The Royal Canadian Navy’s (RCN) has 12 Halifax-class frigates, which are split between the East and West Coasts of the country. They were built in the 1990s and joined the fleet between 1992 and 1997. They are very flexible and versatile warships, and have become the workhorses of the navy. […]
Fleet Capabilities
28 posts
Procrustes, 23 July 2020. Are cost overruns the norm in Canadian naval shipbuilding? If so, why? The Canadian warship procurement system is centrally oriented to keeping Canadian shipbuilders in business. Ottawa’s cost concerns and the navy’s scheduled delivery goals are only secondary considerations. The operating assumption is that, once construction […]
Dan Middlemiss, 19 July 2020. Will the Canadian Navy ride the robotic wave of the future? Maybe the future has already arrived. The United States Navy (USN) recently awarded a $35 million contract to L3 Technologies for a prototype Medium Unmanned Surface Vehicle (MUSV). This represents another milestone in what […]
The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) is versatile – and will become even more so when the ships included in the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS) are complete. The fleet of submarines, frigates and coastal defence vessels can be adapted to various missions. The RCN trains for naval combat including high-intensity operations, […]
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 […]
The Royal Canadian Navy is a blue-water navy - it travels around the world to play a number of roles to further Canadian foreign policy goals. It conducts operations, often with allies, such as counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, disaster relief and capacity-building operations, as well as war-fighting exercises. What ships/boats does the […]
On 21 March 2020, Canada awarded a contract to Zodiac Hurricane Technologies Ltd for the design and construction of 30 multi-role boats for Canada’s Halifax-Class Frigates. This award directly supports one of Canada’s Defence Policy “Strong, Secure and Engaged” commitments as well as the National Shipbuilding Strategy’s Construction of Small […]
Joe Varner, 03 April 2020. Chinese strategists have dreamed of an asymmetric method to disable the US aircraft carrier for decades.[1] Now they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams but not by deliberate action.USS Theodore Roosevelt is tied up at Guam evacuating the crew to deal with a COVID-19 outbreak […]
Dr. Ann Griffiths, 31 March 2020. You would have to be living in a cave not to have noticed that we’re currently facing a situation that hasn’t been seen since the flu epidemic following the First World War. Around the world people are self-isolating and social distancing is the flavour […]
An interesting study was just published by Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI) by Ross Fetterly. Governments are always tempted to slice bits off various departmental budgets to cut costs. But, as this article shows for the Department of National Defence, this can actually mean very little cost savings, and yet […]