What the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (A/OPSs) are all about

Killing three birds with one stone.

Bird one: Doing something about asserting sovereignty in Artic waters without carrying out the silly Conservative campaign promise to acquire three large, armed Navy icebreakers.

Bird two: This is the one that makes some naval sense. Getting a true offshore ocean patrol capability (north, east, west--plus within the St. Lawrence) that the current Kingston-Class Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels do not provide, and for which our frigates are over-capable.

Bird three: Lots of jobs (and maybe votes) for Canadian shipyards--no foreign yards need apply. Plus ça change...

Here are excerpts from the backgrounder at the PM's website. It's telling that there is nothing on this announcement yet (morning, July 10) on either the CF/DND or Navy websites.

Canada’s New Government recognizes that an increased military presence in the Arctic is critical to our national interest and sense of identity.

Currently, the Canadian Navy can patrol the coastal waters of Canada’s East and West Coasts, but it does not have the capability to effectively patrol all three oceans. The Navy can only operate in northern waters for a short period of time, and only when there is no ice.

While the current Kingston-Class Maritime Coastal Defence Vessels (MCDV) have the versatility to operate in coastal areas, these minor war vessels have limited ability to operate in the open ocean, cannot support a helicopter, and are restricted in their capacity to support boarding operations. The Navy must use its large combatant vessels – destroyers and frigates, which are expensive to operate, to patrol the open ocean.

To fill this capability gap, the Navy will acquire up to eight Polar Class 5 Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships (A/OPSs). These multi-purpose, ice-capable offshore patrol ships will provide the flexibility for the Navy to operate in both the Arctic and offshore environments, allowing them to be used year-round in a variety of roles, including domestic surveillance, search and rescue and support to other government departments. The A/OPSs offer the best blend of capabilities in one platform...

Endurance/Range: The ship must have the ability to sustain operations for up to four months and must have a range of at least 6,000 nautical miles.

Command and Control: The ship’s electronic equipment must have the ability to ensure safety of navigation and flight, as well as sufficient command, control and communications capability to provide and receive real-time information to and from the CF Common Operating Picture.

Speed: The ship must be able to maintain an economical speed of 14 knots and attain a maximum speed of at least 20 knots.

Armament: The ship must have gun armament to assert Canadian sovereignty.

Boat Operations: The ship’s crew must be able to conduct boat operations in up to sea state four, support operations ashore via landing craft and support naval boarding parties...

The estimated cost of acquiring these ships is $3.1 billion. Approximately $4.3 billion will be provided for operations and maintenance over the 25-year lifespan of the ship.

The two-phased procurement process for these vessels will be fair and transparent. It will also be conducted to ensure that the needs of the CF are met in a timely manner, while ensuring value for Canadians’ tax dollars and maximizing opportunities for Canadian industry. The procurement strategy will conform to the Canadian Shipbuilding Policy Framework, which requires the federal government to procure, repair and refit vessels in Canada.

A project definition phase of 24 months will be needed to develop the functional design, refine the high-level statement of operational requirements (SORs), complete and issue the Request for Proposal (RFP) for the implementation phase of the project and evaluate responses. A competitive process will be used to select a Definition, Engineering, Logistics and Management Support (DELMS) contractor, who will develop the design used to refine the requirements and provide input into the RFP. During this time, consulting engineering contractors will also deliver a functional design for the infrastructure needed to support the A/OPS...

More details from a Globe and Mail story:

Mr. Harper said that the ships he announced yesterday will be able to navigate Canada's three coasts and major rivers. They will also have helicopter landing pads for C-148 Cyclone helicopters that were ordered last year.

Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor told the gathering the ships will "stand among the world's heaviest armed naval vessels capable of sustained operations in ice."

The ships will be able to patrol the passage's length in the summer navigable season, and can patrol approaches to the passage year-round. They will have a 6,000 nautical-mile range and can cruise at a top speed of 20 knots.

Each will be about 100 metres long and displace about 3,000 metric tonnes [emphasis added]...

So the vessels will not be based on the Norwegian Svalbard class as previously reported in the media; in fact they will be about half the size (assuming the current reporting is accurate--the displacement seems really low to me for the job). Meanwhile the Canadian Coast Guard still needs new, heavy icebreakers.

Now let's compare long term costs of the really expensive purchases the government has planned:

C-17/C-130J: $8.3 billion

Medium-to heavy-lift helicopters (CH-47): $4.7 billion

Joint Support Ships: $2.9 billion

Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships: $7.4 billion

Then there's the $3.1 billion modernization of the Halifax-Class frigates.

So of the really expensive stuff the Navy get $13.4 billion and the Air Force $13.0 billion (the actual purchase costs of the planes will come much sooner than for the ships). The Navy sure does allow for a hell of lot of defence pork (in the sense of insisting on spending the vast majority of the money in Canada, even if that means buying less capability for the money); one can understand why politicians like to spend on it. Plus Canadian sailors haven't been killed in combat for a very long time.

All this is not to say that the purchases aren't needed--though I still think offshore patrol vessels with higher speed and a real "expeditionary" capability, and without the ice capability, would make more sense. They would have broader naval utility and Arctic sovereignty assertion could be done by the CCG. For once I agree with quite a bit of what Jim Travers of the Toronto Star writes:

Arctic issues make for good politics

While CTV's Robert Fife is dead wrong:

"Right now we have no capability whatsoever to assert our sovereignty in the Arctic," he said.

"The coast guard is not able to go up into the areas where the new vessels will go..."

The current, but very old, CCG large icebreaker has significantly greater ice capability than the new ships will have and is perfectly capable of asserting sovereignty in many Arctic waterways. The four intermediate CCG icebreakers have at least as much capability as the A/OPS.

Pity we don't have the capability to build Big Honking Ships in this country.

Update: Excerpts from comments at this excellent link Babbling has in his post immediately above:

1) However, the central issue hinges on whether or not APVs now means further delay or even outright cancellation of what senior Navy officials argue is their first priority (after the Frigate Life Extension), namely, a replacement for the remaining three destroyers and the 12 frigates in the form of the Single Class Surface Combatant (SCSC) [emphasis added] - a project whose $20-billion plus price tag is likely to cause a serious case of budgetary indigestion for any government confronted with a minority status and the need to address the 'greening' of any future political agenda. The Chief of the Maritime Staff regards the SCSC as vital to the re-capitalization of the fleet in the crucial period of 2017 and beyond.

Fundamentally, what is at stake for the Navy is the definition of its "core" capabilities. That is, will the navy of the future be structured primarily for domestic responsibilities, or will it retain as its foremost role the fulfilment of expeditionary missions? [emphasis added]..

2) The ships, if built, would not be used exclusively in the Arctic but in lower latitudes off our coasts, some of them all the time, probably overlapping or replacing the Coast Guard's fisheries and search and rescue patrols. (That question of coordination again). Consider the nature of patrols. In the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf patrolling ships are active in intercepting and inspecting vessels. The task is worthwhile and the crews are challenged and interested. But when there is little to intercept - a vague threat from Al Quaida who can do much more effective damage by recruiting and indoctrinating young sympathisers - patrols are boring and wasteful of money [emphasis added]. The combined Coast Guard/ RCMP anti terrorist-patrols have some craft operating in the Lakes and St.Lawrence but on the ocean they do not go into effect unless the RCMP has intelligence about a target (the same policy they use for drug smuggling). Of course we could lay on air surveillance and intercept anything not reporting to the traffic control systems but are we prepared to? In the seventies and eighties, Coast Guard offshore SAR vessels, constrained by budget cuts to reduce fuel and overtime bills, tended to find a convenient harbour or anchorage to wait for a distress call. If the incident was well offshore, the fisheries patrol vessels, who were out there anyway, usually got to it first. Now, of course the fisheries and offshore SAR functions are combined, a much better system. I would predict that naval commanders would soon get tired of this assignment and want to turn it and the ships over to the Coast Guard; but just as the Coastal Patrol vessels are too small, these would be too big and the Coast Guard would not be happy with them.

Now to the Arctic. The only problem comes from the United States and it is a legal challenge, not a physical threat and concerns the waterways and not the land. It is not an American policy directed at Canada but the normal attitude of the major naval power of the day and they exercise it all over the world. The Royal Navy had the same policy in its time, but things were not so codified then and nobody noticed. As global warning becomes more advanced there may be increased civilian traffic in the Arctic but these ships must conform to Canadian regulations. Are we anticipating that some German or Russian eco-tourism ship or a convience-flag bulker will refuse to conform to the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Regulations and will have to be coerced with a 57 mm gun? [emphasis added]..

3) ...the navy must recognize that constabulary duties are a core capability/responsibility [emphasis added]. A larger patrol vessel has long been an urgent national requirement, but the navy resisted this for fear of the association with the dreaded 'Tin Pot Navy' of the past that comes with any assumption of constabulary duties. Since its inception, the navy has been focused on high-end combat capability that can only find application in fleet engagement and expeditionary operations in foreign theatres of operation. What its leadership fails to understand is that these capabilities constitute only a small part of the full spectrum of naval requirements and that such combat occurs only rarely. The Canadian government and the public, meanwhile, remain unconvinced of the navy's dogmatic retention of Cold War attitudes and force structure goals. Now, the government has directed the navy to refocus itself. The navy has responded by rejecting the new role for the regular force and delegating it to the reserve force. Such distain for the one role that resonates strongly across the country will eventually cause the regular force navy to lose its relevance to the government and the people...

For myself, I really am not clear to what extent the Navy should have a "constabulary role" and how suited it is for that role. In any event, the CCG is acquiring 12 mid-shore patrol vessels for this role; if more are needed maybe the government should buy them for the Coast Guard. But the CCG vessels will not be able to carry helicopters (update oops--they may have some helicopter capabililty), so some Navy vessels with that ability would be needed from time-to-time. The question is: do we need, and can we afford, the very specialized A/OPSs for the mission? The likely funding conflict between the A/OPSs and the eventual Single Class Surface Combatant is a real problem.

One other thing: the A/OPSs will be too slow to have an effective anti-submarine role, except as provided by the helicopter.

Upperdate: A topic at Milnet.ca that may provide more insight on the matter as the thread develops.

Uppestdate: Another topic thread at Navy.ca.