By Blair Shaw, 22 November 2024
With the Royal Navy announcing the decommissioning of HMS Albion and Bulwark, could this be an opportunity for Canada to step in and step up? HMS Albion and Bulwark are both well-established Landing Platform Docks (LPDs) and they have given the Royal Navy enormous capability in amphibious warfare as well as humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR) missions. The ships are not new — with Albion being commissioned in 2003 and Bulwark in 2004 — but they are actually in good shape.
Both ships have throughout their lives been rotated with only a handful of times that both have been crewed and in service at the same time. In the last decade at least both ships have spent quite a long time in extended readiness so, to coin a used car salesman phrase, they are 'low mileage.'
HMS Albion is nearing completion of a major overhaul and refit and will be ready for sea shortly. Even just purchasing one of these would give Canada the ability to have a ship with a very large flight deck able to support V-22 and Chinooks, but also a large well deck for those HA/DR missions. It would also hopefully kick the army into gear to create a dedicated amphibious force to go with the ship. But above all else it would also boost the credibility of the RCN around the world as well as give our NATO allies especially the USA somewhat of a nod that we are taking defence seriously.
While I understand the apathy with buying British given the Victoria class submarine issues, this is entirely different program all together. But it is something that could reasonably be pulled off given the funds and will power, naturally the only drawback here is finding a crew. See
https://www.navylookout.com/even-before-the-defence-review-has-begun-five-royal-navy-warships-are-to-be-scrapped/
22 thoughts on “An Opportunity for Canada to Step In and Step Up”
Nice try Blair, but this idea will never fly. If HMS Bulwark is slated soon to go the Brazilian Navy that now leaves only HMS Albion for the RCN. She has not, and according to the RN will not, go to refit and will be scrapped. That’s all we need here in Canada – another albatross around our RCN neck. If the RN can’t man these ships now, what makes you think Canada can? As you may be aware, Canada is down several thousand sailors (over 16,500 total personnel down in the CAF now!) Where are these “new” sailors going to come from? Even if the RN were willing to give Albion to us, she needs a major overhaul to Canadianize it (possibly in the hundreds of millions of dollars) which the government cannot afford to spare! Let’s get the Protecteur class, River class Destroyers and submarines started first and then maybe in the future we may consider a Amphib/HA-DR capability.
There’s no firm commitment from Brazil just yet – it was just mentioned they have expressed interest.
I do see your point; it would be a lot to take on especially when we have so many ongoing projects. However, it would be an instant capability boost. These LPDs are not that personnel-hungry, the complement is about 320 if i remember rightly but naturally as stated at the end I said the drawback would be finding the crew.
If we had to sacrifice a couple of Halifaxs for it though and draft the crews from them you could probably get away with it (just).
Both ships are good platforms overall and have been very underused over their life time. I would say we could probably get them at a knocked-down price too. They were actually relatively cheap when built even with the cost over-runs.
Hello Blair. Yes, it would be nice to have this capability but now is not the time. Manning a crew of 320 personnel would not possible right now. The only way this could happen is if Canada were to lay-up two Halifax-class frigates now, and we both know that’s not the way to run any navy! Personally, I have been advocating for an Amphib/HA-DR capability for years but realistically it will not happen for the RCN right now with everything on their plate.
Hi David,
Is your vision for a Canadian amphibious/HA&DR capability oriented towards traditional amphibious ships – LHA/LPD – or newer concepts?
Ubique,
Les
Hello Les. I would envision newer concepts as an Amphib/HA-DR capability like the RN MRSS project (possibly 2 or 3) or perhaps the Japanese Yinan Shao class LHD concept planned for Japan. However, let’s not forget the Australian Canberra class experience. It took them over 20 years to develop their capability and they are still not there quite yet! So this would be a generational thing for Canada as well to develop this capability. You can’t expect to buy a capability and fit it with the right doctrine, personnel and equipment overnight.
@David Dunlop I’ve just posed this idea to Justin. Wondering your thoughts on this, I agree though alone it’s probably too rich for us.
Good morning Blair,
While I believe very strongly that Canada needs an amphibious capability, I am certain that it must be one that can operate in the Arctic during at least the annual navigation season, as well as elsewhere. These British ships do not meet that requirement at all.
Additionally, one is described as worn out. Surely, we do not want to get ourselves into the same mess again as with the Upholder-class submarines. At least they were new, although in very poor shape.
The only reason that I could see buying HMS Bulwark (at a knock-down price) would be to use it as an interim training ship to gain hands-on experience with amphibious operations while proper ships (such as LPAs and LSI(A)s) were actually being built.
Unless Trump’s presidency opens the flood gates for the needed funding, I do not foresee such a Canadian capability being developed.
Thus, we should stay far away from these hand-me-downs. Buying them would likely leave a bad taste in Canadians’ mouths that would unfairly taint the larger amphibious requirement.
Any limited funds found for Canadian amphibious forces should go towards implementing Colonel Brian Wentzell’s basic level of capability.
Ubique,
Les
Hey Les
If I recall, and it’s been a very long time since I went on either of the two ships, but if I’m not mistaken they are ice 1A rated as they had the initial plan of working with the Royal Marines in Norway and Baltic areas so they had to be at very least ice strengthened.
I agree we could use the ship as a training ship but also as a logistical support vessel possibly which would tie in with the HA/DR missions. Not many are aware but like RFA Argus both HMS Albion and Bulwark can transfer fuel and stores to other ships while underway too.
But yes I can see the point of it might be too much too soon and while the unknown factor of maintenance being the issue the whole trying to run before we can walk kind of deal.
Hi Blair,
Thank you for the info on the ice strengthening.
Ubique,
Les
We passed on smilar opportunities in 2011 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Choules and 2014 https://www.cgai.ca/putting_the_cart_before_the_horse
Indeed and also the Mistrals which arguably would have been an ideal purchase had the will and funds been available.
I wrote an article about this (but it wasn’t published) about a similar proposal. I think it is a good opportunity for Canada to explore.
However, I don’t know if there may be issue with personnel as we may not have enough sailors for such a ship?
Hello Justin. It would be interesting & beneficial for the CNR group to see your article for comments. Can you provide it to the group? Cheers!
Hello Blair,
Perhaps a reasonable idea in a vacuum but I find myself largely falling in line with David on this matter. If the Royal Navy cannot operate these vessels, the Royal Canadian Navy certainly cannot. We are facing manpower issues with operating the current fleet that we have as it stands now, we are not in any shape to bring in unplanned and personnel hungry vessels. Operating one Albion class vessel would require enough raw crew (not taking into consideration certain qualifications or ranks) to operate nearly 6.5 Kingston class ships, 5 DeWolf class ships or 1.25 Halifax class frigates. That isn’t giving you enough crew to realistically rotate out, that is just a single crew set for the vessel and nothing else.
On top of this, you need the equipment and amphibious doctrine to properly utilize these vessels. The Canadian Army doesn’t have that equipment nor do they have the training or established doctrine to take it on. There is a similar issue with the Airforce as they’d need to train on ship operations and put aside equipment to use on the vessel. The RCN would need to dedicate its already limited resources to escorting and defending these ships as well as developing the operational skills to use them in the first place. This is an awful lot of cross service efforts, funding and personnel that all need to come together as a whole or the system will be useless.
If you do all of this, what are you ended up with? A single or two LPD’s for the RCN? How is Canada realistically going to get proper use out of these vessels? They are pretty substantial overkill for HA/DR missions, any ferrying of Army equipment abroad can be done using allied platforms/rented civilian RO-RO’s and we realistically have no use for amphibious assaults. Trying to run these to the Arctic to deliver supplies/equipment would be an incredibly costly endeavor that you would likely be far better off doing with cargo aviation instead.
At the end of the day, Canada just cannot afford this sort of excess and very costly luxury. The RCN needs submarines, resupply ships, destroyers, patrol vessels, work boats, etc long before we can afford to talk about amphibious capability.
If we do anything involving surplus UK ships, I think it might be more worthwhile founding a Canadian RFA and buying the two Wave class tankers to supplement our current fleet.
Could we get the Royal Navy to provide personnel and support if we were to purchase one of these ships?
@Justin Leung or how about a crew sharing arrangement – have a commonwealth navy with UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand operating platforms jointly.
Hello Justin. Again, not a great idea for both countries. The Brits are having their own personnel issues as well. Why would we want the UK to sell us kit, and then man that kit as well if we were not prepared to have Canadian crews for a “Canadian” ship? Shades of the Victoria (Upholder) class purchase fiasco many times over? This is totally soooo wrong! We had our chance years ago with the possible purchase of the French Mistral Class Amphib/HA/DR ships. We can’t just go willy-nilly looking for a built-in capability without first developing that home-grown capability. It’s like putting the cart before the horse. When Canada is truly ready to do this, then it will get done. And not before. Good thoughts Justin, but not feasible for Canada.
Indeed and I quite agree with the points you raised. I would support buying the 2 Waves as they have valid uses for the fleet, and perhaps indeed buying one Albion would be beyond our means.
While it is a nice idea, I guess when we look at crew and cost it seems from the feed back that it wouldn’t be worthwhile.
Here we go again buying used junk.
Reply to David Dunlop of 1 Dec 24
Hi David,
Thank you for your reply.
I agree fully that developing a Canadian amphibious capability would be a multi-decade effort. A video on the Australian experience was posted to the Forum on 25 Jul 22.
How ice capable would you foresee a Canadian capability being?
Ubique,
Les
Hi Les. A double hull minimum of Polar Class 3 vessels would be about right for Canadian Amphib/HA-DR operations in the future considering the global-warming situation now and in the future. What say you? Cheers!
Hi David,
I agree fully with the spirit of your comment, although – as noted below – I would like to understand better the details of what you are proposing.
As my article in CNR 20.2 tries to point out, global warming, due in particular to the uncertain future of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation system of ocean currents, could lead to an increasing amount of sea ice in the Arctic, or the opposite. The climate (and other) interactions are so complex that is hard to know what will actually unfold. The only certainty is that climate change is making the Earth less habitable and will present us with major (perhaps existential) crises. Thus, planning on a robust ability to operate in Arctic sea ice is very wise at this time.
I am not sure if you mean a full Polar Class 3 for the amphibious vessels that you envision or just certain aspects. Could you elucidate further?
Thanks.
Ubique,
Les