This Week in Defence (11/24/25): Sweden, TKMS, Joly in Korea, CHER, CPSP RFP, NSM in Canada?

Nov 25, 2025

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Happy Monday!

This Week's edition is officially the longest edition of This Week in Defence we have ever had! Yay!

We have A LOT of lobbying stuff this week, and a lot of news. We also got our first look at parts of the CPSP RFP, though we do need to talk a bit about it and standards..

It's gonna be a packed week. Its only monday and we already have a bunch of news! So, instead of me watsing time, lets jump right into it!

News

Project Updates

Lobbying Updates

Rumors & Speculation

A lot of you have been asking me about the CPSP RFP. I get it, it's one of the biggest projects in years, and with no public access it gets people a hell of a lot curious to what is in it. Sadly we will never get the full RFP, at least not for a long while.

These kinds of RFP are highly sensitive documents, full of highly-technical, detailed information that could present a national security risk if it got put to the public. As such, none of us will be able to access to full document, nor would I want to be the one to reveal sensitive information.

However that doesnt mean I didnt find anything. There might be lots of sensitive information, but there's also a lot of generic info littered around. Ots apparently a fairly big document after all, and of course ive been working to find what info might be oit there thats of a more acceptable nature to share.

Of course theres no info that can hide from Noah, not for long at least. While I have not been able to find much, I did manage to hear at least a few things from a few different people, enough for me to consider the information accurate.

Of course Murray already spoke on the percentages. For those of you who missed it, the evaluation breakdown for thr project is being broken down as:

Platform (submarine): 20%
Sustainment (fleet sustainment and support, including sovereign sustainment enterprise, integrate workforce and infrastructure): 50%
Financial: 15%
Strategic and Economic Partnerships: 15%

It was expected, at least by me that Sustainment would be high on the list ao long as the Navy got their way. There has been plenty of concern and trauma coming off of trying to support the Victoria-class the last twenty years. The Navy would obviously not want to repeat a lot of those issues, while also trying to make sure that Canada secured as much Soverign capability to maintain, service and refit our subs as possible.

50% is higher than I expected, but its not a shocking number. It ensures that there is heavy incentive by borh suppliers to make thwir sustainment packages as comprehensive as possible, while acvurately reflecting the value we see in sustainment.

However, if I can go a bit beyond Murray here, I did try to seek out some info on some specific categories. More specifically I was curious to evaluate the two premier features of each platform and how the RFP handled them.

For the KSS that was the VLS and Strike Capability. The RFP High-Level Mandatory Requirements asks for “The ability to perform Anti-Submarine, Anti-Ship and Long-Range Land Precision Attacks with Heavyweight Torpedoes and Missiles.” I can confirm that this requirement asked suppliers for info regarding their Long-Range Precision Strike capabilities.

For the 212CD my focus was obviously on the stealth capabilities. Here the RFP allegedly asked about the “Ability to operate in contested environments while maintaining tactical advantage with low acoustic (passive and active), magnetic, and Infrared (IR) signatures to prevent counter- detection.”.

Here both requirement seems to align to the strengrhs of each respective offering, with the Stealth requirement being fairly generic and not very different from previous askings. It leaves a lot of room for interpretation and wiggle room to what is being offered.

Outside these two there are other requirementd tied to R&D, Industrial Cooperation, and apparently a heavy Arctic section. Out of respect for security I will not be reporting on these kinds of sections. These are too sensitive for me to out out there. I would also encourage others in media who follow me to leave these areas alone.

Its one thing to put generic information like above, or an evaluation breakdown. Its another to get into detailed information. I maintain a responsibility to keep peoppe safe as well, and to ensure that collective security of individual and country are protected. As such I elect to not share this sort of information.

I again encourage others to take similar stances even if they do hear something. If you thi k it could be sensitive than the risk is not worth putting out there. There is a collective mandate to put country and people above scoring points. I hope others feel the same.

Speaking of other people, if you missed it my OOMF Kyle Duggan recently sat down with Kongsberg. In fact he posted this as im writing! Its a great article that really goes into what kind of thing's Kongsberg is offering. I've been twlling people a lot recently that Kongsberg is who to watch here. They have a lot to offer, and evidently they apparently have a top-tier package.

Kyle gets into that. A new manufacturing facility for Training systems, IP and design blueprints for the currently in the works Maintinence facility that is being built in Norway (a facility that CRCN Topshee praised on our podcast!), and even a mention of Joint Strike Missile!

Kyle has more than me here, however I do want to add a bit to it. I had recently heard about the Training system offer, however several people have come forward to me saying that Kongsberg plans to offer production of Naval Strike Missile, or something similar in Canada.

Im still working to get information on this one, but thought it toed in nice to what Kyle is saying. I will gopefully have more information next week, but thought it would be of interest to people!

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