How capable is the RCN?

[SeaKingTacco]

Question, not being familiar with Halifax/Esquimalt.

With the CSC coming in at 50 feet longer and 15 feet wider than the Halifax class, will this cause berthing concerns in either of these two locations?

Yes. There is already a multi-multi million dollar project in Esquimalt to rebuild and replace jetties. Not too sure about Halifax.

 

[dapaterson]

As I recall, jetties on both coasts are being rebuilt and replaced; and the capital ship projects (JSS, AOPS, CSC) are contributing to those construction projects.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Yes. There is already a multi-multi million dollar project in Esquimalt to rebuild and replace jetties. Not too sure about Halifax.

I've paddled my U-Boat around inside Esquimalt harbour a few times (I know, I know, keep your Spinach tin closed, Popeye ) and a couple of times it looked like my toy box when I was a kid... with all the ships jammed into one corner and all the red lego blocks (the buildings) in the other.

I have no idea how they operate a modern Navy out of a base that looks like a scene from a 'Master and Commander' episode

 

[Navy_Pete]

Doesn't quite mesh with the drive to minimum man the ships! That was one of the failings of the CPFs that there was zero room for training bunks.
I wonder what sort of extra room the CSC's will have for training bunks, riders, etc? Or will that just be another lesson relearned.

Minimum manning is relative to your operational posture and the number of concurrent things you want to do. For a standard readiness ship where you are only thinking of doing a single evolution or dealing with a single DC event (resulting from something other then enemy action) you need less people.  If you want to be at action stations (with helo available), be able to do force protection and respond to several DC events at once (like fires/floods from a missile hit) you need a lot of bodies.

The big rise in core crew to HR is in the combat department (as you don't need most of the ops room on a 1 in 2 for the average SR ops), but then you bolt on the secret squirrels, full air det, NTOG, Command staff, Legal, etc. it adds up. Even with minimum manning on the core crew, all these mission add on pers add up. Because of the small size of our fleet, we need to maximize all sea days, so unless you are at your last sea position for your trade, everyone is always training for the next job as well, so it's a big challenge to figure it all out when you are also trying to keep a 25+ year old ship going from A to B.

Min manning also depends on a lot more remote monitoring and control, but that also requires a lot more special skills and maintenance, which is generally expensive. IPMS is okay, but didn't actually automate anything we weren't already doing other then adding some cameras. And as soon as you get a serious glitch, the manning requirements skyrocket, so it's always good to have enough trained people to be able to limp into a safe port manually if you need to. If the ships never went to sea without ever having a fully functional IPMS you'd never have a ship at sea; that generally means you need more then the min manning levels to operate normally. It's all those things that look good on paper that fall apart when you hit reality.

Not to be doom and gloom, but the min manning assumptions usually have a lot of Pollyannish levels of optimism built in, but those don't normally get re-evaluated when you have equipment issues unless it's a major fault affecting something specific, and not the cumulative result of numerous minor faults that eat up a lot of time collectively. That's where it's useful to do the roll-up supersystem level risk assessments and see if the NAVORD min crew still makes sense, but don't think that would get any traction. Usually workable as there are extras built in, but if the design assumptions for a new ship make it truly minimum manning it could be tough.  Would be curious to see what the Type 26 assumptions are, and if they allow for system/capability degradation over the life of the class.

Personally think they should build ships to carry an extra 25% crew (at least) then the standard HR intent allows (or at least size the hotel services for them at the start). You can always add in more bunks and life rafts, but unless you allocate space for food, water and size hotel services at the start, it's virtually impossible to get more afterwards. It was easy with the 280s to sail with 50 empty bunks but you can't just suddenly make space to store 25% more food, water, process sewage etc.  Historically we always try and do everything at once and can't see that mindset changing, and think it's just stupid to think we won't immediately fill up every extra bunk with people (especially if the crew is smaller then what we are used to on a frigate).

 

[NavyShooter]

Back in the 90's, I was on CHA and we took her to the Sound Range overnight.  We went to 'minimum' manning overnight, and we only brought enough personnel to safely get the ship to the bouys, then landed most of them, spent the night, brought them back, and came back alongside after our sound trials were done.  I stayed onboard since as a SONAR Tech, I was 'critical' manning.  We barely had a steaming watch aboard overnight - we moved the ship out with 90 personnel, and the number that sticks in my mind is that we kept about 30 onboard overnight.  (Several RHIB rides to land/embark crew.) 


The number 90 is about the 'minimum' you can get a Halifax Class ship off the wall with - but there's no sustainment, no depth of field in personnel, no multiple watches, that's enough to sail to the Basin, or to the bouys, and back. 


When we went to Libya in 2011, we had 254 personnel onboard, and that doesn't include 'new' attachments such as NTOG or teams to operate UAV's and such. 


NS

 

[Underway]

Yes. There is already a multi-multi million dollar project in Esquimalt to rebuild and replace jetties. Not too sure about Halifax.

AOPS was driving that jetty creation on the East Coast (NJ), aside from NF they are long enough to handle CSC, and CSC will only stick out a little bit from one.  Getting two in that camber could happen but there is no way that a tug would fit between them given the new beam.

The one CSC driven replacement I can completely confirm on the West Coast is the ammo jetty.  It's not deep or long enough to take the JSS or CSC.  Need to ammo by barge, which adds its own complications (mostly increased time).  A and B jetty replacement were in the cards a long time ago and I'm not sure if AOPS or CSC were the driving factors.  Those types of projects have many years lead time, and I think the jetties were just needing modern upgrades. 

I have no idea how they operate a modern Navy out of a base that looks like a scene from a 'Master and Commander' episode

Exactly what we want the Chinese to think... 

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Minimum manning is relative to your operational posture and the number of concurrent things you want to do. For a standard readiness ship where you are only thinking of doing a single evolution or dealing with a single DC event (resulting from something other then enemy action) you need less people.  If you want to be at action stations (with helo available), be able to do force protection and respond to several DC events at once (like fires/floods from a missile hit) you need a lot of bodies.

The big rise in core crew to HR is in the combat department (as you don't need most of the ops room on a 1 in 2 for the average SR ops), but then you bolt on the secret squirrels, full air det, NTOG, Command staff, Legal, etc. it adds up. Even with minimum manning on the core crew, all these mission add on pers add up. Because of the small size of our fleet, we need to maximize all sea days, so unless you are at your last sea position for your trade, everyone is always training for the next job as well, so it's a big challenge to figure it all out when you are also trying to keep a 25+ year old ship going from A to B.

Min manning also depends on a lot more remote monitoring and control, but that also requires a lot more special skills and maintenance, which is generally expensive. IPMS is okay, but didn't actually automate anything we weren't already doing other then adding some cameras. And as soon as you get a serious glitch, the manning requirements skyrocket, so it's always good to have enough trained people to be able to limp into a safe port manually if you need to. If the ships never went to sea without ever having a fully functional IPMS you'd never have a ship at sea; that generally means you need more then the min manning levels to operate normally. It's all those things that look good on paper that fall apart when you hit reality.

Not to be doom and gloom, but the min manning assumptions usually have a lot of Pollyannish levels of optimism built in, but those don't normally get re-evaluated when you have equipment issues unless it's a major fault affecting something specific, and not the cumulative result of numerous minor faults that eat up a lot of time collectively. That's where it's useful to do the roll-up supersystem level risk assessments and see if the NAVORD min crew still makes sense, but don't think that would get any traction. Usually workable as there are extras built in, but if the design assumptions for a new ship make it truly minimum manning it could be tough.  Would be curious to see what the Type 26 assumptions are, and if they allow for system/capability degradation over the life of the class.

Personally think they should build ships to carry an extra 25% crew (at least) then the standard HR intent allows (or at least size the hotel services for them at the start). You can always add in more bunks and life rafts, but unless you allocate space for food, water and size hotel services at the start, it's virtually impossible to get more afterwards. It was easy with the 280s to sail with 50 empty bunks but you can't just suddenly make space to store 25% more food, water, process sewage etc.  Historically we always try and do everything at once and can't see that mindset changing, and think it's just stupid to think we won't immediately fill up every extra bunk with people (especially if the crew is smaller then what we are used to on a frigate).

I think a lot of the issues with bolt on capabilities is the fact that the Ships we presently operate, were never conceptualized to be operating some of the capabilities we are now bringing on and expecting.  When the Halifax Class was designed, there was no thought given to having UAVs, Enhanced Boarding Parties, Special Operations Forces, Secret Squirrels, etc operating on our Ships and as a result we are making due with what we have.  I am confident that the new Type 26 will address all of these issues, particularly with the Flexible Mission Bay, Dedicated UAV Facilities, etc.  The fact it has VLS is also a major leap forward for us. 

We need to be very careful of placing constraints on ourselves based solely on the present limitations of our equipment.  It will not be this way in the future and I think scrapping capabilities simply because they don't presently fit perfectly on our equipment (due to it showing its age) is a mistake.

 

[suffolkowner]

So is the CSC going to be cramped or short personnel? Wikipedia has the Halifax class at 225 and the type 26 at 157(up to 208). I'm assuming automation will drive some of those numbers down but also that we will maybe sail at closer to the upper limit?

 

[Cloud Cover]

We don’t know because our version of the T26 hasn’t been designed yet. It would be puzzling if the RCN recommends to government to go forward with a ship that doesn’t accommodate extra personnel and have room for systems growth and/or expansion.

 

[suffolkowner]

We don’t know because our version of the T26 hasn’t been designed yet. It would be puzzling if the RCN recommends to government to go forward with a ship that doesn’t accommodate extra personnel and have room for systems growth and/or expansion.

Is it that easy or is their that much flexibility in the design for 25-50 extra personnel

 

[Lumber]

The big rise in core crew to HR is in the combat department (as you don't need most of the ops room on a 1 in 2 for the average SR ops), but then you bolt on the secret squirrels, full air det, NTOG, Command staff, Legal, etc. it adds up.

The navy desperately needs a shake up in how our combat ops department fights. For action station manning, off the top of my head I could get rid of 3 NESOPs, 3 if not 4 SONAROPs, and at least one of the back row. We make work for ourselves and underemploy.

 

[Cloud Cover]

The navy desperately needs a shake up in how our combat ops department fights. For action station manning, off the top of my head I could get rid of 3 NESOPs, 3 if not 4 SONAROPs, and at least one of the back row. We make work for ourselves and underemploy.

Budget 2021 will take care of that!!

 

[Navy_Pete]

Is it that easy or is their that much flexibility in the design for 25-50 extra personnel

Nope, it's complicated. Even if you double bunk people, you need more water, food, heating/cooling, sewage etc.  Plus there is all the safety things like liferafts, escape routes etc to consider. None of that is a deal breaker, but it's not as simple as dropping a few cots in and calling it a day.

Some of those things can be bolted on, but others require underlying changes to piping, or would not be changeable without a total reconfiguration of the tanking (and everything running in/out of it), and doing things like having water restrictions as the norm (which is usually a non-starter for morale reasons, but people have gotten pretty soft in that respect).

Allowing for it during design makes it really easy. You can do simple things like put in the triple bunks instead of double from the start with the lockers available, have the storage capacity for water/food and sewage for a bigger crew no issue. It all adds extra legs when not in use but means you don't have to do major engineering changes to add it on later. No different then allowing for growth on power demands, stability etc in the original design, as that stuff is also really expensive to change once it's built.

 

[stoker dave]

Just for historical perspective, prior to deployment to the Gulf in 1990 (OP FRICTION) there was an immediate requirement to add bunks to all three ships that deployed.  It took some creative work to stuff in all those extra people.