952 replies to this topic

[VicHockeyFan]

Politically it will not fly before federal election 2015

[jonny]

I do like the added feature that they are already built and the price would actually be locked in. Unlike our 25 year shipbuilding strategy. 

 

LOL so true.

 

Not sure what we would really use them for. We'd have to go out and buy more helicopters to fill the damn things!

 

It's funny that protectionist Russia can buy ships from not-really-a-Russian-ally-France, yet Canada absolutely must make our own ships in Canada.

[Mr Cook Street]

Not sure what we would really use them for. We'd have to go out and buy more helicopters to fill the damn things!

 

 

I could see them filling a niche role in multinational naval operations which we participate in often. We could offer NATO and the UN a command center and hospital as well as equipment and supply transport capability. Humanitarian missions perhaps? 

 

Not sure if this is needed, but I'm getting increasingly annoyed by our made in Canada policy. It is getting expensive.

 

 

 

It's funny that protectionist Russia can buy ships from not-really-a-Russian-ally-France, yet Canada absolutely must make our own ships in Canada.

+1

[jonny]

I could see them filling a niche role in multinational naval operations which we participate in often. We could offer NATO and the UN a command center and hospital as well as equipment and supply transport capability. Humanitarian missions perhaps? 

 

Not sure if this is needed, but I'm getting increasingly annoyed by our made in Canada policy. It is getting expensive.

 

+1

 

No doubt we could find uses for them, assuming they are good ships and not total piles of junk like those subs we bought.

 

Looking forward to reading what ASE thinks...

[Mike K.]

I was just going to say, what's ASE's take on this

[lanforod]

Man, those ships are ugly though. Give me a smooth sleek destroyer or missile cruiser any day, lol.

Be sweet to say Canada has aircraft carriers! Helicopter only, sure, but hey we can't be picky!

[spanky123]

The subs we got from Britain were 'good ships' as well.

 

If the mission of our Navy is coastal protection then I fail to see how amphibious assault ships fit in.

[tedward]

If the mission of our Navy is coastal protection then I fail to see how amphibious assault ships fit in.

 

I know right!?!  I mean what does a ship designed and built to move troops quickly between land and water have to do with coastal protection? It's not like we need helicopters to be able to operate over water or anything?

 

In case you still need it: </sarcasm>.

[AllseeingEye]

Sorry focused this week on large RFP which is taking all my cycles; in no particular order - I do not think this will fly because we simply do no fund our military adequately, period, full stop. Even under the Tories, both the Mulroney as well as Harper variants (don't ever get me started on the federal Liberals please), we have never really committed to spending what we really should to ensure appropriate military hardware is purchased and positioned where it ought to be in support of the folks in uniform who need it the most.

 

Second I am 100% in agreement with Mr. Cook Street that the "Made in Canada" policy is an unmitigated disaster - always has been due to the fact the process is so ridiculously politically tainted and driven. The only - I repeat ONLY - consideration about the acquisition of any military platform is this: does it meet the needs of the mission for which it is tasked? Again, period. Full stop. I don't give a rat's patoot that it is politically expedient to manufacture the gear in Quebec because the government of the day needs to score some political points in Rimouski, or that perhaps the Defence Minister is from riding in rural Bumstuffer Ontario and just coincidentally that happens to be where the support and maintenance contracts go.

 

At the end of the day if the helicopter needs to have a range of "X" and the fleet replenishment ship needs to do "Y" or the air force interceptors need to have a maximum ceilng of "Z" to meet the mission they are required to fill - just do it. From the perspective of the poor bastard who might have to die for the rest of us in the worst case scenario the last thing (s)he should have to worry about - and that absolute last thing (s)he cares about when the bullets fly - is where the hell the gear is built and maintained. Way too often in this country the actual military requirements assume a back seat to 'political considerations' and that is plain wrong on so many levels.

 

Re: France, Russia etc., unlike in this country where spending money on the military is anathema for so many (isn't it after all far more productive to fund programs designed to kiss Quebec's rear end rather than buy gear that actually works for the "icky" military?) other major countries recognize that defaulting on your sovereign obligations - to maintain at the very least basic ability to patrol and maintain surveillance over your own territory - is just not on.

 

A British study some years ago hinted at just that - that Canada almost alone among sovereign independent nations at the time spent so little on Defence that it had virtually abrogated much of the responsibility for the aforementioned patrol and surveillance capabilities, to name but two activities, and shifted that burden onto its neighbor, ie the US. 

 

As a consequence we see Canada having to call on the USAF to sortie fighters to check out a suspicious aircraft coming into YVR two years ago. Imagine: your third largest city and one of the primary economic regions of the country - and we have literally zero ability to overfly and if necessary protect it with our own air force because the nearest RCAF fighters are sitting in Cold Lake AB. Utterly ludicrous. Ditto as discussed previously for maritime search and rescue (never mind active naval operations - of which the RCN performs precious few because it often has insufficient funding to cover the cost of FUEL of all things). Thank God more often than not for the USCG because with so few naval assets and a completely underwhelming and antiquated CCG you better hope the Americans are having a good day and are close by.

 

Lastly Spanky you are fundamentally incorrect: we are full (actually founding) member of NATO among other alliances. The mission of the CAF, including the RCN, is to support NATO, NORAD etc. wherever and whenever called upon. Coastal protection as you refer to it is but one aspect of that mission. As needed we participate and have done so since 1949 in joint exercises above all with the USN, the Brits, the Aussies, Japanese etc. ad nauseum. At the very least we should be pulling our own weight and contributing as a member of those bodies. As it is last time I checked I believe of all the major western and NATO member specifically, only Belgium or the Netherlands spends less than we do. Admittedly its been a few years since I checked on that however.

 

Otherwise IMO if adequately funding the CAF is an utterly untenable and unpalatable option and offends the sensibilities of those "sensitive, caring and socially progressive" Canadians who would rather fund, as one famous grant from Ottawa did many years ago, a university study into the sex lives of Napoleon and Josephine (I kid you not folks - that is way too ridiculous even for me to make up), or closer to home a UVic study of the different types of garbage tossed out of cars on the PBH out to Swartz Bay to gain "economic insight" into the lives of Victorians - no kidding again that is also just too good to manufacture! - then my suggestion is this: disband the CAF completely, save a few billion dollars and leave it 100% to the Americans to get the job(s) done.

 

Just don't be surprised where that leads to in the event that for "national security reasons" the US one day decides it needs to "appropriate" our water, or our oil, or our gas.....

[lanforod]

 

Just don't be surprised where that leads to in the event that for "national security reasons" the US one day decides it needs to "appropriate" our water, or our oil, or our gas.....

 

Even if we were spending the same percentage of our GDP on defence that the US does, there would be nothing we could do about it (our NATO allies could, I suppose).

[AllseeingEye]

Even if we were spending the same percentage of our GDP on defence that the US does, there would be nothing we could do about it (our NATO allies could, I suppose).

I think my point was that we shouldn't have to: we should put on our big boy panties and do what we need to do to ensure the job of defence in this country is done correctly without having to continually ask our neighbors to do it for us.

 

As a start ditch the ludicrous "must be built in Canada" crap and get whatever gear we need at the best possible price (better yet if its already built and proven technology); the saving$ starting right there would be enormous. The cost overruns and delays from order to design to actually putting the hardware into production under the existing procurement system in this country are inexcusable. New helicopters? Delayed. New replacements for the F-18's? Delayed. New armor for the army? Delayed. And on it goes...

 

Twenty years ++ for some replacement S&R helicopters? That is an inexcusable to the CAF/RCAF members who have to fly the death crates known as the Sea Kings as it is insulting to Canadian taxpayers.

 

Consider the Americans went from "zilch" to the moon in about 8 years from the time Kennedy laid down the challenge to NASA - and we can't buy some helicopters in more than twice that timeframe?!

[Mike K.]

Canada's natural resources and American investment/exploitation of those resources likely has more to do with Canada's laissez faire attitude towards military spending than a simple disinterest in funding the military. To adequately protect this vast nation would require so much military hardware and so many military personnel that we'd go bankrupt just keeping the lights on at all the bases.

 

Why should this country expend billions of dollars building up a military arsenal that the Americans are fully ready and willing to supply in the event of a serious military threat? Just to look good in Janes stat reports?

[AllseeingEye]

Canada's natural resources and American investment/exploitation of those resources likely has more to do with Canada's laissez faire attitude towards military spending than a simple disinterest in funding the military. To adequately protect this vast nation would require so much military hardware and so many military personnel that we'd go bankrupt just keeping the lights on at all the bases.

 

Why should this country expend billions of dollars building up a military arsenal that the Americans are fully ready and willing to supply in the event of a serious military threat? Just to look good in Janes stat reports?

I think some of you are completely missing the point: no one least of all me is advocating implementing a military arsenal - in fact nowhere did I even hint at any such thing.

 

I think this just again points to my underlying theme: I strongly suspect even the smart people on this forum truly have no clue how poorly and underfunded the CAF really is, which is fairly clear based on the responses. I am not promoting an "arsenal": I am saying whatever we do purchase make sure it is the best it can possibly be even if that is 5 tanks, 1 frigate and 3 fighter planes and 16 bullets. Above all whatever we acquire it must be brought online to align with military requirements - not to advance some political agenda.  Hopefully this is clearer now.

 

Put another way the entire Canadian Army including its secretaries, clerks and cooks would not come close to filling Rogers Arena. We have virtually no "real" coast guard presence. We have zero underwater/submarine capability unless you include those 4 ex-RN POS' rusting away in Halifax and Esquimalt. Our surface fleet is essentially non-existent, and what there is of it rarely travels beyond our own borders and now on the west coast it has no re-fueling capability. The air force as mentioned can't even patrol our own airspace including providing coverage for our major cities. The so-called Canadian Rangers who are our first line on the ground force in the far north were, last time I checked, using Lee Enfield rifles from 1941 but "hey" they get issued a nice bright red t-shirt and a ball cap.....

 

Is the picture becoming clearer now?

[Mike K.]

Right, I get you, and I know a few folks in the armed forces who have told me some shocking stories about our technology (including our navel vessels relying on iPhone apps -- no word of a lie -- for weaponry precision!), but is the Canadian situation all that different from about 120 or so other countries around the world?

[Bingo]

The Department of National Defence says a Canadian naval vessel was part of a large drug bust last month in the eastern Pacific Ocean off the coast of Costa Rica.

HMCS Whitehorse, working with the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Navy, intercepted more than 5,200 kilograms of cocaine in international waters from a coastal freighter.

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...3020556?cmp=rss

 

[Mike K.]

HMCS Protecteur, a supply vessel, was officially decommissioned today during a Paying Off Ceremony at CFB Esquimalt. Protecteur was one of two Royal Canadian Navy vessels involved in a collision at sea. In a separate incident a fire nearly sunk the ship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[lanforod]

So how much to buy it?

[Mike K.]

I think it's been sold already. They'll be scrapping it somewhere on the Great Lakes, I think.

[57WestHills]

Understandably most Canadians aren't aware of how big the current decommissionings are, but Canada's Navy is crippled for any meaningful operations beyond tagging along with someone else. Adding insult to injury the ships that are needed (supply and command capabilities) are firmly stalled in the procurement process.

Happily, though, much of the RCN is in a healthy denial about this.

[lest69]

Protecteur only suffered cosmetic bow damage in the 2013 collision. The last straw was actually a major engine room fire in February 2014. Replacing the ancient steam engine just wouldn't have been cost-effective, and they had already been planning to decommission her in 2017 anyway.