The next installment (moving on to major warships; illustrations next time) ...
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Meandering Towards the Canadian Surface Combatants
For the Standing Committee on Defence Procurement (DPAMD) [1], the RCN's Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) programme came under intense scrutiny. The Committee found that the Director of Naval Requirements was unable to answer convincingly as to how these 15 x planned destroyers were to further Canadian foreign policy goals. Indeed, with tasks performed as components of US Navy Task Forces winnowed from the list, it became very difficult for the DNR to specify specific roles for these future River class destroyers. Nor, with the cessation of RCN cooperation with the USN, could a rationalisation be provided for the CSC's hugely expensive and US-controlled AEGIS radar system.
The contracting and sub-contracting of the CSC programme also presented a big target for DPAMD. Although the destroyers were to be built mainly at ISI Halifax, design control and selection of CSC sub-contractors was the domain of US-owned Lockheed Martin Canada (LMC). With a recent CAD 8 billion contract signed to finally get CSC construction underway, Cabinet had begun to get cold feet.
Back in January 2015 - a decade into the official Canadian Surface Combatant project, CSC acquisition costs - ie: construction and outfitting of the 15 x new destroyers - was estimated at CAD 26 billion (2025 CAD 33.8B). So, 3 x CSC should cost 6.76B (in 2025 CAD). But, by late 2024, the cost of building the first three CSC hulls had reached CAD 22.2B. Estimates for the entire CSC build were as high as CAD 80B but, including infrastructure improvements, costs could reach an eye-watering CAD 871.7 billion.
Programmes as big as the Canadian Surface Combatant procurement invariably take on a life of their own. Indeed, they can become 'The Living Dead'. But viewed from outside of the NDHQ 'Puzzle Palace', the process can be difficult to understand. With such phenomena, it often helps to take an historical overview of the entire programme.
Fuster-Cluck - 'Right hand, this is left hand, ack'
Canada's old Iroquois class air defence destroyers were expected to retire in 2005. Maritime Staff's original replacement plan was CADRE (the Command & Control and Air-Defence Capability Replacement project). CADRE combined Area Air Defence with a much-coveted Command and Control capability (although planners never seemed to ask whether those two roles might come into conflict at sea). There were two main pushes for CADRE. One was fixated on the US Navy's DD(X) concept - which finally emerged as the troubled Zumwalt class destroyer. [2] The other was based on a stretched-hull development of the then-new Halifax class frigate as proposed by Saint John Shipbuilding. The second batch Halifax were always intended to have longer hulls and that formed the basis of the Saint John 'Province' class submission. [3]
Normally, a definition phase as dragged out as that of CADRE is a problem in itself. However, in this case, the real problem was that NDHQ planners seemed lack even a basic understanding of the Canadian procurement system of the day. In the previous decade, only a single DND capital expenditure had been properly endorsed by the Minister for National Defence before submission to Treasury Board for approval. As a result, beyond its growing admin cost, CADRE could never be properly budgeted and the planning wheels just continued to spin.
Meanwhile, a budgetary rival had appeared in Maritime Staff planning. Those proposing a Canadian strategic sealift capability had successfully argued that the Command and Control role could be better incorporated into the large hull of their sealift proposal - the Multi-Role Support Vessel - which was meant to transport Canadian soldiers and equipment to Norway in the event of conflict. By 1999, a much-enlarged sealifter (Project M 2673) had been rebranded as the awkwardly-named Afloat Logistic Support Capability (ALSC). As naval planners obsessed over measuring lane metres, ALSC morphed into the Joint Support Ship (JSS) - a term taken from a similar project for the Royal Netherlands Navy. [4]
Many into One - CADRE Becomes the Single Ship Transition
Both in parallel and in rivalry with CADRE was yet another NDHQ capital plan - the Single Ship Transition which was to provide immediate Iroquois replacements before moving on to build new patrol frigates. The namesake Halifax class frigate, FFH 330, had only just been commissioned in 1992. Still, it seemed prudent to include a future Halifax replacement in the Single Ship Transition project. The two separate roles in one hull type was to be accomplished through modularity. The new DDG and FFG would share hulls and propulsion systems with 'plug-and-play' sensors and weapons systems making up the differences between the two warship types. [5] Then came the 2006 Strategic Capability Investment Plan (SCIP)
The Strategic Capability Investment Plan was an attempt to clarify and simplify procurement procedures. One change was that amortisation for procurements could now be spread out over equipment and sub-components. So, for a warship, the hull and propulsion might be amortised over 25 years while software might only be for a single year. At a stroke, SCIP had simplified what had been an overly-complex headache in organising procurement line items. But that, of course, assumed that Maritime Staff could enumerate their claims of detailed advantages. Alas, it seemed that they could not.
A defining feature of the Single Ship Transition concept was making maximum use of modularity. In theory, a future frigate could be kitted out for a dedicated ASW mission without the extra of equipment intended for non-ASW operations. Upon completion of this mission, ASW gear could be removed or swapped out at dockside for added armament and sensors better-suited, for instance, to a fisheries patrol frigate. Praises for such modularity advantages were sung in contracted Defence Research and Development Canada reports. But even those DRDC researchers had to acknowledge that, in their favoured MEKO types, those much-vaunted advantages were never actually realised in active service.
In service, modular warship operators tended to unship modules only when that 'slot' was needed for an alternative role module. If other 'slots' were not required for that particular role, this unwarranted kit just came along for the ride. Since the nature of modularity already dictated a slight increase in built weight, this meant that such vessels were invariable larded up. The theory of modularity was fine. But the practice generally failed to account for service biases such as removal-will-take-too-long or keep-it-on-just-in-case. As a result, weighty modularity's only benefit was a comparatively minor one - potentially quicker systems upgrades
"... despair is not being who you are!" – Søren Kierkegaard
An exception to the rule seemed to be one of the originators of the modular approach - the Danes. While Maritime Staff (and later the RCN) produced endless studies under different names, the Royal Danish Navy was commissioning ships which nigh on matched NDHQ's announced requirements. The first was the 2005 Absalon class - a modular hybrid of patrol frigate and 'flex deck' transport ship. In effect, the Absalons were a blend of CADRE and the enomous JSS (Joint Support Ship) transports which, as noted earlier, had scooped up CADRE's Command and Control role by then.
Most interestingly, the Absalons were designed to commercial DNV Ice Class C standards. That did not specifically match Maritime Staff's requirement for a hull able to handle first-year ice. Rather ICE-C allowed the Absalons to manoeuvre in the light ice conditions of the Baltic Sea or through localized drift ice around Greenland. But Absalon wasn't alone. In 2008, the frigates were joined by the first Knud Rasmussen class OPVs - smaller Standard Flex modular vessels but capable of breaking first year ice (up to 80 cm thick). Both types actually existed and were operating in Arctic waters on Canada's NE maritime boundary. But NDHQ planners showed not the slightest interest in either Danish warship class.
Next! - Rebranding as the Canadian Surface Combatant
With the advent of SCIP, the Single Ship Transition had transmogrified into the Canadian Surface Combatant. For the most part, it was a distinction without a difference. But a slow evolution (or metastasis?) was underway. In place of the Single Ship Transition's two ship types with common hulls, CSC became a single, larger type meant to be capable of fulfilling both destroyer and frigate roles in one ship. Once it reached the second decade of the 21st Century, CSC began to emerge as a air defence frigate. But the concept had grown large and heavy enough that the RCN felt justified in calling it a 'destroyer'. [6]
Despite all of that Canadian Surface Combatant 'growth', other requirements were being quietly shed. As Danish Knud Rasmussen class OPVs deployed into Baffin Bay, Maritime Staff dropped its own first year ice stipulation for the CSC. Suddenly, which ever warm-water littoral conditions the US Navy would be operating in became the dominate concern. The CPC would become just another cog in the US Navy's AEGIS Combat System - a reversion to interpreting the ultimate goal both alliances and Canadian foreign policy as pleasing our American masters. And then everything changed.
Canadian Surface Combatants in an Age of MAGA Ascending
With a Canadian economy lacerated by unfair US tarrifs, the Standing Committee on Defence Procurement was understandably focused on the sheer expense of the Canadian Surface Combatant programme. Whether that expense could be borne was simply a question of will. Whether such expenses should be borne was an entirely difference matter.
On the question of should the expense by borne, the DPAMD final report on the Canadian Surface Combatant programme came back with a two-pronged answer. The first was that the cost for the first three CSC hulls (in constant CAD) having more than tripled warranted an investigation all of its own. This was not the Committee kicking the question into the long grass. Rather, the DPAMD was claiming that Parliament deserved a detailed and itemised response to explain these rather staggering cost increases. And the Committee suggested that it was design contractor Lockheed Martin Canada who should be made responsible for providing those detailed answers.
Another recommendation of the DPAMD final report was that an official answer must be provided as to how the Canadian Surface Combatants furthered Canadian foreign policy goals. Since the Director of Naval Requirements - Capt(N) Drew Graham - had been unable to provide adequate answers, the question should be redirected to the Commander RCN and Chief of the Naval Staff, VAdm Angus Topshee. [7] In the meantime, the Canadian Surface Combatant programme would remain 'frozen' and the RCN's ACSIC (AEGIS Combat System Integration Centre) at Moorestown, NJ, would stay shuttered (and highly unlikely to ever be reopened).
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[1] As a reminder, DPAMD stands for the (Standing Committee on) Defence Procurement/(Comité permanent des) achats de matériel de défense within Hansard and other official GoC documents.
[2] With the disasterous over-reach of the US Navy's Zumwalt class destroyers, the lack of early movement on CADRE proved a blessing in disguise.
[3] Alas for CADRE, this would be no simple hull stretch. To find a parallel section, the existing hull design had to be spliced just forward of the funnel. But the VLS required for the Air Defence needed to be placed behind the main gun. So, first a new hull section needed to be inserted. Then, the entire forward superstructure needed to be shifted aft to make space for that below-deck VLS. And, even with all that, there were no guarantees that the stretched hull could balance the top-side weight of the new APAR array and its mast.
[4] The noticeable difference being that Zr.Ms. Karel Doorman actually got built and entered service as a JLOS (Joint Logistiek Ondersteuningsschip) ... although the Dutch often still refer to her as a 'JSS'.
[5] Or, as it was put in DRDC CR-2006-004 of Feb 2006: "The single surface combatant design will utilize a common hull form, engineering plant, common core equipment fit and will use open-concept engineering and modularity wherever feasible."
[6] There are precedents. The classe Horizon/classe Orizzonte is designated as a frégate by the French and a cacciatorpediniere (or destroyer for the Mediterranean) by the Italians.
[7] Note that this is a work of fiction based partially on 'real world' events and developments. The names of appropriate public figures have been used ... but within a fictionalised context.
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