By Peter M. Sanderson, 10 September 2026
It all started with an article in Canadian Defence Review, followed by their video: CDR “Why Canada Needs Landing Ships for Arctic Sovereignty | Damen LST -100 Analysis,” in which Admiral Angus Topshee suggests the Damen’s commercial Landing Ship as a timely and cost-effective solution to his Arctic sovereignty challenge. I wish to tweak that (click on Reference 1). But since I am not the guy, cap in hand, standing in front of Treasury Board trying to get them to approve a ship bigger then our allies; it behooves me to provide the winning arguments.
Comparing the Damen Ro-Ro cargo Landing Ships with the original WW II Landing Ship, Tank (click on Reference 2):
* Weight of a combat loaded tank
Damen LST-100 role in Arctic sovereignty
Aid-to-the-Civil-Power. Most of the Inuit communities in the Arctic don’t have a port and only a short runway but they do have a beach. If their local Co-op burned down, they will have no food or clothing for the winter. With a lot of manhandling, the AOPS could help but a LST just beaches, a large all-terrain fork lift delivers the locked sea containers to the new store site then the building materials for the new store – in and out, the right tools, professional.
Humanitarian Assistance (HA). During the summer there many cruise ships in the Arctic, if one was to hit a rock or have a catastrophic fire and sink, putting 200 people on a AOPS or icebreaker would be grim, putting them aboard a troop ship would be professional contingency planning.
Military Role. Building infrastructure in the Arctic is expensive with long led times, the LST makes a cost-effective mobile base; it can also deliver a HIMARS or an anti-aircraft missile battery, establishing ‘temporary distributed defence sites.
Damen LST- 100 role in Indo-Pacific Littoral
The RAN’s 8x LST - 100s are to replace the former HMAS Tobruk (L 50) which could deliver 18 Abrams.
The USN is acquiring these ships to enable small USMC ‘area denial missile’ teams to move discreetly among the islands. The USMC MEP no longer includes tanks.
Damen LST - 120 role in Europe
After the SS Atlantic Conveyor loss in 1982, the shipping industry decided that during an armed conflict it would no longer lease ships to the military, rather it will sell the ship at ‘replacement cost.’ During the 2006 Lebanon Evacuation Crisis, Canada learned other lessons: during an evacuation crisis everybody else is looking for ships too; and the Europeans will look after their customers first, so we will end up buying these big ships, paying top dollar for someone else’s, old, secondhand ships. The smart play is to build these less expensive LSTs in Canada, get their use and GDP benefit. For the sake of our troops in Latvia, the Damen ships are as capable as the originals – they can resupply, reinforce, redeploy or withdraw our units as needed.
Damen LST - 100 vs 120: The significance of the 20 meter hull block extension
The Chart shows that the 20 meter hull addition gives increased speed, range, troop carrying and davits for 4 LC.
Accommodating the New Barrels Lengths. The reason the original LST could carry 20 tanks, is the M4 Sherman had a short-barreled gun, allowing the hulls to chained down tight ‘nose to tail.’ In contrast, modern tanks have a 5-metre gun barrel while gun barrels on self-propelled (SP) artillery are 8 metres (52 caliber), hence the extension. Now you see the genius of the French Caesar 6x6 SP 155mm Expeditionary Gun.
The Landing Ship Tank is as Canadian as Apple Pie
Canadian Crewed. The only Landing Craft that did not appear on the RCN establishment was the LST, and yet we have all seen the photos and films of the RCN delivering CA Shermans in Sicily, Italy and Normandy landings. What gives? A strange arrangement called the ‘Personnel Loan Agreement,’ the RCN were loaned RN LSTs (see Reference 3).
Canadian Produced. In February 1944, Britain ordered 100 Mark 3 LSTs from Canada, for use in the Pacific Theatre. The Mark 3s were longer, 106.6m, had a wider beam, 16.7m, and could launch LC. At the time of the surrender of Imperial Japanese Forces, 26 ships had been completed and accepted. The 5 yards involved were: Canadian Vickers, Montreal QC; Davie Shipbuilding, Lauzon QC; United Shipyards, Montreal QC; Marine Industries, Sorel QC; and Yarrows, Esquimalt BC (see Reference 4). Canada was once a player, a country of 11 million, 1.5 million in uniform, the homefront mobilized into a ‘command economy,’ that was more productive and efficient than Russia’s or Germany’s. PM Mackenzie King’s Minister CD Howe and his ‘dollar-a-year-men,’ left us their manual (see Reference 5).
The CDR video suggests that the first ships could be built by Damen and the remainder by one of the big 3: Davie, Irving or SeaSpan. Since these are only commercial ships, I trust the statement was meant to be provocative. Our second tier yards are modern and efficient, all they need is a purchase order, Damen’s $3.3 million technical data package and they will cut steel.
References
1. CDR https://youtu.be/L777hb0VdHM?si=gCkYcmzwBGRl5FRL
2. Damen LST – 120 https://youtu.be/jCTPSoaUtwk?si=5xpVT5nVFb9wM8Ib
3. Fact Sheet #28 Landing Ships & Landing Craft by Capt (N) (Ret’d) Michael Braham
4. Naval Marine Archive.com The Canadian Collection – Amphibious Warfare Ships (LST)
5. Kennedy, J De N, History of the Department of Munitions and Supply – Canada in the Second World War. Two Volumes. Kings Printer and Controller of Stationary, 1950
Image: A graphic of Damen's LST 120 design. Credit: Damen.
