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New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

  • Thread starter Thread starter GAP
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The Commander, Military Personnel Command, is the only CAF nuclear entity, with a Slowpoke reactor in the basement of RMC.

An analyst writing a TB submission years ago joked while finalizing "OK, as long as there's not a nuclear reactor in the basement, I think we're good." "Well, actually..."
 
@Underway, great answer; surfacing through the ice is basically icebreaking without the benefits of gravity on all those tonnes bearing down to break the ice.

I can't even imagine what would happen to a conventional sub trying to emergency surface through ice, but guessing it would be really bad, and cause a lot of damage even if they did punch through. Subs are dangerous enough at the best of times.

All a moot point anyway, we won't get nuke boats, and can't really properly support conventional subs. They provide a lot when they sail, but the infrastructure and resources for the limited operations they do is significant, while we already struggle to crew them without having additional nuclear safety training.
I don’t think anyone actually designs non Nuke boats for ice breaching.
Simply because they don’t have the size or power anyway that strengthening the hull isn’t going to do much for an emergency surface under pack ice.

But don’t worry Canada the USN has you covered there, regardless if you want it or not.
 
Took me a bit to find and get answers to some of these questions. Please bear with me as I develop the discussion.

First, a submarine needs to always be able to surface quickly in case of an emergency. Any minor issue can quickly become a major one if you can't get to the surface. I think given the history of RCN submarines we can all understand that.

In order to surface a submarine through ice without power requires 100's of tons of reserve buoyancy. Basically the submarine must be more buoyant than its own full weight plus the 100's of tons of ice it needs to push through. What that means in practical terms is that any submarine that wants to surface through ice either needs a thin piece of ice not weighing much or it needs to power through the ice. DE do not have the power to break through thicker ice when running on batteries (or likely diesel's either).

The next thing is that all submarines have two hulls (or three in some cases). The inner or pressure hull which is designed to withstand the pressure of the dive and the outer or "casing" hull which is not watertight and provides a hydrodynamical shape for the submarine. The casing is used to mount equipment, like sonars, which if attached directly to the pressure hull could cause unnecessary stress. The pressure hull is much heavier than the casing and generally made of high grade steel.

The Victoria class casing (as an example) is made of fibreglass, stainless steel and other materials and coated in anecoic tiling. A Victoria class trying to break through ice would severly damage the casing, rip off sonars, destroy and damage the mast, periscope and some antenna. This would be particularly damaging should the submarine should it hit an ice inclusion which might even crack the pressure hull.

Given this information DE submarines (of any nation) should never go under ice. Even with AIP. Its way to dangerous. Near ice is fine. Nuclear boats go under ice because their casings are often made of steel, titanium etc... which can withstand much more damage ice would cause while surfacing. They have enough power to blast through the ice in an emergency. And they have more reserve buoyancy given their size.
The only thing I know about subs breaching ice is what is posted on YouTube, but none of it looks very thick or clear 'blue' ice. It is clearly all about buoyancy and mass - pure vertical motion.
 
The only thing I know about subs breaching ice is what is posted on YouTube, but none of it looks very thick or clear 'blue' ice. It is clearly all about buoyancy and mass - pure vertical motion.
There are some older SSBN videos of Ohio class boats breaching some pretty gnarly ice.
When doing some training exiting boats I asked the crew what the thickest ice they had breached and was dumbfounded at the thickness.

There are some decent pictures in the below link of some Ohio breaches but all the thickness stuff is classified.

 
Just musing about geopolitical events. The western countries interested in the pacific need at least one vessel each that is frigate fast, has a armoured belt above and below the waterline, some light weapons and whole host of remotely controlled fire monitors. Semi-protected propulsion. These vessels to play bumper boats with the Chinese CG and fishing vessels.
 
I just drove over the Macdonald Bridge to Halifax and it seems the infilling of the Harbour by the Shipyard is underway with some Irving ( of course ) civilian Construction cranes doing work at the South end of the Assembly hall.
 
My apologies for reproducing his article in full. I tried to look for the highlights but this article is dense and I thought it all relevant to this site and its discussions.


John Ivison: The uncontrolled military program plundering the public purse, desperate for adult attention​

Canada’s defence spending is an embarrassment, yet the massively expensive Canadian Surface Combatant program appears to have next to no cost controls

John Ivison
Published Oct 04, 2023 • Last updated 12 hours ago • 6 minute read

....​

Informed sources suggest one reason for the delays and cost overruns is the amount of contracted changes taking place under the direction of the Canadian Navy.

The CSC program was pitched as a relatively low-cost, off-the-shelf replacement for the Halifax class of warships, with a high level of Canadian industrial content.

Yet, over time, the Navy has asked for changes that have frequently replaced Canadian-built content with U.S. technology, the net effect being the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars to Canadian industry and an increase in overall cost.

As one source put it, any naval architect will tell you that once you change more than 15 per cent of a ship, you should design a new one, “and we are well past that number.”

It is public information that the Canadian-developed CM330 combat system, part of the original bid, was replaced by the U.S. navy’s AEGIS system and Lockheed Martin’s SPY 7 radar technology. It is known that MacDonald Dettwiler’s Electronic Warfare system was substituted with Northrop Grumman’s Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program.

These may be logical changes in a world where interoperability with the U.S. navy is crucial and surface ships are increasingly susceptible to anti-ship missiles, as the sinking of Russia’s Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, illustrated.

But the Canadian frigates have gone from being interoperable to being interchangeable, with the U.S. controlling the intellectual property.

In that case, why not buy the U.S. navy’s Constellation-class guided-missile frigate off the shelf, for one-third of the price the Canadian taxpayer is likely to pay?

The U.S. paid a fixed price of about US$1.66 billion a ship; using the Parliamentary Budget Office’s latest estimate, Canada will pay up to $5.6 billion per ship.

The government has just handed Irving Shipbuilding an additional $463 million to adapt its shipyard to build a frigate whose final weight is, in the words of DND, “evolving, as the design matures.”

DND says its cost estimate remains $50-60 billion, but conceded in a statement to National Post that “given the inherent complexities … cost estimate revisions are expected.” One thing is certain, they won’t be coming down.

I asked the departments of National Defence and Public Services and Procurement Canada for a list of all the changes to the ships that have been approved or pending.

DND said the “operational requirements” of the CSC have not changed. When asked to list separate equipment changes, the military’s entire communications apparatus must have broken down, because silence was the loud reply.

Why does any of this matter? It matters because Canada’s defence spending is an embarrassment to the country, yet we have one massively expensive program where there appear to be next to no cost controls.

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, made the point at the organization’s summit in Vilnius that two per cent of GDP spending on defence is the floor, not the ceiling. Canada spends about 1.3 per cent and, according to leaked Pentagon intelligence documents, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has told this country’s allies that Canada will “never” reach two per cent — a level that would require an additional $75 billion of expenditure by the end of 2027.

The government is in the midst of a defence policy review and has committed to buying 88 F-35 fighter jets, the 15 frigates and enhancing Norad.

But it is extremely doubtful that there is enough money in the fiscal framework to pay for it all — the 2018 20-year spending plan allocated $108 billion on an accrual basis (costed over the lifespan of the asset) or $164 billion on a cash basis, while the Parliamentary Budget Office estimates the warships alone could cost $85 billion.

The Liberal government has now asked the military to reduce its spending by $900 million over the next four years.

The chief of the defence staff, Wayne Eyre, says there’s no way to do that without it having an impact on an organization that is already stretched too thin, with around 16,000 positions still unfilled.

The new defence minister, Bill Blair, denies that defence spending is being cut, saying it has increased and will continue to increase.

But he admitted that some investments might have to be delayed to accommodate spending reductions.

Perhaps he should get a grip of the frigate program, where he might find a billion dollars just by cancelling some unnecessary changes.

Richard Fadden, a former deputy minister of national defence and an ex-national security adviser, testified before the House defence committee last week on the procurement issue. He said that there were many cultural and bureaucratic reasons for its notorious inefficiency under Conservative and Liberal governments. He said there are often conflicting interests between politicians and the defence industry, with a risk-averse public service in the middle, trying to balance the desires of the military and industry with the political imperative of regional development. He said in specific circumstances, regional development objectives should be suspended in support of urgent defence acquisitions.

But the observation that was most pertinent to the CSC program was that the military is always pushing for “gold-plated solutions” and the civilian side rarely says no.

“One of the things that used to drive me to distraction when I was in Defence was the number of change orders across the board. And I blame myself and my civilian colleagues for not pushing back harder on the generals and admirals,” he said.

Fadden referred to the Independent Review Panel for Defence Acquisitions within the department, which is meant to validate military purchases.

But he said within the military there is “a sort of gentleman’s understanding” that if the Air Force wants something, the Army is not going to criticize it.

“It’s very difficult to get an effective review as you work your way up the system.

“A lot of it is a desire to do good but there is a lack of discipline on the department side and on the military side in my view,” he said.

The Department of Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) is the government’s central purchasing agent and is meant to balance military and industrial demands.

I asked PSPC if it is confident Canadian industrial participation levels will be maintained on the CSC program, in light of all the changes from Canadian to American technology. The economic benefits to Canada are meant to be equal to the value of the winning bid.

“Work continues in this regard, as the project progresses through its major stages,” it said in a statement. Which is not a “yes.”

I also asked PSPC if it has a veto on any changes suggested by the military? “PSPC plays an important challenge function,” it said. “Awarding and amending contracts requires the agreement of DND, ISED (Innovation, Science and Economic Development) and PSPC, as well as the shipyard.” Which, again, is not a “yes”.

The bottom line is that we have one program that is sucking up almost the entire military capital budget, with next to no adult supervision.

At the same time, the war in Ukraine suggests warships are becoming obsolete and vulnerable to low-cost anti-ship missiles.

Would Canada’s security be better served by reducing the number of frigates on order, as Australia and the U.K. have decided to do, and then redirecting the savings to buy a new fixed-price submarine fleet off the shelf from South Korea or some other foreign supplier?

Why is Canada so convinced that it needs 15 big ships, when the price is increasingly unaffordable.

As the Irving yard in Halifax gets ready to build the first of its Theseus ships, there are lots of questions and not many answers forthcoming from a government that said it would make information open to all Canadians by default.



jivison@criffel.ca
 
I wonder what the plan is for Davie? Are the to build the second Polar icebreaker or start building the 6 mediums first?
be better to start small and make their mistakes on the mediums plus they could get into a rhythm of construction much as Irving did with the AOR. Oh and leave it to Seaspan to discover the errors
 
be better to start small and make their mistakes on the mediums plus they could get into a rhythm of construction much as Irving did with the AOPV. Oh and leave it to Seaspan to discover the errors
Is that what you mean?
 
I have also noticed recently that the IRVING metal fabracation facility in Dartmouth is undergoing a massive expansion with ELLIS DON construction working on the site. Getting ready for CSC. cheers.
 
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