Canadian Surface Combatant RFQ

[Stoker]

The Canada class SSN's came close with the RCN even sending personnel on nuclear engineering coursing but opposition from our own country and surprisingly the United Sates killed the deal.

 

[MilEME09]

The Canada class SSN's came close with the RCN even sending personnel on nuclear engineering coursing but opposition from our own country and surprisingly the United Sates killed the deal.

any yet due to politics we didn't get the third flight of halifaxs back, though i bet if we did, the liverals of the 90's would of cancelled it

 

[GR66]

In any event, and even though all of the above is a very interesting topic, have we not strayed far from the thread's original purpose? 

We are and we aren't off topic in a way.  The CSC budget does not exist in a vacuum and as has been noted, the more we spend on them the less we have to spend on other areas (including SSKs).

The program itself isn't going anywhere but is there the possibility of modification?  What if the AAD version were to be dropped (at least to start) and we simply produced 12-15 GP Frigates to replace the Halifax Class? 

Simplify the design by not having to accommodate two versions and the weapons/sensors will be cheaper as well.  Once those ships are built we can re-examine our next priorities which may be a small number of AAD ships to augment our GP frigates (either look then at a modified CSC design now that our ship yards have re-learned their skills in building the GP ships, or purchase off-shore), a new non-conventional design using high-energy weapons or rail guns which may be coming into service by then, or SSKs, or Amphibs, or, or... (or a mix of the above).

 

[Kirkhill]

the Canadian Naval Review article suggested that operating costs for modern subs should be 30% of say a Halifax class ship but I didn't see any supporting documentation

Halifax Class - Complement 225

Seawolf Class - Complement 140
Astute Class - Complement 98
Soryu Class - Complement 65
Collins Class - Complement 58
Victoria Class - Complement 48
Gotland Class - Complement 24 to 32

Take the crew of one Halifax (or Iroquois) and man 4 Victorias or 8 Gotlands or even 2 Astutes.

For that matter take the crew of one Halifax and man one Huitfeldt and two Victorias 

Or take the crew of one Halifax and man one Seawolf and a pair of AOPS.

Generally speaking labour (and its support and training) is a major part of the operations bill.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Ship size used to improve stability for AD guns, what components are the deciding factors in hull designs for AAD vs ASW, vs GP?

 

[Kirkhill]

Here's a thought -

Task Group 2001

HMCS Preserver / HMCS Iroquois / HMCS Halifax / HMCS Winnipeg

Manned by 1020 crew all ranks including Air Dets.

Offensive capabilities

7x CH-124
16x Harpoons
28x Mk 46 Torpedoes (Ready to Launch)

AAW capabilities

29x Standards
32x ESSM (I know - anachronism - bear with me)

Troop Lift Capability

Limited to air dets.




Alternate Task Group 2021

HMCS Chateauguay / HMCS Iver Huitfeldt / HMCS Collins / HMCS Collins / HMCS Absalon / HMCS Holland / HMCS Holland

Manned by 556 all ranks (excluding Air Dets) - 45% reduction in manning costs

Offensive capabilities

7x CH-124 - 0 change in capacity
54x Harpoons  - 238% increase in capacity
22x Mk 46 Torpedoes - 21% loss of capacity
22x Mk 48 Torpedoes - New Capability

AAW capabilities

32x Standards - 10% increase in capacity
60x ESSM - 88% increase in capacity

Troop Lift Capability

308 full time berths
330 overload berths

Preserver's steam turbines and the gas turbines in Iroquois, Halifax and Winnipeg replaced by a common, modular diesel plant across all hulls, a common Integrated Platform Management System and a common Combat Management System.

And the Collins is not the Collins but the Collins Replacement.

 

[Underway]

Would the requirements mesh well though (e.g. Aussies generally in warm-ish waters, us in cold-ish waters, etc.) ?

The subs they are looking at buying are Japanese, French and German.  And water below 100m is generally 2 degrees anyway.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I believe range both in fuel and crew stamina is the major factor for dealing with the Pacific, which eliminates a lot of the current subs out there.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Technical question ...

Is it the case that a major surface combatant needs to displace, say, 5,000 tons because that's about as small as a ship can be and still conduct air operations (maritime helicopter) on the high seas?

Does that means that a, say, <2,000 ton corvette cannot do that under the sorts of cirumstances we see as being "operational?"

Damen 1800 OPV displaces 1890 tons, speed of 20 kts, crew of <50 and range/endurance of 5,000nm/30 days

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Edward,

I cannot see something that small doing anything other than just surviving in the North Atlantic or North Pacific in the winter.

That boat deck aft looks very low to the waterline. In any kind of seas, I foresee one losing boats from that location in rapid succession.

There does not appear to be a haul down system for the flight deck, which pretty much limits you to flat calm seas to launch and recover a helicopter.

I am not sure what the lower limit is for a warship that can do helo ops in bad weather. We used to do it with 3800 ton St Laurents, that were never designed from the beginning to have a helicopter.

This particular OPV looks more suited for near shore work- particularly in the Carribean.

 

[Kirkhill]

Comments pulled from lack of coffee......

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

SKT:

The Sallyrands were 2,800 tons. Even Annapolis' were only 3,200 tons and designed specifically as DDH's.

The real issue, in any event, is not displacement. With a stabilized ship (and stabilizers are now much improved) and Bear trap, you can probably operate medium helicopters (Sea king/Cyclone) up to sea state 6, maybe sea state 7 (pushing the envelope here) from a roughly 2,300 tons vessel and up.

The real issue is why are we fixating on hull size? If we were to review the cost of building warships, we would note that the more general split would likely look like this: Combat systems (electronics), including software development and integration: about 50% of the cost; weapons and weapons handling equipment: about 25%; Hull and machinery: about 25%.

The real reason why OPV's are so much cheaper is that they carry very little in terms of weapons and have little in terms of integrated combat systems. Thus, you are down to the cost of hull and machinery, mostly. But at that point, building a small OPV (under 2000 tons) or a larger one (like the Holland's at 3,700 tons), doesn't make much difference in price so, if you are going to operate far from your coast (and in particular in the North Atlantic or North-West Pacific), you may as well go for the larger hull. There is just no real big savings to be had by building small OPV's as opposed to  large one, other than some people's fixation on size (or on always carrying soldiers onboard, right Chris  ).   

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Oh! To answer your question, Edward, I would say that the major driving forces on the size of major surface combatant being about 5,000 tons has more to do with the fact that nowadays, we lob missiles at one another, especially anti-air missiles, and you need that volume to carry enough of them and the larger sized ones in particular, also, the accompanying radar systems (AEGIS or APAR) have become very large and top heavy, so again, you need the hull size to have a stable platform. The fact that such increased size make helicopter operations in higher sea states less dangerous is just an added bonus.

 

[Kirkhill]

....There is just no real big savings to be had by building small OPV's as opposed to  large one, other than some people's fixation on size (or on always carrying soldiers onboard, right Chris  ). 

Stop trying to pick a fight OGBD.  [Xp

I happen to agree with you across the board.  And I like big cheap hulls precisely because there is more room for muddy boots, (or to accommodate Churchill's Naval Traditions). 

That being said - on the Software side of things - why can't the FELEX system be ported holus bolus to the AOPS and the CSC and maybe an OPV?  Or at least used as the basis of a CMS/IPMS system that can be ported.  Again, just as my buddies the Danes decided with their fleet.

From technical specifications to functional demands.
• Use of Flex concept in all ships design since the millennium.
• Use of DNV, NAVAL standards.
• Reuse design elements between different ship classes.
• Use of civilian standards whenever possible especially with
IT.
• Redundant passive fiber network for multi purposes.
• Same Combat Management System in all lager units.
• Standard Racks for all weapon, sensor, communication and
IT systems in all lager units.
• Same Integrated Platform Management System in Frigates
and Flexible Support Ships.

http://www.ndia.org/Divisions/Divisions/International/Documents/U.S.-Denmark%20Defense%20Industry%20Seminar/Danish%20frigate%20program%20visit%20USN%20May%202014.pdf

And this one.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/OMT-Dansh-Frigate-Programme-April-2014.pdf

Why do we keep paying to re-invent wheels?


And further to your last - if you are going to be stuck with all that top hamper you might find some self-loading ballast useful.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Many a career is based solely around ways to reinvent the wheel while trying to appear to do something new.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Thanks, SKT and OGBD. I'm still mightily concerned about costs (and, therefore, quantities) and I remain attracted to the notion that we are better off with 3n/5 major surface combatants (the 5,000 ton heavies ~ I know it's not a good term, but I'm a simple soldier) and n/2 OPVs (or corvettes, as I prefer) which might even, in the not too distant future, embark a RPV rather than a big, manned maritime helicopter, instead of n CSCs and maybe a Kingston class replacement sometime in the future ... perhaps. It seems to me that the n CSCs the Navy needs is more than the n the Government of Canada can afford and it also appears that corvettes, doubtless for the reasons OGBD explained, can be had for, say, 25% of the cost of the heavies (or even less).

I know we need capable major surface combatants ... but not for FishPats and not for Op CARIBBE and not for a lot of other tasks.

 

[AlexanderM]

Stop trying to pick a fight OGBD.  [Xp

I happen to agree with you across the board.  And I like big cheap hulls precisely because there is more room for muddy boots, (or to accommodate Churchill's Naval Traditions). 

That being said - on the Software side of things - why can't the FELEX system be ported holus bolus to the AOPS and the CSC and maybe an OPV?  Or at least used as the basis of a CMS/IPMS system that can be ported.  Again, just as my buddies the Danes decided with their fleet.

http://www.ndia.org/Divisions/Divisions/International/Documents/U.S.-Denmark%20Defense%20Industry%20Seminar/Danish%20frigate%20program%20visit%20USN%20May%202014.pdf

And this one.

http://www.aspistrategist.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/OMT-Dansh-Frigate-Programme-April-2014.pdf

Why do we keep paying to re-invent wheels?


And further to your last - if you are going to be stuck with all that top hamper you might find some self-loading ballast useful.

I doubt it would be that difficult to put 1-2 mk41 launchers on something like the Holland, even if one has to lengthen the hull by 20ft and at the same time increase the fuel load for the helo, increasing capability. Most of the ships these days are designed to carry the mission modules, so it wouldn't take much tweaking to add a 2-3 spots for the systems. None of this should be that difficult, given the Holland is a good sized platform.

 

[Kirkhill]

Further to Modularity, Flexibility and Cost Control.....

What the U.S. Navy Could Learn from Danish Frigate Design

By: Megan Eckstein
March 5, 2015 5:47 PM


As the U.S. Navy’s requirements and engineering communities look at upcoming ship classes and attempt to build in flexibility, they first need to decide what it means to be a “flexible ship” and how much to prioritize that flexibility, one admiral said.

During a panel at the American Society of Naval Engineers’ ASNE Day 2015, Rear Adm. Bryant Fuller, chief engineer for Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), said it is important to decide what flexibility means to each program early on, and how much of it is needed – is there a core capability that ship class revolves around, or should it strive for ultimate flexibility, like the Danish Navy’s StanFlex system and its Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate?

Several panelists compared American ships to the Danish frigates, including panel moderator retired Vice Adm. Paul Sullivan. He said he had the chance to see the ships up close last fall and was impressed.

The Danish navy took its Absalon-class support ship hull design and reconfigured it to include a 76mm gun. Both the support ship and the frigate subscribe to the Danish navy’s StanFlex modular mission payload system, which Sullivan said allowed the navy to put legacy weapons systems on the Iver Huitfeldt-class instead of having to develop new systems right away, like the Navy did with the Littoral Combat Ship.

“The StanFlex buzz was you could put the new gun in and 24 hours later you’re ready to go to sea,” he added.

This ultra-flexible system may not sound like it would be relevant to some American ship classes, such as cruisers and destroyers, but Capt. Thomas Halvorson, deputy director of the Navy’s surface warfare directorate for Ballistic Missile Defense, Aegis and Destroyers, said there were still lessons to be drawn for future surface combatants.

Halvorson said the Aegis Baseline 9 upgrade effort had been a great accomplishment for the Navy’s cruiser fleet, but it was also a work-intensive accomplishment. A more flexible ship design could allow the Navy to upgrade the computers on a future surface combatant more routinely, rather than having to wait for a massive midlife upgrade.

“One of the other ideas I heard [the Danes] talk about, Adm. Sullivan, was they can change out the computer program completely in 90 days,” Halvorson said. “We all have a little bit of a part to play in the two-year upgrade that involves ripping out pieces massive pieces of ship infrastructure to change out every server in the room. We need to get closer to that Dane mentality.”

Also during the panel, Program Executive Officer for Ships Rear Adm. David Gale explained the importance of building in enough flexibility from the beginning of a program. With the Mobile Landing Platform design being used as the basis of the Afloat Forward Staging Base design, the latter ship only has as much flexibility in it as the former – which in this case is a lot of flexibility. Gale praised the AFSB team for achieving “80 percent of the requirement for 50 percent of the cost by just going to MLP and adding an aviation capability to the ship.”

In fact, the ship design has so much flexibility and extra margins built into it that Gale said, “in aviation and in [special operations] warfare areas, we’re already writing change documents to improve these ships.”

http://news.usni.org/2015/03/05/what-the-u-s-navy-could-learn-from-danish-frigate-design

 

[quadrapiper]

...for FishPats and not for Op CARIBBE and not for a lot of other tasks.

The first one has definite benefits; is the other something that we should really be running our ships up and down the coasts to support? Or is CARIBBE more of a training opportunity than anything?

 

[Kirkhill]

And one more for good measure:

This goes to the discussion of US vs Euro Costs (or Japanese Costs)

Zuko wrote:
Just saying US ships cost 3x as much as comparable Dutch ships is a simplistic and inaccurate thing to say.  Without detailed information which usually isn't easy to determine by public sources it is very difficult to compare costs of ships because you never know if you are comparing apples to apples.  There are tons of variables in how the numbers are calculated and what is "included" in a cost that is given to a ship.  You also seldom know if you are comparing the same years dollars to the same years dollars.  That's the case even when comparing ships within the US Navy, and even more so when comparing to other countries.  I would also differ with the idea that the ships are comparable. 

I'm not saying the US naval shipbuilding program doesn't have inefficiencies, it obviously does.  But the slides and the arguments made by the Damon rep are misleading and inaccurate.

1) Hein van Ameijden made it clear in his speech that while his data may not be absolutely correct and/or directly comparable, he does, however stand behind his main conclusions that the US Navy is paying far too much for its vessels.

2) Given his pedigree (see his biography here), it is safe to assume Hein van Ameijden to have a solid business insight and his conclusions to be based on much more than mere *public sources*.

3) Because of your excessive focus on costs (probably), you may not have noticed that yard hours were provided for both the DDG-51s and the LCFs in the slide posted earlier :

DDG-51 : 4.4 million manhours

LCF : 1.5 million manhours

4) The manhours mentioned above are very consistent wit those published in a 1995 NSWC comparative study of US & Japan shipbuilding :

Design manhours :

DDG-51 : 6.0 million

DDG-173 : 1.2 million

Construction manhours :

DDG-51 : 5.0 million

DDG-173 : 2.0 million 

5) And finally, a 2004 NATO study found the shipyard recurring cost accounting methods used by the Netherlands on the one hand and the USCG on the other hand to be very consistent each other for SWBS groups 100 to 700, i.e. :

SWBS 100 : Structure
SWBS 200 : Propulsion
SWBS 300 : Electrical
SWBS 400 : Electronics
SWBS 500 : Auxiliaries
SWBS 600 : Outfitting
SWBS 700 : Armament

Unsurprisingly, the shipyard administrative costs (SWBS Group 900) were found to be considerably higher in the US shipbuilding, reflecting, among other things, the infuence of commercial practices in the Dutch shipbuilding industry, as opposed to US shipyards which primarily produce naval or coast guard vessels.