Canadian Surface Combatant RFQ

[Colin Parkinson]

2 questions:

1. What is the strike about at Irving?

2. Would we be selling/transferring the Halifax's to another country?

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

1. What is the strike about at Irving?

From a quick read, it seems to be primarily about benefits i.e. vacation time, breaks and seniority, etc.

Irving hates Unions, the Halifax Shipyard has to be one of the few parts of the Irving Family that actually has a Union.  Irving doesn't care and will bring in scabs to do the work if it has to.  They've been subcontracting certain portions of the work on the AOPS to foreign companies much to the dismay of the Union.

see:

"Irving contract with Spanish firm brings overseas carpenters, others to Halifax shipyard"
ANDREA GUNN OTTAWA BUREAU
Published February 22, 2017 - 7:23pm

http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1444142-irving-contract-with-spanish-firm-brings-overseas-carpenters-others-to-halifax-sh

 

[FSTO]

2 questions:

1. What is the strike about at Irving?

2. Would we be selling/transferring the Halifax's to another country?

1. What else, money. (just my guess though)
2. No. We run our ships into the ground and then get another dozen years out of them because we can't plan ship replacement to save our arse. (once again, just my humble opinion)

 

[Underway]

Thanks for the link, what does the RCN consider to be more important?  ASW or AAW?  I know historically it's been ASW but is there a cultural change?

It's all about the task group.  Task group doctrine currently is a four ship group with helo's embarked (up from a three ship group, this is a new change in the last two years).  One ship is the Command Control AAW variant.  The other three are the GP variants.  You can see this with how the CSC build is structured (4 GP for every AAW).

Task groups can also include AOR, submarine, and LRP aircraft.  This is also why we need 3-4 AOR.  One AOR for each task group.  It also matches the submarine numbers, one sub for each task group.  That leaves 3 GP frigates left over for non-task group related stuff.

The task group will be (by the bids so far) biased towards ASW mainly because of the nature of our helo's.  They are going to the best in the business when completed according to some of the RAF folks I've been talking too (side benefit of taking so damn long to make them).  But AAW isn't ignored at all.  There are plenty of defensive AAW capabilities on the current frigates and I expect the same to be from the future fleet.

I've heard certain circles in the RCN want to get in to the land attack business?  I was intrigued with the recent test of the Block II Harpoon Missile test against a land target.  This capability would have been very useful in Libya.

Support to forces ashore is back. Straight from the CRCN.  The new frigates all require a 127mm gun to do land attack, and also require the capability to embark land attack missile.  Harpoon Block II is just the tip of the iceberg here.  Problem currently is that we (until recently) couldn't really attack land targets with the 57mm or any missiles.

BTW that Fremm looks like it's got APAR2 on it which is completely possible since Thales is French.(the Radar factory is in the Netherlands though,for APAR,Smart-L,I-masts,etc wich used to be HSA )

SEAFIRE 500 is what I think it is.  Video link here.  First the article states that is probably the SEAFIRE and secondly because the SEAFIRE works with the Aster missile system, where as APAR needs a change to the ESSM/SM family.  It's got perfect modularity to modify for the AAW variant many panels to increase search/range and less number of panels for GP variant.  Swap out missiles and panels and in 2 months your GP variant is now an AAW variant with no changes to ships internal structure.  Aster missile does its own fire control so no fire control system is needed.  Genious.  Its a strong bid with that radar.

 

[Fabius]

So if land attack is back will all or at least some of these ships have A70 or MK 41 Strike length VLS so we can run dedicated land attack missiles vice dual purpose anti shipping missiles? Having only 8 dual purpose ASMs seems to me to be more of an inextrimse capability than an actual support to forces ashore dedicated capability.

 

[suffolkowner]

Support to forces ashore is back. Straight from the CRCN.  The new frigates all require a 127mm gun to do land attack, and also require the capability to embark land attack missile.  Harpoon Block II is just the tip of the iceberg here.  Problem currently is that we (until recently) couldn't really attack land targets with the 57mm or any missiles.

Is there any possibility of recycling the 76mm and 57mm guns from the current fleet as a secondary armament. I am thinking in particular with respect to the swarming discussion

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Move the 57mm to the AOP's

 

[Underway]

So if land attack is back will all or at least some of these ships have A70 or MK 41 Strike length VLS so we can run dedicated land attack missiles vice dual purpose anti shipping missiles? Having only 8 dual purpose ASMs seems to me to be more of an inextrimse capability than an actual support to forces ashore dedicated capability.

Strike length VLS are only a requirement if you want to use Tomahawks (or the French MdCN).  The RCN is missile agnostic.  If a tactical length VLS can shoot a land attack missile then that might be the design chosen.  Future proofing is the name of the game.  Harpoon is working on a VLS version.  Naval Strike Missile from norway might be able to be launched from VLS. (edit:  the Joint Strike Missile is able to be launched from VLS, its a derivative of the NSM and is fired from a Tactical length Mk 41)

Is there any possibility of recycling the 76mm and 57mm guns from the current fleet as a secondary armament. I am thinking in particular with respect to the swarming discussion

Some of the 76mm were already sold to the Dutch for their DZP AFAIK.  By the time the all Halifax are replaced some of those 57mm guns are going to be 20 years old.  So probably not.

 

[AlexanderM]

Harpoon is working on a VLS version. 

Are you talking the VLS mk41 and if so do you have a source for that?

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Harpoon is a TLS* system and is not currently planned to become fireable from the Mk 41 VLS.

When Boeing developed the Harpoon Block III's, some "pre-planning and adaptors" were considered for future development making it possible to fit in Tactical length VLS. That was in 2008. The USN has not asked Boeing for any further development in that direction as it is exploring new missiles for long range surface attack at this time. Besides, one of the advantages of the current Harpoon canister system is that it is one of the easiest missile to replace or resupply, even at sea.

*: TLS: Tilted Launch System  ;D

P.s: I think the Trudeau government will go with Exocets missiles just so Canada doesn't buy from Boeing.  ;D

 

[Underway]

Harpoon is a TLS* system and is not currently planned to become fireable from the Mk 41 VLS.

When Boeing developed the Harpoon Block III's, some "pre-planning and adaptors" were considered for future development making it possible to fit in Tactical length VLS. That was in 2008. The USN has not asked Boeing for any further development in that direction as it is exploring new missiles for long range surface attack at this time. Besides, one of the advantages of the current Harpoon canister system is that it is one of the easiest missile to replace or resupply, even at sea.

*: TLS: Tilted Launch System  ;D

P.s: I think the Trudeau government will go with Exocets missiles just so Canada doesn't buy from Boeing.  ;D

This is what I get for not double checking my missile tech info on the one missile I thought I was familiar with.  :-[

If you look at the missiles in the Type 26 video they are in square canisters.  NSM are launched from square TLS's.  Just saying....

 

[AlexanderM]

Or we could go with either the SCALP missile, should we use the A70 launchers or with the JSM for the MK 41, rather than the Exocet I mean.

 

[dapaterson]

Getting the impression that all may not be rosy in Halifax.

Unionized workers at Irving Shipyard vote overwhelmingly in favour of strike mandate

 

[SeaKingTacco]

If this does not play straight into Davie's hand, I do not know what does.

Is the Union leadership at Irving daft? They virtually have a lock on shipbuilding in Canada for the next 3 decades and they are going to give a Federal Govt (yes, even this one) an opening to spread the work around?

:facepalm:

 

[Karel Doorman]

Strike length VLS are only a requirement if you want to use Tomahawks (or the French MdCN).  The RCN is missile agnostic.  If a tactical length VLS can shoot a land attack missile then that might be the design chosen.  Future proofing is the name of the game.  Harpoon is working on a VLS version.  Naval Strike Missile from norway might be able to be launched from VLS. (edit:  the Joint Strike Missile is able to be launched from VLS, its a derivative of the NSM and is fired from a Tactical length Mk 41)

Some of the 76mm were already sold to the Dutch for their DZP AFAIK.  By the time the all Halifax are replaced some of those 57mm guns are going to be 20 years old.  So probably not.

For the canon part,euhm no we bought your 127mm to place them on the DZP.Witch will be replaced for 127mm vulcano shortly,due to a lot of problems with them(they're are just old)We wanted to buy cheap and now have to buy new ones(typical Dutch)so now it will cost us more then  if we bought new ones in the first place.

 

[Uzlu]

European firms jointly offer frigate to Canadian government, skipping shipbuilder

PARIS — Franco-Italian partners Naval Group and Fincantieri filed their joint offer in a frigate tender directly to Canada‘s defense ministry, rather than submitting the bid to prime contractor Irving Shipbuilding, a spokesman for the French company said Monday.

“The bid was outside the competition procedure, it was a spontaneous offer,” the spokesman told Defense News. The competition rules called for offers to be submitted to Irving.

The two companies submitted their Nov. 30 offer of the FREMM multimission frigate to the ministry, part of a strategy to protect intellectual property rights on the technology, the spokesman said.

That unusual approach included an offer of fast delivery, with the first ship handed over in fall 2019 if the joint bid were accepted next year, the spokesman said.

Fincantieri and Naval Group have offered a fixed price of CAD$30 billion (U.S. $24 billion) for the 15 vessels in the Canadian Surface Combatant program, compared to CAN$62 billion estimated by the Canadian Parliamentary Budget Officer, National Post reported.

That direct offer to the government was the two European companies’ attempt to overcome a perceived preference by Irving for BAE Systems’ offer of the Type 26 frigate, business website La Tribune reported.

BAE has partnered with Lockheed Martin for an offer of the Type 26, which is being built for the British Navy.

The concerns over intellectual property protection stem from the competition rules requiring bidders to submit sensitive information on technology to Irving, which draws heavily on American and British advisers, La Tribune reported.

https://www.defensenews.com/industry/2017/12/04/european-firms-jointly-offer-frigate-to-canadian-government-skipping-shipbuilder/

 

[Czech_pivo]

So, again, if we assume that the FREMM is considered not valid for not following the process/procedures laid out - we then have only 3 valid bids. The process to whittle it down to 2 bids and then make the final bid should be pretty straight forward and shouldn't take a long time to do so - but then again based on prior track records I'm sure that the timelines will be pushed back again and again and the final decision will occur sometime in the next 10-12 months.
What should happen, is that they move things along quicker, thus closing the so called 'gap' in timelines when the current AOPS ships  are completed and when the CSC's are to begin. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

If this does not play straight into Davie's hand, I do not know what does.

Is the Union leadership at Irving daft? They virtually have a lock on shipbuilding in Canada for the next 3 decades and they are going to give a Federal Govt (yes, even this one) an opening to spread the work around?

:facepalm:

Union Leadership is nothing but entertaining. However it could also be Irving playing hardball thinking it has the union by the short and curlies 

 

[Lumber]

Do you think there is any possibility, at all, of scrapping the single class idea?

GP Variant: Go with the Type-26. It looks exactly like what we need for a GP Frigate.

AAW: Go with the F100 (it's basically an Arleigh Burke with a hat instead of fat cheeks), or the DZP.

My preference would be the DZP, as its sensor suite is more akin to what were using today, vice the F100 which is basically the same suite as an Arleigh Burke (with a hat).

Mind you, I haven't actually looked at any the submissions. Is the F100 being proposed with the same suite as what Spain is using, or something completely different?

 

[Good2Golf]

Union Leadership is nothing but entertaining. However it could also be Irving playing hardball thinking it has the union by the short and curlies

Gutsy move, Mav!

To be followed shortly with, "Here, hold my beer...watch this..."