Arctic patrol vessels for the Navy?

Such vessels would make much more sense than having the Navy take on a true icebreaking role. But to have even their limited arctic capability they will be less capable (speed, range, etc.) for general naval duties--and building them in Canada means they will cost more than they should. Moreover the Canadian Coast Guard still desperately needs replacements for its very old icebreakers.

A key federal cabinet committee has given the go-ahead for a plan to construct six corvette-sized actually Arctic patrol vessels, according to defence and political sources.

The cabinet priorities and planning committee approved the program to build the 100-metre-long, 6,000-tonne warships within the past 10 days, The Canadian Press has learned.

The patrol vessels, which are almost as large as the navy's frigates [they are actually even heavier than our destroyers], are a step down from the armed Arctic icebreakers that the Conservatives promised in the last election campaign and will likely not be in service before 2015.

Nevertheless, one political source said, "it'll be good for the military, good for Canadian industry and the Arctic is critical to our national interest."

Cabinet is said to have authorized a two-year definition phase in which the scope of the shipbuilding project will be laid out. Much of the cost of the new vessels -- about $300-million apiece -- is being put off until later years.

The vessels, which will be capable of smashing through "fresh ice," are expected to be based on the Royal Norwegian Navy's Svalbard class design, a military source said. That particular type vessel is armed with a 57-millimetre deck gun, missile-launching tubes and has a helicopter pad [more here, with picture].

The recommendation has gone forward to Prime Minister Stephen Harper for final approval...

Cabinet is proposing to build the ships in Canada under a competitive process similar to the Defence Department's program to construct joint ships for the navy. Currently two consortiums, which involve foreign and domestic defence contractors, are vying to build three 28,000-tonne replenishment vessels...

Rob Huebert of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary said the corvettes are a good step, but they cannot be the only solution for the Arctic.

"It makes sense only if the Coast Guard is getting its icebreaking fleet recapitalized," he said in an interview.

"If this is just a cheap buyout to allow the navy not to get icebreakers, and the Coast Guard does not get its very old icebreakers replenished, then we're going to be in a lot of hurt."

Last year, Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn, who is responsible for the Coast Guard, was warned that the agency's fleet was experiencing severe "rust-out" and needed to be replaced. As it stands, Coast Guard icebreakers are not due to start being replaced until 2017.

Since the Tories were elected, there has been a fierce debate within National Defence over the party's campaign promise to build three armed icebreakers to protect Arctic sovereignty.

Icebreaking has traditionally been a role for the Canadian Coast Guard — one it has been loathe to give up — and many have argued that if new ice-cutting ships were to be built they should go to that agency, not the military.

In the end, the prohibitive $1 billion-per-vessel cost of armed icebreakers appears to have torpedoed the election promise. The navy was worried that such an ambitious program would seriously dent its well-laid plans to eventually replace its aging destroyers and frigates with a new single-class surface ship...

I'm sure there will be plenty of comment here; there's already a lot here.

Update: Lots of detail on K/V Svalbard (and good images) from the Canadian American Strategic Review. But as CASR says:

The real value of Arctic patrol is sovereignty-through-presence rather than improbable gunboat diplomacy.

So new Coast Guard icebreakers would be just as useful and would be considerably more Arctic-capable. Meanwhile the Navy could acquire faster, more capable vessels to perform naval missions. Those silly campaign promises--see the last part of this post.