By Ted Barnes, 7 April 2025
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about some ideas of possibly speeding up the River-class destroyer (RCD) build as, in my opinion, the imperative is there to have these ships built as soon as possible. As most people who frequent this forum know that the RCD build will take place over several decades to provide the RCN the ships, they need to replace our venerable Halifax-class frigates whose upkeep is continually becoming more and more expensive. Currently it costs around $500M for a multi-year refit and thousands of person hours when back at dockyard to allow them to reach an operational point and be able to deploy.
Some people offered a rebuttal of sorts, appearing to agree however offering reasons why the prime contractor Irving couldn’t. Reasons include Irving saying that “Irving has testified that using multiple yards is not very efficient,” “Irving is dead set against the concept as its senior officials have made very clear in testimony before various parliamentary committees,” “speeding up construction goes against a core principle of the NSS. (Carefully sequenced and deliberately paced load-levelling to protect the workforce at the shipyards).” Others mention that other yards possibly aren’t up to the task, and we shouldn’t “willy nilly” go to other yards as the author suggests quality may be an issue and to leave the project to progress. Perhaps they were playing devil’s advocate or they truly believe the status quo is working. I believe we seriously need to look at other options and think outside the box. It’s important to note that the RCD build is purposely planned to stretch out the work, however world events are requiring Canada to have new warships sooner rather than later.
Cammell Laird a shipyard in the UK has recently released images of the Type 26 frigate sections delivered to BAE Systems' shipyard in Glasgow on March 16–17. The main section was HMS Birmingham’s consolidated propulsion block, weighing around 1,000 tonnes. Constructed over 21 months, it includes 8,437 secondary structural components such as pipes, ladders, access walkways, and mounting points for ship equipment. Also shipped were eight upper units for HMS Belfast, comprising two double-stacked units and four single units. These incorporated a total of 3,858 secondary structure elements.
Now I will go out on a limb here and ask the question -- if BAE can do this why can’t we? Irving, which is actively collaborating with BAE, can certainly contract out blocks to be produced offsite either through a smaller shipyard or building another fabrication yard in Halifax possibly repurposing the unused RCN NAD area in Dartmouth. Of course, going to an outside yard Quality Assurance and Quality Control would be important, less so if Irving itself ran the fabrication but the point is any move to do this would have to be carefully considered. But we have years of waiting for the build to do this and possibly implement on the second batch. Will this cost more? Possibly. Will this affect the spirit of the NSS? Again possibly. Is there the potential to save money on ceasing needless Halifax-class refits that cost close to a new warship, and will this get our ships faster? Only a fool would say no. This deserves to be looked at seriously and decide if the juice is worth the squeeze.
Image: Key structural components for the fourth and third Type 26 (HMS Birmingham and HMS Belfast) are seen being barged from Cammell Laird's facilities to BAE's for further construction, 28 March 2025. Credit: Cammell Laird.
5 thoughts on “Building the River-Class Faster and Smarter”
Hello Ted,
As one of the naysayers you describe previously I think, I have some additional comments as to this idea of expanding the production base.
If we are talking about something akin to the previously raised idea of sub-contracting out River class production to entirely different Canadian yards that will need to be expanded greatly or entirely rebuilt (Saint John), I am not especially supportive of such a move. You would be looking at potentially up to a decade worth of work to get a yard even just constructed and ready to work, let alone with a trained workforce doing efficient work. That is a considerable amount of time, effort, manpower and funds diverted from somewhere to build a yard that will ultimately be forced to compete against Davie, Seaspan and Irving in the future.
If we are talking about expanding existing facilities or building additional ‘branch facilities’ close by existing yards like you mention with a hypothetical Dartmouth fabrication yard, I think that is a far more realistic and reasonable option. It is easier to keep these sorts of yards going alongside their parent yard through the NSS, especially if they are close in proximity. Irving already has Woodside Industrial and Marine Fabricators in Dartmouth, doing module construction and steel fabrication respectively. Woodside especially might be able to be expanded into a larger fabrication yard with some difficulty, although Marine Fabricators is likely locked in due to its geography.
I would be a bit careful directly comparing the European yards to their Canadian yards, given the amount of work the UK yards especially can receive. Even then, Harland and Wolff was taken over by Navantia due to them basically losing all contracts. Even the British aren’t immune to this, and we should be very careful about the idea of throwing more yards into the mix, only to have them wither on the vine as times goes on.
As mentioned before, the good thing about the CSC build is that it will take several decades to complete the project. Plenty of time to build other fabrication facilities or sub-contract out to other smaller yards and ensure their quality at an adequate level. NAD which is located directly across from HMC dockyard is an ideal site to open another fabrication facility and yes it will take time to build and get workers trained. That being said, it would also be an ideal place to have a school to train these workers in the industry. The great thing about another Irving owned fabrication facility is in lean times it could be mothballed and maintained for surge capability and is not competing against anyone. If it was a smaller yard, then once the contract concludes, no responsibility for that yard.
Yes I certainly would compare to UK yards because they clearly have the experience in building warships, in fact Irving and the RCN have personnel embedded with them and Irving recently contracted BAE for support in building the RCD. They must be doing something right as BAE is moving right along building multiple ships at the same time. Again why can’t we? Clearly our defence needs need to evolve now over this idea that we need in this case to space out the build while Rome burns.
We need to get the lead out of our CSS production pants. Canada does not have any more time for Irving and NATO does not have any more time for Canada. These combat ships should have been in the water yesterday.. last week .. last month .. last year.. years ago.. ahead of the AOPS. Split the NSS CSS contract with Davie and move the icebreakers over to Finland until these ships are all in the water. But let’s get the lead out and the job done. Conflicts and the need for reliable surface combatants waits for no man and certainly won’t wait for Canada to get its act together. Surface combatants should have been green lit and signed off, built and in the water long before icebreakers and constabulary non-combatant coast guard grade AOPS in Navy paint, which have no capacity to detect a Russian submarine if one was parked underneath it. Priorities in Navy defence procurement have been all wrong.
Brian, Irving is not the reason why the CSC was not prioritized over the AOPV’s. The government at the time prioritized the AOPV’s to be built first to allow the shipyard to recruit the workers and gain the experience building the AOPV’s, upgrade the facilities and design the ship. That’s squarely on the government. Under the NSS there’s no splitting the build as Davie will be full up building icebreakers and taking any work away from other shipyards violates the contracts. As for the AOPV’s which you think is “coast guard in Navy paint” you clearly do not understand what AOPS do for the RCN and yes AOPS have trialled a containerized payload for a ASW towed array.
Hello Ted. Agree with much of what you have said. Especially your last paragraph. With all the money the government has been throwing at ISL lately, NAD should have been updated for RCD block fabrication years ago. The government should have done this already. ISL has the work force (or will have) to do this. If the Canadian government was unwilling to make the necessary changes to NAD in Dartmouth, the other options would be for the government to sell the property entirely to ISL or BAE to make the necessary changes to NAD. One of the biggest changes in my opinion would be larger cranes would be needed to load on these modules to barges and float them over to Halifax Shipyard. Whatever needs to be done, should be done, soonest, to help speed up construction of the RCD ships. So let’s get on with it!