From Defense Aerospace

 

Government of Canada Frigate Modernization Contract Benefits Forces and Economy

(Source: Public Works and Government Services Canada; issued Nov. 8, 2008)

 

(N.B.: All monetary amounts are in Canadian dollars)

 

GATINEAU --- The Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, the Honourable Christian Paradis, and the Honourable Peter Gordon MacKay, Minister of National Defence and Minister for the Atlantic Gateway, today announced that the Government of Canada awarded two long-term contracts to Lockheed Martin Canada for the Combat Systems Integration (CSI) Design and Build and In-Service Support elements of the modernization of Canada’s 12 Halifax Class Navy frigates.

 

“We are committed to supporting the Canadian Forces and determined to provide them with the best equipment available to do their jobs,” said Minister Paradis. “Through industrial regional benefits, this contract will also benefit the economy at a time of global economic uncertainty.”

 

“The Conservative government considers the defence of Canada’s territorial waters a priority,” said Minister MacKay. “The modernization of our Navy frigates will ensure that our sailors are provided with first-class ships in order to defend Canada and promote Canadian interests abroad."

 

The CSI contract, valued at approximately $1.4 billion, is for upgrading the command and control systems, redesigning the operations room and reconfiguring the ships’ mast to accommodate a new radar suite for Canada’s 12 frigates. The In-Service Support contract is valued at approximately $600 million and will ensure long-term support of the Combat Systems.

 

The Halifax Class frigates were built in early 1990 and now require upgrades and systems modernization, particularly in the areas of marine engineering, command, control and combat systems.

 

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Announcing its intention to award the two contracts described above, the Canadian government on Sept. 5, 2008 had said that:

“Today’s announcement is part of an overall $3.1 billion program to modernize the Halifax Class Frigates which involves the following five key contracts:

--Two contracts totalling approximately $2 billion to be awarded to Lockheed Martin (as per today’s announcement): The Combat Systems Integration contract, and the Command & Control System In-Service Support contract.

--Two Multi-ship Refit contracts totalling $900 million, awarded to Halifax Shipyards and Victoria Shipyards in March 2008.

--The Platform System Design Agent contract valued at $150 million, awarded to Fleetway Inc. in October 2006.

The contractor will be required to provide industrial benefits equal to 100 per cent of the total value of the contract.”)

Go Canada, keep that capability strong!

 

Now this isn't picking on Canada but do the listed upgrades make sense as good use of the funds?

 

Let's pretend you are a sparsely populated country with huge coastlines and can't possibly defend the entire coastline with traditional ships such as a monohull FFG.

 

So I can spend billions of dollars upgrading my few ships to play well with others when they are unlikely to be needing to play well with others in a wartime situation. That doesn't sound very useful to me, I'd want to spend my billions buying some surveillance platforms or if terribly conservative, buy more lower-tech ships.

 

The expected effect of such a change of course would be lower interoperability with the USN and greater ability to patrol my home maritime domain.

 

Am I wrong?

As you know, we're pretty laid back people here in Canuckistan. This extends, unsurprisingly, into military procurement.

 

Rather than buy anything new, we tend to upgrade, overhaul or recycle the crap out of our equipment until it falls apart (and even then, we sometimes still use it for a while longer, e.g. Sea King helicopters).

 

The Halifax class frigates were a long time coming. When the project began, they were the first new warships ordered since the early 1970s and the first, HMCS Halifax, didn't enter service until mid 1992. Talk about long lead time.

 

They're good general purpose ships, with a good sensor fit and decent weaponry (improved further with the addition of Evolved Sea Sparrow). This upgrade contract first appeared in 2006, iirc, and its now three years later.

 

Its highly unlikely that we could afford to put a fleet of new ships to sea, even a fleet of numerically more ships of a lesser capability, and still keep the Halifax class updated. (Heck, we can't even afford a new replenishment fleet, it seems).

 

It would be nice to be able to do so, particularly for Arctic patrol and presence, but the polar ice cap might be gone by the time they made it into the fleet.

 

Meanwhile, we take more baby steps with CF-188 upgrades, new aerial tankers, and an expanding foray into UAVs.