Navy blues
Senator Colin Kenny sums up the Navy's problems getting any sort of public traction for its needs whatsoever, before answering his own rhetorical questions:
They're important questions, and Canadians need to understand the answers he provides - it's big-picture stuff, but it's important context for the meatier fare he's promised in Part 2 of the opinion piece tomorrow.
Note to Denis Coderre: this is what the Defence Critic for Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition should sound like.
Update: Note also to Gordon O'Connor: when a Liberal senator is better able to articulate your department's needs in a public forum than you are, it's time to reassess your communications strategy.
The ships go out. The ships come back. What was that all about? No guns or torpedoes were fired, so what were they doing out there? And those ships are expensive. They're always getting refitted. Who needs them?
They're important questions, and Canadians need to understand the answers he provides - it's big-picture stuff, but it's important context for the meatier fare he's promised in Part 2 of the opinion piece tomorrow.
Note to Denis Coderre: this is what the Defence Critic for Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition should sound like.
Update: Note also to Gordon O'Connor: when a Liberal senator is better able to articulate your department's needs in a public forum than you are, it's time to reassess your communications strategy.
posted by Babbling Brooks at 9:54 a.m.
6 Comments:
I've got a few questions about points made in this article that perhaps someone here can answer:
Navies can act in concert with like-minded countries to protect shipping lanes threatened by pirates or hostile states.
Is there a genuine threat of piracy or maritime hostility anywhere near Canada? I thought that was more of an Indian Ocean concern.
Well-equipped navies can transport troops and military equipment over long distances
But for that kind of thing, we'd want to use cargo ships or amphibious assault vehicles (CDS's "big honking ship"), wouldn't we? Not so much destroyers and frigates?
for many years Canada had virtually no submarine presence on our Pacific Coast. Because of that, U.S. subs that have been active along that coastline saw no need to share underwater intelligence with us.
What kind of intelligence would that be - foreign navies? Surveys of the ocean floor and natural environment? And why wouldn't they share it with us, if it's either of those two?
China and India understand that political strength and economic strength related to shipping requires a strong naval presence. Their navies are waxing. Canada's is waning.
Is the idea here that we should be able to outgun countries with a billion people? Seems unlikely - so then, what is the relevance of relative naval strength?
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I want to reiterate that I am not attacking the Senator here. I want to better understand the background behind these arguments.
Er, "amphibious assault vehicle" should be "amphibious assault ship".
The "underwater intelligence" refers to to approximate location of US (and other NATO) submarines.
This is also called "waterspace management" which NATO defines waterspace management as, “The allocation of surface and underwater spaces into areas and the implementation of agreed procedures to permit the coordination of assets, with the aim of preventing mutual interference between submarines or between submarines and other assets, while enabling optimum use to be made of all antisubmarine warfare assets involved.” See, Patricia Kime, “Navy should bolster crisis planning for theater ASW”, Sea Power, September 2003.
Senior Canadian naval officials completely neglected this crucial practice as a means of protecting Canadian maritime sovereignty during the enquiry following the Chicoutimi fire.
Good questions from Josh, and I was e-mailed a response from a naval officer who didn't want to go through the hassle of registering to comment directly on the site. Here they are in his words:
Q - Is there a genuine threat of piracy or maritime hostility anywhere near Canada? I thought that was more of an Indian Ocean concern.
A – These are two different things (piracy and hostility). Piracy is a criminal act with profit as its motivation. There are many acts of piracy every year in the Caribbean Sea. These are directed mostly against small pleasure craft, but it is piracy nonetheless. The ‘hostility’ you refer to is usually taken to mean acts by the naval (and naval air) forces of other countries, which could range over the entire spectrum of hostility, from mere shows of force to high intensity combat. These can occur anywhere that warships can roam and aircraft can fly. Basically, since the Territorial Sea of Canada is 12 nautical miles wide and the Integral Zone is another 12 miles, warships from another country can range freely anywhere off Canada’s coastline at a distance of 24 miles. More on how many and what type of ships these might be in your fourth question.
Q - But for that kind of thing, we'd want to use cargo ships or amphibious assault vehicles (CDS's "big honking ship"), wouldn't we? Not so much destroyers and frigates?
A – Ships are the most cost effective way of moving cargos over long distances. The transportation cost is measure in just a few pennies per ton-mile. By comparison, the cost of moving things by air is measure in tens of dollars per ton-mile. How much cargo you need to move and how fast it has to get there depends on the type of task that has been assigned to your forces. It is quite possible to move and support a platoon of troops (30 men) quickly in a destroyer or frigate for short periods of time. Such tasks as reconnaissance, raiding, evacuation, forward observation and fire direction, patrol, and inspection fall into this category. For larger groups of men more capacity is required. During the Second World War, the rough measure of tonnage required for each soldier was 1,000 tons per man per day! These figures have not gone down since then. Especially, the amount of fuel required for mechanized formations has gone up enormously.
Any decision to commit the army to a land operation comes with a huge logistical bill. Add into this calculation that the rate of consumption of ammunition, food, fuel and other consumable items can triple or quadruple when the intensity of combat goes up and you can see why expeditionary operations with land forces is so difficult to sustain. Combine this with the cost factor and you can see why history shows that 95 percent of all sustainment for joint operations goes by sea. Nothing else is affordable. It also explains why having only one big ship to transport and sustain the force is not the answer. For a major commitment of force (a brigade or more) it is likely that several ships will be required to transport and sustain the force. Fuel tankers have proven to be especially important in the past, as they are often also required to haul water.
While it might be more efficient to have a few large ships for sustainment, it is often the case that the places where conflict and disaster occur are far from major port facilities, or the ports have been damaged. In such cases, medium-sized vessels are most often the best, and this drives up the numbers required.
Q - What kind of intelligence would that be - foreign navies? Surveys of the ocean floor and natural environment? And why wouldn't they share it with us, if it's either of those two?
A – The answer is all about knowing whose submarines are out there, not simple oceanographic data. For allied countries, there is a undersea waterspace management system, just like there is an airspace management system for aircraft traffic. They are both designed to avoid collisions. If you have a submarine and want to sail it anywhere, you must be assigned an area to operate within or a corridor to travel along. Allied countries tend to share information about non-allied countries’ submarines that enter into their shared waterspace management area. This intelligence can come from many secret systems, such as satellites, acoustic listening arrays – both mobile and static, and warships or aircraft.
Q - Is the idea here that we should be able to outgun countries with a billion people? Seems unlikely - so then, what is the relevance of relative naval strength?
A – No, it is very hard to go up against a stronger navy and win outright. In naval warfare, numbers count more than anything since engagements tend to be purely attritional in nature; there is no such thing as ‘manoeuvre warfare’ at sea. Unlike land warfare, where odds of 3-to-1 are considered optimal for attack, at sea numerical advantages have vastly different connotations: 2:1 crushing / 3:2 massive / 4:3 major / 5:4 significant / 10:9 advantageous. So, if fighting as the ‘underdog’, you must avoid direct contact. This does not mean fighting defensively; far from it. Every opportunity should be sought to out-scout the enemy, strike effectively first, and then reposition to another favourable location, or withdraw if no other opportunities exist.
So, since force ratios are so important, knowing how many of the enemy can be in your area at any one time is key in naval warfare. The process of calculating how many enemy units might be present is called ‘Threat Reduction’. Some of the things to consider are: how far is the enemy operating from a support base; what kind of endurance do they have; what environmental factors may reduce their endurance; does the enemy have access to operational support services where they wish to operate; what portion of the enemy fleet is operating elsewhere, how much of their fleet is in reserve, training, repair or transit? All of these things must be considered in reverse when our forces are tasked to expeditionary operations and they must go away to fight. For such a large country as Canada, ‘expeditionary’ could even mean operating in home waters at great ranges from a supporting base. For these reasons, and many other, logistics is vitally important in naval warfare.
If you want to know more about how naval warfare works, I highly recommend Wayne Hughes’ book Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat, 2nd ed. (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis) 2000.
Ken Hansen
Commander/Professor of Political Science
Naval Liaison Officer/Defence Fellow
Centre for Foreign Policy Studies
Dalhousie University
Josh, I'll take a shot at answering your questions as well:
Is there a genuine threat of piracy or maritime hostility anywhere near Canada? I thought that was more of an Indian Ocean concern.
I help business owners insure what they do, and I can tell you that nobody wants to pay for the insurance ...until they have a claim. And the thing is, you never know when that's going to happen. Think of the CF as a big insurance policy for Canada.
If we don't actively protect our own waters, other countries will fill that void (they already are under the arctic ice). If the global warming predictions prove correct, our waterways will become more and more attractive.
Besides, your question assumes Canadian waters are the only ones we'd be worrying about protecting. Our interests may dictate we protect other waters, either unilaterally (unlikely) or in concert with our allies (extremely likely - more likely than another ground conflict, in fact).
But for that kind of thing, we'd want to use cargo ships or amphibious assault vehicles (CDS's "big honking ship"), wouldn't we? Not so much destroyers and frigates?
I think Kenny would love to see us have more sealift capability as well as the "sleek greyhounds of death" as a friend of mine likes to phrase it; this point doesn't argue for more destroyers and frigates, it argues for a Navy that can move stuff around the globe.
What kind of intelligence would that be - foreign navies? Surveys of the ocean floor and natural environment? And why wouldn't they share it with us, if it's either of those two?
I can't add anything to the other responses you've received on this.
Is the idea here that we should be able to outgun countries with a billion people? Seems unlikely - so then, what is the relevance of relative naval strength?
Canada's prosperity and security rests in large part upon our economic and military alliances - in so many cases, we don't try to be the one-stop-shop, but rather an integral and valuable part of a network or process.
In that context, our only hope of standing against, say, a Chinese naval force would be to engage our allies in our defence. And we couldn't ask that unless we were contributors to their collective defence as well. Freeloading is neither an ethical choice nor a long-term practical choice in this matter.
Thanks for those very helpful answers.
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