• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Innovation

So no more need for cam nets but extra shovels for everyone.

;)
I’d say cam nets (and other concealment) is still valid. I’d argue that as the Ukrainian road trip to Kursk has shown, you can’t have eyes everywhere and you can’t deploy forces everywhere.

So yes, there are more eyes on the AOR. But that requires more people (or AI) analyzing everything which is a resource suck. UKR in Kursk theoretically shouldn’t happen bc the entire front has tons of eyes, but here we are.
 
Having sailed on an AOPV, I'd suggest the core crew is barely sufficient to get off the wall. I'm pretty sure every one of them is sailing at about 20 people over "core" crew on the regular.
Core crew of the Orcas is actually 4; CO, BWK, bosn and an engineering watchkeeper. I think they frequently add a cook as well (after some food poisoning issue from having random trainees cook), and augment that a bit with another BWK and eng for overnight trips, but pretty minimal.

Those are built as cargo ships, so we were breaking a bunch of SOLAS rules when running them on day sails with 30+ passenger on board, so some interesting conversations there.
 
Core crew of the Orcas is actually 4; CO, BWK, bosn and an engineering watchkeeper. I think they frequently add a cook as well (after some food poisoning issue from having random trainees cook), and augment that a bit with another BWK and eng for overnight trips, but pretty minimal.

Those are built as cargo ships, so we were breaking a bunch of SOLAS rules when running them on day sails with 30+ passenger on board, so some interesting conversations there.
What's the typical rank of the CO?

🍻
 
I’d say cam nets (and other concealment) is still valid. I’d argue that as the Ukrainian road trip to Kursk has shown, you can’t have eyes everywhere and you can’t deploy forces everywhere.

So yes, there are more eyes on the AOR. But that requires more people (or AI) analyzing everything which is a resource suck. UKR in Kursk theoretically shouldn’t happen bc the entire front has tons of eyes, but here we are.


In 1704 Winston Churchill's ancestor "Corporal Jack", with an army dressed in scarlet, managed to move his army from the Netherlands by water and foot, up the Rhine, across the front of the French, and had it magically appear in Bavaria prior to beating the Austrians and the French at Blenheim.

Deception can take all sorts of forms.

And Jack managed to get his men supplied with new shoes on the march.
 
What's the typical rank of the CO?

🍻
I think on their it's a Lt(N) (sometimes a LCdr). They aren't actually the CO for a specific Orca, they just have a qual to take it out (can't remember what it is specifically). Those boats don't have dedicated crews, so they just basically get 'signed out' for the particular trip, training course etc. The old YAGs they replaced were the same. So doesn't count as a CO tour or anything (although MCDVs do, which is a LCdr billet). The AOPs, JSS and CPFs are all Cdr billets, and we no longer have Capt(N) ship COs (used to be a second CO tour on the 280s, and think the previous AORs were Cdr XOs and Cdr/Capt(N) COs).

I think there is a small pool of qualified people posted that support the steady requirements, but was usually taskings for the blocks of courses and other times when they are in heavier usage to supplement that.
 
I think on their it's a Lt(N) (sometimes a LCdr). They aren't actually the CO for a specific Orca, they just have a qual to take it out (can't remember what it is specifically). Those boats don't have dedicated crews, so they just basically get 'signed out' for the particular trip, training course etc. The old YAGs they replaced were the same. So doesn't count as a CO tour or anything (although MCDVs do, which is a LCdr billet). The AOPs, JSS and CPFs are all Cdr billets, and we no longer have Capt(N) ship COs (used to be a second CO tour on the 280s, and think the previous AORs were Cdr XOs and Cdr/Capt(N) COs).

I think there is a small pool of qualified people posted that support the steady requirements, but was usually taskings for the blocks of courses and other times when they are in heavier usage to supplement that.

Couldn't they sail under the command of a Coxswain? They are only boats.
 
Let's be careful to understand what core crew means. "Number of people on board who hold a specific qualification" vs. "Number of people total on board as crew" are two different things.
 
Couldn't they sail under the command of a Coxswain? They are only boats.
No, our Coxns don't have any kind of tickets. The Orcas are 210 tonnes so above the 150 tonne limit in the Small Vessel Regulations. We are exempt from the CSA but have rules in place to have our own internal requirements that meet/exceed the equivalent requirements.

They are a minor vessel, but still big enough you need to know what you are doing. They can also go 20+ knots (think there is a speed restricter now) so they can move pretty good.

Can't remember the specific listing they are under ABS but think it was some kind of minor special purpose vessel that called up cargo ship requirements. That's the default, unless you have more than 12 passengers, at which case you are a passenger ship and need things like additional escape and evac requirements, sprinklers from the berths to the escape route, additional redundancy in machinery, comms and other systems and some similar additional crew to escort untrained passengers to safety.

Junior military personnel posted there that have completed the environmental training ashore (for FF, DC, evac etc) are considered 'special crew', not passengers, so that's more things like when sea cadets and CIC go for day sails, family day, VIP dog and pony shows etc.

But the SOPs are based on the CONOPs that has 4 qualified people in those core posiitons, so for something like a fire, the BWK and bosn is your entire fire response for manual fire fighting, and can get augmented by other qualified military personnel if available (while someone makes sure any civvies onboard are escorted to a safe area). So if you have civvie riders you have to augment the core crew with some escorts, but eventually you hit the capacity of the lifeboats (plus the spares needed in SOLAS).
 
To clarify the discussion, I looked up the unit orders as I'm currently at my desk.

The minimum ORCA crew size scales up depending on the duration of the sail: 5 pers (underway 4hrs or less), 7 pers (day sail), or 15 (24/7 ops).
 
With or without government contracts?

Either. Just because you have a government contract today doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed anything tomorrow.

As a colleague firm recently discovered when a long term arrangement with government was unceremoniously ended and they went out of business because they weren’t diversified enough ;)
 
Either. Just because you have a government contract today doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed anything tomorrow.

As a colleague firm recently discovered when a long term arrangement with government was unceremoniously ended and they went out of business because they weren’t diversified enough ;)

There's that ... and then there's LM, BAE and such. The "too big" bunch.

Little incentive for innovation there. Status quo is their motto.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ueo
There's that ... and then there's LM, BAE and such. The "too big" bunch.

Little incentive for innovation there. Status quo is their motto.
I really don’t understand why you keep saying that given their IRD Budgets dwarf the CAF budget.
 
I really don’t understand why you keep saying that given their IRD Budgets dwarf the 'puny bang for the buck' CAF budget.

There, FTYF ;)

Defence Budget​

  • The Department of National Defence (DND) is the second largest department within the federal government in terms of budget and the largest in terms of size. In 2023-24, DND’s budget accounted for approximately 6.1% of the total Main Estimates for Canada.

 
Back
Top