Canada Goes Dutch
The entry into service of the carrier
HMCS Canada (ex HMS Centaur) in the early 1970s was welcomed with relief by the Royal Canadian Navy who feared that Canada had been about to follow the example of the Netherlands, which had just given up carrier aviation entirely, selling it's only vessel, the
Karel Doorman to Argentina. However, the carrier was judged to need escorts with area-defence SAM capability, and since the RCN possessed no such vessels, this created another demand on an already stretched budget.
A purchase of American
Charles F. Adams class destroyers was considered but rejected after protestations from the Canadian shipbuilding industry and the RCN, who always favoured designs specially tailored to the harsh northern waters where they operated. The preferred scheme therefore was for an AAW version of the new DD-280
Iroquois class frigates, which would trade their helicopter capability for a Mk.13 Standard SM-1 launcher and it's associated radars. Two proposals were studied, one based on the existing hull and one on a stretched version which allowed the addition of an ASROC ASW rocket launcher. The latter scheme was selected and detail design work began. However, projected costs began to rise, reducing the number of ships that could be afforded from four to three and then two, and then a new government cancelled the scheme completely after after a considerable amount of time and money had been invested in it.
Since starting again would cost even more money, a foreign purchase was seen as the only option, but unfortunately, production of the Charles F. Adams class had ceased in the meantime. The forthcoming British Type-42 destroyers were considered, but the RCN preferred Standard to Sea Dart, so that left the Netherlands'
Tromp class as the only option, and one that the admirals were actually quite keen on since they'd been interested in it's SPS-01 radar (aka
Broomstick) since it's inception in the mid 1960s. However the shipbuilding industry and various politicians protested a foreign purchase so the matter became deadlocked.
The solution to the problem came from the Royal Netherlands Navy (KM: Koninklijke Marine) themselves. Exactly who said what to whom has become the stuff of tall tales and jokes. The standard “urban legend” is that the idea was dreamed up by two naval attachés at an embassy cocktail party, but the respective defence ministers recollect a more formal process (it's been suggested that the cocktail party story is put about by naval attachés to justify embassy cocktail parties...). Whatever the process, it became clear that just as the RCN was looking covetously at the
Tromps, so the KM was looking with equal interest at the DD-280s and a deal was there to be made.
Dutch Navy interest in the DD-280 stemmed from the loss of the
Karel Doorman a few year's earlier. Officially, her Tracker and S-58 ASW aircraft had been replaced by small helicopters on frigates and land-based patrol aircraft, but many in the KM felt that these were no substitute for large capable aircraft at sea with the fleet, and felt that the innovative Canadian
Iroquois (and the Japanese
Harunas) might represent an affordable way of getting at least some of this capability back.
The deal was straight-forward in principle: the Netherlands would build two
Tromps for Canada and Canada would build two DD-280s for the Netherlands. Although a
Tromp was substantially more expensive than a DD-280, the provision of the latter's CH-124 Sea King helicopters as part of the deal, coupled with the fact that the Canadian
Tromps would have no helicopter provision, more than compensated for the difference in the price of the hulls.
The Dutch IroquoisAdapting the DD-280 design to the KM's requirements was relatively painless, although some problems became apparent later.
The main visual difference was to the weapons in the forward positions on ship. The KM requested that the ships be fitted with the same Bofors twin 120mm turrets as the
Tromp, both for logistic compatibility and because these turrets were basically free, having been taken from old
Holland class destroyers before they were scrapped. The Dutch also insisted that a NATO Sea Sparrow launcher (then very new) was fitted instead of the Canadian Sea Sparrow launcher in the original design. Canadian industry was somewhat put out by this, since they'd assumed the Dutch would take their system, but the KM couldn't be moved, so the launcher was installed on a new deck house which also included a manually operated reloading magazine just behind it.
Other disputes arose. The Dutch insisted that a single WM-22 tracker on a low pedestal would be sufficient, although their Canadian counterparts were more than a little smug when, just as they predicted, it suffered from excessive interference and had to be raised on a hastily schemed lattice mast. Another ridiculous “issue” concerned the ships' boats. The Iroquois had a very restricted area of deck, between the hangar and the bridge structure, in which to accommodate them, but the standard KM ship's boat was bigger than the standard RCN one: it only fitted with nine inches to spare at each end (which would have made boat handling fun in any kind of seaway), but even then, it wasn't centred on the standard davits. The obvious solution was for the KM to buy the Canadian boats, but the Dutch ones were
nicer, admirals grumbled, and no less than seven engineering studies for the redesign of the boat deck had been launched before heads were banged together and the Canadian boats selected (allegedly, the Dutch defence minister told the admirals to buy the Canadian boats or swim). The admirals retaliated by redesigning the boats “to Dutch standards” which appeared to achieve little except to double their price.
Internally, the main change was to fit the Dutch SEWACO combat information system in place of the original CC280. This was the point where everyone had expected trouble but, perhaps precisely because of that, it went surprisingly smoothly, aided by the fact that SEWACO had been designed to be modular from the start and none of the weapons or sensors were unfamiliar to it. One surprising non-change was the decision to keep the original Pratt and Whitney engines. It had been thought that the Dutch would insist on the same Tyne/Olympus setup as the
Tromps and the projected
Kortenaers, and modification schemes had been drawn up, but these were the early days of gas turbines in ships and the KM was keen to test and evaluate all the alternatives, so the original power plant stayed.
The two ships were termed “helicopter frigates” (FFH) by the KM, and named
Callenburg and
Van Kinsbergen after Dutch admirals. Some juggling of names and pennant numbers was necessary since these names had already been tentatively assigned to future
Kortenaers. In service, the ships fulfilled their goal of reintroducing large ASW helicopters to the KM and were judged an overall success. Their seakeeping proved less satisfactory however. The main problem was that the changes to the armament had added considerable weight, all at the front, and this caused them to trim by the bow and “dig in” in heavy seas. Indeed, although the KM considered the Limbo mortar obsolete, it was retained on the ships because to remove it would only have made the situation worse (sailors took to calling it “gyro-stabilised ballast”). This was largely cured in mid-1980s refits when the 120mm guns were removed and replaced with much lighter OTO-Melara 76mm Compact mounts. The other problem was excessive rolling, and there was no easy solution for this, since it appeared endemic to the design, the Canadian vessels suffering from it as well.
The plan was for the KM of the 1980s to be organised into three ASW task groups, each with an FFG, an FFH, six FFs and a replenishment ship. However only the FFs (
Kortenaers and
Van Speijks) achieved the necessary numbers, the requirement for a “third
Tromp” being met by the two modified
Kortenaers of the
Van Heemskerk class. The Canadian deal had included the option for each nation to buy a third ship, but the Netherlands decided not to take up this option, and elected instead to build two larger FFHs (
De Zeven Provinciën class) based on their experience with the
Callenburgs, but with three helicopters each and many other improvements. The original intention was that the two
Callenburgs would thereafter operate together as the “third helicopter frigate”, but before this could happen, they were decommissioned and scrapped in the mid 1990s as part of the KM's severe post-Cold War contraction.
The Canadian TrompsAdapting the Dutch ships to RCN requirements proved a good deal more troublesome and problems with the combat data system nearly scuppered the project.
For the forward weapons, the RCN requested the opposite changes to the KM, i.e. an OTO-Melara 127mm gun in place of the Bofors 120s, Canadian Sea Sparrow and twin WM-22s. Since these weapons were lighter than the systems they replaced, this didn't cause any great problem. At the stern, the RCN required a helicopter pad large enough to land a Sea King, and since extending the hull was out of the question and there was no way to modify the hanger to accept one, the hanger was deleted entirely, which saved more weight. This left the chaff launchers without a home, but with all the topweight that had been saved, it was possible to accomodate them on new 01 deck platforms over the torpedo tubes.
One of the RCN's main objections to the
Tromp design was that that, unlike Canadian-designed ships, the forward superstructure didn't extend to the edge of the deck, thus offering weather and spray protection to the area behind it. To address this, the
Tromp's bridge platform shields were extended right down to weather deck level, which was deemed adequate, if not ideal. Many other detailed changes were also made to the superstructure, since Canadian requirements for anti-fallout protection were more stringent. The most noticeable external effect of this was the elimination of all portholes.
Internally, the Canadians decided to follw the KM's example and accept the standard Olympus/Tyne powerplant for the sake of evaluting alternatives. The major difficulty that arose however, was with the combat information system. The Canadian government, under pressure from it's electronics industry, insisted on trying to replace the Dutch SEWACO system with an extension of the CC280 system, but since this had never been designed to work with either the SPS-01 radar or the Standard missile system, it represented a high-risk developmental item, and ran into severe problems. The projected cost increases and delays came close to causing the cancellation of the entire project. However, common sense and some tough political deal making eventually won through, and the Canadian system was abandoned in favor of a slightly adapted version of SEWACO, the Canadian electronics contractors being compensated by guarantees of other work from both governments.
Although classified as frigates by the KM, Canada termed the ships Guided Missile Destroyers (DDGs), which was more in line with standard NATO definitions and RCN practice. The two ships were named
Nootka and
Micmac, continuing the use of First Nation names in the “Tribal” series. The ships proved hugely popular in service, the RCN feeling that it had, at last, a properly balanced and capable fleet. There was considerable enthusiasm in the service for the idea of buying a third vessel to provide air defence for the Pacific fleet, but the defence budget had already been stretched near to breaking point to pay for the carrier and it's two escorts, and other arms, particularly the Royal Canadian Air Force, objected strongly to any more money being spent on the navy until their own re-equipment projects had been funded.
When HMCS
Canada, now a V/STOL carrier, was replaced by the new-build HMCS
Rainbow in the early 1990s, the RCN pressed for new DDGs to escort her, since the
Nootkas, with their non-VLS missiles and non-phased array radars, were starting to look distinctly old-fashioned. However, the pressure for a “peace dividend” in the post-Cold War era meant that the carrier herself had only just managed to get funded, so there was certainly no budget for new ships.
Nootka and
Micmac were therefore given extensive upgrades with new radars and VLS systems, and remain in service today. The current intention is to replace both the
Nootkas and the [/i]Halifax[/i] class frigates with a New Common Surface Combatant, but to date this remains unfunded.
The profiles were modified from Shipbucket profiles by 'MConrads', 'Bezobrazov', 'MihoshiK' and 'acelancelot'. Note however that mine are not fully to Shipbucket standards because I've compressed the layout to get best reproduction after posting them on the forum via Photobucket. Various minor elements were taken from other profiles and resources on www.shipbucket.com which is a very entertaining place in which to waste days of your life, whether you're a whiffer or a real-world ship geek.
