The Torch: Joint Support Ship: The wait continues/Politically-imperative pork

What happens when the government (they all do) insists on designing and building vessels in Canada, and when the Navy over-reaches in its desires:

Ships still on drawing board
Navy won’t talk to builders about supply vessels until next year

The redesign of the navy’s new generation of supply ships is complete, but it will still be next year before the Conservative government is ready to talk to industry about building them.

Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, head of the navy, said he’s ready to submit design and cost estimates to the defence minister and hopes to get approval by month’s end.

The process to replace the navy’s two 1960s replenishment ships with three new, multi-purpose vessels was scuttled last summer when industry bids came in far above the Conservative government’s $2.9-billion budget.

Critics within the defence industry have complained the navy was trying to pack too much into the ships for that money.

The navy wanted the vessels to resupply warships at sea, carry army equipment and act as a floating headquarters and hospital ships during amphibious operations.

The failure of the process sent the navy back to the drawing board...

McFadden, who took over the navy’s top job last summer, wouldn’t say what elements might have been sacrificed to keep the project within budget.

"We needed to find a way to satisfy essential requirements, (to) be as draconian as we possibly can to bring this into reality," he said. "There is a limited amount of funds available for this process at this time."

Testifying before the Senate defence committee last spring, the assistant deputy minister of materiel said that a request for proposals for three new joint support ships likely won’t be issued until next year — and it will be another five to six years before the first one is delivered [emphasis added, lots more here].

The two existing supply ships — HMCS Protecteur and HMCS Preserver — are both nearly at the end of their life expectancy and have required major overhauls [one coming up for Preserver] to stay in service.

There has been speculation within defence circles that the navy would be forced to buy different ships to fulfil the various roles rather than build one hugely expensive vessel that does it all.

But McFadden virtually ruled it out.

"I think it would be a mistake for this country to go to specialized, niche-market ships," he said. "Bigger navies have the luxury of having specialized ships."..[And most smaller navies do not have the luxury of designing and building at home all-singing and dancing vessels.]

NATO sources say both the Dutch and Danish navies have been watching the developments and were impressed with the initial Canadian concept for joint support ships.

Well, that's one way of putting it. In fact the Dutch have been working on their own design for a similar ship. Why don't we just buy it and build it in Canada as much as we can in order to provide the politically-imperative pork? The shameful thing is that the procurement officially started in June 2006 (sorry for error in title at link, official announcement here)--over three years ago. More on the debacle at this May 2008 post: