Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels (MCDVs)

[Edward Campbell]

...

What I think the requirements should be:

• min 25knots
• 30mm main gun with independent EOIR sighting, 50 cal positions
• ~40 crew
• ability to take multiple sea can mission packages
• mast high EOIR capability (similar to AOPS or JSS)
• half decent range (~5000nm)
• standard 9m multirole boat launch
• extra space for 20 pers (dive team, UXV team, boarding team etc...)
• Link 16 / IFF capability integral (not a FFNW situation)
• flexible OPS space
• improved radar so that it can detect some air targets (SCANTER 6002 as an example)

On the nice to have part:

• quiet ASW levels of noise to allow for TRAPS and mine warfare gear to better do their job
• dynamic station keeping (may be mutually exclusive from quiet...)
• flight deck for landing (not embarking ) Cyclone, operation of UAVs

How small a ship can meet your requirements? Must it be it greater than, say, 1,500 tons and longer than 120 ft?

 

[MarkOttawa]

Sounds like some sort of Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) to me:

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Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) - VARD 7 Series - Vard Marine Inc.

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Offshore Patrol Vessels - Damen

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https://www.defence.gov.au/project/offshore-patrol-vessels

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Stoker]

Ship/shore ratio.

The book "ideal" ship-to-shore ratio is 40/60, as even part of that 40% is posted to a ship during a work period or trials. It allows for regenerative training and filling the shore billets, while not running your staff ragged. However, that has to be across all trades not just pan navy with one really good trade bringing up the average.



If you take a look at the Arafura class and River class they have flight decks with no hangars. This means you could in theory land a helicopter on them. Ships that small would be very restricted in the sea states they could land (not embark) a helo.

This is why a work deck that can be used as a flight deck is likely the best way to go.

The Skeldar was for trials and testing, and there is a new procurement out for the final solution. RCN want's a common control station for UAV, UUV and USV, and as such that's what they are driving towards.

What I think the requirements should be:

• min 25knots
• 30mm main gun with independent EOIR sighting, 50 cal positions
• ~40 crew
• ability to take multiple sea can mission packages
• mast high EOIR capability (similar to AOPS or JSS)
• half decent range (~5000nm)
• standard 9m multirole boat launch
• extra space for 20 pers (dive team, UXV team, boarding team etc...)
• Link 16 / IFF capability integral (not a FFNW situation)
• flexible OPS space
• improved radar so that it can detect some air targets (SCANTER 6002 as an example)
• edit: Degaussing system...

On the nice to have part:

• quiet ASW levels of noise to allow for TRAPS and mine warfare gear to better do their job
• dynamic station keeping (may be mutually exclusive from quiet...)
• flight deck for landing (not embarking ) Cyclone, operation of UAVs

The concept art I saw for the Kingston Class replacement was similar along with the requirements. No hanger but a possible flight deck for helos and drones. The most important feature is the ability to operate modular payloads. We need a platform not overly complicated, easy and economical to maintain and operate and not an excessive amount of crew. Really a utility truck.

 

[Underway]

How small a ship can meet your requirements? Must it be it greater than, say, 1,500 tons and longer than 120 ft?

Oh for sure. The speed requirement means a longer ship right off the bat. MCDV's are already 181ft long and almost 1000 tons. You're probably looking in the 1700-2000 ton range. Ships like an Aussie Arafura class or the UK River Class batch one.

 

[Stoker]

It was tried. The RCN was the envy of the Militia for years as they "had a mission", to crew and operate the MCDV's. But that mission was going to fail eventually because of two things.

1. The majority of the crew were Reg F in all but name. Class C reservists who sailed the ships all the time, with no postings ashore as a break. Constantly at sea or on the ship. The amount of time the crews were at sea was ridiculous.
2. The PRes couldn't keep up the OP tempo and keep the ships crewed. There just were not enough people who could sail enough, and give over their time to earn the qualifications needed (particularly C ticket MESO's).

This of course led to unbalanced promotions, where the Class C got all the promotions and the Class A got less. How does a Class A PER compete with a Class C PER? Answer... it doesn't. Some trades at the reserve units were destitute of anyone higher than LS (Kingston Class were not reserve units but Fleet units crewed mainly by reservists). This also mean that the Class C pers were holding positions at their home units which were essentially vacated by the perma Class C.

So you had Class A vs Class C vs Reg F separation (back to wavey navy crap from WW2) all of which who disliked each other and of course, stovepiped into different levels of expertise.

The current situation of 10% of positions on all ships for PRes is much better. All PRes quals are equivalent to Reg F except for PRes only trades (Port Inspection Diver as an example). When a PRes sailor has time they take a position on a ship for up to a year and have the exact same qual as a Reg F pers of the same trade. This means that they can augment properly if called up. Most of the former Class C PRes have switched over to Reg F.

Training C tickets wasn't really an issue as it was fairly straight forward to qualify senior B tickets. They did a 4 week course and a package. C tickets were never in short supply.

I agree with alot of what you said but it was a lot of mismanagement of personnel. When in four sucessive town halls you had from the Admiral on down telling the combined reserve crews that the writing was on the wall and they should seek other employment started the hemorrhage of personnel that led to the 50/50, 60/40 and finally the big idea.

I would counter and say personnel at the units got promoted quicker than boat people as the merit boards were made up of mostly of unit people. That's what I experienced.

There certainly was a delta between Class A/B and C class people as we on the ships had limited contact with them overtime. We used to have trips when the class As would come out several times a year and train with us and all of a sudden that stopped along with regional training weekends.

Interestedly enough with the issue we are currently experiencing trying to get enough qualified MARTECHs to sail on the Kingston class. There are no NAVRES MARTECHs we can access, even in the summer because we are limiting them to only be able to reach the roundsperson level with the insistence they do a 16 month course that is a roadblock to the majority. We are looking to revert to the old MESO operator construct to make more res tickets.

 

[Navy_Pete]

The future fleet composition plan:
15 CSC/CPF (replacing as new capabilities come online)
2 AOR (+1 leased perhaps)
4 Submarines (gov't has leaned into life extension)
6 AOPS

Kingston class replacement and numbers are not known for sure. I doubt it will be a one for one as AOPS do the OPV mission as well. 6-9 replacements is what I'm thinking.

The RCN Task Group concept is to have one high readiness task group available at all times. That's 4 CSC/CPF and 1 AOR (with airdets, but that might be a critical pinch of pers as well. 6 airdets available seems a massive stretch). That's in combination from both coasts (2 CSC one coast 2 another coast). The rest of the ships are working up to high readiness, coming off of it or in a maintenance period. They might be available for sailing but not task group operations without some time.

This is my issue with the fleet plan; it's disconnected from the actual sailors available now, and somehow magically turns around from losing people faster than we can train them. No idea where the techs are coming for the rest of the AOPs, let alone JSS and an increase in combatants.

Sure it's a 20 year plan but right now things are trending downward and will take at least 7-10 years to develop the new QSPs for the Martechs, and maybe start having a 'structures' specialization.

The TG concept is another example of disconnection between people and equipment; that takes a lot of people to actually sustain that, as you always need ships coming up to HR, going through DWPs etc, and all these take a lot of folks.

Hope may not be a COA, but it definitely seems to be built squarely in as a key pillar in the plans.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Oh for sure. The speed requirement means a longer ship right off the bat. MCDV's are already 181ft long and almost 1000 tons. You're probably looking in the 1700-2000 ton range. Ships like an Aussie Arafura class or the UK River Class batch one.

Thanks .. I meant to type 200 ft, but you've answered my question.

 

[Swampbuggy]

Ship/shore ratio.

The book "ideal" ship-to-shore ratio is 40/60, as even part of that 40% is posted to a ship during a work period or trials. It allows for regenerative training and filling the shore billets, while not running your staff ragged. However, that has to be across all trades not just pan navy with one really good trade bringing up the average.



If you take a look at the Arafura class and River class they have flight decks with no hangars. This means you could in theory land a helicopter on them. Ships that small would be very restricted in the sea states they could land (not embark) a helo.

This is why a work deck that can be used as a flight deck is likely the best way to go.

The Skeldar was for trials and testing, and there is a new procurement out for the final solution. RCN want's a common control station for UAV, UUV and USV, and as such that's what they are driving towards.

What I think the requirements should be:

• min 25knots
• 30mm main gun with independent EOIR sighting, 50 cal positions
• ~40 crew
• ability to take multiple sea can mission packages
• mast high EOIR capability (similar to AOPS or JSS)
• half decent range (~5000nm)
• standard 9m multirole boat launch
• extra space for 20 pers (dive team, UXV team, boarding team etc...)
• Link 16 / IFF capability integral (not a FFNW situation)
• flexible OPS space
• improved radar so that it can detect some air targets (SCANTER 6002 as an example)
• edit: Degaussing system...

On the nice to have part:

• quiet ASW levels of noise to allow for TRAPS and mine warfare gear to better do their job
• dynamic station keeping (may be mutually exclusive from quiet...)
• flight deck for landing (not embarking ) Cyclone, operation of UAVs

Would being able to RAS be considered a preference, a must or not really necessary?

 

[Underway]

Would being able to RAS be considered a preference, a must or not really necessary?

Meh... as long as you can do a light jackstay then you're probably just fine for an OPV. RAS isn't something that I would worry about myself, others may have other opinions.

 

[Swampbuggy]

Meh... as long as you can do a light jackstay then you're probably just fine for an OPV. RAS isn't something that I would worry about myself, others may have other opinions.

Maybe a system along the lines of the AOPS setup, which looks like it’s not meant for all the time, but is there if absolutely needed?

 

[Navy_Pete]

Meh... as long as you can do a light jackstay then you're probably just fine for an OPV. RAS isn't something that I would worry about myself, others may have other opinions.

I think the RAS capability is derived from the requirement for 'continuous operations' as well as range. If you can get from A to B within your range, and operate continously on a tank of gas, you don't need to RAS.

I think there is probably some kind of shiphandling reasons as well where there is practically a minimum size of ship to RAS with a tanker and not get beat up. The current MCDVs are too stable and bounce around like a cork as a result on a calm day, not sure what would happen if they were also getting smacked around by the bow wave of a ship 30 times the displacement on top of that.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I think the RAS capability is derived from the requirement for 'continuous operations' as well as range. If you can get from A to B within your range, and operate continously on a tank of gas, you don't need to RAS.

I think there is probably some kind of shiphandling reasons as well where there is practically a minimum size of ship to RAS with a tanker and not get beat up. The current MCDVs are too stable and bounce around like a cork as a result on a calm day, not sure what would happen if they were also getting smacked around by the bow wave of a ship 30 times the displacement on top of that.

You would have to stern RAS.

I seem to recall that someone told me it was actually trialed on one of our MCDVs.

But, I agree with you. Why RAS at all if your mission does not require it? Frigates and destroyers do, because they race around the TG and burn thru a tank of gas every 3 days. Aircraft Carriers (even nuclear ones) need JP5 every 3 days. Etc…

 

[Stoker]

Lots of discussion on what the Kingston Class replacement will look like. Whatever we end of getting will I doubt if the ships will need to RAS and that's tied to how long the ship can stay at sea. The ship will have unlimited water no issues there, should have a decent range so no RAS required, the issue would be how much food it can hold. The Kingston class was only meant to be out a max 14 days so it's capacity for dry, fresh and frozen is fairly small. We had to get creative to stretch that by at least 20 more days. Any replacement will need to take that into account along with space and ability to take parts and repair itself which for the Kingston class we struggled and will struggle with on this current long deployment. So while people worry if we can operate drones and operate a helo I wonder about the more mundane and practical considerations and capabilities. In my opinion as stated before we need to find a balance between cheap and capable and decide where and what we need these ships to operate.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Lots of discussion on what the Kingston Class replacement will look like. Whatever we end of getting will I doubt if the ships will need to RAS and that's tied to how long the ship can stay at sea. The ship will have unlimited water no issues there, should have a decent range so no RAS required, the issue would be how much food it can hold. The Kingston class was only meant to be out a max 14 days so it's capacity for dry, fresh and frozen is fairly small. We had to get creative to stretch that by at least 20 more days. Any replacement will need to take that into account along with space and ability to take parts and repair itself which for the Kingston class we struggled and will struggle with on this current long deployment. So while people worry if we can operate drones and operate a helo I wonder about the more mundane and practical considerations and capabilities. In my opinion as stated before we need to find a balance between cheap and capable and decide where and what we need these ships to operate.

I found a picture of the replacement:

 

[Lumber]

I found a picture of the replacement:

Low speed? Check.
Smaller crew? Check.
Lightly armed? Check.
Unable to embark a helicopter? Check.
Essentially an up-armed coast guard vessel? Check.
Maintained by an ISS contract? Check.
Intended to do all the sailing that the CPFs/CSCs can't manage because of long work periods and SNMG flag waiving deployments? Check.

These ARE the Kingston class!

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Low speed? Check.
Smaller crew? Check.
Lightly armed? Check.
Unable to embark a helicopter? Check.
Essentially an up-armed coast guard vessel? Check.
Maintained by an ISS contract? Check.
Intended to do all the sailing that the CPFs/CSCs can't manage because of long work periods and SNMG flag waiving deployments? Check.

These ARE the Kingston class!

Weighs more than a CPF but has a bloody pee shooter for a main armament

 

[FSTO]

I found a picture of the replacement:

Arse.
Go catch a train….

 

[Underway]

I seem to recall that someone told me it was actually trialed on one of our MCDVs.

It was trailed with Protecteur on the west coast IIRC (second hand info dump follows). The problem is if you sail the MCDV forward then the fuel line has to pass across the focsle down the stbd breezeway to the fueling station. The other was was to sail the MCDV backward (stern to stern) and try to refuel that way.

Both were possible but really sketchy, and could only really be done in very light seas. It's just easier to bring the MCDV alongside the AOR and refuel at anchor or alongside.

 

[Underway]

Weighs more than a CPF but has a bloody pee shooter for a main armament

But its hull is extra thick. Ramming speed!

 

[GR66]

The future fleet composition plan:
15 CSC/CPF (replacing as new capabilities come online)
2 AOR (+1 leased perhaps)
4 Submarines (gov't has leaned into life extension)
6 AOPS

Kingston class replacement and numbers are not known for sure. I doubt it will be a one for one as AOPS do the OPV mission as well. 6-9 replacements is what I'm thinking.

The RCN Task Group concept is to have one high readiness task group available at all times. That's 4 CSC/CPF and 1 AOR (with airdets, but that might be a critical pinch of pers as well. 6 airdets available seems a massive stretch). That's in combination from both coasts (2 CSC one coast 2 another coast). The rest of the ships are working up to high readiness, coming off of it or in a maintenance period. They might be available for sailing but not task group operations without some time.

This is my issue with the fleet plan; it's disconnected from the actual sailors available now, and somehow magically turns around from losing people faster than we can train them. No idea where the techs are coming for the rest of the AOPs, let alone JSS and an increase in combatants.

Sure it's a 20 year plan but right now things are trending downward and will take at least 7-10 years to develop the new QSPs for the Martechs, and maybe start having a 'structures' specialization.

The TG concept is another example of disconnection between people and equipment; that takes a lot of people to actually sustain that, as you always need ships coming up to HR, going through DWPs etc, and all these take a lot of folks.

Hope may not be a COA, but it definitely seems to be built squarely in as a key pillar in the plans.

The above fleet composition plan looks a lot like a peacetime fleet plan. It also looks like a fleet that might be suited to a Cold War era conflict against Russia - we have smaller numbers of vessels but have technological superiority to offset.

How well would our fleet composition work in a conflict with China where technological differences are much closer to parity at the same time as we would be outnumbered and have to operate at much greater distances from our bases then the enemy?

We're never going to be able to outbuild the PLAN and we certainly can't "outman" them. Does that not suggest that we need to look at different ways to challenge them? Do we continue to try and build more and more capable Destroyers/Frigates/Corvettes that we will struggle to man? Or do we start now to invest in unmanned/minimally manned technologies which may give us an asymmetric advantage? How much money, time and effort do we put into a ship building race that ultimately we can't win at the expense of new technologies?

All this of course assumes that we feel the need to build a warfighting fleet as opposed to a peacetime fleet. Obviously we can't ignore the important peacetime missions and capabilities, but do we not also be able to win a war as well? With the lead times involved in shipbuilding we can't afford to wait until a conflict starts before we start to design/build the platforms we need to fight with.