New Canadian Shipbuilding Strategy

[Kirkhill]

We are not alone. I do commend the USCG Commandant for actually cutting back service delivery to manageable levels.

If we can't get people to show up to an office 5 days a week what makes anyone think we are going to find people willing to spend months st sea or a couple of years at a remote posting?

Automation and robots are not an option. They are a necessity.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

If we can't get people to show up to an office 5 days a week what makes anyone think we are going to find people willing to spend months st sea or a couple of years at a remote posting?

Automation and robots are not an option. They are a necessity.

Automation and robots are going to be useful, but I don't see them solving a lot of the issues. Both companies and government departments can be cheapskates to their detriment. About the only people I would trust to run a autonomous ship are the Japanese as they will spend the money to do it right and maintain it. The rest will do a half ass job and when things go horribly wrong they will point fingers at everyone else.
It would be cheaper to hire and train seamen from the Philippines than to try to automate ships completely.

 

[GR66]

Automation and robots are going to be useful, but I don't see them solving a lot of the issues. Both companies and government departments can be cheapskates to their detriment. About the only people I would trust to run a autonomous ship are the Japanese as they will spend the money to do it right and maintain it. The rest will do a half ass job and when things go horribly wrong they will point fingers at everyone else.
It would be cheaper to hire and train seamen from the Philippines than to try to automate ships completely.

I don't think anyone is envisioning an automated ship attempting to replace the multitude of roles that a manned warship would do. What we're talking about is an additional hull (unmanned or minimally manned) to accompany a manned warship into a conflict zone during hostilities (or threatened hostilities) to provide extra missile capacity. Think more a "loyal wingman" carrying extra weapons than an unmanned fighter.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I don't think anyone is envisioning an automated ship attempting to replace the multitude of roles that a manned warship would do. What we're talking about is an additional hull (unmanned or minimally manned) to accompany a manned warship into a conflict zone during hostilities (or threatened hostilities) to provide extra missile capacity. Think more a "loyal wingman" carrying extra weapons than an unmanned fighter.

In the merchant marine world they are trying for the fully automated ship. The navies are also looking for fully automated ships, albeit for specific tasks like coastal sub hunting and mine clearance/route survey. These may or may not be working in conjunction with a mother ship, but would also work with shore stations.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I don't think anyone is envisioning an automated ship attempting to replace the multitude of roles that a manned warship would do. What we're talking about is an additional hull (unmanned or minimally manned) to accompany a manned warship into a conflict zone during hostilities (or threatened hostilities) to provide extra missile capacity. Think more a "loyal wingman" carrying extra weapons than an unmanned fighter.

As soon as you have one person on a ship the amount of stuff you need is crazy. You can't be half-pregnant, just go autonomous or go fully crewed.

Instead of some kind of all-singing multi role ship, just design a very specialized ship for a very specific task, and accept it will need support for things like anti submarine defence, surveillance, detection and point defence. That's a lot more feasible if you are doing coastal defence; as soon as you want to project power in a blue navy means that every deployment is a full taskgroup, vice sending a multi role warship to do things independently.

 

[Kirkhill]

Automation and robots are going to be useful, but I don't see them solving a lot of the issues. Both companies and government departments can be cheapskates to their detriment. About the only people I would trust to run a autonomous ship are the Japanese as they will spend the money to do it right and maintain it. The rest will do a half ass job and when things go horribly wrong they will point fingers at everyone else.
It would be cheaper to hire and train seamen from the Philippines than to try to automate ships completely.

If you want hulls in the water and you have a limited supply of people then you are going to have to reduce the number of people per hull.

Full stop.

In some instances you will be able to make more effective use of the people you have on board by automating their duties and tasks. In other cases, like the arsenal ships, you can conceivably eliminate the crew entirely. Perhaps you might need to put a pilot station on board for congested waters but the USN is demonstrating that even that is not necessary on the high seas.

 

[Edward Campbell]

As soon as you have one person on a ship the amount of stuff you need is crazy. You can't be half-pregnant, just go autonomous or go fully crewed.

Instead of some kind of all-singing multi role ship, just design a very specialized ship for a very specific task, and accept it will need support for things like anti submarine defence, surveillance, detection and point defence. That's a lot more feasible if you are doing coastal defence; as soon as you want to project power in a blue navy means that every deployment is a full taskgroup, vice sending a multi role warship to do things independently.

Yep, look at CFS Alert; we knew, exactly how many people we needed to conduct the operation: a small handful - the other several dozen? Cooks and clerks and oh, yeah, a fully functional airfield.

 

[Kirkhill]

In the merchant marine world they are trying for the fully automated ship. The navies are also looking for fully automated ships, albeit for specific tasks like coastal sub hunting and mine clearance/route survey. These may or may not be working in conjunction with a mother ship, but would also work with shore stations.

As soon as you have one person on a ship the amount of stuff you need is crazy. You can't be half-pregnant, just go autonomous or go fully crewed.

Instead of some kind of all-singing multi role ship, just design a very specialized ship for a very specific task, and accept it will need support for things like anti submarine defence, surveillance, detection and point defence. That's a lot more feasible if you are doing coastal defence; as soon as you want to project power in a blue navy means that every deployment is a full taskgroup, vice sending a multi role warship to do things independently.

There's a good point there about the difference between the coastal/littoral environment and the blue-water/high-seas environment.

An additional point about civil and military.

I would add a further point about positional and manoeuverable.

WRT coastal and blue water environment.

Coastal waters are congested while the high seas have sea room. Some errors are more forgivable on the high seas because there can be days of reaction time available. Of course in the military context where ships sail in groups then sea room decreases, congestion increases and reaction times decrease. Having said that apparently the USVs can heel like faithful puppies and not get in the way of the big ships.

Coastal waters also allow for close supervision from shore, rapid deployments of pilots and maintenance repair teams to USVs and UUVs and for shore based maintenance. As well @GR66s notion of storing the arsenal ships, or any other USV/UUVs ashore would still allow for them to be locally deployed rapidly from a submersible dock. Heh, they could just as easily be deployed from something like the USNs Expeditionary Bases in support of the blue water fleets or foreign littoral campaigns.

WRT civil and military

There are already autonomous ferries operating on fixed routes. Presumably standard navigation rules of right of way and common sense apply and little boats stay out of the way of big boats. I don't actually see a military equivalent in that environment, the military world is too unpredictable.

On the high seas, as noted, the military imposes its own congestion but the civilian world is different. Long horizons and lots of sea room on predictable routes equates to long boring hours on the bridge. Civilian vessels between the littorals, in my opinion, are ripe for automation. That suggests to me the possibility of putting a small crew on board as she approaches harbour, one that can be removed when she returns to the high seas.

Finally there is the positional vs manoueverable

And that brings us to Task Force 59

Navy's Task Force 59 reaches full operational capability as it works to build a 'digital ocean' of connected assets

Task Force 59 is developing a vast integrated network of sensors to enable a clearer picture of what's happening in the critical waterways it operates in.

defensescoop.com

Which I see as somewhere between lightships and captor torpedoes and sosus that can be operated close to shore or deployed into unknown/unfriendly waters.

Manned ships, like tanks and fighters are going to be with us for a long time to come.

But,

Increasingly, I suspect, they will be operating in an environment that is evermore automated with much of that automation supervised from terminals ashore operated by people in offices (three days a week).

 

[Kirkhill]

Yep, look at CFS Alert; we knew, exactly how many people we needed to conduct the operation: a small handful - the other several dozen? Cooks and clerks and oh, yeah, a fully functional airfield.

On the other hand we also have CFS Leitrim Detachment Masset and CFS Leitrim Detachment Gander.

CFS Masset was stood down and made a detachment of CFS Leitrim in 1997. Equipment at the facility is operated remotely from Leitrim to gather signals intelligence for the Canadian Forces Intelligence Branch and the Communications Security Establishment.

CFB Gander is also host to the Leitrim Detachment which operates and maintains signals intelligence and utilizes a Wullenweber AN/FRD-10 circularly disposed antenna array for High-frequency direction finding of high-priority targets. 9 Wing Telecommunications provides all military air units at Gander with message transmission and reception services.

Does Alert have to be manned? Or is it a sovereignty statement?

 

[lenaitch]

Does Alert have to be manned? Or is it a sovereignty statement?

Both?

I would imagine a failure or outage at Masset or Gander could be attended to a lot faster than Alert. Do the other two have off-grid power that needs to be maintained?

 

[Edward Campbell]

On the other hand we also have CFS Leitrim Detachment Masset and CFS Leitrim Detachment Gander.





Does Alert have to be manned? Or is it a sovereignty statement?

There are some very important technical (propagation) reasons why Alert works ... if you leave equipment there then someone has to maintain it and fix it when, inevitably, it goes NS. If you want there equipment to work all the time you need people on site. The dets at Leitrim are the old "set rooms" from the remote stations: the SigInt operators were sent South, to the city, the techs stayed in the remote sites.

 

[Kirkhill]

There are some very important technical (propagation) reasons why Alert works ... if you leave equipment there then someone has to maintain it and fix it when, inevitably, it goes NS. If you want there equipment to work all the time you need people on site. The dets at Leitrim are the old "set rooms" from the remote stations: the SigInt operators were sent South, to the city, the techs stayed in the remote sites.

Thanks.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I thought Masset (Haida Gwai?) had been shut down?

 

[Kirkhill]

Designing Maritime Campaigns with Unmanned Systems: Overcoming the Innovation Paradox | Center for International Maritime Security

cimsec.org

DESIGNING MARITIME CAMPAIGNS WITH UNMANNED SYSTEMS: OVERCOMING THE INNOVATION PARADOX​

NOVEMBER 15, 2023 GUEST AUTHOR 2 COMMENTS

Integrated Campaigning Topic Week
By James J. Wirtz

Will unmanned forces transform naval campaigning? Given recent events following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, maritime transformation appears to be well underway. Autonomous and semi-autonomous aircraft and surface vessels have damaged or destroyed Russian surface combatants, air defense systems, and supply depots. Land warfare also has seen its share of innovative applications of autonomous and semi-autonomous technology, from swarming drone attacks against urban areas to single hand grenades precisely dropped on lone soldiers in slit trenches dug into the Ukrainian steppe. One could also point to recent press reports about a flurry of drone activity across the U.S. Navy. In September 2023, two unmanned surface vessels sailed from Hawaii to participate in exercises with Carrier Strike Group 1 in the Western Pacific, while the Navy’s Task Force 59 based in Bahrain has become the de facto U.S. Navy drone innovation center with its ongoing experimentation with small autonomous vessels as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms.1 The Navy needs to consider how else it can leverage unmanned systems in campaigns, and how these systems can open up unique options for enhancing naval campaigns in pursuit of deterrence.

Doubts About Drones

Despite mounting evidence drawn from recent battlefield experience and enthusiastic recognition of the growing effectiveness of these systems, Navy officers are still expressing reservations about the impact of drones in the maritime domain, especially in the western Pacific.2 They note, for instance, that the Navy is already stretched to the breaking point by the effort to maintain and supply its existing manned surface fleet and that it cannot create the infrastructure needed to support hundreds of medium sized and large autonomous surface vessels in the relatively short time envisioned by current shipbuilding plans. Others suggest that the weapons payload carried by most drones is too small to create more than a nuisance. Instead of a five-pound warhead, a one-thousand-pound warhead would be more appropriate when it comes to disabling a major surface combatant. Unmanned systems also need a range of thousands, not hundreds, of miles to operate in the Pacific. Drones may have requirements that make them more of a liability than an asset in a contested Pacific, such as drones with limited battery life, or that have to be transported and deployed within reach of sophisticated adversary systems, or drones that require weeks of lead time to be moved into operational areas, or that create windows of vulnerability when they need to be retrieved or serviced in the battlespace. A semi-autonomous drone armed with a Hellfire missile might in fact be the perfect weapon to end Ayman al-Zawahiri’s retirement in downtown Kabul, but using an autonomous weapon to hit a modern multi-mission warship on the high seas is another matter.3

Who has it right, the optimists or the pessimists? They both are...

It takes play time (my words)

Recent descriptions of the night naval battles off Guadalcanal, for example, paint a disturbing picture of officers who did not understand the limits of their radar or how to exploit its advantages. Some of them did not even understand the nature of the information that was being collected and displayed by their new sensors.8 It cannot be assumed that naval forces will always know how to fight with the technology they are equipped with, and that includes capability that has existed in fleets for much longer than drones.

And in the land domain...

Perspective – Send in the Robots: Counter-Terrorism Response and Emerging Drone Technology | Small Wars Journal

Perspective – Send in the Robots: Counter-Terrorism Response and Emerging Drone Technology

smallwarsjournal.com

 

[Colin Parkinson]

One thing about the automation/autonomous military revolution. Don't bet everything on it or a large amount of a small number of systems, because they are likely to be made mostly obsolete either by the march of innovation and opponents efforts to neutralize your automated equipment. So you need a domestic industrial capability that can quickly adapt to new innovations/threats and upscale as needed, but supplying a smaller amount of new items every year, each featuring new abilities. Keep in mind all the autonomous equipment is designed to support/defeat the infantryman who is still the focal point of all conflicts.

I will add for the most part our procurement systems and rules are not designed for the above.

 

[Kirkhill]

One thing about the automation/autonomous military revolution. Don't bet everything on it or a large amount of a small number of systems, because they are likely to be made mostly obsolete either by the march of innovation and opponents efforts to neutralize your automated equipment. So you need a domestic industrial capability that can quickly adapt to new innovations/threats and upscale as needed, but supplying a smaller amount of new items every year, each featuring new abilities. Keep in mind all the autonomous equipment is designed to support/defeat the infantryman who is still the focal point of all conflicts.

I will add for the most part our procurement systems and rules are not designed for the above.

Kindofish....

I agree on the procurement system.
I agree on the need for constant innovation - which is not compatible with building platforms with 50 year life expectancies.

Where we start to diverge is on the role of the automated systems.

I see the automation as part of the environment. They will be shaping the battlefield in which the manned platforms operate. I'm envisaging operating in a minefield where the mines sense targets hundreds of kilometers away and deal with them. There may be operators in the loop so the mines may be more like claymores than toe poppers and the sensors may be remote to the mine, but ultimately, in my view the troops will be operating in a minefield.

So the question then becomes whose minefield? The follow up is how much can be done with the mines in creating an active defence while minimizing the number of people exposed to threats?

Yes, the offense will still be dominated by aggressive people. But how many, what support and what vehicles will they need to overcome the active defences I believe they are likely to face?

 

[Edward Campbell]

I thought Masset (Haida Gwai?) had been shut down?

I've been out a loooooong time. In 1997, about the time I retired, the station went to 'remote operation.' I don't know for sure if techs remained onsite or if they fly in from another station. This image (Google) is dated Aug 2023. The 'Elephant Cage' is the local's name for the HFDF antenna. Looks "active" to me.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Yikes

Top general worries about maintaining Pacific fleet on current budget 'trajectory'

Canada's top soldier says the military's ability to keep funding a "persistent presence" of warships in the western Pacific is facing challenges on the current budget.

www.cheknews.ca

 

[Rifleman62]

He is going to be retired (fired) shortly for speaking out and replaced by someone more visible.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Yikes

Top general worries about maintaining Pacific fleet on current budget 'trajectory'

Canada's top soldier says the military's ability to keep funding a "persistent presence" of warships in the western Pacific is facing challenges on the current budget.

www.cheknews.ca

"We are very concerned, but won't do anything different to resolve the issues"