New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

[SeaKingTacco]

There were lots of things that were left alone. The magazine requirements for example. German magazine safety/design vice RCN. Some of their fire fighting things were left as German. Different way of doing things but not necessarily wrong. But a lot was Canadianized because we have different or in many cases higher standards then the Germans, like minimum widths to stairwells. Apparently Germans like rat tunnels instead of proper flats... lol.

As far as the helo, if its a red deck its likely due to timing vice design. The Cyclone folks were heavily involved. Or it needs to actually have flight tests as part of the T&T process in order to validate the Flight Deck Mangement System programing. That involves a live bird. In that case it will be delivered first and then the RCN will do the work with the test pilots to make them happy. I'm telling you there was soooo much work that went into getting the helicopter people happy at a minimum. That entire hangar was planned to the most minute detail in conjunction with the Squadrons.

There are other things that were originally planned to have delivered with the JSS but it was decided otherwise as the project progress. CIWS is one of them. FMF will install CIWS mounts (though the control stations will already be in place internally), as they do that all the time and paying Seaspan to do it when we likely would have had to redo it anyways made little sense. Also all the security ITAR shenanigans to be able to qualify a Seaspan employee... just easier for FMF.

Flight deck certification happens initially through a process called SHOL trials- Ship/Helo Operating Limits, run by AETE. Computer Models only take you so far: eventually you have to take a live helo with a flight test crew into nasty weather and find out what the actual wind and deck motion limits are. This is normal and part of every new class air certification.

 

[Kirkhill]

In 2015, the Government of Canada announced $63.7 million in funding for the Iqaluit Marine Infrastructure Project through the New Building Canada Fund. This federal contribution represents 75 per cent of the total $84.9 million cost of the project. The Government of Nunavut provided the remaining $21.2 million.

Iqaluit Deep Sea Port Officially Opens | Government of Nunavut

www.gov.nu.ca

In 2002 the published price of the 6400 tonne Svalbard was ca 100 MCAD
In 2018 the contracted price of 3x 9800 tonne Jan Mayens was 810 MCAD or 270 MCAD each
In 2023 the cost of the 6x 6600 tonne AOPS (RCN) was 4980 MCAD or 830 MCAD each
In 2023 the cost of the 2x 6600 tonne AOPS (CCG) was 1600 MCAD or 800 MCAD each

Short form 1 6600 tonne AOPS from Irving Halifax buys you 3 9800 tonne AOPS from Vard Langsten - admittedly built to civilian pattern and only useful in their planned area of operations.

We have spent 6580 MCAD to deliver 8 hulls for patrolling the Arctic. The Norwegians would have spent 2160 MCAD to achieve the same Arctic capability.

With the spare change we could have built jetties at Iqaluit, Resolute, Nanisivik, Cambridge Bay and Iqaluit and refurbished Churchill. That would have meant local shore support for the AOPS fleet. All those ports are also serviced by airports. 6x Iqaluit = 6x 85 MCAD or 510 MCAD.

2160 MCAD +
510 MCAD =
2670 MCAD.

That leaves 3910 MCAD in the kitty to spend on other stuff. And a more connected Arctic.

What would you do with a spare 3910 MCAD?

How about 12 warm water OPVs like the Vard Vigilance?
The Italians built a similar 75m OPV for Malta for 50 MEUR or 75 MCAD.
12x 75 MCAD is still only 900 MCAD.

3000 MCAD in change.

Enough there for 3x KSSIII subs.

And yes, I know this is Canada and we keep our books differently. Pity.

 

[Underway]

Look at the tonnage of the type 26 on wiki (6900);

Type 26 frigate - Wikipedia

Look at CSC (8080)

Canadian Surface Combatant - Wikipedia

Now look at the AUS hunter class, which also took the AEGIS, slapped it on the T26 at 10k tonnes, so outweighing an Arleigh Burke

Hunter-class frigate - Wikipedia

Sure, ISI was involved, but it was all Canada's decisions. Cumulatively making CSC bigger than the base design, so fair bit bigger on what the combat package bid was for. JSS is the same size as what is in the NSS package.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an ISI fanboy, but we wanted a complicated, manpower intensive combat system, with a huge radar up high, so the only way that works is with a bigger hull.

Bigger hull means bigger assembly bays, bigger mega block assembly area, bigger launch requirements etc etc.

If you want an actual MOTS design for a ship, don't change anything (except domestic power to 110/60 Hz vice 220 50 hz, which is easy). If you want project cost increases, Canadianize the base design, select totally different combat systems, and select different parts for every widget onboard.

A lot of the Canadianization requirements are driven by GoC rules for Canadian content. A lot of delays (which lead to cost increases) is related to GoC oversight and accountability requirements that are also built into the contract.

Don't get me wrong, ISI won't lose money on any of this, but if we had stuck within the design envelope we specified, and didn't make major equipment selection items impacting that, ISI wouldn't be doing a major shipyard upgrade to build it.

CSC will give major capabilities (if we don't screw it up and cheap out on maintenance or training), and may allow us to credibly assist in BMD defence, which seems like a good thing, but none of this is cheap. The world is also a different place now compared to what it was 14ish years ago when the NSS tender was drafted, so does it make sense to consider significantly increase capabilites of CSC while we can? Once it's built it's pretty much fixed for the next 30 years.

Last I checked the RCN design for the Type 26 didn't change the hull dimensions at all (superstructure yes). The equipment and internals pushed us closer to the max design margins for the hull form. The Aussies actually added 2m to the length of the hull to get in their extra row of missiles that we aren't including (at least in the first three ships), that adds a lot of weight. Of course this could be wrong, we may have changed some things.

I heard a rumour but can't confirm that ISI used the same steel all the way through their version of the design, which is also why higher tonnage. Basically instead of min/maxing steel thickness or types to go with the calculated stresses or strains on the ship they just picked the thicker/heavier/stronger one and used that. The UK version min/maxed and had thin steel where it made sense to minimize wasted tonnage. If ISI did that it screams rookie mistake to me but perhaps this is all wrong and a Zombie lie at this point (was true at one point but has changed as the design matured). Or like with JSS there will be fixes in the next version of the ship as they build and learn.

 

[Kirkhill]

Ships of the same or relatively similar dimensions can differ in weight quite a bit due to the equipment, weaponry, sensors, stores, etc put aboard, an example would be Type 26's lightweight and lower capability radar compared to the much larger high capability SPY-7 and CEAFAR 2 systems of the CSC and Hunter classes.

Indeed, I forgot in my napkin math that Irving can likely only work on 2-3 ships at a time and isn't able to keep starting vessels themselves. The timeline would likely be pushed back quite a bit.

@Stoker already made some great points above. Svalbard is a single ship designed to patrol around the Barents Sea and her namesake island, AOPS is an 8 ship class designed to be able to transit and operate in the remote Canadian Arctic as its primary purpose, with a secondary role of being able to undertake various missions overseas which vessels like the MCDV's do but might not be particularly well suited for. Due to the lack of activity in the Arctic throughout the winter season and the cost ineffectiveness of making AOPS into a heavy icebreaker, it only makes sense to have patrol vessels which are able to be deployed when the conditions better allow traffic and require patrolling in the first place. This navigable season is roughly from June to October as I've been told, having the ships be able to deploy for other duties elsewhere for those other months is the only way to make this purchase responsible.

Respectfully Rainbow1910 the word "responsible" can be broadly interpreted. What may seem like an irresponsible use of RCN funds may seem like a responsible use of Arctic Development funds.

From a Navy standpoint I fully understand the reluctance to "waste" the budget. Having said that the Navy has plunged 4800 MCAD into 6 bespoke ships when it could have bought 6 off the shelf commercial ships for a fraction of the price and had the remainder of the cash to invest in other projects.

I kind of feel that the RCN did to the AOPS what the USN did to the LCS. It tried to convert something it didn't want into something it did want. It might have been easier all round just to accommodate the government and do what it wanted in the first place.

But, as I said, the exercise is fruitless at the stage. That was then and this is now.

 

[Stoker]

Iqaluit Deep Sea Port Officially Opens | Government of Nunavut

www.gov.nu.ca

In 2002 the published price of the 6400 tonne Svalbard was ca 100 MCAD
In 2018 the contracted price of 3x 9800 tonne Jan Mayens was 810 MCAD or 270 MCAD each
In 2023 the cost of the 6x 6600 tonne AOPS (RCN) was 4980 MCAD or 830 MCAD each
In 2023 the cost of the 2x 6600 tonne AOPS (CCG) was 1600 MCAD or 800 MCAD each

Short form 1 6600 tonne AOPS from Irving Halifax buys you 3 9800 tonne AOPS from Vard Langsten - admittedly built to civilian pattern and only useful in their planned area of operations.

We have spent 6580 MCAD to deliver 8 hulls for patrolling the Arctic. The Norwegians would have spent 2160 MCAD to achieve the same Arctic capability.

With the spare change we could have built jetties at Iqaluit, Resolute, Nanisivik, Cambridge Bay and Iqaluit and refurbished Churchill. That would have meant local shore support for the AOPS fleet. All those ports are also serviced by airports. 6x Iqaluit = 6x 85 MCAD or 510 MCAD.

2160 MCAD +
510 MCAD =
2670 MCAD.

That leaves 3910 MCAD in the kitty to spend on other stuff. And a more connected Arctic.

What would you do with a spare 3910 MCAD?

How about 12 warm water OPVs like the Vard Vigilance?
The Italians built a similar 75m OPV for Malta for 50 MEUR or 75 MCAD.
12x 75 MCAD is still only 900 MCAD.

3000 MCAD in change.

Enough there for 3x KSSIII subs.

And yes, I know this is Canada and we keep our books differently. Pity.
View attachment 79492

As mentioned before the prices you find on Wikipedia and wherever else from foreign nations are highly suspect at best so there's that. We probably could of got a better deal offshore but we didn't as it was against the NSS. What they paid for the port facilities at Iqaluit is simply not the same in other parts of the Arctic, just look at the Nanisivik fuel depot, that small depot built on existing facilities cost upwards of 250M and took years to build. Building in the Arctic is expensive and time consuming which many don't have a clue about. All your numbers are way off and suspect and like you said a fruitless exercise. I do agree though that building in Canada is way more expensive than other parts of the world which everyone knows.

 

[Rainbow1910]

Respectfully Rainbow1910 the word "responsible" can be broadly interpreted. What may seem like an irresponsible use of RCN funds may seem like a responsible use of Arctic Development funds.

From a Navy standpoint I fully understand the reluctance to "waste" the budget. Having said that the Navy has plunged 4800 MCAD into 6 bespoke ships when it could have bought 6 off the shelf commercial ships for a fraction of the price and had the remainder of the cash to invest in other projects.

I kind of feel that the RCN did to the AOPS what the USN did to the LCS. It tried to convert something it didn't want into something it did want. It might have been easier all round just to accommodate the government and do what it wanted in the first place.

But, as I said, the exercise is fruitless at the stage. That was then and this is now.

From the people I've spoken to in the Navy regarding AOPS, people are looking forward to getting aboard new ships with modern and less cramped accommodations. They are doubly looking forward to being able to go to the Arctic in vessels specifically designed for the task while also having something better able to deal with missions abroad compared to an MCDV or even a CPF in some cases. There is nothing really "wasted" regarding budget with the AOPS considering this is par for the course with Canadian shipbuilding. Unless we are going to upend the entire system and do some major sweeping changes, this is how things are.

I find it a bit pointless to hand wring over hypotheticals which were and still are politically impossible. Building vessels abroad is not politically tenable for the Canadian Government and has been stated countless times in this thread, the costs for these MOTS vessels are effectively useless if you wanted to take the unmodified ship and built it in Canada. A lot of things could happen but never will for one or more reasons.

Svalbard in its existing form procured by Norway was not the exact vessel Canada wanted/needed, just like the Italian FREMM frigate in its existing form procured by France or Italy was not the exact vessel the United States wanted/needed. Canada's in house design teams had their experience atrophy in the years leading up to AOPS and CSC, it would not have been responsible, time efficient or financially viable to design a vessel from the ground up when we can modify an existing version into something that more than suits our needs.

 

[Kirkhill]

From the people I've spoken to in the Navy regarding AOPS, people are looking forward to getting aboard new ships with modern and less cramped accommodations. They are doubly looking forward to being able to go to the Arctic in vessels specifically designed for the task while also having something better able to deal with missions abroad compared to an MCDV or even a CPF in some cases. There is nothing really "wasted" regarding budget with the AOPS considering this is par for the course with Canadian shipbuilding. Unless we are going to upend the entire system and do some major sweeping changes, this is how things are.

I find it a bit pointless to hand wring over hypotheticals which were and still are politically impossible. Building vessels abroad is not politically tenable for the Canadian Government and has been stated countless times in this thread, the costs for these MOTS vessels are effectively useless if you wanted to take the unmodified ship and built it in Canada. A lot of things could happen but never will for one or more reasons.

Svalbard in its existing form procured by Norway was not the exact vessel Canada wanted/needed, just like the Italian FREMM frigate in its existing form procured by France or Italy was not the exact vessel the United States wanted/needed. Canada's in house design teams had their experience atrophy in the years leading up to AOPS and CSC, it would not have been responsible, time efficient or financially viable to design a vessel from the ground up when we can modify an existing version into something that more than suits our needs.

It is less the issue of building abroad than the cost differential associated with building domestically. I am a supporter of the NSPS in principle. And I agree that it is a waste of time to rehash decisions made that can't be unmade.

My concern is that one of the reasons often cited for the Canadian cost differential is the use of different standards. Specifically the use of military standards rather than commercial standards. I am aware that when the designs were transferred from the West Coast to the East Coast that it was determined that the entire design would have to be done over from scratch. An acquaintance of mine that worked for a vendor was involved in developing the West Coast pricing estimate. When it went to the East Coast the RCN determined that it wanted a quiet icebreaker and required all the equipment that my acquaintance had priced to be respecced. And the price escalated from there.

If the issue were indeed a matter of standards then I stand by my earlier suggestion that the RCN might have come out further ahead just by going with commercial standards as they had with the two OSVs that they leased before purchasing the MCDVs.

Having said that I tend to believe that Canada has a propensity to fluff up its budgets in any event. The sooner they get NATO off their backs the better and how better to reach the mythical 2% than by inflating the value of projects. Especially if you can wash Canadian dollars back into Canadian pockets.

 

[Stoker]

It is less the issue of building abroad than the cost differential associated with building domestically. I am a supporter of the NSPS in principle. And I agree that it is a waste of time to rehash decisions made that can't be unmade.

My concern is that one of the reasons often cited for the Canadian cost differential is the use of different standards. Specifically the use of military standards rather than commercial standards. I am aware that when the designs were transferred from the West Coast to the East Coast that it was determined that the entire design would have to be done over from scratch. An acquaintance of mine that worked for a vendor was involved in developing the West Coast pricing estimate. When it went to the East Coast the RCN determined that it wanted a quiet icebreaker and required all the equipment that my acquaintance had priced to be respecced. And the price escalated from there.

If the issue were indeed a matter of standards then I stand by my earlier suggestion that the RCN might have come out further ahead just by going with commercial standards as they had with the two OSVs that they leased before purchasing the MCDVs.

Having said that I tend to believe that Canada has a propensity to fluff up its budgets in any event. The sooner they get NATO off their backs the better and how better to reach the mythical 2% than by inflating the value of projects. Especially if you can wash Canadian dollars back into Canadian pockets.

Are you saying AOPS is built to Military standards and not commercial because that's not the case at all. It does have some military design features but most are commercial. We generally don't use fully civilian ships. As for a quiet icebreaker I guess its all about the definition of a quite icebreaker because its not quiet at all.

 

[Kirkhill]

Are you saying AOPS is built to Military standards and not commercial because that's not the case at all. It does have some military design features but most are commercial. We generally don't use fully civilian ships. As for a quiet icebreaker I guess its all about the definition of a quite icebreaker because its not quiet at all.

If it is not built to military standards then there is even less justification for the Canadian Differential, surely? My associate was supplying equipment for the engine room that is sufficiently unique that if I get more specific it will reveal his company. Suffice it to say the stuff he specced on the West Coast was comparable to cruise ship and BC ferry standards and the stuff on the East Coast had to be up to RN/USN standards. What happened in the event I don't know. We lost touch so I don't know what the final compromises were.

I understand that icebreakers, even AOPVs in ice, are not quiet at all. Not an ideal ASW platform I would have thought.

 

[childs56]

How do you make $1 million dollars into a billion dollars. Give a Military contract to a Canadian company building ships or aircraft.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Shots fired by ISI back at the recent Ottawa citizen article; find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with ISI, but calling Alan Williams an irrelevant subject matter expert is warranted here.



EDIT: Removed article by him who can't be named

Bruce
Staff

 

[Stoker]

Shots fired by ISI back at the recent Ottawa citizen article; find myself in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with ISI, but calling Alan Williams an irrelevant subject matter expert is warranted here.

Edit : Article removed by staff. Against guidelines to mention this author.

Thing is should ISI anticipated the possibility of whatever they were building to be larger than what was specified and made the modifications years ago? Given the fact that Irving will be building warships for many years are the additional docking facilities beneficial to DND and Canada?

 

[suffolkowner]

Thing is should ISI anticipated the possibility of whatever they were building to be larger than what was specified and made the modifications years ago? Given the fact that Irving will be building warships for many years are the additional docking facilities beneficial to DND and Canada?

Somewhere I have an email from O'Connor where he explained that the Irving and Seaspan yards were modernized to do exactly what they were asked to do and that is why ie. the JSS/AOR could not be transferred to Irving etc.. They were also designed to keep the yards busy at their own pace. Stupid then and stupid now.

Also
Ian Mack and Alan Williams should be careful about throwing rocks in the glass houses that they built

 

[Navy_Pete]

Thing is should ISI anticipated the possibility of whatever they were building to be larger than what was specified and made the modifications years ago? Given the fact that Irving will be building warships for many years are the additional docking facilities beneficial to DND and Canada?

Both the combat and non-combat packages had a maximum ship size that we told them to submit a bid with an optimized modern shipyard plan that included the full assembly/launch/finish requirements. So, no, they shouldn't have to have anticipated when we literally told them what to build for. If they had assumed a bigger size in the RFP, it would have increased their costs for absolutely no gain on their end, and probably would have been docked points for being ineffecient at the size of ship it was being assessed against. If we had told them initially to build something that would be suitable for an Arleigh Burke it would have been fine, but meant it would be less efficient for making something CPF sized with a lot of wasted space.

If you tell someone to make a custom facility to do one thing, then make some decisions that makes the widget much bigger, the custom built facility probably won't work. The current CSC is like a super duty duallie truck with a 5th wheel when we thought we'd be getting something like an standard F150, so everything is bigger and heavier. This trickles down to the block level where everything is now undersized. And for the civ eng side of things even the concrete rating may be a factor, as that was all set up for a max load which it may now exceed. For things like crane ratings, increasing that usually involves redoing all the footings and upgrading the structures, so it's really disruptive type of upgrade that is a lot more intrusive and expensive then you would think.

On the flip side, the NSS was needed to give the CSC project resources and urgency to actually get going, but the approximate size for CSC was ballparked in 2005 or so, based on something bigger than the CPFs but within the same kind of envelope. Made perfect sense at the time, but can only crystal ball things so much, and the requirements folks don't necessarily care about the actual implications of some of the things they want.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Somewhere I have an email from O'Connor where he explained that the Irving and Seaspan yards were modernized to do exactly what they were asked to do and that is why ie. the JSS/AOR could not be transferred to Irving etc.. They were also designed to keep the yards busy at their own pace. Stupid then and stupid now.

Also
Ian Mack and Alan Williams should be careful about throwing rocks in the glass houses that they built

lol, that sounds reasonable only because you have no idea why the two shipyards are both built very differently. JSS is way too big for the ISI setup, but Seaspan also isn't set up for something as complex and equipment dense as CSC (at that size, the small CCG ships were really equipment dense), or any of the security requirements for a combatant.

 

[Stoker]

Both the combat and non-combat packages had a maximum ship size that we told them to submit a bid with an optimized modern shipyard plan that included the full assembly/launch/finish requirements. So, no, they shouldn't have to have anticipated when we literally told them what to build for. If they had assumed a bigger size in the RFP, it would have increased their costs for absolutely no gain on their end, and probably would have been docked points for being ineffecient at the size of ship it was being assessed against. If we had told them initially to build something that would be suitable for an Arleigh Burke it would have been fine, but meant it would be less efficient for making something CPF sized with a lot of wasted space.

If you tell someone to make a custom facility to do one thing, then make some decisions that makes the widget much bigger, the custom built facility probably won't work. The current CSC is like a super duty duallie truck with a 5th wheel when we thought we'd be getting something like an standard F150, so everything is bigger and heavier. This trickles down to the block level where everything is now undersized. And for the civ eng side of things even the concrete rating may be a factor, as that was all set up for a max load which it may now exceed. For things like crane ratings, increasing that usually involves redoing all the footings and upgrading the structures, so it's really disruptive type of upgrade that is a lot more intrusive and expensive then you would think.

On the flip side, the NSS was needed to give the CSC project resources and urgency to actually get going, but the approximate size for CSC was ballparked in 2005 or so, based on something bigger than the CPFs but within the same kind of envelope. Made perfect sense at the time, but can only crystal ball things so much, and the requirements folks don't necessarily care about the actual implications of some of the things they want.

Thank you for that excellent answer as most of the forums I seen are crying for Irving to be tarred and feathered. Not saying they don't deserve to on occasion just not for this.

 

[suffolkowner]

lol, that sounds reasonable only because you have no idea why the two shipyards are both built very differently. JSS is way too big for the ISI setup, but Seaspan also isn't set up for something as complex and equipment dense as CSC (at that size, the small CCG ships were really equipment dense), or any of the security requirements for a combatant.

the problem it sets up is that we will forever be in this position. I know why they did what they did I also know why it is wrong. Its why there is no chance of delivering ships in anything close to the timeframe Ian Mack thought of and why 30 yrs from now if the shipbuilding program still continues we will be stuck with single supplier commitments from the same yards and wondering why it costs so much

 

[Kirkhill]

the problem it sets up is that we will forever be in this position. I know why they did what they did I also know why it is wrong. Its why there is no chance of delivering ships in anything close to the timeframe Ian Mack thought of and why 30 yrs from now if the shipbuilding program still continues we will be stuck with single supplier commitments from the same yards and wondering why it costs so much

What happens if the market changes and starts demanding large unmanned cargo carriers and large numbers of smaller, high tech vessels with smaller crews?

 

[Navy_Pete]

@Stoker I would happily kick Irving alongside them but probably a good example of we are paying something that we should be paying for, if we want to get what we selected fitted.

I think MOTs only works if you are taking a design and selecting equipment within whatever parameters it's spec'd for, but one of the tradeoffs with the SPY 7's capability is the impact on stability, so it is what it is. CSC, Hunter class and Type 26 will be similar ships but some different layouts, arrangements etc, so definitely not the same class of ships even using the same base design. The Type 31 is specifically designed for export, and allows for some flexibility, but if you blow through the stability margins with a really big, really top heavy piece of kit can't do much other than make the ship bigger and add extra ballast.

the problem it sets up is that we will forever be in this position. I know why they did what they did I also know why it is wrong. Its why there is no chance of delivering ships in anything close to the timeframe Ian Mack thought of and why 30 yrs from now if the shipbuilding program still continues we will be stuck with single supplier commitments from the same yards and wondering why it costs so much

To be fair to Mr. Mack, they did ignore a lot of his recommendations from when he was part of the core group proposing it, and didn't implement some things he had started after he retired. But sticking to the Target State requirements from the start of NSS for the combat package would have meant they would be unable to build CSC in it's current iteration so I don't think it would have been massively different. His vision had a lot less Canadianization, but the GoC also added a few more layers of bureaucracy as well which slows down everything cumulatively.

 

[childs56]

Thank you for that excellent answer as most of the forums I seen are crying for Irving to be tarred and feathered. Not saying they don't deserve to on occasion just not for this.

Honestly Irving engineering and partners knew full well when they bid on the RFP what was going to happen with the ship being larger. But they went forward. Which is typical of government bidding. That was one of the major concerns with Seaspan was their lack of expansion capabilities of their facilities. Or so was mentioned.
The entire process needs accountability from the start and we have not witnessed this at all. Weill we see 15 ships, I doubt it. The costs are already through the roof and the expectations of even the first ship are years aways. But money will be funneled until it gets cancelled due to cost over runs. the players know this.