You might want to check out an interesting article in Maritime Engineering Journal (Volume 93, Summer 2020), “The Canadian Surface Combatant - Starting a New Conversation on Canada’s Major Warship Replacement Project,” by Cdr Andrew Sargeant. This article is introducing a series of articles to be published in coming months […]
Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC)
34 posts
Procrustes, 11 August 2020. The recent confirmation that the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) will conduct and deliver yet another report on the mounting costs of Ottawa’s preferred bid winner for the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) program in October 2020 could lead to a reversal of course on this slowly evolving […]
Procrustes, 15 July 2020. Is Ottawa going against an international cost-reduction trend in putting all its surface warship eggs in a one, large, expensive Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) design basket? Herein lies the age-old quality versus quantity debate concerning naval fleets. In one sense, the impulse toward a capable, general-purpose […]
Procrustes, 05 July 2020. There has been a longstanding debate in Canada about the extra costs (i.e., the ‘domestic premium’) for building warships in Canada. Certainly the best exponent of the view that this premium is minimal and that comparing Canadian prices with the ship prices of foreign suppliers is […]
Procrustes, 26 June 2020. A 26 June 2020 report from Australia indicates potential problems for the Australian Hunter-class variant of the Type 26 frigate.[1] The report suggests that the ship design has become longer and heavier, largely because of the proposed new phased array radar. The report goes on to […]
The largest part of the National Shipbuilding Strategy is the construction of the Canadian Surface Combatants (CSCs). The proposed 15 CSCs are to replace the retired Iroquois-class destroyers and the current fleet of Halifax-class frigates. In January 2015 the government announced that Irving Shipbuilding had been named the prime contractor […]
Procrustes, 30 May 2020. Here is a brief background of the Alion complaint. Alion was one of the 12 pre-qualified Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) bidders, and one of the three companies which actually submitted a bid. On 19 October 2018, Lockheed Martin Canada Inc (LMC) was selected as the Preferred […]
Procrustes, 17 May 2020. In reading through various discussions of the likely capabilities to issue forth from the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) bid competition, one might be struck by an odd thought. Are defence planners in league with industry officials in trying to sneak in a potential ballistic missile defence […]
The Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI) has published another great paper by Ian Mack. It’s called “Another Way to Buy Frigates.” As the title suggests, there are ways other than the system Canada currently uses to organize the procurement of naval capabilities. Mack asks what Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy can […]
The latest Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) report, “The Cost of Canada’s Surface Combatants: 2019 Update,” issued on 21 June 2019, has revised the latest cost for the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) project at $69.8 billion over 26 years; $8 billion more than the 2017 PBO report estimation. This consists of […]