From April 20 to 24, 2026, Canada hosted the 16th Global Combat Ship User Group Meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
This working-level forum brought together navies that will introduce Type 26 design-based warships into their fleets. These warships include the Royal Canadian Navy River-class destroyers, the Royal Navy's Type 26 frigates, and the Royal Australian Navy's Hunter-class frigates. The meeting also marked the formal entry of the Royal Norwegian Navy into the User Group, with a charter-signing ceremony.
The meeting provided program teams with the opportunity to share updates, discuss technical and operational issues, and exchange lessons learned across their respective ship programs. Discussions focused on common challenges, shared design evolution, supply chain opportunities, and support for the effective delivery and sustainment of the ships. The User Group also lays the foundation for the development of long-term interoperability exchanges. Industry partners from all three programs participated in the discussions. The week's activities concluded with a visit to Irving Shipbuilding, including a tour of the shipyard.
Noah Note: THE NORTH ATLANTIC TRIUMVIRATE (and australia) LIVES. WE ARE ONE STEP CLOSER TO SECURING THE NORTH ATLANTIC MANDATE OF HEAVEN.
Of course, I don't think I need to get in to how much I love Norway, and how much I support growing oir relationship with both the UK and Norway under a form of an expanded Lunna House agreement.
I think that we are unique positioned to work with each other given out similar operating enviornments in the North Atlantic, a host of common equipment (F-35, P-8, now the Type 26), and a collective desire to collaborate on Northern/Arctic issues.
While the Brits around here might be screaming about their need for frigates amd losing the build slots, I for one welcome the inclusion of Norway to the Type 26 club. I think their inclusion provides a monumental opportunity for collaboration between us.
For the UK and Norway the Type 26 provides a centralized design able to quickly share critical components, expertise, and facilities between each other. Norwegian and British Type 26s will be easily able not just to receive maintenance at each other's facilities to the same standard, but also open the door to future agreements regarding shared crewing, lifecycle management, and obsolescence management.
Canada could also benefit from that, despite our changes to the design, and could further benefit from operating under a similar agreement to Lunna House, where we can crrate a collaborative enviornment that stretched across the North Atlantic. Ideally, we would also find a way to get partners like Denmark involved as well, however sharing so much commonality in our platforms and expectation provides a good basis for us to collaborate further to each other.
Either way, welcome Norway to the family!
I read an article from navy outlook just before this, and the concern in the article, but even more in the comments, was that the UK DoD won't follow through on their current commitment to 8 type 26's, and will only actually sign contracts for 6. I guess the navy is saying they need 12 type 26 to patrol the atlantic, and the commentators believe that the current government will look at 6 UK and 5 Norwegian frigates, and get 11, say, "that's close enough!"
From what I've been hearing, that's a valid concern. The UK is in quite the hole (without getting into how they got there), and with Starmer's popularity in the pits, and defense spending is the Peter they are robbing to pay Paul at the moment. Also currently threatening GCAP with some uncertainty, so we all have additional reason to worry, since we are now the first observed signed on with GCAP. Italy and Japan are all on board, but if the UK drags its feet enough on funding, that could turn that into almost as much of a dumpster fires as FCAS.
Its a bit pie in the sky, but I think we should go rummaging around in the rubble of FCAS and build a new 6th gen fighter program based around Germany/Airbus and Swedan/Saab... I'm not sure what we would do about an engine, but I'm sure we could figure something out. Maybe it's time Pratt and Whitney Canada stretched themselves a bit 😜
If we choose the 212cd then we may as well amalgamate Norway to the Dominion ;)