New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

[Halifax Tar]

I personally hate how weak we have become. The Trump Administration has exposed some real fissures in the "True North, Strong & Free" narrative.

I'm a patriot and this shit makes me angry.

Me too.

The entire RCN CONOP of the past 60+ years to provide a credible force for projection in to the North Atlantic to keep SLOC open, take on the Soviet/Russian submarine force, and slide in to NATO/American Strike Groups has been put through the shredder the past month.

But we got AOPS! Woohoo!

We've now got the RCMP, with ERT embarked, flying Blackhawks across the largest undefended border in the World. I used to be able to use my driver's license to go across

Wild shift eh ?

We are already on the path. What sovereignty we have is being slowly eroded. I have mentioned before that there is a real danger that Canada will be absorbed by the United States this century. I have advanced my timeline from decades to years....

We've agreed on this before.

 

[Humphrey Bogart]

Having grown up in Windsor with half my family in Detroit, I fondly remember crossing the border with my drivers license and in a few cases, not even that if I had forget it at home and was the passenger.

We've been undergoing an ideological drift away from the United States for decades now. It's going to eventually lead to conflict.

 

[Stoker]

But do you realise that the RCN will be down to the Oriole, and 6 AOPS by the time we have 3, maybe 4 Rivers commissioned?

Are you fine with that?

The Oriole will be gone way before that, hopefully.

 

[Stoker]

We've been undergoing an ideological drift away from the United States for decades now. It's going to eventually lead to conflict.

We did it to ourselves with a weak military and weak leaders.

 

[Halifax Tar]

We did it to ourselves with a weak military and weak leaders.

That's the infuriating part. And that we have had people screaming that this is coming for decades, and no one cared.

 

[Czech_pivo]

We've been undergoing an ideological drift away from the United States for decades now. It's going to eventually lead to conflict.

Thanks to immigration - specifically nations that are NOT traditional US allies - would do that.

 

[captloadie]

We did it to ourselves with a weak military and weak leaders.

There would have only been two ways for us to develop a stronger military. There would have had to of been a direct threat to our nation, ie someone is coming across our borders (not an existential threat to our sovereignty) or we were going to be a credible expeditionary force putting our nose in other peoples business.

Even today with all the talk of becoming the 51st state, is anyone out there suggesting to the public we need to increase our military capacity?

 

[suffolkowner]

this is all a function of the NSS taking to long and starting too late. There is a cost to pay. I dont see how there is anyway to avoid that. There is no way to start up a 4th shipyard to smash out combatants in record time. They would have to start from scratch and be in competition for labour with the rest. Of the 5 original submissions for NSS, 3 are now incorporated into it leaving Heddle and Kiewit on the outside. Perhaps they can be included in some way? I dont know anything about Kiewits capabilities although i have worked with an associated Kiewit company in the past.

I dont see how the we can get a combatant into the water quicker unless we buy a small run offshore

 

[QV]

I personally hate how weak we have become. The Trump Administration has exposed some real fissures in the "True North, Strong & Free" narrative.

I'm a patriot and this shit makes me angry.

The entire RCN CONOP of the past 60+ years to provide a credible force for projection in to the North Atlantic to keep SLOC open, take on the Soviet/Russian submarine force, and slide in to NATO/American Strike Groups has been put through the shredder the past month.

We've now got the RCMP, with ERT embarked, flying Blackhawks across the largest undefended border in the World. I used to be able to use my driver's license to go across

Sadly, I don't think we have reached peak retardation yet...


We are already on the path. What sovereignty we have is being slowly eroded. I have mentioned before that there is a real danger that Canada will be absorbed by the United States this century. I have advanced my timeline from decades to years....

This captures my sentiment. We’ve done this to ourselves. It’s a shame.

 

[Navy_Pete]

this is all a function of the NSS taking to long and starting too late. There is a cost to pay. I dont see how there is anyway to avoid that. There is no way to start up a 4th shipyard to smash out combatants in record time. They would have to start from scratch and be in competition for labour with the rest. Of the 5 original submissions for NSS, 3 are now incorporated into it leaving Heddle and Kiewit on the outside. Perhaps they can be included in some way? I dont know anything about Kiewits capabilities although i have worked with an associated Kiewit company in the past.

I dont see how the we can get a combatant into the water quicker unless we buy a small run offshore

One general issue is there is a global pool of experienced people with shipbuilding, and we already paid a premium to bring in a lot of people from overseas yards. THere is also a shortage of trades, and when there is a boom in pipelines they will go there instead of NSS because the pay is much higher.

Even if we bought turn key fully outfitted small combatants, we still don't have enough people to operate them, or capacity to train people to operate/maintain them.

Expanding NSS and the fleet plans without addressing that is a waste of time. The CAF is generally in a lull for attrition, as there are a lot of people that joined on the 20 year plan but weren't grandfathered when they shifted to 25 year plan, so there is a golden handcuff bomb expected in the 2028-2032 timeframe.

The Naval Experience plan is a great idea, and seems to be working for some trades, but a brand new recruit still does not replace a 25 year person, and because of the general shortages there is going to be a huge loss of knowledge because we don't have the people to double bank people leaving (and they are also frequently doing a few jobs, not just one).

 

[NavyShooter]

As a jobs program, the NSS has succeeded. There is employment, there is visibility, and there is much furor over the new ships that we've now got.

As a program producing warships...NSS has not yet succeeded. AOPS is not a warship. JSS is not a warship.

Unfortunately, time is running thin for the current fleet, and even expensive refits can only stretch the hull life so long. Unfortunately, unlike the CF-18 fleet, there are no Aussie CPF's that we can snap up to extend the life of our hulls.

What I foresee is the AOPS taking prime of place in non-combat deployments to show the flag, I see the CPF's self-divesting over the next few years as the MCDV's are doing, and we'll be down to a handful of Halifax Class ships to fill the hopper of active area deployments.

We needed the CSC's to be hitting the water already...unfortunately, we don't have that.

Sad state that we've gotten to.

 

[suffolkowner]

One general issue is there is a global pool of experienced people with shipbuilding, and we already paid a premium to bring in a lot of people from overseas yards. THere is also a shortage of trades, and when there is a boom in pipelines they will go there instead of NSS because the pay is much higher.

Even if we bought turn key fully outfitted small combatants, we still don't have enough people to operate them, or capacity to train people to operate/maintain them.

Expanding NSS and the fleet plans without addressing that is a waste of time. The CAF is generally in a lull for attrition, as there are a lot of people that joined on the 20 year plan but weren't grandfathered when they shifted to 25 year plan, so there is a golden handcuff bomb expected in the 2028-2032 timeframe.

The Naval Experience plan is a great idea, and seems to be working for some trades, but a brand new recruit still does not replace a 25 year person, and because of the general shortages there is going to be a huge loss of knowledge because we don't have the people to double bank people leaving (and they are also frequently doing a few jobs, not just one).

the construction employment thing is interesting. Working in Victoria or Vancouver or Halifax or Quebec should be more attractive than working out west. But i guess money talks

On RCN personnel situation. Harder nut to crack i gather. Maybe we are going to have to pay off the worst conditioned Halifax class ships instead of pouring money into them? Especially if we dont have people to crew and support them.

That wont help our combatant situation and wont look good from the outside

 

[YZT580]

this is all a function of the NSS taking to long and starting too late. There is a cost to pay. I dont see how there is anyway to avoid that. There is no way to start up a 4th shipyard to smash out combatants in record time. They would have to start from scratch and be in competition for labour with the rest. Of the 5 original submissions for NSS, 3 are now incorporated into it leaving Heddle and Kiewit on the outside. Perhaps they can be included in some way? I dont know anything about Kiewits capabilities although i have worked with an associated Kiewit company in the past.

I dont see how the we can get a combatant into the water quicker unless we buy a small run offshore

So you don't consider Heddle's work on a Kingston replacement as in anyway useful? They have the yards and the manpower to start construction dependent only on advance materiel orders. Wouldn't be modern or cutting edge technology but they could produce

 

[captloadie]

Maybe its recency bias, or I'm not paying enough attention, but it seems like it is the same three or four frigates that end up deploying on operations consistently. I assume that doing hull assessments are something that takes a lot of time, and so we couldn't set a dedicated period of time to assess all the hulls, find the best 6 or 8, and concentrate on keeping them seaworthy? Keep the other 4 or 6 afloat to train on pierside, and cannibalize for parts?

 

[Navy_Pete]

the construction employment thing is interesting. Working in Victoria or Vancouver or Halifax or Quebec should be more attractive than working out west. But i guess money talks

On RCN personnel situation. Harder nut to crack i gather. Maybe we are going to have to pay off the worst conditioned Halifax class ships instead of pouring money into them? Especially if we dont have people to crew and support them.

That wont help our combatant situation and wont look good from the outside

VSY has a really good program for attracting and retraining welders in particular from the pipeline, and job stability is a big selling point, but when they can make 2-3 times as much doing fly ins for month on and month off it's hard to compete. But they did get a lot of guys (and a few women) that were a bit older and were looking for that 9-5, as well as move to supervisor/QC which is a lot easier on the body (especially some of the weird welding postions in a bilge during assembly.)

Davie seems to have an advantage for getting Francos and is the lowest cost of living, Halifax is good for east coasters but the cost of living has really skyrocketed there in the last decade so it's a bit nuts.

Places like Hamilton are getting hit by GTA expansion and inflation to housing prices, so making it a lot harder generally for some of the remaining blue collar places on that 401 corridor to attact/keep people.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Maybe its recency bias, or I'm not paying enough attention, but it seems like it is the same three or four frigates that end up deploying on operations consistently. I assume that doing hull assessments are something that takes a lot of time, and so we couldn't set a dedicated period of time to assess all the hulls, find the best 6 or 8, and concentrate on keeping them seaworthy? Keep the other 4 or 6 afloat to train on pierside, and cannibalize for parts?

The RCN has beaten the absolute shit out of those deployers, and it's the sticker shock on the DWP for ships like FRE and MON that started discussion on retiring them altogether, because we don't have $300-500M for each DWP (or the 3-4 year that will take).

 

[suffolkowner]

So you don't consider Heddle's work on a Kingston replacement as in anyway useful? They have the yards and the manpower to start construction dependent only on advance materiel orders. Wouldn't be modern or cutting edge technology but they could produce

honestly im a little leery of Heddle. I think they are giving Davie a push on the PR stage.
Im still not sure what we are looking for in the Kingston replacement. Is it a direct replacement for the Kingstons or a heavy corvette or light frigate?

 

[suffolkowner]

VSY has a really good program for attracting and retraining welders in particular from the pipeline, and job stability is a big selling point, but when they can make 2-3 times as much doing fly ins for month on and month off it's hard to compete. But they did get a lot of guys (and a few women) that were a bit older and were looking for that 9-5, as well as move to supervisor/QC which is a lot easier on the body (especially some of the weird welding postions in a bilge during assembly.)

Davie seems to have an advantage for getting Francos and is the lowest cost of living, Halifax is good for east coasters but the cost of living has really skyrocketed there in the last decade so it's a bit nuts.

Places like Hamilton are getting hit by GTA expansion and inflation to housing prices, so making it a lot harder generally for some of the remaining blue collar places on that 401 corridor to attact/keep people.

near the end of our business run we had a lot of 50+ guys that just wanted to be home in their bed at the end of the day and knew with 90% certainty what the start and end time of the day was

 

[Stoker]

As a jobs program, the NSS has succeeded. There is employment, there is visibility, and there is much furor over the new ships that we've now got.

As a program producing warships...NSS has not yet succeeded. AOPS is not a warship. JSS is not a warship.

Unfortunately, time is running thin for the current fleet, and even expensive refits can only stretch the hull life so long. Unfortunately, unlike the CF-18 fleet, there are no Aussie CPF's that we can snap up to extend the life of our hulls.

What I foresee is the AOPS taking prime of place in non-combat deployments to show the flag, I see the CPF's self-divesting over the next few years as the MCDV's are doing, and we'll be down to a handful of Halifax Class ships to fill the hopper of active area deployments.

We needed the CSC's to be hitting the water already...unfortunately, we don't have that.

Sad state that we've gotten to.

The Kingston Class are not self divesting. That is a conscious decision by the CRCN to relocate the personnel to other platforms and the money saved in refits reallocated to the Halifax Class.

 

[Halifax Tar]

The Kingston Class are not self divesting. That is a conscious decision by the CRCN to relocate the personnel to other platforms and the money saved in refits reallocated to the Halifax Class.

It's a recognizing of priorities. Non combatants and constabulary vessels are a nice to have. War fighters are a must have.

The CPFs simply must be kept going until replaced. It's a must. Without them we are not a Navy.