Canada may buy Nuclear Subs!

[Sea Toby]

Unbelievable if this goes through. Canada has the resources to build submarines. Vancouver, Halifax and Montreal are huge centers with the required technology.

Yes, Canada does have the resources to build submarines, but they have no expertise or history of doing so in the past... Note how well/unwell the Australians build their new Collins class submarines without a previous history of doing so... Which suggests that if Canada ever decided to build submarines they will be depending upon the expertise of Electric Boat in the same way as they depended upon Bath Iron Works for expertise to build their City class frigates...

As much of the funding for this program to build new replenishment ships involves shipyard infrastructure improvements as the ships... Canada's warship building capability has been allowed to rot over the past fifteen years... Frankly, the Canadians are treating this program more as a economic stimulus package than actually spending more for defense...

 

[moahunter]

This story is old news, the Canadian government immediately shot down the cbc report:

Nuclear sub buy not planned, MacKay says

It is a given now that Canada will never buy conventional submarines again, the mistake of not going nuclear won't be repeated:

But asked whether the government might look at other subs, MacKay said: “Well, there was a position taken some time ago to go with diesel-electric.

“But you know, in an ideal world, I know nuclear subs are what's needed under deep water, deep ice.”

Canada was planning to build up to a dozen nuclear submarines back in the 1980's, but the Mulroney government decided against it due to economic problems at the time:

http://www.ceocouncil.ca/wp-content...on_Standing_Committee_on_National_Defence.pdf

In the future, a decision will be made to either scrap the submarine force, or build a nuclear design. I hope the later as Canada does need this technology IMO to patrol under Canadian ice pack (conventional is far less capable in the Canadian arctic where subs are really needed for future shipping lane and oil and gas claims), but it won't be for a while.

 

[Astute]

Would canada go for uk astute class if it was offered to them

 

[moahunter]

^no, it would be political suicide to buy British submarines now, given the horrible state of the current 2nd hand UK subs (constant problems in the news, just like the Colins class in Australia, big political headache).

One day, It could be possible to buy a design like this though (the Astute looks about right for design), or have a foreign owned company build it, but it would be built in Canada like the plans back in the late 1980's, and the current fleet rebuild that was just tendered.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

It really is too bad the US didn't keep a finger in the conventional sub pie. Likely the expence could not be justified but it would have helped out allies and provided export opportunities.

But they did. Every USN nuclear submarine has a full back up conventional diesel electric system: snorkel, generator, motor. The diesel generator in the Virginia class is bigger than the diesel generator in most Type 209s.

 

[Volkodav]

But they did. Every USN nuclear submarine has a full back up conventional diesel electric system: snorkel, generator, motor. The diesel generator in the Virginia class is bigger than the diesel generator in most Type 209s.

True but they are not DE subs as such, they can not deploy nor complete a mission without their reactor. Basically their systems are designed on the assumption of having lots of power all of the time. They don't need to worry about power of heat budgets, if they need a system they turn it on not carring how much power it uses or how much heat it produces. Infact I understand they refigerate the entire boat and use heaters in each compartment to make them habitable.

 

[Astute]

i understand that after the last mess it would be hard to pass through another uk submarine deal, but the fact is if they did go for astute it would not be 2nd hand sub but a modern attack submarine, the big problem i have is that the Uk doesnt look to its closest allies to join programs when developing new equipment , would Australia ,New zealand ,Canada of liked to of been able to have type 45 destroyers, maybe in on the design for the type 26, Building them in canada or were ever sharing the cost between us,, this type of cooperation must be the future has defence budgets keep getting slashed

 

[kev 99]

i understand that after the last mess it would be hard to pass through another uk submarine deal, but the fact is if they did go for astute it would not be 2nd hand sub but a modern attack submarine, the big problem i have is that the Uk doesnt look to its closest allies to join programs when developing new equipment , would Australia ,New zealand ,Canada of liked to of been able to have type 45 destroyers, maybe in on the design for the type 26, Building them in canada or were ever sharing the cost between us,, this type of cooperation must be the future has defence budgets keep getting slashed

How do you know that none of those were approached? I'm reasonably sure that at least Australia would have been but I'm fairly certain they would of been set on Aegis anyway.

 

[StobieWan]

i understand that after the last mess it would be hard to pass through another uk submarine deal, but the fact is if they did go for astute it would not be 2nd hand sub but a modern attack submarine, the big problem i have is that the Uk doesnt look to its closest allies to join programs when developing new equipment , would Australia ,New zealand ,Canada of liked to of been able to have type 45 destroyers, maybe in on the design for the type 26, Building them in canada or were ever sharing the cost between us,, this type of cooperation must be the future has defence budgets keep getting slashed

Traditionally the RN requirements have tended to be quite specific and the results have been ships that were hard to adapt for export. Type 26 is a fresh take on this and it's a much more user-input friendly design with the opportunity to slot in sensors and weapons from a wider array of choices - in particular the US systems that Canada and Australia already use.

Australia did look at the Type 45 but it didn't fit with much of this - and couldn't be easily tailored to their requirements. It's a shame, but basically the requirements seemed to be AEGIS/SPY/SM-2 and that's it. I don't believe Canada had any requirement for an AWD ship at the time the Daring's were being offered up.

The missed opportunity was probably the Saudi deal, which might have seen a pair of them being exported.

Back on topic, I think the Canadian comments about nuclear boats being required for their purposes really mean "we can't do it any other way and therefore won't do it at all.." and that they'll ditch the diesel electric fleet at some point without replacement.

I can't see Astute being a palatable selection for Canada even if a nuclear fleet went ahead - BAE's reputation and stock in Canada seems to be quite low and there's quite a bit of resentment over what seems to be perceived as a bum deal.

From earlier comments, it seems the condition of the Upholders was easily understood and the Australians weeded them out from consideration on cost and feasibility quite firmly. I wonder if they performed due diligence a bit more effectively than the Canadians did and that the core of all the problems was just picking the wrong boat for the choice?

I'm wondering what happened to them while laid up as new, they seemed very highly specified, fully the conventional equal of a Trafalgar in terms of sensors and weapons.

Ian

 

[Sea Toby]

i understand that after the last mess it would be hard to pass through another uk submarine deal, but the fact is if they did go for astute it would not be 2nd hand sub but a modern attack submarine, the big problem i have is that the Uk doesnt look to its closest allies to join programs when developing new equipment , would Australia ,New zealand ,Canada of liked to of been able to have type 45 destroyers, maybe in on the design for the type 26, Building them in canada or were ever sharing the cost between us,, this type of cooperation must be the future has defence budgets keep getting slashed

The British have tried in the past, but these joint developing programs always end up in a pissing contest. All of the nations wish to use their defense contractors equipment. While the world is changing and we are seeing more multi-nationals, the nations continue to wish to use equipment built in their countries mainly for jobs.

Notice that Canada wishes to buy new replenishment/ro-ro ships built in Canada. They can buy ships built elsewhere for less. Their government sees the program more as a economic development program than as a military program. They are spending as much in the program to modernize their shipyards as they could buy ships elsewhere.

 

[gf0012-aust]

How do you know that none of those were approached? I'm reasonably sure that at least Australia would have been but I'm fairly certain they would of been set on Aegis anyway.

You're right. Australia was heavily courted by the UK for a co-op development.

 

[Astute]

I think both Austrailia and canada was asked about both projects but for there own reasons decided not to invest , this i think must be about the deal being offered by bae which i guess was about how much money they could make out of the deal, not because of capabilities of the type 45 which i would say when fully armed will be the best aaw destroyer in the world ,sampson radar i would say is more effective than the aegis system specialy against a saturated attack due to the fact the arrays are fixed.

 

[AegisFC]

a saturated attack due to the fact the arrays are fixed.

What do you mean by that?

 

[Tee_Centre_10]

From earlier comments, it seems the condition of the Upholders was easily understood and the Australians weeded them out from consideration on cost and feasibility quite firmly. I wonder if they performed due diligence a bit more effectively than the Canadians did and that the core of all the problems was just picking the wrong boat for the choice?

From a distance, and without full knowledge of the deal at the time, you have to wonder if MARCOM were having visions of a sub-less future as the Oberons aged and there were no replacements on the horizon.
They panicked and grabbed nearest derelict life preserver. To keep the belabored metaphor going, the Upholders have kept the Canadian submarine service above water (or at least at a comfortable operating depth beneath it) but not going anywhere very fast.

The Collins have proved to have been a steep learning curve. It has been both a spectacular success and a disappointing failure, which have come mostly from errors of judgement, some ambitious design choices (especially for a first national submarine project) and too many assumptions on both sides of the design process (Navy and Kockums). I would think that any Collins II class would build on the strengths and fix many of the weaknesses.

I feel a bit dizzy at the thought of what the Collins would have been if better adapted MTU diesels had been adopted over the Hedemora (although for compelling and what must have seemed sound reasons) and an off-the-shelf combat system installed (was it the German or Dutch one favoured?), given that these two choices have contributed to so many public headaches for the class.

I would have thought that any objective analysis would find the class a success, especially when you compare it to some real miserable military development/procurement failures around the world. I think history will be kinder to the Collins than we (the collective "we") have.

To be frank, does the Canadian Govt and Navy have the stomach to initiate such a risky program? We have seen the problems they have had with various Navy programs; the never ending support ship procurement, amphibious capability dithering, on-again/off-again/on-again polar icebreakers and patrol ships.
It seems the latest solution has now been to throw large gobs of cash at national shipbuilders in order to initiate another feast/famine cycle.

 

[Tee_Centre_10]

...sampson radar i would say is more effective than the aegis system specialy against a saturated attack due to the fact the arrays are fixed.

I'm not certain what you are saying. Are you saying that SAMPSON is more effective because the arrays ARE fixed, or it is more effective because the arrays AREN'T fixed?

If it is the former, you are wrong because the SAMPSON arrays are on a rotating mounting.
If it is the latter, you are wrong because a rotating mounting leaves gaps in radar coverage. BAE says the gaps are less than a second, but still...

Although you compared apples (AEGIS is a combat system and 30 years old) and kittens (SAMPSON is a radar less than 10 years old), and you may be right and SAMPSON/CMS is better than SPY-1/AEGIS (I'm not going to argue a point in which most information is classified or subjective), the superiority or otherwise of rotating versus fixed arrays is largely irrelevant.

 

[Astute]

Thanks for your thoughts on my post, i admit i am still learning i read with great interest your replys, what i was trying to say but did badly was that i think sampsom radar can track up to 2000 targets were as aegis an/spy1 can track 200 .and the postion of the sampson radar gives better over the horizon tracking capability yes the 1 second gap on the sampson rotating radar could be along 1sec in action but seeing at further distance must make up for that, the postioning of the an/spy1 antena which is lower must i think reduce the systems radar horizon , and some times the configaration as to be modified to look above terrian as there were reports of false targets (land clutter)would this create more risk to the ship from lower fast targets,
Has i said before im still only trying to learn and maybe this is not the thread to do it in
Thanks

 

[Abraham Gubler]

They panicked and grabbed nearest derelict life preserver. To keep the belabored metaphor going, the Upholders have kept the Canadian submarine service above water (or at least at a comfortable operating depth beneath it) but not going anywhere very fast.

I wouldn’t say panicked. They brought what they could afford and thought even four bad subs is better than zero good subs. I doubt they realised they weren’t just bad but downright dangerous…

The Collins have proved to have been a steep learning curve. It has been both a spectacular success and a disappointing failure, which have come mostly from errors of judgement, some ambitious design choices (especially for a first national submarine project) and too many assumptions on both sides of the design process (Navy and Kockums). I would think that any Collins II class would build on the strengths and fix many of the weaknesses.

I don’t see how a less ambitious submarine would have resulted in a better run project. The problems with Collins were all associated with implementation not conception. The only thing wrong with the Collins on paper design was the hydrodynamics and they were the easiest to fix. The devil was all in the details and all of it could have been successfully managed.

I feel a bit dizzy at the thought of what the Collins would have been if better adapted MTU diesels had been adopted over the Hedemora (although for compelling and what must have seemed sound reasons) and an off-the-shelf combat system installed (was it the German or Dutch one favoured?), given that these two choices have contributed to so many public headaches for the class.

Or if the Rockwell combat system had not been hardware defined by contract and the entire propulsion system (not just the donks) run through better project management, testing, etc. We built those generators and motors in Australia and they could have been built to more robust standards if so specified. You don’t need a good dose of hindsight to provide a fictional sub-system replacement fix to Collins they just needed better project management principles.

It seems the latest solution has now been to throw large gobs of cash at national shipbuilders in order to initiate another feast/famine cycle.

The Canadians do things differently and do love their giant life of type contracts.

 

[StobieWan]

I think both Austrailia and canada was asked about both projects but for there own reasons decided not to invest , this i think must be about the deal being offered by bae which i guess was about how much money they could make out of the deal, not because of capabilities of the type 45 which i would say when fully armed will be the best aaw destroyer in the world ,sampson radar i would say is more effective than the aegis system specialy against a saturated attack due to the fact the arrays are fixed.

Very off topic as we're on Canadian subs but just to touch on points about the Type 45 - against *saturation* attacks, the bottleneck is usually how many targets the entire system can process simultaneously or very nearly.

The two ships are totally different in this respect - the Arleigh Burke uses SPY1-D with four fixed arrays which are electronically scanned to build up a picture around the ship. The Type 45 has a pair of arrays back to back, which are rotated mechanically, although the beam from each array is steered electronically while the arrays are rotating.

Where they further differ is that as of this time, the AB's use a semi active radar homing missile which requires terminal illumination by a narrow beam target illuminator, vs the active seeker in the Sea Viper missile (Aster-30)

Both missiles have an autopilot which can take updates from the guiding radar and neither require illumination til the last few seconds of flight. I don't know how many channels the Arleigh can control but the Darings are said to have 16.

Both ships can therefore squirt off a fair few missiles in all directions - it's in the last few seconds of engagement where the Daring potentially scores points as of course, each missile comes with it's own seeker. The Arleigh relies on a target illuminator to guide the missile in it's last few seconds and it's the availability of the TI's that limit the amount of targets an Arleigh can process.

However, and it's a big however, that illumination is only needed for a short time, and the TI's can apparently slew automatically to the next target very quickly. In extremis, there's a mode which allocates time between targets for an illuminator allowing it to point out multiple targets more or less simultaneously, although obviously the update rate will fall correspondingly.

I'd be inclined to talk up the SAMPSON's performance in cluttered littoral areas against jamming and numerous low level targets however - it's more of a clear cut advantage as the SAMPSON is 30 years younger and is an AESA radar with all the agility in frequencies and with the beam forming capabilities that allow it to do some remarkable things.

Bear in mind I have no practical experience and this is just scattered fragments of what I've come to understand. Other people can correct me I'm sure and probably aid my understanding of it all greatly,

Ian

 

[gf0012-aust]

You don’t need a good dose of hindsight to provide a fictional sub-system replacement fix to Collins they just needed better project management principles.

the other major problem being the tribalism that existed within RAN.... unfort, one could argue that it still exists but not to the same level as the mid 80's. the same problem exists at times between civilian maritime engineers and naval engineers

there are so many fundamental things that went wrong and snowballed into a virtual cluster that one could write a book on lessons learnt.

even with the benefit of hindsight there are times when you think "how the hell did that get through the engineering process?"

it really could have been project mgt repaired much earlier if a bit more command brutality had been exercised.

as it stands, for ever and a day, anything to do with subs is guaranteed to become a public circus debate between the 2 major parties, and the general publics awareness of what collins can do and how well they're regarded by allied navies is almost permanently damaged as it gets lost in the armchair storm of opinion and sageful nods around pubs and BBQ's

 

[wildcolonialboy]

Australia is talking 12, I would assume Canada would be interested in 4-6. There may be some outright sales if not development partners (Singapore for eg).

Would it be worth bring Canada in? I mean, they would almost certainly want to build them in Canada, they're not really bringing anything to the table in terms of know-how or technology, and surely to make any cost-saving, we would have to make the Collins replacement more generic and less suited to Australian needs?

I don't even know if Canada really needs submarines; it makes good sense for Australia to have submarines, and specifically ones that are suited to our unique geography and situation. But Canada really does live under a US maritime security umbrella; it's not like their SLOCs will ever be in danger, or they have a sea-air gap that needs defending.

Conventional technologies have improved. I don't think any clean sheet conventional submarine design would use lead acid batteries any more as battery technology has really progressed from the 80's and 90's. You would be looking at quite large conventional subs (Collins sized) with perhaps double the energy density (or more) of Collins. Greater efficiency from all systems, lower drag hull, greater reliability. Is that enough for under ice opterations? I don't know.

Which leads me to ask whether it would not be better for Australia to be going the nuclear route? Considering that the tyranny of distance is one of the biggest factors, having a submarine that can travel at high speed over long distances, and has a considerable loiter period, as it were, would be advisable wouldn't it?

If RAN and ASC can make a conventional Collins II that works, that meets our defence needs, that is affordable, then by all means, it should be pursued. But I would hate for us to spend $25 billion just because we wanted to feel like we got sometihng out of the first class of Collins subs.