Canada is currently going through the difficult process of deciding which of the bids for the Canadian Surface Combatant to accept. Canada is looking at three design proposals – Spain/Navantia proposed the F100 Christopher Columbus-class, the Netherlands proposed the De Zeven Provincien-class and the Lockheed-Martin (LM)/British Aerospace Electric (BAE) consortium proposed the Type 26 frigate. It’s interesting to watch the same process occurring in Australia at the same time. The Royal Australian Navy is in the process of deciding among three bids to replace its frigates as part of its future frigate project SEA5000. Australia is considering the following options – BAE’s Type 26 (designated GCS-A), Navantia’s F100 (F5000) and Fincantieri’s FREMM. The list sounds familiar to Canadians.
For a very good discussion of the Australian case, see the following article by Ross White-Chinnery, “The Australian Frigate Competition: Getting the Right Ship for the Right Deal,” published in UK Defence Journal on 18 March 2018. It’s available at https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/australian-frigate-competition-getting-right-ship-right-deal/
