Navy_Pete said:
You do realize that the commercial container ship is much simpler then a navy supply ship that carries fuel, food, ammunition etc to supply a task group? As soon as you add in the equipment to resupply other ships, apply the navy's damage control reqs, include self defence items for when it goes in harms way and all the other normal stuff navies do that containers hips don't, the costs increase significantly. Using commercial ships as a benchmark isn't a great idea as they are simply not built to the same standards. As soon as anything has to be shock/blast resistant, it will cost more.
Canada is part of the nato countries developing the Naval Ship code, an equivalent to the various class societies for warships. To give you an idea though, for a lot of areas, the minimum threshold starts at or above class society/international regulation (ie SOLAS) requirements and then goes from there. It's like going from a Ford Ranger with a tow hitch to big dualie when you look at the parts and structure. Steel is thicker, there is more strucutre, more watertight compartments etc and all that comes with an associated cost.
For the actual warships, costs don't take long to add up when you include ammunition costs with the ship (missiles are millions each, so a 48 or 96 cell launcher system costs a lot to fill). The launchers themselves costs a lot, then you add in fire control radars, some kind of combat suite, all the other sensors etc warships can easily cost a few billion depending on accounting.
Don't think anyone will be able to know the cost of JSS or AOPs until the design is solidified, then you can do real cost estimates based on the equipment onboard. Don't doubt the PBO did their homework, but the project could easily cost a lot more or a lot less depedning on the design. Also, if they include taxes in the costs, it artificially inflates costs to taxpayers as all of that is going right back to the government. You have to take all these comparisons with a grain of salt as you can't compare costs directly unless you know all the details of what was and wasn't included.
Yes I do realize that adding bulkheads adds cost. I do realize that adding pumps adds cost. I have no problem with adding costs to the project to add capabilities to a hull. I cited the simple cost of building a ruddy great barge that can drive itself through the water at 25 knots with a crew of 13. A barge big enough that it requires a pretty big wave to make it rock and the supplies a lot of free deck between a helicopter and the edge of the deck. I don't see RAST gear on Invincible and she's only a tenth the size of these monsters.
I am not suggesting that we buy monsters (although that would make for an interesting strategy) but I am suggesting that $200,000,000 for a Triple E, or $300,000,000 for a Huitfeldt, or $70,000,000 for a Svalbard, or $400,000,000 for a Doorman does start to suggest an order of magnitude cost for a simple vessel. And 1 Billion dollars ain't it.
Yes weapons cost millions. But the ships don't. The missiles that we will be using on the CSCs, and possibly even the Mk41 launchers, are in all likelihood the same ones we are using on the Halifaxes and the Iroquois. The radar and sonar suites will in all likelihood be new but look at the Fridtjofs, the F100s and the 7 Provincien to get a sense of that cost. Take $200,000,000 for the hull off of the 7 Provinces and that still keeps the weapons and sensor suite at $500,000,000. In the Fridtjof's case the same suite seems to be under $200,000,000.
I would note, with respect to ship size, that bigger ships are more survivable and that one of the rationales for a skinny crew in Euro ships, according to a US Coast Guard article that I attached in the Modest Proposal thread, was that even 6000 tonne ships were essentially one hit wonders and it wasn't worth planning to handle two strikes simultaneously.
Consequently, my view, Canada is better off putting a large number of relatively large, relatively simple platforms in the water with relatively small crews.
