Yes, Canada need Sealift (but not what you think)

Dependencies

We’ve talked a lot about them recently, from the capabilities we rely on others to provide to the internal dependencies present in the CAF.

Dependencies will always exist. No service or organization can ever truly be independent in itself. Among the CAF there will always be a need for each L1 to cooperate with one another to achieve results and address capability gaps.

That will be in a wide range of areas, from outer space to cyberspace. The recent Canadian Army Capstone Operating Concept even took the time to dedicate a whole section of the report to identifying and acknowledging these dependencies.

We talk a lot about the foundational needs here—the need for more cooperation, better communication, and a better system between various organizations to cooperate and share resources, intelligence, and capabilities.

The truth is that each of these areas deserves individual attention. We can talk about the overarching nature of cooperation, and I do plan to eventually go deeper into the subject.

Today though, I want to do a small follow-up on one of the topics I wrote about months ago, and one of my still most popular posts—Canada’s support fleet.

I’ve often been asked to expand on this topic by people, and indeed I get many questions about it. I did talk about GLAAM, and that was nice. I’ve also spent a long time talking about subsea cables and the vessels required to support their security.

However, I don’t think I’ve properly addressed some of the lesser-known capabilities that Canada still lacks, and that recent developments have brought to mind.

More specifically, I want to address one type of vessel roday…

Ro/Ro

This singular class of vessel represents a critical gap in Canada’s naval fleet. They also represent one of the major dependencies whose reach spreads far beyond the navy and the maritime domain.

When speaking on dependencies, we can often forget about critical assets like these and the important roles they play in our security architecture.

There’s always a focus on the “big ticket” items like GLAAM—platforms that often capture the imagination with luxurious, multi-role capabilities meant to provide many of these abilities in one beautiful platform.

And while platforms like GLAAM, or any Landing Platform Dock, Amphibious Assault Ship, or whatever you wish to call them, do serve a purpose, this often comes at the neglect of other capabilities below them that are still valuable. For Canada, they might represent better value than trying to push vessels into roles they were never intended for—or for which we are promised everything in one.

So, to tackle two concepts at once, today we’re going to talk about these missing vessels and what potential solutions we have to fill these gaps without adding new, unplanned strain on a system already facing a tense future where infrastructure and personnel might not be available.

Sealift

How do you move a division?

It’s a fairly simple question with not-so-easy answers. It’s the same question that Capstone notes when assessing what dependencies the Army will continue to rely upon.

It’s quite literally the first dependency listed under Capstone:

“Projection of forces to and within theatre may require Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), Royal Canadian Navy, allied and partner forces, and commercial contractors.”

Acknowledging these critical dependencies is good; however, it does nothing to actually address them. The Army lacks the ability, and likely always will, to independently project force outside of Canada.

It is furthermore not up to them to fix this dependency, being outside their control. This raises another common issue: when everyone has their own goals, needs, and plans, how much can they be asked to sacrifice in support of others?

Sealift has always been a hot topic in Canada, stretching back far before any of our times. When then–MND Paul Hellyer introduced the “Mobile Force” concept in the 1964 Defence White Paper, the floodgates were opened for everyone to push their own ideas. It was under Hellyer that a lot of these fantastical concepts came to the forefront.

Then-Commodore Alexander Beaufort Fraser Fraser-Harris (who has my favourite name ever), a longtime driving force behind naval aviation, proposed in 1964 that the navy acquire both a new CVL and an LPH to support this new Mobile Force.

This would have consisted of a modernized Essex-class carrier (to which this would be the second time I’ve found this come up) and acquiring the then-new Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ships.

Fraser-Harris described the concept as such:

“These characteristics are submitted in the belief that such a ship is essential to the effective operation of helicopters in the A/S role, even though a number of these aircraft may be carried and operated from other ships. It is envisaged that the Helicopter Carrier will not only provide considerably increased utilization of the helicopters now planned for operation from escorts, but will also greatly increase the number of helicopters available for both escort and attack functions. This ship can fulfil a useful limited war function, either by the carriage of helicopters or VTO [Vertical Take-Off] aircraft for Army support, or as a transport for heavy vehicles and military equipment, and to act as a Headquarters ship.”

Fraser-Harris, like many other senior officers, would retire a short time later as the chaos of unification kicked off the Revolt of the Admirals, ending his career relatively early at the age of 48.

That’s a story for another time. The point is that considerations for Canada’s sealift capabilities, and concepts around them, have existed for decades but have always fallen apart at the drawing board.

We can even look at the 2014 cancellation by France of two Mistral-class amphibious assault ships to Russia, and their eventual sale to Egypt in 2015, to see how hot the topic becomes when opportunities arise.

You aint ever getting her, never

Article after article—even a decade later—still debate and lament the loss of those two vessels, despite it always being a long shot that Canada would acquire them. I, for one, stand by that it was the wrong time for us to be considering it and would have led to deeper issues down the road.

Sadly, timelines don’t always work out. You can also see how much of the debate is taken up by these larger, multirole amphibious vessels. Very rarely do we stray from an “all or none” concept when it comes to sealift.

If it isn’t a true amphibious assault ship, many are quick to dismiss it. It ignores that Canada’s fundamental needs don’t necessarily align with such a concept.

The Canadian Army has no desire to participate in amphibious operations, nor does anyone expect us to take that role either in the Pacific or across NATO. While there’s always value in versatility, this same thinking has, to me, actively worked against the conversation.

Maintaining a traditionalist approach to what constitutes a capability and how to employ it will only hold us back and stifle good-faith attempts to address these issues. Canada doesn’t need an amphibious assault ship to conduct sealift. It doesn’t need a Mistral, Canberra, or Dokdo.

Canada needs simple Ro/Ro vessels.

For love of the Ro/Ro

Roll-on, roll-off vessels—or Ro/Ro—are a type of cargo ship designed to carry wheeled cargo such as cars, trucks, semi-trailers, and railroad cars that are driven directly onto and off the ship on their own wheels or with a platform vehicle.

Unlike lift-on/lift-off (Lo/Lo) vessels that use cranes to load and unload cargo, Ro/Ro ships are equipped with built-in ramps, typically at the stern or bow, allowing for faster and more efficient turnaround times in port.

Some vessels, such as the British Point-class, maintain both capabilities. The four ships of the Point-class are going to be very important to this conversation. They form a major part of NATO’s sealift capability outside the United States.

Hartland Point, one of the four Point-class Ro/Ro in service

Ro/Ro ships are part of the backbone of NATO’s sealift capability, both those operated by governments and commercial vessels available for charter. Since December 2003, NATO members have been pooling Ro/Ro assets under the Multinational Sealift Steering Committee (MSSC), which coordinates NATO’s sealift capabilities.

It provides the Alliance with access to the Sealift Capability Package (SCP), with a total capacity of about 37,800 lane metres according to the Movement Coordination Centre Europe (MCCE).

This is provided both by leveraging existing assets—such as the Point-class and Danish/German ARK vessels—and through Assured Access Contracts (AAC), which allow members without an organic sealift capability to fund additional capacity.

Canada was an original signatory to this agreement, and many would think that access to this capacity would be enough to support our goals of ferrying troops and equipment to Europe in the event of a conflict.

Sadly, this might not be the case. To start, this capacity—up to 15 vessels—is shared between the entire alliance, and recognition has grown that this isn’t nearly enough to cover the expected demands a peer conflict would bring.

Denmark, which participates in the ARK agreement with Germany, has recognized this need, signing a new agreement with ARK provider DFDS this year to extend the existing contract not just to 2031, but to bring on additional capacity—from the standing five vessels up to eight.

The loss of capacity is also an issue, with the United Kingdom being a prime example. In the last decade, the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary have shed the majority of their amphibious capabilities, gutting their capacity to move troops and equipment.

Since 2015, we’ve seen the loss of HMS Ocean and both Albion-class LPDs, all of which have found their way to Brazil as of a few weeks ago when the sale of the former Albion-class was confirmed.

Two of the six Point-class Ro/Ro vessels were sold off in 2013, while one of the Bay-class landing ships was sold to Australia in 2011. This leaves just three Bay-class and the four remaining Point-class ships to carry the burden of the UK’s sealift demands.

The UK plans to replace these losses through the Multi-Role Support Ship and the Strategic Sealift–Future (SSL-F) programs. However, both aren’t set to deliver until the mid-2030s.

Even the United States isn’t safe from this crisis of capacity. The US Transportation Command’s Military Sealift Command (MSC), which operates roughly 125 ships that prop up the USN’s sealift capability, saw readiness levels drop to only 59%.

According to a letter from Chairman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the average age of U.S. sealift ships had reached 45 years, with only 40 percent of the 61-ship sealift fleet ready for mobilization.

Each year it’s expected that MSC will lose between 90,000 and 180,000 square metres as vessels age out of service. Replacements aren’t coming fast enough to keep up with these losses.

And this is just the ships themselves. We haven’t even touched on the personnel issues both the MSC and RFA are suffering from. It’s gotten so bad that MSC had to sideline almost twenty vessels last November due to a dire lack of available personnel.

The RFA is in an even worse situation. Personnel decline has been ongoing for over a decade, falling to a depressingly low 1,636 personnel as of last October, with the number expected to decline further this year. The service has failed to hit recruitment targets since 2012–2013.

Poor pay and conditions even led the RFA to go on strike last August and September for the first time in its history—a testament to the scale of the crisis that remains ongoing at the time of writing. It wasn't until January that a deal was reached.

Considering all this, how can Canada—who would no doubt be last in anyone’s concerns given the state of things—expect our allies to come to our support if conflict arises?

We can’t even rely on commercial operators. A report by Lloyd’s List shows the scale of demand for these kinds of vessels, with the global large car and truck carrier fleet already operating at near 100% utilization, and new builds not coming online fast enough to meet commercial demand.

Chartering such vessels is a months- or even years-long affair which, in conflict, will also be in high demand from allies like the United States, who will need every ounce of sealift they can find in the event of a Pacific conflict.

As it stands, there is no reliable source of sealift capacity available to us in the event of war. Canada lacks indigenous Ro/Ro capacity that could be pressed into service if conflict arises.

This leaves our future manoeuvre division without the ability to move large quantities of personnel or equipment, potentially being forced to rely on whatever capacity the Protecteur-class and our limited airlift could provide. Both will already be in heavy demand.

You don’t have a manoeuvre division if you lack the ability to actually move it. Airlift cannot replace the capacity sealift provides, and unless you know where to get a few C-17s, we’re already far too limited there as well.

So, what can we do?

The Canadian Ro/Ro

We need a sealift capability. We need the ability to do so independently, without relying on allies or commercial charters. When you are expected to support a conflict an ocean away, it doesn’t even come up for debate.

Bar returning to the Cold War scale of European deployments (which itself is highly unlikely), we will be faced with the reality of having to move large amounts of troops and equipment in support of NATO in Europe, or even in support of allies in the Pacific.

Now, this does come with our own issues. We are not spared from the strain of personnel shortages in the Navy, and with the River-class, Canadian Patrol Submarine, and future Continental Defence Corvettes all coming into service in the future, we have to accept that space and personnel are limited. That’s before we talk about the potential need for more Protecteurs, and while these vessels can achieve impressively low crew requirements, it isn’t something that can just be brushed off.

Luckily, this doesn’t even need to be a Navy question. In fact, I would argue that it isn’t even the optimal pathway to do this. Our allies show us that there are ways to tackle this issue.

This can include contracting a commercial operator to make sure you have capacity available in emergencies. This is how ARK works, with Germany and Denmark maintaining on-call access for at least one vessel at any given time.

ARK Germania

I don’t believe this is the optimal method either, however it remains a simpler, potentially cheaper option to have on hand. It also negates most of the concerns involving operating and crewing the vessel by leaving that in the commercial operator’s hands.

You could even go similar to the Asterix route and look for a long-term lease of Ro/Ro vessels, staffed by civilians but operating under the Navy banner. However, given the global demand for these kinds of vessels, this option might present some difficulty in finding the right operator willing to get onboard with such a concept.

The next concept is to take this in reverse and look at a Public-Private Partnership (P3) model. We already have similar contracts ongoing across the board, most recently with both the Future Aircrew Training (FACT) and Future Fighter Lead-In Trainer (FLIT) programs.

Under this model, Canada would own the vessels and work with a commercial partner who would maintain and operate the vessel for us. These vessels could in turn be used by the private partner for commercial operations when not needed by the Government of Canada.

This model means that, at the end of the day, the vessel is owned by the Canadian government, ensuring we have a degree of control that chartering doesn’t provide. We could assume control if needed, and could alleviate some of the cost and personnel concerns by tasking much of the day-to-day operations to the private partner.

This model isn’t perfect. P3s are notoriously risky, expensive, and prone to not meeting expectations. However, it remains one of the more viable options available to us here.

The last potential model is to take on the role ourselves, whether through some sort of new organization, which I don’t like, by expanding the Auxiliary, or through some new program.

This method gives Canada full control of these vessels while also taking on the full burden. That still doesn’t mean these need to be Navy vessels — they could be — but they could also be operated under a civilian crew, under a different organization.

They could also be staffed through a mix of civilian and reserve crews, operating under an expanded Auxiliary service. That also remains an option here.

In peacetime, Canada could use these vessels to bolster existing ferry services, lease out to allies to bolster their own capacity, or potentially try to get involved in the commercial market, though that is unlikely.

These vessels could also help support tasks such as Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Response (HADR) operations if you so chose. This option gives Canada the most independence to do as it wishes.

This would be my preferred option. This option gives us absolute control and allows us to have these vessels on hand and available if the need arises. It gives us the most options for how we use the vessels and cuts out the difficulties of a private partner.

That isn’t to say I’m against a P3 model, however it isn’t what I would want to be the first option. I can understand why this concept is so popular, however I would prefer to see the middleman cut out and these vessels used to either support our allies or domestic services if not needed.

The demand is certainly there enough that I don’t think these vessels would be idling along if we didn’t want them to. That’s the primary reason why I would like to see them remain completely under government control.

So what would these vessels look like?

When debating what this concept might look like, I kept finding myself returning to the Point-class.

They are by far the most commonly used example for what a Ro/Ro for us should look like. It more than has the capabilities we desire, which to be fair isn’t a big ask overall.

That brings me back to the Strategic Sealift – Future (SSL-F) program. There were a number of requirements listed in the RFI that interested me:

• Less than 200m in length and 8m in draught

• Vessels should have a self-supporting main ramp for offloading to Mexeflote, including both stern (supported SWL 150mT / self-supported 75mT) and side ramps (supported SWL of 75mT) for efficiency and resilience

• Providing a minimum of 15,600 lanes in meters (LiMs) at a minimum of 2.8 meters wide across a minimum of 4 vessels

• Ice Class 1A

• Vessels should be able to be equipped to accept weapons and protection systems

• At least one crane able to move 20 and 40 ft ISO containers and cargo to enable rapid deployment and operational flexibility

What you get is a reasonably sized, ice-strengthened Ro/Ro vessel with support for the deployment of Mexeflote (or perhaps some ship-to-shore connectors), a dedicated Lo/Lo capability, and an FFBNW requirement.

All of these perfectly fit the kind of vessel we would be looking for. Of course, it is still too early to tell how the Brits will tackle this, and if it will remain the same. However, this does provide a good, modern base to go off of for what kind of vessel we want.

These don’t need to be complex. These don’t need to be luxurious. These don’t need to do everything. Assuming the Brits move ahead with this, some discussions on the possibility of a partnership should be in order.

Sharing a common design would open the door to further training and cooperation with the RFA. It would also help build off the existing relationship we’ve already established through the Type 26 with cooperation on things like in-service support, supply chain, and obsolescence management.

It would help build a common network of Ro/Ro vessels across the North Atlantic, open to future partners not dissimilar to the Type 26. It also means, in the event that either of us runs into potential personnel issues in the future, that there is already a common talent pool available across both countries.

Four vessels is the right spot for me here. It ensures one is available at any given time while providing some surge capacity if needed. That is also more potential vessels to be thrown into the NATO pool.

We need something. There is no denying that. I spoke at the beginning about traditionalist beliefs and how they were a hindrance to things like this.

These are not the capabilities many expect to see, and some will be left disappointed if this were it. There are some who will look at the potential operating models proposed and scoff that we could ever do such a thing.

However, our allies prove these things are possible. They show us that we’re not limited to the traditional model of a pure Navy vessel, that there are other, potentially more radical options out there to acquire and operate the capabilities we need.

We can’t allow our thinking to be boxed in with a self-made set of criteria that only exists because we say it does. We are only limited to what we deem is possible. Others have proven that these methods can work and be successful in doing so.

We are at a point where we need to stop asking if we need capabilities and start focusing on how we can make them work — what systems are in place, what concepts have been trialed elsewhere?

That means doing things differently than we have before. It means taking risks on concepts that might seem foreign to us. We need to ditch the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality that we constantly allow to hold back these discussions.

We can’t rely on our allies to provide filler for us anymore. They can’t plug our gaps or remove these issues from the equation. The fact is that we are all struggling, and you can’t expect the beggar to come help you in the hour of need.

That could start here. However, Ro/Ro aren’t the only vessels that need to have this discussion.

That’s for next week.