When ppl talk about a broken procurement system, it's because they don't understand the issues driving procurement timelines to be long. The truth of the matter is that the Federal Accountability Act (Conservatives, circa 2006) doubled the duration of the average defence acquisition by adding all sorts of extra governance hoops, long rounds of mandatory industry engagement, independent third party reviews, more frequent and time consuming visits from the OAG, and all other manner of bureaucratic nonsense. Add to that the fact that DND's staff levels has been reduced by over 1/3 since 1998, but program workload has more than doubled after the decade of darkness ended. David Perry published a great article about this last year - worth the google. Before a project can deliver anything, the government changes and everything gets put on hold while the new government produces a defence white paper that likely cancels all the old projects and makes the department start over.
Rigorous product testing and long in-service support tails aren't the problem, they are essential. In military hardware, durability and reliability are the single most important characteristics of the gear - the forces use their stuff VERY hard and if it fails because it's shoddy, defective, or cheap - our soldiers die. That's not a broken procurement system, that's called a debt we owe our men/women in uniform - and industry has to help pay that debt to the people that protect the system enabling them to exist and make profit.
Figures. The Liberals will also spend 230 million per super hornet and 4.5 billion per new frigate when they start building them late next decade. The navy typically negotiates it's maintenance contracts after the building contract so even more money.
Fwiw, the frigate cost you mention (60B for 15 CSC ships) is the allocated budget to the program. There is no contract to build anything, only a design contract with ISL. They may also not be frigates, they might be destroyers. Depends what ship they settle on.
The $60B is for more than ships. For example, it includes the missile buy and guidance package. The budget is set to buy a better missile than the POS Harpoon agm84's in the frigates. As much as half the acquisition cost coukd be a new missile system comparable to tomahawk, which is about time for a g8 country like Canada.[/QUOTE
Foreign navies are building new modern ships of similar type (Just one hull) at 250-500 million a pop. 4 billion for all the weapons and systems on board one ship that's still quite a stretch of the imagination. The Liberal gravy train is back.
Fwiw, the frigate cost you mention (60B for 15 CSC ships) is the allocated budget to the program. There is no contract to build anything, only a design contract with ISL. They may also not be frigates, they might be destroyers. Depends what ship they settle on.
The $60B is for more than ships. For example, it includes the missile buy and guidance package. The budget is set to buy a better missile than the POS Harpoon agm84's in the frigates. As much as half the acquisition cost coukd be a new missile system comparable to tomahawk, which is about time for a g8 country like Canada.[/QUOTE
Foreign navies are building new modern ships of similar type (Just one hull) at 250-500 million a pop. 4 billion for all the weapons and systems on board one ship that's still quite a stretch of the imagination. The Liberal gravy train is back.
What foreign 1st world navies are buying a ready to deploy 4000T+ surface combatant for under $2B? Source?
Arleigh Burke's are the general standard in this range and top out over $2B on a steady and efficient production line in a continuous build program, not including armament.
I wouldn't want to sail into harm's way in a modern fight on a $500m ship. Thats like Indo-Pakistan Navy pricing where sailors aren't worth spit and volume Trump's quality.
We paid way more than that for the frigates in the early 90's. Since then there has been inflation and far far better and more expensive tech that goes into a ship.
The current frigates were costed in 1985 constant year dollars at $9.54B not including armament.
A Chevy 4 door sedan sold for around $7000 in 1985, to put that in perspective.
What foreign 1st world navies are buying a ready to deploy 4000T+ surface combatant for under $2B? Source?
Arleigh Burke's are the general standard in this range and top out over $2B on a steady and efficient production line in a continuous build program, not including armament.
I wouldn't want to sail into harm's way in a modern fight on a $500m ship. Thats like Indo-Pakistan Navy pricing where sailors aren't worth spit and volume Trump's quality.
We paid way more than that for the frigates in the early 90's. Since then there has been inflation and far far better and more expensive tech that goes into a ship.
The current frigates were costed in 1985 constant year dollars at $9.54B not including armament.
A Chevy 4 door sedan sold for around $7000 in 1985, to put that in perspective.
Take for example the Absalon class or it's none Ro/Ro equivalent Iver Huitfeldt we're looking at very affordable, compatible ships and suit all our needs. 225-325 million US. Equipment extra but even then 4.5 billion for a ship and all the gear minus the life maintenance costs is out to lunch.
We could even do very well with 10 Iver's and 2 Absalon's. Very good for upgrading equipment too. The whole point of the class was to reduce costs and improve the design and building process to save on costs. These would be great because the design is sound, will be viable well into the future. Similar story for South Korean and Spanish ship building.
If we go for this yet unproven Combatant smart/stealth tech future ships the 60 billion for 15 is easily going to jump to 100 billion. Cost and schedule overruns. And we wouldn't even see those ships until the 2030's and the Frigates we have now will have died out before being replaced.
Lol. I give up. Yeah let's buy that junk and watch Navy recruiting dwindle to zero.
Go read Strong Secure Engaged and pay attention to the naval task group concept, interoperability with the usn, etc.
DND isn't looking for cheap, Canada is looking for first class kit that will save lives when the shooting starts.
And by the way, the Spanish design is still in contention. It's not a $500M ship, more like $2B cdn or more for the basic vessel.
Have you ever worked in shipbuilding?
A Hull is dirty cheap. The expense is the fitout, including maneuverable propulsion, gas turbines, combat system, ECM package, APA radars, litoral 3d radars, fire controller, MASS systems, etc.
Irving will probably build the physical hulls for under $20M each.
Those sk ships are produced in Korea where labour is cheap, there are no Enviro laws to speak of, etc. They are also not expeditionary ships, they primarily operate litorally and close to home. The rcn can't buy them even if they want to in Canada. And the navy doesn't want to - those are less capable than a post-felex cpf.
Whatever is bought will be made in Canada, with 5-eyes comms and combat systems, and will be capable of deep strike land attack, asw and area air defense. That's a $2B plus ship with a $2b+ missile acquisition program.
It's not liberal largesse, it's what the RCN needs to be a blue water expeditionary navy.
Been over this before, but ya, the cost is way out of line.



























