

Back to CSC...kinda.

Nobody has anyone done a decent job of articulating to Canadians:

Why we need a warship like this - Existing warships are 'near-death' due to old age and obsolescence.
Why it costs so much - Ship has to kill things real good from as far away as possible. It ain't cheap.
Is it worth it? - Our friends pay near the same (???) for similar ones, and they won't like us if we don't build them, and the money goes back into Canadian wallets.

We need a public debate on what we want our CAF/RCN to do and how to sustain it long-term. Ireland is going through a similar conversation after the recent Russian presence and a gov't commission acknowledging the unsustainability of the status quo. At least a new White Paper would make headlines to take a temp reading from the public for future defence spending...

Now would be a good time to hire-out an accounting firm to build a Defence Procurement agency from the ground up. I'm surprised the gov't hasn't come up with this earlier (I mean acted on it...), it would be a great way to dump responsibility of cost/time overruns to an arms-length agency than on the PMs feet.

In general I agree with you Canada needs to come to a decision about what it wants to be and how the CAF will support and enable that.

Canadians are disconnected from their military and as is Canadian tradition don't want to spend money on something until its too late and its absolutely required. If we took Naval defence seriously we would be in a constant cycle of commissioning the new and decommissioning the old. There are certain things an independent country needs to fund and one of them is a military.

The thing about Ireland is they are almost non players on the international stage and have generally always been that way since they gained independence. If we want to be like Ireland than the public needs to be be made aware of what that means and the outcomes and then fund the CAF as per. Personally I hope we don't go that route as I think Canada has more to offer the world.

 

[suffolkowner]

The big, big difference between us and the Irish is that they don't have legal obligations under NATO and NORAD to have a set min. # of 'combat ready' warships at any given moment - we do.
The issue is for us, for decades we have done the absolute barest minimum of meeting these responsibilities and quite possibly failed to meet the 'spirit' of these legally binding obligations.

How many ships are we required to have for NORAD or NATO?

 

[Dale Denton]

All good points, agreed.

Ireland's case is actually harder as they don't have those agreements and commitments we have, yet they are the ones with a UNSC seat. A country with a missing defence policy has a seat, as if there's a correlation between actually committing to UN missions and UNSC seats...

Procurement-wise, i'd at least have the gov't try and fail than just not caring.

 

[Underway]

How many ships are we required to have for NORAD or NATO?

We don't have any required ships. We make commitments based on what we think we can do. Canada having a running ship in STANAG 1 or 2 is based entirely on government saying we will do something. It goes on multiyear cycles. So for example, Canada says to NATO that we will commit one frigate to STANAG 1 or 2 over the next three years. Then the RCN plans the fleet cycle to ensure we meet that government commitment.

Canada has an excellent reputation for these sorts of international fleets and is extremely reliable. I know that we think of our navy as falling apart etc... but what we send to these actually works and contributes. Some of the other nations are less... robust... in their maintenance and readiness of the ship that goes.

That being said this reputation comes at a cost, to the maintenance for the fleet.

 

[OceanBonfire]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1494703256697593857

 

[Navy_Pete]

We don't have any required ships. We make commitments based on what we think we can do. Canada having a running ship in STANAG 1 or 2 is based entirely on government saying we will do something. It goes on multiyear cycles. So for example, Canada says to NATO that we will commit one frigate to STANAG 1 or 2 over the next three years. Then the RCN plans the fleet cycle to ensure we meet that government commitment.

Canada has an excellent reputation for these sorts of international fleets and is extremely reliable. I know that we think of our navy as falling apart etc... but what we send to these actually works and contributes. Some of the other nations are less... robust... in their maintenance and readiness of the ship that goes.

That being said this reputation comes at a cost, to the maintenance for the fleet.

Our navy is falling apart, but the STANAG is only a part of it. Those on their own are easy to manage, it's the stupid multi-ship exercises, and simultaneous alongside work periods that preceed/follow that really kill things. We don't have enough resources to do 4 concurrent SWPs, struggle to find crews to have most of the fleet out at the same time, and carry huge risk in having reduced crews on ships that fall below what is supposed to be the minimum standard to go to sea.

Doing a risk assessment and talking it until it's yellow doesn't fix anything, and when there are thousands of defects it's a bit of a smoke screen when we don't roll things up into aggregate risk assessments.

At least we stopped deploying ships over Xmas just because though, glad they started leaving a gap like every other NATO country does.

 

[calculus]

Video of HMS Glasgow under construction. It's just some dude filming from the far side of the Clyde river with a zoom lens, but it does give a sense of scale in several of the pans. It is definitely a big ship. Other than the bulbous bow, it looks pretty close to being ready for the water.

 

[calculus]

Looks like DND has upgraded the CSC Fact Sheet - now showing 24 MK 41 VLS. Drawing has the new main mast, so this appears to be very recent.

http://www.navy-marine.forces.gc.ca/assets/NAVY_Internet/docs/en/fleet/csc-fact-sheet-eng.pdf

 

[Underway]

It's like I knew this change was coming when I started talking about the missile change numbers.... lol

Yah, they are cramming everything into this warship. There are certainly margin costs, and one of those is VLS numbers. However don't forget that CAMM (Sea Ceptor) are 6 more VLS that hold 24 more missiles and are not listed on this fact sheet.

Also notice that they don't say who is providing the 30mm. That's still up for grabs from what I understand.

 

[MTShaw]

Looks like DND has upgraded the CSC Fact Sheet - now showing 24 MK 41 VLS. Drawing has the new main mast, so this appears to be very recent.

http://www.navy-marine.forces.gc.ca/assets/NAVY_Internet/docs/en/fleet/csc-fact-sheet-eng.pdf

I’ve noticed what might be a electronic warfare effector forward of the DS30M.

 

[Underway]

I’ve noticed what might be a electronic warfare effector forward of the DS30M.

I've looked around and tried to figure out what that was for ages, as its an odd shape. It may very well be a decoy or EW device of some sort. My going theory is that is a floating inflatable decoy. But really no idea.

 

[dapaterson]

I've looked around and tried to figure out what that was for ages, as its an odd shape. It may very well be a decoy or EW device of some sort. My going theory is that is a floating inflatable decoy. But really no idea.

OnStar antenna, so the NavO can call for directions.

 

[Underway]

OnStar antenna, so the NavO can call for directions.

Possibly!

If it's an antenna its orientation is weird. Horizontal barrel shape parallel to the side of the ship? Not a normal orientation.

 

[MTShaw]

Possibly!

If it's an antenna its orientation is weird. Horizontal barrel shape parallel to the side of the ship? Not a normal orientation.

I was referring to the square thing, not the decoy thing.

 

[dapaterson]

Possibly!

If it's an antenna its orientation is weird. Horizontal barrel shape parallel to the side of the ship? Not a normal orientation.

Look, it's a MARS O directing the OnStar install. Can't expect them to understand satellites and radios and all that MARE mumbo jumbo.