GR66
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Wishful thinking?
New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy
- Thread starter GAP
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Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
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I generally a fan of Seaspan, but I think they are stretching the truth on the CCG vessels they built are "Ice breakers" Perhaps ice strengthened.
www.seaspan.com
In the midst of designing and building 21 icebreaker vessels, Seaspan Shipyards welcomes the formation of the “ICE Pact” - Seaspan
July 11, 2024 – North Vancouver, BC – Seaspan Shipyards welcomes the formation of the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE Pact), the trilateral partnership between Canada, Finland and the United States, designed to enhance collaboration on building best-in-class Arctic and polar icebreakers as...
www.seaspan.com
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Yea, just like the AOPS program, when the RCAF buys MH-60s to replace the Cyclones, they'll by a couple for the CCG as well.
Right?
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Polar Class 4 is an icebreaker if the Coast Guard considers the ones Davie are building icebreakers which are equivalent.I generally a fan of Seaspan, but I think they are stretching the truth on the CCG vessels they built are "Ice breakers" Perhaps ice strengthened.
In the midst of designing and building 21 icebreaker vessels, Seaspan Shipyards welcomes the formation of the “ICE Pact” - Seaspan
July 11, 2024 – North Vancouver, BC – Seaspan Shipyards welcomes the formation of the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort (ICE Pact), the trilateral partnership between Canada, Finland and the United States, designed to enhance collaboration on building best-in-class Arctic and polar icebreakers as...
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Isnt Davie building 1 Polar Icebreaker PC2 and 6 Medium Icebreakers PC3?
edit
and the MPV's from Seaspan are PC4(like you said) so more than the AOPS?
In the end a modern fleet of
2 PC2 Polar Icebreakers
6 PC3 Medium Icebreakers
15 PC4 MPV
8 PC4/5 AOPS
Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
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They edited their release. Previously it said they had already delivered 3 ice breakers and working on a fourth. I think some newbie PR person equated CCG vessel with "ice breaker" and after publication the error was pointed out to them.
OceanBonfire
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Acceptance of new naval tugs end of August:
www.lookoutnewspaper.com
Big news for the Royal Canadian Navy! - Pacific Navy News
Big news for the Royal Canadian Navy! The first Naval Large Tugs, Haro and Barkerville, have arrived at CFB Esquimalt! With 60 tonnes of pulling force, they'll enhance harbor operations, towing, and firefighting for the RCN's fleets. Official acceptance coming end of August!
www.lookoutnewspaper.com
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Much more powerful I notice than the older tugs. That's nice to see, means they will be more use in worse weather, and they'll easily be able to handle JSS and CSC.Acceptance of new naval tugs end of August:
Big news for the Royal Canadian Navy! - Pacific Navy News
Big news for the Royal Canadian Navy! The first Naval Large Tugs, Haro and Barkerville, have arrived at CFB Esquimalt! With 60 tonnes of pulling force, they'll enhance harbor operations, towing, and firefighting for the RCN's fleets. Official acceptance coming end of August!
Colin Parkinson
Army.ca Myth
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I feel old, I remember when the current tugs came into service to replace the Ville Class tugs.
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They also come with better response to fires; no foam but they'll have two large capacity fire monitors that should have enough reach for bigger ships like JSS or some of the large cargo carriers coming into Halifax for cooling the hull.
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While an issue down here I thought this was more topical to post here.
www.navytimes.com
Navy warship production in worst state in 25 years. What’s behind it?
Labor shortages are one of many challenges that have led to backlogs in ship production at a time when the Navy faces expanding global threats.
www.navytimes.com
Oldgateboatdriver
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Where is Rosie when you need her!
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I think that highlights the major differences between then and now, as fairly unskilled labor could be used to then to pump out volume - now the techniques used require significant training and technology to build ships (and other war materials).
FSTO
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Cdr Salamander's MIDRATS podcast had a guest who has looked at the issue of design creep on the Anglosphere shipbuilding crisis. FREMM was to be a basic copy and paste for the USN and it appears they learned nothing from the LCS fiasco.While an issue down here I thought this was more topical to post here.
Navy warship production in worst state in 25 years. What’s behind it?
Labor shortages are one of many challenges that have led to backlogs in ship production at a time when the Navy faces expanding global threats.
A Constellation of Challenges, with Emma Salisbury - on Midrats!
the big risks with great expectations
cdrsalamander.substack.com
Emma Salisbury
Franken-FREMM: How the Constellation Class Became a Monster
By Emma Salisbury
behindthefront.substack.com
SO? Since WW2 we have been telling our children that trade jobs are for the stupid. University is the place to be to get a degree in whatever arts programme is the flavour of the day. So they have been spending a further 4 years in studies without acquiring any life skills. (with exceptions granted) Back in the 60s, our high schools had Science technology and trades courses which provided an introduction to skills. These vanished in the 80s partially because the teachers unions balked at having non-degree equipped experts i.e. a mechanic or an electrician gracing the sacred halls of academia and teaching skills courses. The NSS up here has enabled the yards to pair with community colleges and offer skills training while the long term contracts are enabling the yards to over some degree of stability. The final encouragement will be when we as parents start encouraging kids to get their hands dirty with their choice of careers. When we do that, the differences between then and now as far as hirings are concerned will be irrelevant.
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My point was there are vary different degree of skills from them to now. Riveting isn’t exactly a major skill - I mean it is something that can be done (even hot riveting) after a few hours of instruction.
I think the expectations were that technology not manual labors was the future. We had shop class in my Highschool till at least 1989, other high schools had automotive classes and some other skills.
I’ll note down here, there is Agri-Science and some automotive stuff in the High Schools still - apparently we are backyards in my area of VA
There are still a number of CoOp courses down here like what was had when I was in HS in Ottawa in the late 80’s.
But my main point was the difference between unskilled labor and skilled labor requirements- which you highlighted below
No disagreement - the point is regardless of where those skills are taught they take a degree of time to learn and become viable to work with.
There are a lot of good reasons to get a college/university degree — but the key in any population is to find a stable blend of the required skills to sustain the nation. In most of the Western World you are correct that the balance was significantly out of whack since WW2/Korea and has gotten worse.
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I would take a different view from the LCS, the LCS was more an example of the Navy being forced into a ship they didn’t want due to the role - and thus the lackluster oversight of the designs and thought process into them.Cdr Salamander's MIDRATS podcast had a guest who has looked at the issue of design creep on the Anglosphere shipbuilding crisis. FREMM was to be a basic copy and paste for the USN and it appears they learned nothing from the LCS fiasco.
A Constellation of Challenges, with Emma Salisbury - on Midrats!
the big risks with great expectations
Emma Salisbury
Franken-FREMM: How the Constellation Class Became a Monster
By Emma Salisbury
The Fremm was pitched as a copy paste - but the USN then decided it needed a lot more.
Both have issues, but I’d argue that the issue are almost 180 degrees apart in their causation.
FSTO
Army.ca Fixture
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Have a listen to what Emily has to say. The roots of the issues plaguing the warship design and production are very common.
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The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Let me take a 'layman' or 'dumb sailor' look at things....
The perfect was the Zumwalt - but they're too damn expensive. The realization that the Zumwalt would be too expensive probably drove some of the desire to get the 'cheap' LCS ships.
Looking at history, the USN of the 80's had a bunch of the old 1085 Knox class ships, with a whole pile of OHP frigates, and a few Ticos.
The Knox were expensive to build and maintain.
The Ticos were STUPID expensive.
The OHPs were cheap, but decent.
They retired the Knox's and started replacing them and the OHP's with the ABurkes, but the AB program with every ship being basically a scaled down Tico with AEGIS made the AB's expensive.
They realized they needed a replacement for the Ticos - and that would have been the Zumwalts, but they're too damn expensive, so they just kind of kept the ABs running, but decided to look for something cheap like the OHP's, and that was going to be the LCS.
Problem is, the LCS's weren't as capable as the OHP, and weren't as durable, so the backbone of the fleet has become the somewhat expensive Arleigh Burke.
The FREMM was supposed to be a something like the OHP in terms of cost/capability, but someone in all of their infinite wisdom decided that the FREMM needs to be basically an AEGIS lite, so they had to change the design a lot.
Reality is, the USN needs a bunch of OHP or equivalent pumped out to replace the failed/ing LCS Program, and they have pursued the perfect with the FREMM instead of pursuing the 'good enough'.
Instead of having a bunch of ships, they're going to go through a period of retiring ships (Ticos and the older ABs that need to stand down) before they can decide on what type of ship they actually need and pump out 50-70 of them at a rate of about 4-5 per year in a couple of yards.
But...what do I know.
Let me take a 'layman' or 'dumb sailor' look at things....
The perfect was the Zumwalt - but they're too damn expensive. The realization that the Zumwalt would be too expensive probably drove some of the desire to get the 'cheap' LCS ships.
Looking at history, the USN of the 80's had a bunch of the old 1085 Knox class ships, with a whole pile of OHP frigates, and a few Ticos.
The Knox were expensive to build and maintain.
The Ticos were STUPID expensive.
The OHPs were cheap, but decent.
They retired the Knox's and started replacing them and the OHP's with the ABurkes, but the AB program with every ship being basically a scaled down Tico with AEGIS made the AB's expensive.
They realized they needed a replacement for the Ticos - and that would have been the Zumwalts, but they're too damn expensive, so they just kind of kept the ABs running, but decided to look for something cheap like the OHP's, and that was going to be the LCS.
Problem is, the LCS's weren't as capable as the OHP, and weren't as durable, so the backbone of the fleet has become the somewhat expensive Arleigh Burke.
The FREMM was supposed to be a something like the OHP in terms of cost/capability, but someone in all of their infinite wisdom decided that the FREMM needs to be basically an AEGIS lite, so they had to change the design a lot.
Reality is, the USN needs a bunch of OHP or equivalent pumped out to replace the failed/ing LCS Program, and they have pursued the perfect with the FREMM instead of pursuing the 'good enough'.
Instead of having a bunch of ships, they're going to go through a period of retiring ships (Ticos and the older ABs that need to stand down) before they can decide on what type of ship they actually need and pump out 50-70 of them at a rate of about 4-5 per year in a couple of yards.
But...what do I know.
Rainbow1910
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There is a few issues plaguing the Constellation class frigate program, although I am not sure if I would hang my hat on the design changes being the worst or even most damaging one.
The program was given an incredibly optimistic and frankly unrealistic initial timeline, which they've proceeded to hoist themselves with now that reality has set in. There was dramatic amounts of pressure to get a design picked, modified and rolling that was built domestically. The bigger issue in all of this is skilled shipyard manpower availability. The yard building the ships is facing major personnel shortages/retention (something like 500~ white/blue collar employees across the work force?) due to the fact they are still building the LCS alongside an LCS derivative frigate for the Saudi's, so there simply isn't the resources to really throw at the Constellations right now. There hasn't been the funding given to the yard to really get the ball rolling in this department and the second planned yard has seemingly had little progress thus far.
I've mentioned it elsewhere but it is common for ships to have fabrication of parts and construction itself start before the design is completed, same for modifications to the design ongoing throughout parts of the building process. The Arleigh Burke class destroyers alongside the Zumwalt class destroyers are recent examples, with the first 5 ships of the former being built with the design at 50% completion while the latter started construction at 80% design completion. As long as you can keep things reasonably under control, there is no catastrophic issues with doing this. I question if many of the people casting aspersions have looked into the original program requirements instead of what defence reporters put out in the media. The USN wanted a baseline design that was proven and in service to use as a STARTING POINT so they could work in their own equipment in order to provide interoperability with the existing US fleet/its equipment. They were never going to just take the Italian FREMM, file the serial numbers off and call it a day, that is simply fiction. Risk and potential issues from large amounts of high capability and untested technology was being mitigated through the use of an existing base design and existing or pre-tested equipment fitted, not by limiting modifications as much as possible to retain commonality.
Similar to the CSC program, whatever design which won the US FFG(X) program was inevitably going to see considerable design changes to make it a relevant combatant in our changing modern and future battlefields.
Look above at an figure on module design percentage complete on USS Constellation as of October, 2023. Notice how the most important sections of the hull, the machinery spaces, are the most mature compared to sections like the stern and mast. Even the least developed parts of the design AS OF OCTOBER 2023 are at the same level as the first 5 Burke class destroyers upon initial construction. The most important sections of the design and the sections that will be worked on first have generally the most advanced design progress. The sky is very much not falling in this aspect.
Design changes are also expected considering that outside of baseline civilian (and NATO warship standards I believe?) standards, each nation generally has their own specifications to what they want ships and their systems built to. Nations modifying foreign designs to incorporate fundamental national standardized things that NEED to be changed like the jump from European 230v to US standard 120v electrical is not abnormal. This includes actual hull construction and damage control standards but can vary tremendously down to things as seemingly minute as the layout and square footage of berthing/accommodation spaces. This is before you get into the changes from nation to nation that each Navy might want, but not necessarily need. The drop in commonality from the baseline FREMM design to Constellation of 85% to 15% seems horrid but when you realize that the French and Italian variants of the FREMM only have a 15% commonality with each other, it puts things into a far less dire perspective.
Claims of unplanned weight gain eating into growth margins of the ship are partially false as well. The US has specified that 300t of additional weight is being added to the ship to bring it up to USN survivability standards, the commonly cited GAO report does not take this specified and planned for weight into consideration and tacks it onto the category of "unplanned" as the tonnage figure they use was released prior to this additional weight being announced as already worked into the design. There is a lot of doom and gloom circulating from people skimming the GAO report and either quoting it out of context or taking it at face value without addressing the facts. It is the GAO's job to criticize US procurements and while they are generally good at their job and a valuable asset, this constant negativity clouds their judgement at times and can produce slanted or misleading reports.
There is an excessive amount of doom and gloom surrounding the Constellation class right now, the low cost figures and over optimistic timeline set expectations incredibly high and those same expectations have caused people to absolutely lose their minds when things aren't going entirely smoothly.
The program was given an incredibly optimistic and frankly unrealistic initial timeline, which they've proceeded to hoist themselves with now that reality has set in. There was dramatic amounts of pressure to get a design picked, modified and rolling that was built domestically. The bigger issue in all of this is skilled shipyard manpower availability. The yard building the ships is facing major personnel shortages/retention (something like 500~ white/blue collar employees across the work force?) due to the fact they are still building the LCS alongside an LCS derivative frigate for the Saudi's, so there simply isn't the resources to really throw at the Constellations right now. There hasn't been the funding given to the yard to really get the ball rolling in this department and the second planned yard has seemingly had little progress thus far.
I've mentioned it elsewhere but it is common for ships to have fabrication of parts and construction itself start before the design is completed, same for modifications to the design ongoing throughout parts of the building process. The Arleigh Burke class destroyers alongside the Zumwalt class destroyers are recent examples, with the first 5 ships of the former being built with the design at 50% completion while the latter started construction at 80% design completion. As long as you can keep things reasonably under control, there is no catastrophic issues with doing this. I question if many of the people casting aspersions have looked into the original program requirements instead of what defence reporters put out in the media. The USN wanted a baseline design that was proven and in service to use as a STARTING POINT so they could work in their own equipment in order to provide interoperability with the existing US fleet/its equipment. They were never going to just take the Italian FREMM, file the serial numbers off and call it a day, that is simply fiction. Risk and potential issues from large amounts of high capability and untested technology was being mitigated through the use of an existing base design and existing or pre-tested equipment fitted, not by limiting modifications as much as possible to retain commonality.
Similar to the CSC program, whatever design which won the US FFG(X) program was inevitably going to see considerable design changes to make it a relevant combatant in our changing modern and future battlefields.
Look above at an figure on module design percentage complete on USS Constellation as of October, 2023. Notice how the most important sections of the hull, the machinery spaces, are the most mature compared to sections like the stern and mast. Even the least developed parts of the design AS OF OCTOBER 2023 are at the same level as the first 5 Burke class destroyers upon initial construction. The most important sections of the design and the sections that will be worked on first have generally the most advanced design progress. The sky is very much not falling in this aspect.
Design changes are also expected considering that outside of baseline civilian (and NATO warship standards I believe?) standards, each nation generally has their own specifications to what they want ships and their systems built to. Nations modifying foreign designs to incorporate fundamental national standardized things that NEED to be changed like the jump from European 230v to US standard 120v electrical is not abnormal. This includes actual hull construction and damage control standards but can vary tremendously down to things as seemingly minute as the layout and square footage of berthing/accommodation spaces. This is before you get into the changes from nation to nation that each Navy might want, but not necessarily need. The drop in commonality from the baseline FREMM design to Constellation of 85% to 15% seems horrid but when you realize that the French and Italian variants of the FREMM only have a 15% commonality with each other, it puts things into a far less dire perspective.
Claims of unplanned weight gain eating into growth margins of the ship are partially false as well. The US has specified that 300t of additional weight is being added to the ship to bring it up to USN survivability standards, the commonly cited GAO report does not take this specified and planned for weight into consideration and tacks it onto the category of "unplanned" as the tonnage figure they use was released prior to this additional weight being announced as already worked into the design. There is a lot of doom and gloom circulating from people skimming the GAO report and either quoting it out of context or taking it at face value without addressing the facts. It is the GAO's job to criticize US procurements and while they are generally good at their job and a valuable asset, this constant negativity clouds their judgement at times and can produce slanted or misleading reports.
There is an excessive amount of doom and gloom surrounding the Constellation class right now, the low cost figures and over optimistic timeline set expectations incredibly high and those same expectations have caused people to absolutely lose their minds when things aren't going entirely smoothly.
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