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Canadian Surface Combatant RFQ

A question - how close does this look to the 'current' RCN plan:


I'm tempted...
Well main mast, guns and number of VLS are different, and all the antennae are different. We don't have CWIS on River Class either.

But overall if you print the hull and the superstructure (minus the mast) then you're 80% of the way there.
 
Well main mast, guns and number of VLS are different, and all the antennae are different. We don't have CWIS on River Class either.

But overall if you print the hull and the superstructure (minus the mast) then you're 80% of the way there.
I have reached out to the designer to see what they are willing to 'adjust' for me.

We'll see what happens.
 
I'm not sure how right that claim is, regarding the River class having its radar located higher up in the vessel than their Australian and British counterparts.

This isn't a perfect comparison image wise but I thought it was relevant, so I grabbed each of the designs in reasonably modern renders and placed them alongside each other. Type 26 (bottom) has its Type 997 Artisan radar system mounted at the highest point of the mast, this is possible due to the lightweight nature but lacklustre performance of the system. River (middle) has its SPY-7 arrays mounted above the main superstructure but nowhere near as high as the Type 26. Hunter has three array types, L-band (largest and lowest), S-Band (smaller and highest on the mast) and X-Band (smallest, placed between the L-Band panels).

Type 26 has the highest array by height, while River is generally tied with Hunter on height with regards to their highest arrays, although Hunter's highest arrays at S-Band.

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Not navy but I do enjoy the star destroyer aesthetic of the RN design.
 
Doesn't Alan Williams have anything else to do?


Bottom line? We're procuring ships for two-to-three times their real costs​

In addition to the ships' more than doubled price tag, delivery will take twice as long. Worse, to date no one has been held accountable for this fiasco.​

by: Alan Williams

On June 28, Defence Minister Bill Blair announced that construction will begin on a test module for the first Canadian Surface Combatant. Irving Shipbuilding Industries, its stakeholders, and employees have cause to celebrate. For Canadians and members of the Royal Canadian Navy, not so much.

On June 27, I had the opportunity to participate as an "external expert" in an embargoed technical briefing on the minister's upcoming announcement. Present were Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, commander of the Canadian Navy; Troy Crosby, assistant deputy minister, materiel, at the Department of National Defence; and Simon Page, assistant deputy minister, defence and marine procurement, at Public Services and Procurement Canada.

While their presentations were well-scripted and intended to provide reassurance on the way ahead, I came away with feelings of increased apprehension and concern. In particular, alarm bells were raised regarding readiness to begin construction, the requirements, the costs, and the schedule.

Perhaps the most damning revelation to me occurred when, in response to my question, the officials acknowledged that construction of the ships was commencing before the ship design was finalized. Last year, U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall commented that his service is doing everything it can to avoid the kinds of "acquisition malpractice" he said is still dogging the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter when it comes to the competition for its new stealth sixth-generation crewed tactical jet. In particular, he said that contrary to past practice, he will insist upon a firm design from the outset.

Equally-if not more-relevant is the highly critical report just released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office regarding the three-year scheduling delay of the Constellation-class frigate program. The report highlighted the unstable design as one of the principal causes of the reported delivery delay, and noted that at one point the Constellation design shared about 85 per cent commonality with the original FREMM design, but the alterations have brought that commonality down to under 15 per cent.

It is much more time consuming and expensive to modify a ship once it is built than it is to build it right from the start. Sadly, instead of learning from these mistakes, Canada decided to replicate them.

In the past, I have pointed out that while there were many fatal flaws in the CSC procurement process, one of the flaws most directly responsible for the spiralling costs was the release of the statement of requirements (SOR) to industry in a preliminary rather than a final version. Provided with the opportunity to assist in the formulation of the SOR and absent any real cost controls, costs have more than tripled since the initial estimates. In an attempt to address this requirements issue, Topshee emphasized early in his comments that only one capability, Co-operative Engagement, has been added since the outset of the program. Upon my questioning, however, he acknowledged that built into the process was a "reconciliation" phase that was specifically designed to allow for iterative changes to the requirements. It's impact on costs and schedule have been dramatic.

When I questioned Crosby on the costs of the CSC, he stuck to DND's 2019 estimate of $56-$60-billion to acquire the CSC, and approximately $200-billion for their life cycle costs. Frankly, it should strain anyone's credulity to believe that the minister of national defence obtained approval to proceed with this announcement with a cost estimate that is five years old. Much more likely is the reality that with all-too-common arrogance and disdain for the public's interest, the real costs were withheld. It is noteworthy that in 2022, the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer pegged the acquisition costs at over $80-billion, and the life cycle costs at over $300-billion.

Lastly, I was shocked when the DND and PSPC officials nonchalantly announced that the scheduled delivery date for all 15 CSC was now 2050. This timeframe is nearly a decade longer than the original target. Instead of one-to-two ships being built each year, we can now expect one ship every 16 months.

Bottom line: we are procuring ships for two to three times their real costs. and taking twice as long to get them delivered. To make matters worse, to date no one has been held accountable for this fiasco.
Alan Williams is a former assistant deputy minister, supply operations service at PWGSC (now PSPC) and assistant deputy minister, materiel at DND.
The Hill Times
 
On June 28, Defence Minister Bill Blair announced that construction will begin on a test module for the first Canadian Surface Combatant. Irving Shipbuilding Industries, its stakeholders, and employees have cause to celebrate. For Canadians and members of the Royal Canadian Navy, not so much.

On June 27, I had the opportunity to participate as an "external expert" in an embargoed technical briefing on the minister's upcoming announcement. Present were Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, commander of the Canadian Navy; Troy Crosby, assistant deputy minister, materiel, at the Department of National Defence; and Simon Page, assistant deputy minister, defence and marine procurement, at Public Services and Procurement Canada.
I feel bad for the people at that technical briefing that had to endure his questioning.
 
What is the rationale behind the timeline of 25 years from start of construction to the completion of the 15th ship?
That’s 25 years, last ship in the water 20ish years after the first.
Given the state of the world and where we might be going, that timeline likely should be looked at.

Is it trained ship builders?
Is it yard space?
Is it trained crew availability?
Is it money?
Is it a prioritization of trying to maintain a ship building capability for strategic readiness purposes at the expense of nearer term operational capability because the RCN has no faith that there will be a successor to the River class before 2070?

Either way Canada has 30 years to fix any of those above issues if we wanted to.
 
What is the rationale behind the timeline of 25 years from start of construction to the completion of the 15th ship?
That’s 25 years, last ship in the water 20ish years after the first.
Given the state of the world and where we might be going, that timeline likely should be looked at.

Is it trained ship builders?
Is it yard space?
Is it trained crew availability?
Is it money?
Is it a prioritization of trying to maintain a ship building capability for strategic readiness purposes at the expense of nearer term operational capability because the RCN has no faith that there will be a successor to the River class before 2070?

Either way Canada has 30 years to fix any of those above issues if we wanted to.
Irving Shipyard has a bottleneck in how many ships it can simultaneously work on, the River class is significantly larger than anything they've built previously and they've had to adjust. They aren't able to meaningfully work at full pace on multiple vessels at one time, so the process takes longer. The National Shipbuilding Strategy is also entirely built around keep domestic work around in shipyards so there is not a repeat of the Halifax class and Saint John's Shipyard, so work is paced properly to ensure long term feasibility.
 
The ship yard constraints are valid in the immediate context obviously, but they can be worked on if it’s important to get more hulls in the water faster in the late 2030s and 2040s.

I am fundamentally unconvinced that dragging out production of the River Class will actually lead to long term sustainability of the strategic capability. At best it can delay the same results as post Halifax class builds but unless there is a significant overlap of designing the next class while building the River Class the plan will likely still fail.
 
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Irving Shipyard has a bottleneck in how many ships it can simultaneously work on, the River class is significantly larger than anything they've built previously and they've had to adjust. They aren't able to meaningfully work at full pace on multiple vessels at one time, so the process takes longer. The National Shipbuilding Strategy is also entirely built around keep domestic work around in shipyards so there is not a repeat of the Halifax class and Saint John's Shipyard, so work is paced properly to ensure long term feasibility.
Spend the dollars to reopen Saint John or somewhere else in NS. Have the foresight to open a government owned yard.
 
Spend the dollars to reopen Saint John or somewhere else in NS. Have the foresight to open a government owned yard.
They aren't going to reopen Saint John only to throw the Halifax yard under the bus, Irving and the rest of the yards won't stand for a government owned yard cutting their monopoly off at the knees as well. The city of Halifax would scream bloody murder the whole way to the bank with the jobs disappearing into thin air. It is likely the best option long term but it is utterly unrealistic considering how most of the parties involved are happy with the current way things are run.

The ship yard constraints are valid in the immediate context obviously, but they can be worked on if it’s important to get more hills in the water faster in the late 2030s and 2040s.

I am fundamentally unconvinced that dragging out production of the River Class will actually lead to long term sustainability of the strategic capability. At best it can delay the same results as post Halifax class builds but unless there is a significant overlap of designing the next class while building the River Class the plan will likely still fail.
There is no working on the size constraints of the Irving Shipyard in Halifax as it is restrained by geography, you wouldn't be able to realistically fit enough infrastructure there to double or triple the likely rate of production. I am somewhat unconvinced as well that the boom and bust cycle will be broken however, one cannot expect the Govt and Shipyards to willfully undermine themselves by speeding through work that is set to take them decades.
 
They aren't going to reopen Saint John only to throw the Halifax yard under the bus, Irving and the rest of the yards won't stand for a government owned yard cutting their monopoly off at the knees as well. The city of Halifax would scream bloody murder the whole way to the bank with the jobs disappearing into thin air. It is likely the best option long term but it is utterly unrealistic considering how most of the parties involved are happy with the current way things are run.


There is no working on the size constraints of the Irving Shipyard in Halifax as it is restrained by geography, you wouldn't be able to realistically fit enough infrastructure there to double or triple the likely rate of production. I am somewhat unconvinced as well that the boom and bust cycle will be broken however, one cannot expect the Govt and Shipyards to willfully undermine themselves by speeding through work that is set to take them decades.
Of course not but its a solution. There are also other more viable solutions as well. NAD has a sizable footprint in Dartmouth, sell it to Irving and use it as an additional area to build ships or modules. End of the day do we want these ships built faster or not.
 
I am somewhat unconvinced as well that the boom and bust cycle will be broken however, one cannot expect the Govt and Shipyards to willfully undermine themselves by speeding through work that is set to take them decades.

I would not characterize finishing the Rivers in the mid 2040s and transitioning to the next class as either speeding or undermining. Those terms only apply if there is no forethought on what follows the River Class.

I understand the limits of project staff but as a comparison the US is currently working on figuring out what a 6th generation fighter is going to look like while still introducing the 5th generation. The aircraft manufacturers have confidence that it won’t be a boom bust cycle.

I would be curious to see what Irving and Seaspan think is going to happen once the current ship classes are all built, not the for public consumption ideas but the hard behind closed doors very senior assessments. Never going to happen but it would be interesting.
 
I would not characterize finishing the Rivers in the mid 2040s and transitioning to the next class as either speeding or undermining. Those terms only apply if there is no forethought on what follows the River Class.

I understand the limits of project staff but as a comparison the US is currently working on figuring out what a 6th generation fighter is going to look like while still introducing the 5th generation. The aircraft manufacturers have confidence that it won’t be a boom bust cycle.

I would be curious to see what Irving and Seaspan think is going to happen once the current ship classes are all built, not the for public consumption ideas but the hard behind closed doors very senior assessments. Never going to happen but it would be interesting.
With 25 years start to finish I would think that hull 1 of the next class would at the very least have had the keel laid down. The same applies for the coast guard ships. Disposing of the oldest vessels when they hit the 25th year should result in getting the most out of each craft whilst not wasting money on trying to get another 5 years out of them. It is Davie that is going to need boosting. Either they slow build or they have to develop a significant off-shore market: one that Finland has had tied up for decades.
 
What is the rationale behind the timeline of 25 years from start of construction to the completion of the 15th ship?
That’s 25 years, last ship in the water 20ish years after the first.
Given the state of the world and where we might be going, that timeline likely should be looked at.

Is it trained ship builders?
Is it yard space?
Is it trained crew availability?
Is it money?
Is it a prioritization of trying to maintain a ship building capability for strategic readiness purposes at the expense of nearer term operational capability because the RCN has no faith that there will be a successor to the River class before 2070?

Either way Canada has 30 years to fix any of those above issues if we wanted to.
I think the constraint is the first in class going, hopefully there is a shorter learning curve based on the experience gained from AOPs and the knowledge coming out of the UK and AUS projects. I think BAE is expecting 9 yrs on the first type 26
 
The 20 year build time frame is a feature not a bug.

It takes 4-5 years to build a ship. Year 3.5 they start the second ship. This means every 1.5 years they are launching a new ship. 15 ships. So 20 years plus the 5 initial gives a 25 year build cycle.

This was always the plan. This is a good thing as it means no boom bust build for the RCN and industry.

Also his stupidity of commenting on building a ship without finalizing the design is disingeuous. You can start building when your about 80% complete the design. Given the time frames and all things being equal, you have 3-4 years to fix the last 20%. And a lot of that last 20% is electronic systems not structural.

Also you start building on things that are finalized like engine room spaces, the bow, and fluid tanks.
 
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