AOR Replacement & the Joint Support Ship (Merged Threads)

[SeaKingTacco]

We ran out of options when we ran the Frigates in the ocean floor and self divested the destroyers and AORs.

We had options around 2010. We could have made deals. We did not.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Imagine who you'd complain about if you were from the other maritime air community

There is no point in complaining about Defence Contractors is my daily mantra…

 

[Czech_pivo]

Everybody’s Defence Industry is more interested in margins than the defence of “x”.

I am absolutely no fan of Irving, but here we are. Time to keep dancing with what we brung…

A three legged dog named Max, cataracts on both eyes, mange and loose bowels, that’s what we’ve brung.

 

[FSTO]

We ran out of options when we ran the Frigates in the ocean floor and self divested the destroyers and AORs.

We had options around 2010. We could have made deals. We did not.

We had an option in 1998 to continue building at Saint John…….

 

[SeaKingTacco]

We had an option in 1998 to continue building at Saint John…….

Yup. We could have built a ship every other year and replaced the 280s.

We could have stretched the hulls and put mk41 VLS in.

We could have replaced Halifax in 2010; Vancouver in 2012…you get the idea…

 

[Halifax Tar]

I remember a Dept of Finance guy suggesting that option, and fully expecting they would agree to the same terms as the NSS (like 100% Canadian equivalent). I was unable to stop from laughing in his face a bit, while one of the DGs calmy explained that they didn't think they would agree to anything other than a standard commercial contract.

We could do something like that, if we realized no one cares what Canada wants in a contract for something like that, and we have no real barganing power. They probably also wouldn't want to consider design changes or schedule delays because we can't get our shit together.

I think one of the RFA ships was built in SK, and they actually had to pay a huge premium to get the yard to slow down, because they couldn't get a crew ready in time.

I can only dream about a yard that will push out a platform ahead of schedule / on time and on or under budget.

And Canada scoffed at it. Oh Canada, never change.

 

[childs56]

When they built the Halifax class ships we were suppose to have a national ship building strategy.
The Halifax class ships were suppose to be the beginning of sustained ship building in Canada. Leading edge technology with potential customers from around the world.
Plus the continuation of possibly uprising the ship design to make able to carry more gear, heavier loads etc.

That all fell to the wayside after they were built.
The same will happen when this latest frenzy is done. The only saving factor is it will take the next 50 years to build and accept our new CSC.

Once the aops is done. The shipyards should all be contracted to build modules for the new CSC. Then assemble the ship at Irving. This would potentially mean quicker build time and true Canadian Ship Building plan.
They can all start working on the plans for the next major surface combatant

 

[Navy_Pete]

I can only dream about a yard that will push out a platform ahead of schedule / on time and on or under budget.

And Canada scoffed at it. Oh Canada, never change.

Getting something like JSS built outcan would have been doable, but would have needed Cabinet to waive the Made in Canada policy for shipbuilding that has been in place since the 60s. It also would have needed a standard commercial contract, not NSS terms, which have IRBs, 100% equivalent dollar value returns in Canada under the Value Proposition and all the other stuff we require the yards to report on (and pay for it as part of the overhead).

The mandarins that push for outcan want to have their cake and eat it too; no foreign yard is going to commit to IRBs or any of that other stuff that is part of NSS and every other large DND contract with a Canadian firm.

the NSS yards meet 95% of those just by being physically located here. Someone like Hyundai would meet 0%, but wouldn't change their business model for a single contract. Canada is a bit of a Karen for a customer.

Politically outsourcing ships that can be built in Canada is suicide, which is why most countries on earth have an NSS equivalent. Something like the big aluminium catamaran ferry for one of the east coast ferry services couldn't be built in any of the Canadian yards, and the subs is another good example to offshore build, but for the rest it's sending billions out of the country.

Nothing wrong with NSS as a concept, it's the MPs that let the yards bypass the actual contractual requirements and kneecap the projects by taking the calls of the owners and advocating for them. There were penalties and other things in the contracts that could have been enforced, as well as monitoring of production efficiency and other things that weren't done due to political pressure.

 

[quadrapiper]

When they built the Halifax class ships we were suppose to have a national ship building strategy.
The Halifax class ships were suppose to be the beginning of sustained ship building in Canada. Leading edge technology with potential customers from around the world.
Plus the continuation of possibly uprising the ship design to make able to carry more gear, heavier loads etc.

That all fell to the wayside after they were built.
The same will happen when this latest frenzy is done. The only saving factor is it will take the next 50 years to build and accept our new CSC.

Only difference I can see is the global situation: instead of "end of history" peace dividend time, with Boris getting sloshed in the Kremlin, it's Russia and China and pick a hot spot any hot spot, plus all the pirate-bashing constabulary work you could ask for.

Noting and setting aside all the crewing issues, pretty sure a fleet of as many CSC as you'd like, plus subs and oilers to match, could find work starting tomorrow.

Getting something like JSS built outcan would have been doable, but would have needed Cabinet to waive the Made in Canada policy for shipbuilding that has been in place since the 60s. It also would have needed a standard commercial contract, not NSS terms, which have IRBs, 100% equivalent dollar value returns in Canada under the Value Proposition and all the other stuff we require the yards to report on (and pay for it as part of the overhead).

The mandarins that push for outcan want to have their cake and eat it too; no foreign yard is going to commit to IRBs or any of that other stuff that is part of NSS and every other large DND contract with a Canadian firm.

the NSS yards meet 95% of those just by being physically located here. Someone like Hyundai would meet 0%, but wouldn't change their business model for a single contract. Canada is a bit of a Karen for a customer.

Politically outsourcing ships that can be built in Canada is suicide, which is why most countries on earth have an NSS equivalent. Something like the big aluminium catamaran ferry for one of the east coast ferry services couldn't be built in any of the Canadian yards, and the subs is another good example to offshore build, but for the rest it's sending billions out of the country.

Nothing wrong with NSS as a concept, it's the MPs that let the yards bypass the actual contractual requirements and kneecap the projects by taking the calls of the owners and advocating for them. There were penalties and other things in the contracts that could have been enforced, as well as monitoring of production efficiency and other things that weren't done due to political pressure.

If Canada's yards are at capacity, including reopening one or more entirely dormant locations (St John's, e.g.), could see someone in government making an argument for build abroad, especially if there's a plan to eventually dovetail "maintenance" domestic builds for that class into an ongoing NSS.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...

... most countries on earth have an NSS equivalent. Something like the big aluminium catamaran ferry for one of the east coast ferry services couldn't be built in any of the Canadian yards, and the subs is another good example to offshore build, but for the rest it's sending billions out of the country.

Nothing wrong with NSS as a concept, it's the MPs that let the yards bypass the actual contractual requirements and kneecap the projects by taking the calls of the owners and advocating for them. There were penalties and other things in the contracts that could have been enforced, as well as monitoring of production efficiency and other things that weren't done due to political pressure.

Bingo!

When Prime Minister Harper established a 'tiger team' of deputy ministers to establish the NSS it was precisely because Canada was one of the few countries that did not have a well organized system to exploit the loophole in international trade law that makes national security exempt from the fair competition rules. That 'loophole' was written in to the original GATT in the late 1940s at the US' instance to protect the US "military-industrial complex" from competition from recovering European and Asian nations ... and from Canada which had changed from being a small, mainly agrarian country in 1939 to being a major industrial powerhouse by 1945.

When the NSS was conceived the end product was NOT ships, it was shipbuilding capacity. The goal was to give selected yards government money to build internationally competitive facilities. That could be done, legally, by paying them to rebuild and modernize their facilities in order to build warships and coast guard vessels for the government. At the time it was too late to resurrect Saint John Shipbuilding (which was closed in 2003) and the federal government had a major problem with Davie in Québec which was badly horribly managed.* Hence: Irving in Halifax and Seaspan. The Irvings didn't even have to lobby very hard - Davie screwed themselves.

---------

* We, in the engineering world called the TRUMP project (280 class update) 'One No Trump' because we were not sure that davie would or could or even wanted to try to finish the work on the one ship it was refitting because of a Pierre Trudeau government policy (fiscal federalism) which said that major crown projects had to have 25% Québec content.

 

[Navy_Pete]

The sad thing is the actual Davie ship repair yard made money; it was just that it was part of a conglomerate that took that profit and ran the yard into the ground. Same thing in St. Catherines, which was part of the same group; their biggest issue is they had to use a sister company to do the tank painting, and they were completely unqualified (but cheap). That completely screwed their last attempt to re-establish the yard, as that is a core docking activity and holds up everything else. Also hard to do things like electrical repair or pipe work when some genius blasts grit everywhere without doing the proper preparation, which includes sealing openings and closing open piping (from removed valves etc).

They actually did great pipe, electrical and steelwork in St. Catherines, and having that competition with ISI was great, but didn't last long unfortunately. I think after that last try they would be lucky to find any trades left in the area, as the general gentrification of that whole area has decimated any of the heavy industrial capacity in Welland.

Shipbuilding is a separate capability (with some overlapping facilities and skill sets), but unless someone is building stuff doesn't have the same sustainment (once you have ships, you can't just not fix them). It's also something that can take an entire generation to build the experience, so if the current run of ships is the end of NSS, it will wipe out billions of investment into people that is a core part of it.