In his latest post for The Line, Matt Gurney violates the cardinal rule of discussing German naval equipment … don’t call ’em “U-boats”!
In Halifax on Monday, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada had chosen a preferred vendor for our new fleet of patrol submarines. Canada will (probably) be going with a German-Norwegian consortium that was offering the Type 212CD submarine, and not the South Korean boats offered by Hanwha. The prime minister said it was a close finish between the two competitors and noted that either design would have met Canada’s needs. The decision announced Monday is not a final purchase order but rather a determination of who our preferred partner would be. The prime minister said that if the negotiations with TKMS, the German company offering the 212CD, did not go well, Hanwha remained an acceptable option.
Personally, I was rooting for the Koreans. I liked their submarine’s ability to launch missiles vertically, which would’ve given the Canadian fleet some powerful strike options. I also tripped a little over the thought of Canadians in U-boats — I suspect many historically minded Canadians will also blink hard at that little twist of fate. But I fundamentally agree with the prime minister — either boat is fine for our purposes. The 212CD will be an excellent asset once it enters Canadian service (presumably with a snappier name).
Sooner would be better. The prime minister noted repeatedly during his remarks on Monday that the government was moving quickly to make this announcement, having settled on a preferred partner five years ahead of the original schedule. This is true, and I give the prime minister full credit for that. I would also note that the schedule was already ridiculously long. We actually should have begun replacing the submarines a decade ago. The PM’s comments reminded me that I had written a column about the urgent need to just get on with replacing the submarines when we had last announced another cycle of refurbishments to keep the current fleet in service because we had yet again delayed a decision on a replacement.
I found my old article. I wrote it seven years ago.
That was bad. Carney accelerating it is good. It’s also good that we are looking at a much larger fleet of submarines, going from four to as many as 12. Submarines are very complicated machines. For every boat you want available for service, you need three or four in your fleet. This gives you a large enough fleet to have an operational submarine available while others undergo maintenance or refits or participate in training exercises with their crews. The four Victoria-class submarines Canada possesses today mean that we typically might have one available for service at any given time, so a fleet of 12 will give us a much more robust presence. Given that we claim three oceans, and that the world is pretty much a dumpster fire these days, having a submarine available on each coast at all times seems like a good idea.
Time is of the essence. Germany and Norway, the prime minister said, have offered to allow Canada to cut ahead of them in line for deliveries of the submarines, which are already under construction but haven’t yet entered service. Given the decrepit state of our elderly existing fleet, that was obviously a meaningful sweetener, and the PM said the first boats could be in Canadian service in seven or eight years, which is pushing the Victorias to their limits, but should work. We hope?
HMCS Victoria, one of four ex-Royal Navy submarines in Canadian service, will have to carry on in service — as much as the class can carry on — until the early 2030s.
Image via Wikimedia Commons.
