Re: Q33. That would be interesting! I know that it would be difficult to do an apples to apples comparison of strength with a more expeditionary focused nation, but maybe you could divide the assessment into different areas, like sovereign defense, expeditionary, artic, etc. maybe make a list of countries that have a similar defense posture, with a similar mixture of sovereign defense to expeditionary, and where we would rank against them. You might have to make it relative to population or landmass, because scale obviously matters. A smaller country might have a greater sovereign defence capability with smaller forces because they are defending less.
Part of me knows it's not a good idea to use arbitrary comparisons to assess the value of the CAF, but I have a sneaking suspicion that seeing where we will (hopefully) end up might actually provide a shot of confidence to many Canadians. It's been all too popular to dunk on the CAF for decades, and it would be great to have an impressive favourable comparison in response to disparaging comments.
But find a way to frame it that will make it fun for you. If rating out current and future arctic capabilities excites you, start with that.
“Absolutely not. AEGIS is the world's premier CMS for BMD.” - You’ve indicated similar several times when talking about “diversifying” our procurement. The US produces the best military equipment of basically everything. How do you propose we diversify if we’re unwilling to make the choice of going with the No.2 option that’s “good enough”, but not the Cadillac?
“which is entirely unfair to the folks at LMC who very much see themselves as Canadian and are doing great stuff.” - that’s great, but at the end of the day, do the profits of LMC stay in Canada? Nope, they go to the US. Plus, at any point in time, a board from a foreign company could simply choose to shut them down and take the IP with them. Are the workers Canadian? Sure. Do they pay Canadian taxes? Sure. But they’re not a Canadian company, and the general public knows it.
I agree. The frigates as part of original requirement was to run CMS330, it is instead running a skin of it. The Aegis radar is great, cool, but what is the point of a BMD frigate that only fires ESSM/SM2 and limited capacity at both. Even talk about just going with f35, this is going to create a backlash by the general population that the government will have to explain, how us not building our own fighters is a better strategy. If we are expected to spend 5% GDP and the forces cannot see increasing number of fighters, why are we doing this. Didn’t we buy 138 CF18 in the 80s? Why are we only capable of fielding 88 today? Despite a large increase in population. Train more pilots, base them out of more than 2 bases. If the government wants the public to support the forces, then you need to make them more apart of people’s lives. Which means spreading assets around, if that is less efficient so be it. How is it we can’t support as many jets as we could in the last century, base a smaller number of f35s in cold lake and baggotville and add squadrons of 25 to B.C. monitoring the coast, Ontario, heck goose bay and Yellowknife, that can more permanently monitor the Arctic passage. In summer/fall, move some up to inuvik etc to patrol the area properly. We need to move beyond the states, if the forces cannot do that than I see the public losing support for the forces. Let’s be honest with ourselves to, how many times does the forces find itself in controversies around procurement requirements that only seem to exactly fit US products. Enough. Saab, Hanwha, etc. are providing opportunity to diversify and make us more independent and presents great opportunity for Canadian jobs, pride in what we are building and increased support for the forces by the general public, not taking advantage of these opportunities will be to the detriment of the forces.
Immediately gutting our operational sovereignty & capability for procurement/IP sovereignty isn't a good trade. It's a good idea to have a better balance of defence suppliers and to do more of it ourselves, but it's not a light switch. Moving away from the USA is possible, but we can't hurt ourselves to try to hurt someone else.
Diversifying and being less wholly reliant on one supplier isn’t about hurting the US it is about standing on our own two feet. South Korea, Japan and the EU, are all moving away from reliance on the US and their IP. In my comment I didn’t say get rid of all US, but to diversify and build up our own capabilities. The issue is our forces can’t seem to see past the US despite more and more options being made available. In no way running a larger mixed fleet of fighters somehow gutts our operational sovereignty and capability but expands upon it and makes it more resilient. The only way to do so of course is to actually do so.
Sure but Japan used SPY7 and have the f-35. We need to do the same while we move to develop our own capabilities. Point is, we don't have it today in these areas. we do in other areas. Get the f-35, proceed as is with the RCD, make changes over time.
Japan is only building 2 Aegis An/spy 7 destroyers, each will have 128 VLS and capable of firing SM-3 Block IIA and SM-6, like an Aegis destroyer should be capable of. The rivers are not in the same league at all, by a long shot. South Korea has Aegis an/spy 1 destroyers based upon the Burke, but their latest destroyers KDDX removes Aegis and mk41 for a native versions. Japan also builds their own fighters as does South Korea. We don’t have f35 today either. Punting an opportunity to build capable fighters for the possibility of maybe Gen 6 down the road does nothing about building our capabilities today but just fall into familiar patterns of why do when we can just buy. There is no reason we cannot build gripens here to support our Air Force and not be whole reliant on f35, just like Japan and South Korea do. As for the rivers, if they are going to be Aegis destroyers, then they should be such, not a frigate using a radar they cannot fully take advantage of in the guise that they are some how more than a frigate. Change starts today, not years down the road, what you are describing is maintaining status quo with maybe seeking change some day. Nobody seizes the day by fawning.
Japan domestically builds the F-2, F-15J, and F-35, with the latter two under licence from the US. I'd say this also makes the case for building multiple aircraft types.
As for the RCDs, I'm beginning to think that more cells aren't needed if we end up getting most of those cells on the CDC and we go with a distributed node architecture, with the CDC VLS linked to the RCD Aegis. A task force of 2 RCD, 4 CDC, 1 JSS and 1 CPS would probably be pretty formidable.
I'm sorry but if we change the radar on the RCD, we have to go back to the drawing board as the ship is designed around it. if you have some serious recommendations to make, make them
Really great post, Noah. This is the core content I come back for week after week. Moreover, with the clock ticking down on an announcement of the CPSC project, your page view stats are getting padded as I check back multiple times a day. The CBC is likely to get the scoop, naturally, but TNSR is where I'll get the goods.
Lastly, with the greatest of respect, the recent improvements to editing/spellchecking is appreciated. Thank you for noting folks' constructive criticism and taking it in the positive spirit in which it was given.
Re: Q33. That would be interesting! I know that it would be difficult to do an apples to apples comparison of strength with a more expeditionary focused nation, but maybe you could divide the assessment into different areas, like sovereign defense, expeditionary, artic, etc. maybe make a list of countries that have a similar defense posture, with a similar mixture of sovereign defense to expeditionary, and where we would rank against them. You might have to make it relative to population or landmass, because scale obviously matters. A smaller country might have a greater sovereign defence capability with smaller forces because they are defending less.
Part of me knows it's not a good idea to use arbitrary comparisons to assess the value of the CAF, but I have a sneaking suspicion that seeing where we will (hopefully) end up might actually provide a shot of confidence to many Canadians. It's been all too popular to dunk on the CAF for decades, and it would be great to have an impressive favourable comparison in response to disparaging comments.
But find a way to frame it that will make it fun for you. If rating out current and future arctic capabilities excites you, start with that.
“Absolutely not. AEGIS is the world's premier CMS for BMD.” - You’ve indicated similar several times when talking about “diversifying” our procurement. The US produces the best military equipment of basically everything. How do you propose we diversify if we’re unwilling to make the choice of going with the No.2 option that’s “good enough”, but not the Cadillac?
“which is entirely unfair to the folks at LMC who very much see themselves as Canadian and are doing great stuff.” - that’s great, but at the end of the day, do the profits of LMC stay in Canada? Nope, they go to the US. Plus, at any point in time, a board from a foreign company could simply choose to shut them down and take the IP with them. Are the workers Canadian? Sure. Do they pay Canadian taxes? Sure. But they’re not a Canadian company, and the general public knows it.
I agree. The frigates as part of original requirement was to run CMS330, it is instead running a skin of it. The Aegis radar is great, cool, but what is the point of a BMD frigate that only fires ESSM/SM2 and limited capacity at both. Even talk about just going with f35, this is going to create a backlash by the general population that the government will have to explain, how us not building our own fighters is a better strategy. If we are expected to spend 5% GDP and the forces cannot see increasing number of fighters, why are we doing this. Didn’t we buy 138 CF18 in the 80s? Why are we only capable of fielding 88 today? Despite a large increase in population. Train more pilots, base them out of more than 2 bases. If the government wants the public to support the forces, then you need to make them more apart of people’s lives. Which means spreading assets around, if that is less efficient so be it. How is it we can’t support as many jets as we could in the last century, base a smaller number of f35s in cold lake and baggotville and add squadrons of 25 to B.C. monitoring the coast, Ontario, heck goose bay and Yellowknife, that can more permanently monitor the Arctic passage. In summer/fall, move some up to inuvik etc to patrol the area properly. We need to move beyond the states, if the forces cannot do that than I see the public losing support for the forces. Let’s be honest with ourselves to, how many times does the forces find itself in controversies around procurement requirements that only seem to exactly fit US products. Enough. Saab, Hanwha, etc. are providing opportunity to diversify and make us more independent and presents great opportunity for Canadian jobs, pride in what we are building and increased support for the forces by the general public, not taking advantage of these opportunities will be to the detriment of the forces.
Immediately gutting our operational sovereignty & capability for procurement/IP sovereignty isn't a good trade. It's a good idea to have a better balance of defence suppliers and to do more of it ourselves, but it's not a light switch. Moving away from the USA is possible, but we can't hurt ourselves to try to hurt someone else.
Diversifying and being less wholly reliant on one supplier isn’t about hurting the US it is about standing on our own two feet. South Korea, Japan and the EU, are all moving away from reliance on the US and their IP. In my comment I didn’t say get rid of all US, but to diversify and build up our own capabilities. The issue is our forces can’t seem to see past the US despite more and more options being made available. In no way running a larger mixed fleet of fighters somehow gutts our operational sovereignty and capability but expands upon it and makes it more resilient. The only way to do so of course is to actually do so.
Sure but Japan used SPY7 and have the f-35. We need to do the same while we move to develop our own capabilities. Point is, we don't have it today in these areas. we do in other areas. Get the f-35, proceed as is with the RCD, make changes over time.
Japan is only building 2 Aegis An/spy 7 destroyers, each will have 128 VLS and capable of firing SM-3 Block IIA and SM-6, like an Aegis destroyer should be capable of. The rivers are not in the same league at all, by a long shot. South Korea has Aegis an/spy 1 destroyers based upon the Burke, but their latest destroyers KDDX removes Aegis and mk41 for a native versions. Japan also builds their own fighters as does South Korea. We don’t have f35 today either. Punting an opportunity to build capable fighters for the possibility of maybe Gen 6 down the road does nothing about building our capabilities today but just fall into familiar patterns of why do when we can just buy. There is no reason we cannot build gripens here to support our Air Force and not be whole reliant on f35, just like Japan and South Korea do. As for the rivers, if they are going to be Aegis destroyers, then they should be such, not a frigate using a radar they cannot fully take advantage of in the guise that they are some how more than a frigate. Change starts today, not years down the road, what you are describing is maintaining status quo with maybe seeking change some day. Nobody seizes the day by fawning.
Japan domestically builds the F-2, F-15J, and F-35, with the latter two under licence from the US. I'd say this also makes the case for building multiple aircraft types.
As for the RCDs, I'm beginning to think that more cells aren't needed if we end up getting most of those cells on the CDC and we go with a distributed node architecture, with the CDC VLS linked to the RCD Aegis. A task force of 2 RCD, 4 CDC, 1 JSS and 1 CPS would probably be pretty formidable.
I'm sorry but if we change the radar on the RCD, we have to go back to the drawing board as the ship is designed around it. if you have some serious recommendations to make, make them
Really great post, Noah. This is the core content I come back for week after week. Moreover, with the clock ticking down on an announcement of the CPSC project, your page view stats are getting padded as I check back multiple times a day. The CBC is likely to get the scoop, naturally, but TNSR is where I'll get the goods.
Lastly, with the greatest of respect, the recent improvements to editing/spellchecking is appreciated. Thank you for noting folks' constructive criticism and taking it in the positive spirit in which it was given.
We should talk about notional CDC builds, that would be fun