Canadian Forces make the cover of Jane's Defence Weekly, page 5

Thanks for the update. Shame your AB Regt had to go. I had read years before the abuses they had a great reputation.

As to the Upholders. You are quite right. They were out of service for a long time. Which is why its taken so long to refurbish them and fit them for Canadian service. As I understand it they are meant to be with the Canadian Navy for the next twenty thirty years to replace your Oberons.

Like our Collins. But you got yours at a comparative bargin. Our ASC yard would probably have been happy to build you some, but then youve all said Canadas got a small budget and has to be smart with its money. Some one has been in the Navy. The english and yanks don't build diesels and all the European yards are building boats for largely enclosed shallow water ops. The Japanese dont sell thier subs and why would you want to buy a Russian or Chinese boat?

We retired our Oberons prematurely when we introduced the Collins. As our first construction we ran into some problems but they are now fine performers. It took them about six years to fix the problems with the first boats including some engineering adjustments and replacement of its main combat system. But thier good for the next 25 years

But even if we still had our O boats now they would be past it. Chile even retired thier last ones this year.

Canada must take responsibility for thier own defence as we must ours. You are in a better proximity to take advantage of the USAs concerns with thier security. For instance thier navy probably keeps an eye on the Canadian coastlines. But a Los Angeles is the last thing you want to risk in shallow coastal waters say shadowing a suspect vessel.
Quite apart for big nukes being notoriously unstealthy for that operation and at a higher risk of detection, does Canada really want to think of one of those things running aground in your waters.

The RN would have preferred funding to keep running diesels for shallow water operations, but the exchequer didnt leave them that option. Why because diesel boats are better in shallow waters that big nukes.
If its true the yanks wanted you to keep running diesels as an Opfor for thier nukes then thats just another indication of thier utility and value.
The yanks only ever run thier nukes into shallow water they can navigate where there is no threat, unless they have no choice.

Diesel boats are good for shallow water covert survielence, SF insertion and in the last resort attack. Either protecting Canadas coast, or making sure you dont get blamed for someone slipping into the USA. They give you an asset you can slip in to a coalition or UN mandated force that can be used to move in close to the shore of a potentially hostile coast and gather intelligence where a US boat would be a give away and yes, your better placed to get Opfor training than us Aussies are to make you the best diesel operators in the worlds. Dont tell the RAN I said that.

Australia is well aware that for our alliance to be of any value to us the US has to feel we bring something significant to the party, and willingly, even if it is small in comparison to them. Because we can only trust the Americans to come to our aid if we need it so long as we don't demonstrate we will let them down.

Now days they seem very sensitive about that.

I assume Canadian planners are well aware of that too. Maybe Canadians dont realise it because thier nearest neighbours besides the USA are Russia and Iceland. Ours are Indonesia and they have active terrorist groups who have already killed dozens of Australians.

Moving on.

Singapore purchased small 35 year old Sjoormen class Baltic subs off Sweden and had them refitted as thier first boats. They operate in Singapores shallow waters on surviellence and protection missions just like they did in the Baltic, but with the piping and airconditioning replaced to cope with the hotter more humid and corrosive environment. They are now called the Challenger class. Singapore has already started negotiations to purchase new state of the art swedish boats with new drives and sensors, but they will probably be operating the Challengers for the next decade before delivery.

So far the only thing that hasnt been expected with your Upholders is this fire.(Collins had a dented sonar dome too....a tug nudged her into a pylon. The sub still got blamed by media). The fire could be a freak combination of events or something some yard contractor screwed up. It will be fixed. They will all be checked. Don't throw out the baby without the bath water.
If we had listened to the media six seven years ago our Colins would be sitting alongside awaiting sale instead of doing thier job too.