New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

[Stoker]

I been to the US many times, the majority has been work related at some US Naval base or another or the standard US port visit. Been on many joint operations with US Naval forces. We were always treated well and honestly we took more than we gave back in many cases. In a few months time the first contingent will be going to the AEGIS school for training on the Spy 7 for the CSC. We have many personnel in the CAF working in the states, at shipyards, bases, NORAD etc etc. We have very large purchases pending on US equipment that we need.

What I have been seeing is many people now wanting Canada to pull out of these purchases which would delay some projects by years, to me that's disturbing if this happens. Soon to be PM Carney said today that he wants our defence dollars spent in Canada in regards to NATO expendtures because according to him 80% of what we spend benefit the US so it very well may happen. This is honestly spinning out of control, while I don't the US will invade us, I can very well see us pulling out of anything joint with the US either on operations or procurement. Unsettling times.

 

[Stoker]

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.

Not saying its not but with a multiyear refit taking upwards of 600M and then back to Halifax for another couple of years trying to get it out the door, the 30M saved per year is peanuts in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Czech_pivo]

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).

But we've got to start somewhere.

To use a famous quote - The Journey of a Thousand Miles starts with a Single Step - (a wink to those on Team Red who are enamored with a certain country).

We've got to start somewhere doing something and putting money/resources into Recruitment/Training/Retention is that first step.

Second step is the old, 'If you build it, they will come.'

Third step - a proper, modeled after the US's version, the setting up, permanently, of a Defense Appropriates Committee across all recognized parities in the H of C. This does NOT means that the Min of Defense is a part of this Committee. Ensuring that voting/decisions made by this new Committee would cut across party loyalties would be the cornerstone of its success.

Forth step - stop, immediately, the nonsense of calling out what the cost until end of life for that program is. Its absolute crap and it does NOTHING but scare the shit out of the uninformed public. When you buy a house for say, 500k (good luck with that!) - your Realtor doesn't say to you, 'Ok Jimmy, you're 29yrs old and are in good health, don't smoke, exercise moderately and have no known health conditions, according to the Actuarial charts you should live to be 84yrs old. So, the total cost for this house is 500K plus another 550k for the total maintenance package of home ownership from now until you turn 84yrs old. All end, you are paying 1.05 million. Are you good with the cost of 1.05 million? If yes, please sign here.'

 

[Czech_pivo]

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.

Hamilton and all areas further out to Niagara Falls are all screwed by of the expansion of all day GO train service. More and more people in the Mississauga, Oakville area will move further out to take advantage of the 'cheap' housing and the fact that they only need to go into downtown Toronto 2, maybe 3 days a week now.

 

[deepblue202]

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.

I been to the US many times, the majority has been work related at some US Naval base or another or the standard US port visit. Been on many joint operations with US Naval forces. We were always treated well and honestly we took more than we gave back in many cases. In a few months time the first contingent will be going to the AEGIS school for training on the Spy 7 for the CSC. We have many personnel in the CAF working in the states, at shipyards, bases, NORAD etc etc. We have very large purchases pending on US equipment that we need.

What I have been seeing is many people now wanting Canada to pull out of these purchases which would delay some projects by years, to me that's disturbing if this happens. Soon to be PM Carney said today that he wants our defence dollars spent in Canada in regards to NATO expendtures because according to him 80% of what we spend benefit the US so it very well may happen. This is honestly spinning out of control, while I don't the US will invade us, I can very well see us pulling out of anything joint with the US either on operations or procurement. Unsettling times.

Not saying its not but with a multiyear refit taking upwards of 600M and then back to Halifax for another couple of years trying to get it out the door, the 30M saved per year is peanuts in the grand scheme of things.

I say when and if we purchase 12 KSS-III submarines we add four or six of these:

South Korea kicks off FFX Batch-IV frigate program - Naval News

I bet they would have them built before our first River Class Destroyer is ready.

​

 

[Halifax Tar]

Not saying its not but with a multiyear refit taking upwards of 600M and then back to Halifax for another couple of years trying to get it out the door, the 30M saved per year is peanuts in the grand scheme of things.

It has as much to do with crewing as it does cash.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Finally a carrier we could afford.....

But do you realize that the intent is not to push ships through at a rapid pace, but to string the construction out as long as possible to keep the yards open, the skilled employees employed, and way to funnel federal funds through the regions? From the very beginning, this wasn't about building ships for the CAF or the CCG, it was about rebuilding and retaining a ship building capacity.

The down side is it will always be more expensive than foreign ship yards, which means there will never be international demand to build in our yards.

With ongoing investment, our yards might become competitive enough to produce specialized ships, like the JSS/AOPs/icebreakers/Hero Class/buoytenders and perhaps the MCDV replacement for smaller countries.

The global tariff fight might be good for us as small countries look to distance themselves from the US in regards to large purchases. We do need to look at more vertical integration of Canadian products into the ship building sub component stream.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

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 AOP's is already doing that with diplomatic outreach seeming to be a big part of our expedition to the Antarctic with HMCS Margaret Brooke. This might pay dividends as Canada becomes to the western leader in icebreaking tech, the NSS will have us output 29 icebreaking hulls. That will be leaps and bounds beyond what anyone else in the West can/will build.

 

[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

I can see Heddle or Davie building a more direct replacement for the Kingstons but the Vard Vigilance seems to want to do a lot

24 CAMM in Exls
40mm gun
NSM
Mk70
6000 km range
hull mounted sonar

how big is this ship and what is its crew?

I say when and if we purchase 12 KSS-III submarines we add four or six of these:

South Korea kicks off FFX Batch-IV frigate program - Naval News

I bet they would have them built before our first River Class Destroyer is ready.

​

I was thinking something more like the Daegu class eliminated from the Australian program, maybe pay off a couple Halifax and use some of the weapons and systems

3600 tonne displacement
122 m L, 14m B
57mm gun
NSM
16 VLS
SeaRam/CIWS

 

[Stoker]

It has as much to do with crewing as it does cash.

Well 57% of available sailors in Halifax is unfit, so we could probably start there.

 

[dapaterson]

The Oriole will be gone way before that, hopefully.

After a nuclear war, Canada will consist of a handful of cockroaches, Oriole, 431 Squadron and RMC.

 

[dapaterson]

Forth step - stop, immediately, the nonsense of calling out what the cost until end of life for that program is. Its absolute crap and it does NOTHING but scare the shit out of the uninformed public. When you buy a house for say, 500k (good luck with that!) - your Realtor doesn't say to you, 'Ok Jimmy, you're 29yrs old and are in good health, don't smoke, exercise moderately and have no known health conditions, according to the Actuarial charts you should live to be 84yrs old. So, the total cost for this house is 500K plus another 550k for the total maintenance package of home ownership from now until you turn 84yrs old. All end, you are paying 1.05 million. Are you good with the cost of 1.05 million? If yes, please sign here.'

Strong disagree. Lifecycle costing is necessary.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Strong disagree. Lifecycle costing is necessary.

Proper messaging is also important. Lifecycle costing is important, but should be buried into the documents where the bean counters can find them, but are not in the summary or front pages. If a new ship costs 500 million to build each, then that should be the price clearly stated, not 1.5 billion. The lifecycle costs should also reflect the difference between the new platform and the old. Since we are running CFP's now, the CSC will cost (made up figures) 10% more than a CFP for the first 5 years and then save 10% a year for the cost of retaining a CFP for the next 10-15 years.

Then people will be able to see a real cost benefit of the ship, nobody does what the government does when buying, not even most companies. When I explain them that the price includes toilet paper for the next 20 years, they can't believe it.

 

[Rainbow1910]

Simple buy the land from Irving, spend ten billion establishing a top of the line modern shipyard and make it a nationally run strategic asset. Counts towards our 2% NATO goal and makes us more self reliant. Start building the Kingston Class replacement and anything else we need. We should be doing the same thing for ammunition.

It makes little sense to me to spend tens of billions of entirely taxpayers dollars to create a nationally run shipyard when we've just spend untold years and billions of dollars to bring Seaspan and Irving back up to capacity. Unless you start actively taking away work from Seaspan, Davie and Irving to eventually give to this yard when it is up and running in a decade, this yard will have nothing to do and will close just like the original Irving yard in NB within short order. If you start splitting work away from the other existing yards, you put them at risk when we've just got done spending billions in bringing those yards up to snuff themselves. If the NSS had wanted to do this, they should have done it years ago. This makes little sense to pivot to now, too many yards and not enough work for them to survive.

Please tell me that you realise that there is a great need for an increase in throughput. Our current timelines are woefully wrong and will crush us in the end.

There is a need but there is no realistic way to get that increase without undercutting the shipbuilding industry that we've spent over a decade and billions of dollars to redevelop. All of our programs are already underway, the RCN needs to prioritize keeping their shit together while it gets delivered. Pivoting away from these timelines is far more damaging than sticking to them.

I was thinking something more like the Daegu class eliminated from the Australian program, maybe pay off a couple Halifax and use some of the weapons and systems

Seems like a good way to introduce another platform into the RCN and potentially put the overall River class numbers at risk when some idiot politician looks and says "this is good enough, you guys are getting these instead!"

I can see Heddle or Davie building a more direct replacement for the Kingstons but the Vard Vigilance seems to want to do a lot

24 CAMM in Exls
40mm gun
NSM
Mk70
6000 km range
hull mounted sonar

how big is this ship and what is its crew?

There is two big issues with CMMC.

1.) The RCN hasn't even progressed the program past the identification stage, it might as well not exist and isn't funded in the slightest.
2.) The current NSS terminology limits any ships built by a yard that isn't Irving, Davie and Seaspan must be 1,000t light load or smaller, this significantly undermines the viability of the platform for no reason and makes the ideas of a "small combatant" increasingly unlikely when the roles of the Kingston need replacement as well.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Strong disagree. Lifecycle costing is necessary.

Understand the need for lifecycle costing, I work in the the finance industry. What I disagree is the 'total package' being hammered to the general public for each and every purchase we undertake. No one does this in real life - no one - so is there really a need to do this for CAF purchases?

 

[dapaterson]

Understand the need for lifecycle costing, I work in the the finance industry. What I disagree is the 'total package' being hammered to the general public for each and every purchase we undertake. No one does this in real life - no one - so is there really a need to do this for CAF purchases?

Yes. There is a need to cost the lifecycle. And to effectively communicate the difference between acquisition cost and lifecycle cost.

 

[NavyShooter]

Here's your new Toyota Tacoma.

List price is $46,995, the options you've bought bring it up to $52,450, with taxes that makes it $60,317, but we're going to let you know up front that it needs an A-Service every 4 months ($150) and a B-service every 6 months ($350), with brake replacement every 40,000km ($600), tires every 30,000km ($1000), and a mandatory undercoating refresh every 2 years ($300)

You're expecting to operate the vehicle for 10 years with an estimated annual mileage of 25,000/year, so that's going to run you an extra $9500 for the basic maintenance A/B service and undercoating over the life of the vehicles. You're going to need $4800 in brakes over that time, plus $8000 in tires. So that'll be another $25,645.

Plus fuel costs, which is estimated at 32,509.75 liters of fuel at a cost of $54,941 at current prices ($1.69)

Add that all up, and the cost to operate a Tacoma for 10 years is $140,903.

If we factor in the cost of paying for a driver for the vehicle for 10 years at $60,000 per year, then we're really looking at a cost of $740K.

We're selling the public the $740K cost...and that's what the media runs with.

Should we sell it as a "$74K/year" cost instead?

If we spread out the $60 Billion (or whatever it is now) for the CSC's over 30 years, that's actually only 2 billion a year, which, is almost reasonable.

Ish.

 

[GR66]

Doesn't help with the Shipbuilding Strategy but perhaps an alternate course of action would be to buy a small combatant Kingston-class replacement offshore. As each one comes in use it to replace one of the Halifax-class frigates. We keep the same number of combatants but reduce the crewing requirements. As each River-class comes online we then replace one of the Kingston-class with one of the corvettes.

BAE's corvette design (already in service with Oman as the Khareef-class) looks like it checks a bunch of the boxes we'd want. Uses the same SMART-S Mk2 radar as the Halifax-class - can you re-use a radar on a new hull? We could similarly re-use the 57mm and Harpoon launchers in place of the 76mm and Exocets. Flight deck is rated for 12t. Complement is 100 so less than half of a Halifax-class but over double what they are proposing for the Kingston-class replacement (which I don't think is at all realistic considering all the capabilities they are also asking for).

Biggest issue is that it doesn't seem to have a towed-array sonar or a multi-mission bay which are both key asks for the new design. The containerized sonar might be able to work but a multi-mission deck would require a re-design which defeats the purpose of trying to get something quickly "off the shelf".

 

[Rainbow1910]

Doesn't help with the Shipbuilding Strategy but perhaps an alternate course of action would be to buy a small combatant Kingston-class replacement offshore. As each one comes in use it to replace one of the Halifax-class frigates. We keep the same number of combatants but reduce the crewing requirements. As each River-class comes online we then replace one of the Kingston-class with one of the corvettes.

BAE's corvette design (already in service with Oman as the Khareef-class) looks like it checks a bunch of the boxes we'd want. Uses the same SMART-S Mk2 radar as the Halifax-class - can you re-use a radar on a new hull? We could similarly re-use the 57mm and Harpoon launchers in place of the 76mm and Exocets. Flight deck is rated for 12t. Complement is 100 so less than half of a Halifax-class but over double what they are proposing for the Kingston-class replacement (which I don't think is at all realistic considering all the capabilities they are also asking for).

Biggest issue is that it doesn't seem to have a towed-array sonar or a multi-mission bay which are both key asks for the new design. The containerized sonar might be able to work but a multi-mission deck would require a re-design which defeats the purpose of trying to get something quickly "off the shelf".

Multi-mission decks are seemingly the future and allow for a serious amount of variety in how ships can be configured for specific missions, any design that does not have that as a primary design feature is not worthy of consideration. The 45 personnel requirement of the CMMC currently is a bit crazy but there is serious requirements needed to be personnel efficient given the issues across the force.

If Canada seriously wants to get a Kingston replacement that is also a combatant and on a reasonable timeframe, they'll effectively need to get an exemption and procure them abroad. The 1,000t light load NSS cutoff artificially limits what can be done domestically to a pretty big degree. Kingston will be retired for like 6+ years before the current planned CMMC schedule is met, which is already insanely optimistic.

 

[suffolkowner]

It makes little sense to me to spend tens of billions of entirely taxpayers dollars to create a nationally run shipyard when we've just spend untold years and billions of dollars to bring Seaspan and Irving back up to capacity. Unless you start actively taking away work from Seaspan, Davie and Irving to eventually give to this yard when it is up and running in a decade, this yard will have nothing to do and will close just like the original Irving yard in NB within short order. If you start splitting work away from the other existing yards, you put them at risk when we've just got done spending billions in bringing those yards up to snuff themselves. If the NSS had wanted to do this, they should have done it years ago. This makes little sense to pivot to now, too many yards and not enough work for them to survive.


There is a need but there is no realistic way to get that increase without undercutting the shipbuilding industry that we've spent over a decade and billions of dollars to redevelop. All of our programs are already underway, the RCN needs to prioritize keeping their shit together while it gets delivered. Pivoting away from these timelines is far more damaging than sticking to them.


Seems like a good way to introduce another platform into the RCN and potentially put the overall River class numbers at risk when some idiot politician looks and says "this is good enough, you guys are getting these instead!"


There is two big issues with CMMC.

1.) The RCN hasn't even progressed the program past the identification stage, it might as well not exist and isn't funded in the slightest.
2.) The current NSS terminology limits any ships built by a yard that isn't Irving, Davie and Seaspan must be 1,000t light load or smaller, this significantly undermines the viability of the platform for no reason and makes the ideas of a "small combatant" increasingly unlikely when the roles of the Kingston need replacement as well.

big concern with any light frigate offer is the take away from the Rivers and the NSS is limiting on the tonnage. Maybe Heddle can build modules for Davie or Seaspan and they assemble?

the other concern is the state of the Halifax's and how to baby them until their replacement comes online. But that could be 20 yrs from now
We already are catching flack for our capabilities

What do we do?

1. Build another JSS/AOR
2. continue to and commit to fast tracking SSK purchase
3. warship gap ???