Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels (MCDVs)

[YZT580]

Every warship we have, including the new JSS, are capable of sailing up the St. Lawrence river, all the way to the head of the Great Lakes. None can get to Ottawa, which lies on the Outaouais river, an unnavigable river for vessels other than pleasure crafts, and at the end of the rideau canal, which is itself unfit for anything other that pleasure crafts nowadays.

what about the ORCA. Couldn't they navigate the canals?

 

[quadrapiper]

The schools aren't the bottleneck, sailing experience is.

Even with a hypothetical 15 frigate, 12 sub, 6 AOPS, 2 JSS, and gaggle of corvettes fleet?

 

[dapaterson]

Even with a hypothetical 15 frigate, 12 sub, 6 AOPS, 2 JSS, and gaggle of corvettes fleet?

You have to get there from here.

 

[NavyShooter]

So....when I was a Senior Instructor at CFNES, I had 12 MS/PO2 working for me. I could support 6 classes of sailors under training, with 2 instructors per class, giving me a safety person when required for doing training on systems, I had depth to send my instructors on training, help develop CBT, go on Nijmegen training, go on PATA, swap out with a buddy that needed to be landed from a ship for XYZ reason and so on.

When CFNES became NFS(A), that same section went from a P1 + 12 to a P1 + 4.

There was also a Standards cell in S-37 that could support us, with the new NFS(A) construct, the P1 was 'standards.'

So, in the past 9 years there has definitely been a throughput change - please don't pretend that the restructuring of the school didn't have an impact.

The depth of field that we had in the school is gone - the breadth of experience is gone (losing 56% of the CSE Chiefs on the East Coast within a 24 month period will do that...)

The ability to surge trainees through NFS(A) into the Tech Trades is gone. I was there when we pushed through 450+ W Eng JR trainees. The bad part of that was that we pushed them into the fleet to get their OJT work done at the same time as the fleet was undergoing the MLR, and we had minimal sailing platforms, with too many trainees.

Departments were theoretically staffed with 20 x QL5 and above LS-PO2's, with 4 of each of the 5 specialty sub-trades (PO2, MS, LS, LS) Most sections had 3 or 4. At one point we had 16 of these 20 billets filled.

You were theoretically supposed to get 9 trainee billets. In reality, with W Eng, we had 32-35 trainees posted to the ship.

If you have 20 people training 9 JR's, then you've got over 200% supervision - that's a pretty good ratio.

What we really had was 16 people training 32 trainees - which is 50% supervision. That's NOT a good ratio.

That's why the CSE trades lost so much depth of experience - when the PO1 is the only guy in the entire department that knows how to spin a lathe and make parts....that's a bad thing. (Used to be every NWT learned to spin metal...not anymore.)

The concept of W Eng was to push the training from the school to the fleet with a focus on OJT instead of time in classrooms.

So, good luck pushing a bunch of sailors through classrooms with an instructor cadre that doesn't exist anymore.

Unless things have gotten significantly better in the past couple of years...which I hear they haven't.

Bringing a new class of ship online without some sort of plan to deal with training the crews is...dumb.

Yes, the MCDVs will need replacement, and these Corvettes sound like a neat idea, but the program is going to need to incorporate not just building and equipping the ships, but also a program to build a training center for the ships.

We may be at the point where contracting out the technical training might be a viable solution.

 

[KevinB]

You’re never getting subs. So you can cross that off. You will get a bunch of remote systems either with AOPS motherships or a few specific mothership platforms and use them to control/observe the NWP etc.

 

[Furniture]

You’re never getting subs. So you can cross that off. You will get a bunch of remote systems either with AOPS motherships or a few specific mothership platforms and use them to control/observe the NWP etc.

There are a bunch of people in NDHQ that want your contacts...

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

what about the ORCA. Couldn't they navigate the canals?

Possibly. I'd have to get charts out and check depth along the whole canal to make sure an Orca would always have, at the least 60 cm clearance from the bottom and that it could fit under any bridge.

But what would be the point of taking these little vessels all the way around through the Panama canal, through the Gulf of Mexico, up the US Coast, up the St Lawrence river and Seaway to Kingston then up the Rideau canal, just to put a ship in Ottawa that carries only a .50 Cal MG as weapon?

 

[lenaitch]

Possibly. I'd have to get charts out and check depth along the whole canal to make sure an Orca would always have, at the least 60 cm clearance from the bottom and that it could fit under any bridge.

But what would be the point of taking these little vessels all the way around through the Panama canal, through the Gulf of Mexico, up the US Coast, up the St Lawrence river and Seaway to Kingston then up the Rideau canal, just to put a ship in Ottawa that carries only a .50 Cal MG as weapon?

Not according to Wiki specs vs posted allowable canal specs, particularly draught.

A navy ship with a machine gun patrolling between Ottawa and Quebec wouldn't get people chattering at all.

 

[newfin]

You’re never getting subs. So you can cross that off. You will get a bunch of remote systems either with AOPS motherships or a few specific mothership platforms and use them to control/observe the NWP etc.

Maybe we are never getting subs because we will not be able to afford them. We are curently $62 billion dollars in the hole for a single year and a trade war started today. What Trump is going to do to our economy when added to the last 9-10 years of spending like it's someone else's money, will add up to zero subs.

 

[deepblue202]

Maybe we are never getting subs because we will not be able to afford them. We are curently $62 billion dollars in the hole for a single year and a trade war started today. What Trump is going to do to our economy when added to the last 9-10 years of spending like it's someone else's money, will add up to zero subs.

Well we still need to get to %2 for NATO commitment so either we spend it on subs or other thing and at least subs will get us closer to the goal.

 

[quadrapiper]

Possibly. I'd have to get charts out and check depth along the whole canal to make sure an Orca would always have, at the least 60 cm clearance from the bottom and that it could fit under any bridge.

But what would be the point of taking these little vessels all the way around through the Panama canal, through the Gulf of Mexico, up the US Coast, up the St Lawrence river and Seaway to Kingston then up the Rideau canal, just to put a ship in Ottawa that carries only a .50 Cal MG as weapon?

As a test to see how long the crews take to go entirely stir crazy?

Anyone who finishes the run without going batty gets an invite to submarines. Or Alert.

 

[Cloud Cover]

So....when I was a Senior Instructor at CFNES, I had 12 MS/PO2 working for me. I could support 6 classes of sailors under training, with 2 instructors per class, giving me a safety person when required for doing training on systems, I had depth to send my instructors on training, help develop CBT, go on Nijmegen training, go on PATA, swap out with a buddy that needed to be landed from a ship for XYZ reason and so on.

When CFNES became NFS(A), that same section went from a P1 + 12 to a P1 + 4.

There was also a Standards cell in S-37 that could support us, with the new NFS(A) construct, the P1 was 'standards.'

So, in the past 9 years there has definitely been a throughput change - please don't pretend that the restructuring of the school didn't have an impact.

The depth of field that we had in the school is gone - the breadth of experience is gone (losing 56% of the CSE Chiefs on the East Coast within a 24 month period will do that...)

The ability to surge trainees through NFS(A) into the Tech Trades is gone. I was there when we pushed through 450+ W Eng JR trainees. The bad part of that was that we pushed them into the fleet to get their OJT work done at the same time as the fleet was undergoing the MLR, and we had minimal sailing platforms, with too many trainees.

Departments were theoretically staffed with 20 x QL5 and above LS-PO2's, with 4 of each of the 5 specialty sub-trades (PO2, MS, LS, LS) Most sections had 3 or 4. At one point we had 16 of these 20 billets filled.

You were theoretically supposed to get 9 trainee billets. In reality, with W Eng, we had 32-35 trainees posted to the ship.

If you have 20 people training 9 JR's, then you've got over 200% supervision - that's a pretty good ratio.

What we really had was 16 people training 32 trainees - which is 50% supervision. That's NOT a good ratio.

That's why the CSE trades lost so much depth of experience - when the PO1 is the only guy in the entire department that knows how to spin a lathe and make parts....that's a bad thing. (Used to be every NWT learned to spin metal...not anymore.)

The concept of W Eng was to push the training from the school to the fleet with a focus on OJT instead of time in classrooms.

So, good luck pushing a bunch of sailors through classrooms with an instructor cadre that doesn't exist anymore.

Unless things have gotten significantly better in the past couple of years...which I hear they haven't.

Bringing a new class of ship online without some sort of plan to deal with training the crews is...dumb.

Yes, the MCDVs will need replacement, and these Corvettes sound like a neat idea, but the program is going to need to incorporate not just building and equipping the ships, but also a program to build a training center for the ships.

We may be at the point where contracting out the technical training might be a viable solution.

I feel like the RCN should lay up half (or more) of the fleet to be used as training hulls and the crews used as instructors and trainers, or go on training etc. Spend the next 3-5 years schooling staff intensively and recruiting like crazy, with much faster cycling of ship postings to keep and give at sea experience. Pull away from every lengthy deployment for that entire time. Completely rebuild and expand the shore side establishment, thicken it every which way they can.

 

[NearingZenith]

The schools aren't the bottleneck, sailing experience is.

Nothing short of sailing is going to get people experience.

I feel like the RCN should lay up half (or more) of the fleet to be used as training hulls and the crews used as instructors and trainers, or go on training etc. Spend the next 3-5 years schooling staff intensively and recruiting like crazy, with much faster cycling of ship postings to keep and give at sea experience. Pull away from every lengthy deployment for that entire time. Completely rebuild and expand the shore side establishment, thicken it every which way they can.

Does it really need to be as dramatic as laying up half the fleet if the current bottleneck is sea training rather than the schooling? The government is more likely to be convinced of a more modest option like cutting the Indo-Pacific deployments back to 2 frigates a year instead of the current 3. That frees up a frigate each year that can be dedicated to sea training.

To make it more palatable to the government, an AOPV each year could be sent to do Trans-Pacific tours as a substitute for the 3rd frigate. The AOPV can stay outside the first island chain and visit CPTPP countries to use defence diplomacy to promote our trade links with the CPTPP countries in support of Canada’s new priority to diversify trade away from the US.

 

[NavyShooter]

When the Canadian Army did an 'Ops Tempo Pause' during the Afghanistan War, that was an Army only thing. The RCN did not pause. The Navy never said "no" or - "we need a break".

The thing about it is, if the RCN stops saying 'yes' to deployments, and stops sending ships when the GOC requests/requires it, then the GOC is going to stop funding the RCN.

The RCN's poor stewardship of personnel, ships, and training is coming home to roost.

The pier-head jumping of sailors who are Fit Sea from ship to ship can only last so long...and when a PO2 ends up in a shore billet after multiple tours...then gets told that they're looking to post him to sea again after less than 11 months in the job, well, can you blame him for putting in resumes regardless of him only having 14 years complete? Like....really....he's looking at the future and realizing that he's got another 11 years of jumping whenever the Navy says Jump before he gets a pension.

There's no easy fix for where the Navy's at today. The blood has been well and truly squeezed from the stone.

Losing the MCDV's will put pressure on the Frigates and the AOPS to show the flag.

Maybe we should look at buying a couple of ships (Morseby/Anticosti?) to flesh out the fleet in the near term to give some sailing space and reduce the pressure on the bigger ships? Something to show the flag at least.

Buy another dozen Orcas for the East coast? Probably actually too small for East Coast use, but buying something different would make the training and maintenance problems even bigger.

 

[quadrapiper]

When the Canadian Army did an 'Ops Tempo Pause' during the Afghanistan War, that was an Army only thing. The RCN did not pause. The Navy never said "no" or - "we need a break".

The thing about it is, if the RCN stops saying 'yes' to deployments, and stops sending ships when the GOC requests/requires it, then the GOC is going to stop funding the RCN.

The RCN's poor stewardship of personnel, ships, and training is coming home to roost.

The pier-head jumping of sailors who are Fit Sea from ship to ship can only last so long...and when a PO2 ends up in a shore billet after multiple tours...then gets told that they're looking to post him to sea again after less than 11 months in the job, well, can you blame him for putting in resumes regardless of him only having 14 years complete? Like....really....he's looking at the future and realizing that he's got another 11 years of jumping whenever the Navy says Jump before he gets a pension.

There's no easy fix for where the Navy's at today. The blood has been well and truly squeezed from the stone.

Losing the MCDV's will put pressure on the Frigates and the AOPS to show the flag.

Maybe we should look at buying a couple of ships (Morseby/Anticosti?) to flesh out the fleet in the near term to give some sailing space and reduce the pressure on the bigger ships? Something to show the flag at least.

Buy another dozen Orcas for the East coast? Probably actually too small for East Coast use, but buying something different would make the training and maintenance problems even bigger.

Orcas on the Lakes and St Lawrence, if getting tossed around with the fish boats doesn't seem like good training? Might be able to use it as security maskirovka to deal with the idiot to the south, too.

 

[dapaterson]

Oriole is the ready duty ship.

Carry on.

 

[NearingZenith]

Losing the MCDV's will put pressure on the Frigates and the AOPS to show the flag.

Maybe we should look at buying a couple of ships (Morseby/Anticosti?) to flesh out the fleet in the near term to give some sailing space and reduce the pressure on the bigger ships? Something to show the flag at least.

Buy another dozen Orcas for the East coast? Probably actually too small for East Coast use, but buying something different would make the training and maintenance problems even bigger.

Might as well borrow and operate one or both of the CCG AOPS for a few years then. Avoids introducing a new class into the RCN.

We’ve yet to hear that the design is finalized or about a build contract being signed so if the CSC is behind schedule and needs a bit more time, maybe a 7th AOPV could be rushed ordered for the RCN to keep Irving busy in the meantime and provide the RCN with another hull to make up for the loss of the MCDVs while not requiring a large crew. This might be the last chance for the RCN to get an additional new ship until the 2030s when the CSC and proposed CMMC come. Any borrowed CCG AOPS can be returned to the CCG when the RCN’s 7th AOPV arrives.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The concept of operations envisioned is for continental defence and link into NORAD. Strike length VLS packages on smaller hulls that are distrubuted gives better coverage.

It was described as three ships leave harbour, take up station a good distance from each other, link together and provide a networked area air defence region (I'm very much shortening the explaination here).

This wasn't envisioned as going to the Red Sea, that's the CSC's job. Its more being missile trucks on smaller distrubuted platforms for BMD or somesuch.


Absolutely. I'm just posting what the RCN's ask is going to be.

You be better off converting/using as a base civilian hulls for the BMD role and use the Corvettes to provide a ASW screen

 

[Colin Parkinson]

We do some training in the UK now for the MSEOs, and is about 20-30 a year, at the same place they train their Martechs (HMS Sultan). Fantastic training, and may be an option for small batches, but we also used to have the program at Munn that generated 30ish Martechs a year through their existing program so probably a better option.

There is a lot of OJT for that trade, so at the end of the day you need bunks on ships going to sea, and there are theoretically no training bunks on RCD. There was discussion about turning some of the broken down CPFs into a training squadron but with the GoC's ops tempo we don't have hulls to spare. Occasionally do DOJT sails for classes of Martechs but that takes a lot of resources and is a big demand on the MSEDs to support.

Can a chunk of that training be done early on by civilians and retirees and then the navy does the rest and classified stuff?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Oriole is the ready duty ship.

Carry on.

Our new Great Lakes OPV