RCN Requirements Talk

By David Morse, 2 February 2025

In the past week, The Naval Association of Canada posted this update by Captain (N) Drew Graham, the Director of Naval Requirements. The video provides a broad view of new naval projects. The brief does not provide information of the existing River Class or Submarine projects but it does provide insight into the fleet concerns in the present environment. A major communications project is intended to ensure continuity of secure communications in the face of increasing disruptive technologies. An array of uncrewed systems, some of which will come into service in the next few years, are intended to provide above water and underwater surveillance in both the AOPS and Halifax classes. Interestingly and importantly this capability will be "organic" to the fleet with sailors operating and maintaining these uncrewed systems. An hour endurance UAV for the Halifax class will be a significant addition to capability.  Other remote systems for mine warfare and long endurance underwater surveillance offer similar capability gains.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the presentation was the suggestion that the RCN is "aggressively" pursuing a corvette design to replace the Kingston class (the last of which seems to be scheduled for decommissioning in 2029). The corvette at around the 1,000 ton size is envisioned to have frigate-like capabilities in air and subsurface domains. As envisioned by DNR the corvette would have air search and missile capabilities allowing it to integrate in continental defence. This is an ambitious goal for a small and minimally crewed vessel.

An interesting talk but a significant gap was the lack of any info on the River class and the final design. Given recent developments around the world, it is surprising that there was no mention of directed energy weapons as a cheap counter to drones (air or sea borne). The use of million dollar missiles to counter a thousand dollar drone is simply not sustainable. Energy weapons could have a major impact on CSC design especially on the increased demand for power. It is probably too late for the present design but does this suggest a need for significant technology insertions at some point and some ships in the lengthy River class building project?

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