David Dunlop, 10 January 2021 Let us take a quick look at CSC frigate costs as of early 2021 and compare them to say, buying off-the-shelf. The CSC cost figures according to the Public Budget Office (PBO) are approximately $70B CAD for all 15 CSC frigates; that much we know. […]
CSC cost
Dan Middlemiss, 25 December 2020. Murray Brewster reported on 23 December that an independent analysis reveals that the total life-cycle costs of the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) have risen to between $213 billion and over $219 billion [1]. The staggering sum reported by Alan Williams, a former senior defence official, […]
Dan Middlemiss, 16 December 2020. Here we go again! From his voluminous collection of interviews and Access To Information (ATI) documents, David Pugliese has just published two more articles questioning the scope and value of the proposed Industry and Technological Benefits (ITB) flowing from the CSC project [1]. There are […]
Dan Middlemiss, 15 December 2020. I recently posted a short summary of an article by journalist David Pugliese on the rising costs of the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC).[1] This led to a few comments discussing related publications concerning defence funding as it might pertain to the CSC and other defence […]
Dan Middlemiss, 10 December 2020. Today, journalist David Pugliese wrote another long exposé of the planning, or lack thereof, behind Ottawa’s Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) [1]. His article, allegedly based on thousands of pages of documents obtained via access to information requests and other sources, depicts the concern of federal […]
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, 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 […]
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, 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 […]