Re: HMCS Algonquin and HMCS Protecteur collides at sea, no one hurt
You do know the billions those morons wasted on the lemon subs, rights? Can someone tell me WTF Canada needs subs?
Any modern maritime nation needs a navy to protect itself. In today's world, this includes submarines.
Canada has had an active, albeit small submarine force since World War I. However, inworld War II, Canada's sailors served mainly on Royal Navy submarines.
Canada received a couple of submarines from the US after the war, but the first serious effort to define a purely Canadian submarine force came with the building of four UK Oberon Class submarines for the Canadian Navy where the first was commissioned in 1965.
The controversy you refer to involves the replacement of those older Oberon class submarines that Canada operated for thirty years. Originally there were four of these vessels, but one was decommissioned in 1992 and then used for spare parts for the other three. By the year 2000, all of them had been retired. In 1998, Canada agreed to purchase four newer diesel-electric submarines from the UK, the Upholder class, which were the last of the Royal Navy's diesel electric submarine. When the UK decided in a defense review in the mid-1990s to only maintain an all nuclear submarine force, the Upholder class was decommissioned and put up for sale after less than eight years of service. They were essentially new.
Canada purchased all four after they had set in storage for almost four years. Canada christened them the Victoria Class and the 1st of class, Victoria, was commissioned in Halifax in December 2000, Windsor in June 2003, Corner Brook in March 2003, and Chicoutimi in September 2004. These vessels cost the UK $900 million to build in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Canada purchased them for $750 million each. Then Canada received them and retrofitted them to their purposes and liking, which cost additional money. At that time, the controversy began because the press in Canada presumed that the vessels should not have had to cost more with a purchase price of $750 million each, and this attitude and mind set was broadly telegraphed by the press.
On October 5, 2004 Chicoutimi declared an emergency north-west of Ireland following a fire. The fire occurred when seawater that had entered the vessel through open hatches in rough seas soaked through some electrical insulation starting the fire. The Chicoutimi lost power and was rescued by Royal Navy frigates Montrose and Marlborough on October 6. Lt(N) Chris Saunders of the Chicoutimi died due to smoke inhalation. As a result of the rough weather it had taken over two days to airlift him to a hospital. The Canadian press, already not happy about the costs of the vessels, complained that the UK had purposely sold Canada vessels that were unsafe and a huge controversy developed which has continued ever since.
Also in 2004, a maintenance error by the Canadian Navy destroyed the electrical system on HMCS Victoria. After the accident, the Halifax Chronicle Herald reported that the Navy spent “about $200,000 to buy old technology that mirrors what the sub’s British builders used,” equipment that one of the Navy’s own “electrical technologists” said “probably goes back to the ‘60s.” The vessel spent six years undergoing repairs. This just fueled the fire of the controversy and conspiracy theories that began to grow up around it.
As to the fire that killed the Canadian Lt., a board of inquiry cleared the captain of any fault. However, later the accident was shown to be due to an error in operational procedure and the regulations permitting the submarine to run on the surface with open hatches were revised.
As far as the vessels themselves are concerned and their design, for the time period (late 1980s to early 1990s), the diesel electric design turned out quite well. The UK initially had improper diesel engines installed which they had to change out, and so even in the UK there was some controversy. Acceptance of the class into service by the UK was delayed for three years, partly due to the overall project being scaled back by the UK Ministry of Defense, and while several problems (like those diesels) were corrected.
In the end, all four vessels were built and commissioned, and the result of the corrections produced an extremely capable submarine. When operating on battery power, Upholders/Victorias are almost undetectable on passive sonar, and when snorkelling, their acoustic signature is comparable to their SSN contemporaries in normal operation. They are physically small, and thus difficult to detect by magnetic anomaly or other non-acoustic means..
The boats were designed with advanced noise reduction features that significantly lessened the radiated noise levels below those of the very quiet preceding Oberon class. There was also a reduction in the snorkel time required to recharge the batteries to ensure minimum exposure time of any part of the masts above the water. The design also included an updated version of the fire-control system the UK was using at the time on its nuclear SSNs.
A large double-armature motor is powered by either a 9000-ampere-hour battery or a pair of Paxman Valenta diesel engines. Slow patrolling requires only 30 to 60 minutes of snorkeling per day to charge the battery; a higher speed eight knot (15 km/h) transit requires snorkeling about 30% of the time. The top speed matched any modern and comparable SSK class - such as the Scorpène-class submarine - and could be sustained for 90 minutes.
A local area network was built into the Upholders/Victorias, supporting most of the sensors and fire-control systems, including remote viewing through the periscopes using both low-light television and infrared, an unmanned helm, and direct control of the main motor from the conn. The boat can fight with a team of four in the sonar room and a conn team of eight. Fire-suppression in unmanned compartments can be initiated remotely, and watch-keeping logs are automatically recorded. In port, the boats can be electronically linked such that one duty watch stander can monitor several submarines.
The submarine has a single skin hull constructed very high tensile steel. The outer side of the submarine's hull, casing and fin is fitted with about 22,000 elastomeric acoustic tiles to reduce the submarine's acoustic signature. The main sail houses a five-man lockout chamber. The submarine's escape and rescue system has been extensively upgraded with additional stowage space for escape stores and an underwater telephone to meet the Canadian Maritime Force requirements.
Again, all in all, this is a very good design.
Have they been costly? Yes. But any modern, very capable diesel electric design like this is going to be. All in all, despite the problems, Canada got a good deal and has some very capable submarines in its service. Most of the problems they have had have been self inflicted.
Now, the Canadian military and political leadership has to decide if they submarines are needed in the future.
Every major maritime nation has decided that submarines are necessary because they remain the best system to protect sea lanes and serve as a deterrent to hostile nations violating the national maritime interests of other nations. Canada has seen the need for such systems for almost 50 years and it is no surprise that to date she has continued with them.
As with her other naval assets, Canada has been very austere in her use and in the numbers of vessels she operates. Since the mid 1960s, Canada has had two classes of submarines, the Oberons and now the Victorias. I can think of few, if any, major nations that could make the same claim. The US, in the same time period has had the Thresher Class (14 built), the Sturgeon Class (37 built), the Los Angeles Class (62 built), the Sea Wolf Class (3 built), and now the Virginia Class (10 built and many more building). That's five classes in the last 50 years, compared to just the two for Canada, who has used a total of eight boats.
