By Peter M. Sanderson, 24 September 2026
On 20 September 2026, armyrecognition.com revealed that the RCN has secured the loan of two CB-90Hs (2x 700-hp engines) from Swedish Amphibious Regt. to trial their suitability for the RCN (see reference 1). The takeaway I got from this AI-assisted article, was that Admiral Angus Topshee is collecting data to make a presentation to Treasury Board which will answer two questions: (1) is a low-profile amphibious assault craft, the CB-90H, built to be invisible to radar in the ‘wave clutter’ in its 100 km dash to Gotland Island, suitable for use on Canada’s littoral coasts? (2) is your only goal to land troops, then be like Sweden and acquire the CB-90H, a ‘basic’ boat , or do you want to use the ‘sophisticated’ CB-90HSM (2x 900-hp engines) to regenerate the Naval Reserves, and have it as a tool of retention and tool of attraction for recruits? The ultimate goal is to have Naval Divisions be both caretaker of the boats and provide their highly trained crews for future amphibious operations. (see Reference 2).
While Reserve Artillery units have their guns and the Reserve Amour units have their TAPV patrol vehicles, what does the Naval Reserve have? In an interview, Admiral Topshee thought the CB-90 would remedy that, and the boat was ideal for training junior leaders.
The Junior Warship -- the CB-90 HSM -- has a commander and three crew. The first crew member, the helm, uses electronic charts; the second crew member runs the Combat Management System (CMS), this member runs communications to the team through headsets and screens. The CMS uses imagery from the remote weapon station (RWS), including stills, video and live feed which it can share with the crew, the flotilla or higher headquarters. The fourth member is the gunner/observer who operates the Saab Trackfire RWS, while the Laser Range Finder allows the gun to always hit targets. The daylight television camera and the IR thermal camera also provide the craft with a passive day/night surveillance capability.
Commanding a fast boat takes the usual: seamanship, small boat leadership, multi-tasking, decisiveness, tactically sound, command presence, and communication skills.
If there is buy-in by Treasury Board, here are some random thoughts – apologies for this being Eastern Canada centric:
1. The Jay Treaty, 1794. Neither Canada nor the United States can have a ship with guns or cannons on the Great Lakes nor the St Lawrence River. When our frigates and AOPS do their Great Lake Tours, they get and carry their letter of exception. This definitely means the Gunnery qualification will get done in the Maritimes during the summer National Amphibious Assault Boat School.
2. The French announced they were ordering the CB-90. If they are occupying the queue we may have to make an ‘ask’ so they give us one of their spots, in order to have a boat for recruiting. The boat should visit every Division to give the young sailors hope that change is coming. Canadian boat deliveries should be annually oriented for 15th of June acceptance-introduction conundrum, i.e., you need boats to train crews and you can’t issue boats to the Division until they have trained crews.
3. Trailers. The nomenclature should read “Amphibious Assault Boat, Mk 1 c/w trailer” because of winter. Our lakes and rivers freeze up, the boats need to be lifted out of the water, placed on their trailers, winterized, shrink-wrapped then trucked to a DND Base, parked on hard standing and put on the MP Night Patrol Route due to their valuable electronics. During this 7-month stand down in the interior of the country, if there is crisis on one of the coasts, the boats are centralized and ready to roll. Plus, after the boats are built, initial crews are trained and boats are issued to the Naval Divisions. A normal annual training cycle would mean that for 10 weeks each summer all the Ontario boats from Windsor to Kingston, all Quebec and Newfoundland boats will be trucked to the school, remaining Maritime boats would just sail to the school, thereby providing the flotillas for the school courses.
4. National School. Here are some course individual* and boat training** examples:
a. Boat Ballet* (man/machine maneuvers that can then be synchronized into a public display)
b. Group Boat Ballet**
c. Surveillance and Reconnaissance* **
d. Night Patrol Resupply RV**
e. Night Deep Insertion of a 4 man LR Patrol **
f. Major Surprise Daylight Landing* **
g. Major Night Raid with a fighting withdrawal* ( important Gunner* fire control Ex – Fire/ No Fire conditions)
h. The school will require a section of Reserve Army soldiers as ‘walk ons’ at various times during each course.
5. Reserve Army Area Rank and Trade School and Military Concentration (MilCon). During summer, the two schools are running at the same time, with Jr and Snr NCO and officer leadership courses taking place, hopefully their syllabuses will allow some amphibious warfare training. Failing that, the end of summer is when Reserve Units go to the field – MilCon will be the best opportunity for major Amphibious Warfare Ops for the school.
6. Amphibious Warfare Patch. The Admiral has got the boats, how do you show you are using your resources? Your Division’s Annual Training Report should read, for example, “worked with 4 separate army units, conducted 8 Ops, involving 111 soldiers.” Of course, the sailors got their patch on graduating from the school. For the Reserve Army, a soldier must participate in a major daylight landing, a major night raid with a fighting withdrawal and a patrol drop off and RV pick up, in order to be put up for this.
7. How fast is the CB-90HSM? It goes 45 kn (83 mph) vs an off-the-shelf Cigarette Boat that goes 80-100 mph vs the fastest model of the three engine WW II German E-Boat, which went 43.5 kn.
8. The future of warfare is unclear, but many navies have fast boats. Will they fight again like they did in WWII, unknown, but we were once pretty good at it. While Battle of the Atlantic was going on, the RCN was also fighting in the North Sea and English Channel.
References:
2. https://youtu.be/epbzbRgTNdU?si=2RQ23QNsKtxk1n6z (6.04 mins) Docksta CB-90HSM into video
