By Mikael Perron, 3 July 2024
You probably learned like me that the CSC program has become the new River class destroyer and that is a great news! I was reading through the new updated RCN website section concerning the River class and I discovered something strange; the Rolling Airframe missile is now being referred to as a close in defense system instead of the previously mentioned Sea Ceptor missile! There is always a surprise!
Here are the links to the RCN's latest web update concerning the new River class destroyers!
https://www.canada.ca/en/navy/corporate/fleet-units/surface/river-class-destroyer/fact-sheet.html
https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/rcn-mrc/documents/ships/river-fact.pdf
https://www.canada.ca/en/navy/corporate/fleet-units/surface/river-class-destroyer.html
7 thoughts on “River-Class Destroyers”
Construction Schedule Uncertainties
In an interview before the announcement event, which seems to have been primarily a morale-boosting ceremony for Irving workers and the RCN, Minister of National Defence (MND), Bill Blair stated, “We’re very hopeful that with the cutting of steel that we’ll be able to deliver the very first of these ships by the early 2030s. Hopefully nine of them by 2040, and ultimately all 15 of them being delivered by the 2050s”. (Jesse Huot, “Canadian defence minister speaks about upcoming Navy ships, national defence budget”, CTVNewsAtlantic.ca, 28 June 2024). Official clarification was that the first ship would not be available for operations before 2035.
To deliver 9 of the new DDGHs by 2040 seems to be an aggressively optimistic estimate. Note the series of conditions that will have to be satisfied to achieve that objective: no pandemic shut-downs, no major supply chain problems, no shipyard strikes, no major construction obstacles, no change in government and timely government approvals of follow-on batches, no major operational issues encountered in sea trials, and greater success in recruiting and retaining sailors. I will leave it to others to judge how likely it will be for all of these conditions to be met.
Moreover, Ottawa planners expect the design to continue to evolve over the first and later batches. (Meaning fitted for, but not with?) This brings into question even more the cost and schedule expectations. This also suggests concurrent production for at least the first batch, thereby reducing the time to incorporate lessons learned, and adding to the risk that costly design changes may occur.
A senior government official said getting the new ships as soon as possible is imperative because of ongoing maintenance concerns for the aging Halifax-class frigates. The official also downplayed concerns about the schedule by pointing out that technology improvements will be added along the way, improving the ship capabilities over time. Additional upgrades are also expected for the Halifax-class frigates, the official added. No cost figures or specific details on that work were provided. (Pugliese, “Construction begins on new fleet of warships for Royal Canadian Navy”, defensenews.com, 28 June 2024).
Even with 9 new warships built by 2040, Canada will have at best only 1 or 2 deployable modern warships available for operations on each coast by 2040. [using the commonly accepted 4:1 rule of thumb. See NAC discussion in its Canada In Extremis Report of May 2024, p.32]
Once again, there is a noticeable lack of urgency in all this, especially given the well-reported concerns about the rapidly deteriorating international security environment expressed by the outgoing CDS, a former MND, and by several expert commentators, to say nothing about how the navy will be able to keep the Halifax-class frigates going until 2050.
It is puzzling that Vice-Admiral Topshee chose to emphasize the air warfare (AAW) and Command and Control capabilities over the ship’s anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities. Surely, this draws attention to the proposed warship’s weak missile armament compared to current operational frigates, and especially to the missile capacity of existing true destroyers, let alone those likely operating in the 2040s and beyond.
The new DDGHs will be seriously under-armed by modern AAW destroyer standards, and will likely be one of the most expensive in terms of missile cells/launchers by platform cost.
Moreover, by dropping the VDS, the navy has undermined one of the purported best qualities of the original Type-26 design, its ASW capabilities. So, at least for the initial batch, our River-class will likely be burdened by a lot of design effort that went into quietening the ship for ASW.
Finally, the navy’s approach appears to be one of achieving government ‘buy-in’ of a much reduced capability for the initial batch (or batches) to reduce ‘sticker-shock’, and then hoping that this will force Ottawa into agreeing to more costly weapon system upgrades in future batches. [Note: this tactic may still require the later elimination of certain system capabilities for weight and stability reasons (e.g. the multipurpose mission bay)] Fitted-For-But-Not-With has never been a very successful strategy for the CAF generally. Moreover, attempting to lock governments into cheap buy-ins and expensive follow-on additions seems to be a very risky approach.
I am concerned that they are seriously under armed when it comes to VLS, if the current 24 cell layout is to be achieved then it’s less cells than our outgoing type 23 frigate (32 cells) however the MK41 can be quad packed with ESSM meaning theoretically a total of 96 missiles could be put onboard. (I know this is likely to never happen.)
What I am getting at though is with the number of cells it does restrict numbers of munitions type carried, while yes you may quad pack maybe 8 cells what are you filling the others with and will it be in any meaningful amount.
Another issue is that the Halifax’s will be by 2040 50 years old and we are already seeing issues with them, this doesn’t seem like a good plan, and given older platforms require more maintenance it’s likely going to be expensive to keep the aging platforms around.
A lot of the issues with the design really is that Canada, like Australia, has taken a prime ASW frigate design and tried to make it a do all platform, it generally doesn’t work out well when you do that.
TFLAS which Ultra calls its Variable Depth Sonar has NOT been cut. The only change is the elimination of CAMM and the installation of 2 MK 49 SEA RAM for a total of 42 missiles.
I see you quoted the latest from the Ottawa Citizen which is just a rehash of criticism from previous articles including Alan Williams’ talking points. Trying to downplay a significant milestone for the project.
It’s certainly going to take 10 years for the first ship of the class to reach operational capability just the same as the type 26. However as they are built in mega blocks more than one ship will be under construction at any one time. As for delays and so forth, welcome to modern ship building. The ships are being built in flights to take advantage of the latest tech and not a cost-cutting measure or being fitted for and not with, much the same are the A Burke Class. The current VLS load out was minimized due to weight, probably would have been solved if we delayed again. CRCN made sure the project proceeded regardless and is looking at mitigation for that. The ships are still pretty capable even with a reduced VLS load out and easily corrected down the road. You are correct that something may have to be cut as the design is pretty maxed out and losing the mission bay for instance is not the end of the world, just a different variant. I’m all ears if you can come up with a viable solution to speed up construction.
Good morning Ted,
Thank God for a voice of reason and actual thoughtful analysis!!
Please keep it up.
Ubique,
Les
Ted,
You are quite right, I made a mistake. I was trying to come up with an explanation for why the navy was now placing so much emphasis on the AAW capabilities of the new DDGH River-class, and saw the comment in another Forum thread stating that VDS had been eliminated. I should have checked out that claim more carefully. Careless research on my part. Has Ultra sold its TFLAS to other navies, or is the system under development for the River-class?
My real issue concerns the approach of trying to continuously inject newer technology into the warship while the ships are under construction. Many analysts argue that this has not worked well for the USN in its Littoral Combat Ships, Zumwalt-class, its Ford-class carriers, and now with its Constellation-class.
Concurrency, the practice of simultaneous development and construction, can work well under a very well established warship design, but our River-class can hardly be said to exemplify that. The design is still evolving even now apparently and will continue to change throughout the construction phases/batches. I gather that the real problem is not that every single design drawing is finalized, but rather that the tendency is to install immature and unproven technology during construction. Then considerable effort is expended trying to debug this technology and then back-fit it into previous hulls. This is slow and expensive. This did not work well for the LCS and now these ships are being withdrawn early from service. (The same was true for a large number of US F-35 fighters which are now unusable) These ships become near useless ‘concurrency orphans’.
To me, our navy seems to be trying to come up with CONOPS for the new River-class on-the-fly to meet quickly changing operational requirements. Furthermore, I worry that Canada will not have sufficient numbers of surface combatants to provide adequate numbers of operational ready ships. The NAC, Canada In Extremis Report (May 2024) argues for 24-32 new warships, and urges speeding up the construction process. However, that study provides no clear idea of how this acceleration can be accomplished. I have argued many times that the philosophy underlying the National Shipbuilding Strategy is not geared to providing badly needed warships to our navy on an urgent basis; rather the NSS rests on the principle of gradual ‘load-leveling’ to keep our shipbuilders in business. Some commentators suggest that Canada needs to produce one ship a year after the first River-class is built, but I seriously doubt that we can ever approach that target.
Finally, my suggestion would be to avoid tunnel-vision about our naval requirements, and to re-consider what the RCN’s most urgent needs are for the defence of Canada right now in the face of a deteriorating, almost-war maritime security environment. Alas, the irrational, in both economic and psychological terms, fallacy of ‘sunk investment’ often clouds clear thinking just when it is needed the most.
Hi Blair you’re not wrong in assuming the Halifax class maintenance will be expensive. In fact millions are being spent at Irving, Davie and Victoria Ship yards for multi year refit that address mechanical and structural issues, but really what choice does the RCN have?
As for the amount of available missiles that is an identified issue. What do you you suggest we do about it? It’s not as simple as jamming in more VLS in an already bloated design. Decisions were made and we will have to live with them for now.
Dan, the only way to get ships faster is to have two yards building them such as what the UK is doing. Unfortunately we do not have the capacity in Canada. That being said and I believe Canada should get into the federal shipbuilding business building their own yard in Atlantic Canada such as at the old Saint John shipbuilding in NB or something in NS. The benefit is a continuous building cycle and a strategic asset.
The current designs are what they are but have been engineered to accommodate easy upgrades in different batches and not like what the US are building. Pretty much all change orders are stopped as the current design as seen in the 24 VLS not increasing in this flight despite pressure to increase.
The NAC puts out alot of opinions but rarely are achievable or practical. I think the best we can hope for is that a plan is put into place to cut down the build time and innovation to increase the missile load in a way not to affect the build time.