Canadian Forces make the cover of Jane's Defence Weekly

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott
So, monica, you don't even have the backbone of the Canadians on this board, even though none even botheres to offer much in the way of an academic approach to the topic at hand.

Ooh... I think I'm injured...

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.

BTW....case point.

In 1964 ( I think) our former flagship, the carrier HMAS Melbourne was in a collision with the Daring class destroyer HMAS Voyager, slicing her in two and sinking her with heavy loss of life.

In 1968 HMAS Melbourne repeated the expereince with the modernised WW2 destroyer USS Frank E Evans. Again heavy loss of life.

Although cleared of fault in both cases (in the case of the Evans a US board of inquiry found several of thier officers negligent, and in recent years evidence and testimony that the skipper of Voyager may have been culpable have come to light) the Australian media tagged her as a jinx ship.

In the 1970s she was tied alongside in Sydney harbour awaiting refit when two passing commercial ships collided with each other, momentum carrying them into the HMAS Melbourne causing slight damage. The headline? HMAS Melbourne hits ships on Harbour!

She was as much maligned by the sensationalist media as the Upholders are being.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

I am not here to make friends, but rather, to be a friend to the cause of liberty and truth.

[edit on 04/10/13 by GradyPhilpott]

Well, at least you've got that right.

Originally posted by GradyPhilpott

In this case, an academic discourse would have consisted in addressing the heart of the issue with some personal opinion, some links to back up one's opinion and accept some criticism of your nation with the alacrity that you dish out criticisms of mine.

What absolute hogwash! I can toss out an accusation that you espouse war-mongering and as such represent all Americans. The expected rebuttals would be of defending against that accusation, and in turn come back and state that defense is not based on rationalization or academic opinions. That is what you have done here, rationalized an entire nation based on one or a few of its ignorant citizens, followed up with a claim that suggests Canada ramp up its military might for no reason save being above the world's current super power, then expect them to defend it as though there was any rationale behind the point. When you are then faced with the undeniable truth that Canadains in general have no desire to following the militaristic paths of your nation's leaders, you dismiss same with ruse. That is all your arguments are Philpot, a ruse.

Why don't you tell us Canadians what threats we face today from invasion, by whom, and provide us with undeniable reasons why we need a military, and specifically why we need a military to the extent you and Bush demand?

When you're through pondering the answers to those questions, consider this one. What on earth are Canadian weapons going to do that your thousands of missiles and hundreds of nuclear weapons won't?

[edit on 10/13/04 by SomewhereinBetween]

Noted a Canadian opposition MP has claimed another Upholder had a fire a while back. I assume the primary rationale of an opposition MP in Canada is to blame a sitting government for everything?

Our Collins were ordered in 1988 by the Australian Labour Party government, with systems chosen by thier favoured experts and advisors.

The first Collins was delivered in 1996 after a Coalition Liberal/Nationals Parties government defeated them.

However when the first of the Collins started manifesting problems, especially with a combat information system that had to be replaced it was the same ALP that tried to cruxify the Defence Minister of the day for the problem, who took steps including spending $500 million to replace the CIS to fix the subs. They are great now.

How bad was this original fire? How bad is a design that suffers a fire at sea submerged, yet is saved by its crew and the other systems (the Russians should be so lucky) that must have continues to allow the boat to work enough to surface and call help and stay afloat to get back to Scotland?

Dont blame the boats if some electrical contractor in the UK or Canada cocked up the wiring. Or if the first fault did not raise suspicions. Now if an inspection finds someone botched the job/s, fix it/them, and sue the bugger responsible.

Cheers.

[edit on 14-10-2004 by craigandrew]

craigandrew - I think it was a British statesman (I have to look it up) who said "The government governs, the opposition opposes". That's the job of the opposition in a parliamentary democracy - to question everything the government does.

But that said sometimes oppostions see to oppose everything regardless of merit...if it wasnt thier idea.

However,

I'm embarrassed to admit I might be wrong about accusations against the Upholders.

I had the opportunity to discuss this with some former RAN Submariners.It had never occurred to me to question them about the merits of the Upholder. After all, WE operate Collins.

But they were posting at thier own site a thread about the recent fire. They seemed to agree the Upholder had problems.

When they were looking for a replacement for the RAN Oberons in the late 1980s the RAN sent a team to the UK to look at the Upholders (then just building). The Brits thought they had a sure thing, an order on thier hands.
The RAN went away unimpressed. It was a warmed over Oberon in a new skin. We ordered the Kockums Type 471 Collins.

One of the sailors thought it was why they had problems with spares for the O boats in the 1990s. All these mothballed Os in the UK and we'd PO'd the suppliers.

The situation was the RN was faced with a choice due to Government budget cuts in the late 1980s. They had planned for 19 then 9 Upholders. Finally the nuke lobby won out and it was decided to scrap diesel operations. But it was politically unacceptable to put thousands of UK shipyward workers out of work by cancelling the propgram by scrapping the first keels. So they completed four, and the last boat was commissioned in 1992 and they all phased out by 1994.

It was supposedly common knowledge at the yard and in the squadron they were not really going to serve. If the background is correct I'm sadly not surprised now the boats had problems. The morale in the yards must have been terrible.