Outright Liars

Jason Kenney is a liar. So is his puppy, James Bezan. So says the commander of Standing NATO Maritime Group 2.

Kenney and Bezan are claiming a close encounter between HMCS Fredericton and Russian surface combatants and aircraft. Supposedly, they got that information from the commanding officer of Fredericton.

Not bloody likely.

There is a near zero chance that the captain of Fredericton sent anything but a factual report of a distant visual sighting of Russian ships and aircraft. To do otherwise would prompt Rear Admiral Brad Williamson, commander SNMG2, to boot HMCS Fredericton to a safe area, well away from any activity. Excitable frigate captains who embellish contact reports are not an asset in such situations - they are an extreme liability.

The fact that HMCS Fredericton remains on station with SNMG2 is solid evidence that the ship is performing and reporting in accordance with the well-practiced doctrine established by the officer in tactical command.

That makes Kenney, Bezan and anybody who repeats their words, liars.

Another Harper procurement fiasco

#Cdnpoli - 

They keep on coming and now, after totally screwing up the Joint Support Ship project, we have one of Harper's own hobby-horses being stuffed into the quicksand and now it's the navy looking want. (Emphasis mine)

The Conservative government's list of troubled multi-billion-dollar military procurement projects continues to grow as a plan to obtain a fleet of armed vessels to patrol Canada's Arctic waters has been hit with a three-year delay.

The Defence Department had been expecting to take delivery of Canada's first of between six and eight Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships in 2015.

But documents tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday show the timeline has been pushed back to 2018. In addition, the $3.1-billion project is now expected to cost $40 million more than anticipated.

Well, isn't that brilliant? Here's something you probably didn't know: There is no real statement of requirements for these ships because the RCN really didn't want them. Until Harper invented the idea, the RCN had no requirement for an ice-breaking fleet.

Ice-breaking in the Arctic is a Coast Guard function. The RCN is a war-fighting, deep water, deterrent force. They project power. Constabulary, patrol and navigation safety responsibilities in the Arctic fall within the province of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the RCMP Marine Section and the Canadian Coast Guard.

Surveillance and defence? The Canadian Armed Forces do that.

What's the worst possible way to do that? A surface ship crunching through Arctic ice, occasionally ice-bound, often unable to go where it needs to go. Not to mention that even new Arctic ice can be deadly to protruding electro-acoustic transducers and pressure transponders - the stuff that makes a warship a high tech detection system.

But that didn't matter to the one-dimensional thinking Harperistas. Some clot in Calgary envisioned a light grey ship in the middle of an ice-floe with an off-the-shelf gun mounted on the focsle and it became "policy".

A permanently fixed passive acoustic surveillance network would ultimately provide the best early warning system in the Arctic but that has not worked for the same reason an Arctic patrol ship would not have serious effect. The ice is continually moving and it eats everything in its path, including the antenna required to forward a signal.

That means that the best way to patrol the Arctic, with the assurance of detecting any activity, is a submarine capable of under-ice operations. Canada doesn't have any and it was a Conservative government which cancelled the only program which would have provided them. 

The navy, having never asked for these ships, has another problem. There are no crews. Unless the Harper government increases the established personnel strength of the RCN, the only way to staff these mythical ships will be by way of the naval reserve who have no Arctic capability, no ice-breaking expertise and most definitely do not possess the refined professional qualifications to operate a full-time flotilla of 21st Century warships. (That's not knocking the RCNR. The reservists do a great deal of the current maritime coastal defence work). Can the reservists be trained? Sure they can. But at that point you might as well make them regulars because it will take at least three years to develop a properly trained force, in full time training and then fully employ them.

Of course a big part of the plan to build magical Arctic patrol ships included building an Arctic base from which to operate. So much for that idea.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's much-ballyhooed plan to build a naval facility at Nanisivik, Nunavut shrank dramatically last month, when Department of National Defence officials told regulators about big cutbacks to the project.

"The planned changes result in a significant reduction of the site layout and function plan that was submitted for review in 2011," DND's project manager, Rodney Watson, said in a Feb. 24 letter to the Nunavut Impact Review Board, which is now screening the project.

Under DND's new scheme, the Nanisivik naval facility on Baffin Island would become a part-time summer-only fuelling station for Ottawa's proposed fleet of Arctic offshore patrol ships, along with other federal government vessels.

"The facility will only be operational during the navigable (summer) season. All facilities will be shut down and secured when not in use. On-site support will likely be reduced to an as-needed basis," Watson said. 

The Harperites talk large. They deliver something completely different. Nothing.


Hat tip Kevin. (Yes ... we in the swamp are a team).

Relaunching HMCS Windsor

#cdnpoli -

Canadian submarine, pennant number SSK 877, will re-enter the water today.

HMCS Windsor will be lowered into Halifax harbour today after spending five years in dry dock for an extensive refit that cost $45 million in 2010 alone.

Labour costs included.

Former naval officer Ken Hansen said the clock is running to get HMCS Windsor and the other troubled submarines into the water.
"The navy needs to prove that it can actually administer and successfully manage this program," he told CBC News on Tuesday.
"If the problems of the past continue to manifest themselves, the government will lose patience and Canada, I believe, will be out of the submarine game forever."

Ken, Ken, Ken!! No. It's a 20-year old boat, fer chrissakes, and it just spent five years being reassembled and having "power by Lucas" purged.

What makes you think we're still in the game now?

A significant anniversary in Canadian Naval history

While this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Navy as a national institution in this country, today, 24 May, marks the 60th 70th anniversary of an event which changed the RCN and gave that service a permanent set of legs.

In the spring of 1940 Hitler's Germany began the now famous blitzkrieg through the Ardennes and into Flanders, invading the low countries of Europe. Belgium, The Netherlands and France were overrun and Allied forces, including the British Expeditionary Force were either defeated or being driven towards the sea. The British Isles were under a very real threat of invasion by the apparently unstoppable German forces.

On 23 May, 1940, Britain sent out a plea to Canada to send all available RCN destroyers to aid in the defence of Britain. No one had ever asked Canada for such assistance before and given that Canada only possessed seven such ships, it was a tall and potentially expensive order.

HMC ships Ottawa and Assiniboine were in refit and unavailable. HMCS Fraser was conducting operations in the Caribbean (considered "Home Waters") and was operating at a furious tempo. That left the destroyers HMC ships St. Laurent, Restigouche, Saguenay and Skeena available.

The cabinet of Mackenzie King approved the overseas deployment of four destroyers. Fraser would be released from the Caribbean and sent directly to Britain. Restigouche, St. Laurent and Skeena would be dispatched from Halifax. HMCS Saguenay would remain in Canadian waters as the sole defender of the Canadian gate.

The next day, HMC ships Restigouche, St. Laurent and Skeena departed Halifax on the first ever long range deployment of a Canadian naval force in response to an emergency. A fear existed in both Canadian Naval Headquarters and among the government that the situation was so desperate that those ships might never return.

And some didn't.

The deployment, however, changed Canada's navy forever. No longer a local defence force and a home waters navy, the RCN was asked to find her legs. However small, and regardless of what the future might hold, the Royal Canadian Navy was now a blue-water force and would remain so to this day.

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HMCS Fraser - Lost in a collision with HMS Calcutta 25 June 1940

HMCS Skeena - Lost in a storm of Reykjavik, Iceland 25 October 1944

HMC ships Restigouche and St. Laurent served throughout the 2nd World War with distinction and honour. They were decommissioned in October of 1945 and eventually scrapped.

Correction: Clearly I have spent too much time behind that ugly green scope. Apparently, I lost a decade. It is the 70th anniversary of Canada's first naval overseas deployment; not the 60th. Thanks to CC for pointing it out.