A Canadian trade tribunal has rescinded its order preventing the federal government from awarding a contract for Type 26 Frigates for the Canadian navy.
Local media report that Andre Fillion, an assistant deputy minister at Public Services and Procurement Canada, wrote to request the order be removed. Noting that “the procurement of goods and services to which the Alion Complaint pertains is urgent, and that a delay in awarding contracts would be contrary to the public interest.”
Alion Canada, the company that pitched the Dutch-designed De Zeven Provincien class frigate, had asked for a judicial review of the tendering process that saw the Type 26 Frigate win the Canadian frigate competition, according to local media.
According to local media, the defence firm asked the court to set aside an October decision to select Lockheed Martin Canada the preferred bidder and to prevent the Canadian government from entering into negotiations with the company, which has offered up the BAE Systems designed Type 26 frigate.
Alion argued that the winning bid was “incapable of meeting three critical mandatory requirements” of the design tender. Specifically, they say the Type 26 cannot meet the mandatory speed requirements set out by the Royal Canadian Navy.
Canada recently followed Australia in selecting the Type 26 Frigate.
The Canadian Surface Combatant is the name given to the procurement project that will replace the Iroquois and Halifax class warships with up to 15 new ships beginning in the early 2020s as part of the National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy. The replacement vessels will be somewhat larger than the existing Halifax class, and presumably provide a wide-area air defence capability, anti-submarine warfare capability, as well as anti-shipping capability.
The options were:
- Type 26 frigate proposed by Lockheed Martin Canada and BAE Systems
- Dutch De Zeven Provinciën class frigate based design proposed by Alion Canada and Damen Group
- Spanish F-105 frigate design offered by Navantia.
The Type 26 team, known locally as “Canada’s Combat Ship Team” combines Lockheed Martin Canada with BAE Systems’ Type 26 Global Combat Ship – also involved are CAE, MDA, L3 Technologies, and Ultra Electronics.
I’ll be astonished if that’s the end of the matter.
Care to elaborate?
They haven’t thrown out the court case. They’ve only said that, despite the court case, the government can start negotiations with LM. Until a decision is made on the legality of the selection procedure, the choice is still open to change.
Does anyone know by how much the T26 allegedly misses the speed requirement?
I THINK the speed requirement was 28 knots. The T26’s design speed is stated at 26+ knots, obviously we don’t know how much it will exceed that by until HMS Glasgow hits the water.
It’s worth noting though, that the MT30 is more than capable of propelling larger ships to much higher speeds (albeit usually mounted in pairs). HMS QE was designed for 25kn, but managed over 27kn during trials. I’m confident the T26 will manage 28kn, and probably closer to 30kn
T26 = 40MW MT30 direct drive on a 150m hull
T45 = 40MW (2 x 20MW motors) direct drive on a 150m hull.
I think we can almost guarantee T26 is going to do 30+ knots 🙂
Uphill or down ?
The QE trial was not using the maximum power available too.
Simon. I seem to remember the Types 45’s quoted at around the 27 to 28 knots speed years ago. Now it’s 32 knots. A Naval commander said to me that the RN does not put down its ships, but it certainly does not hype or gives away too much.
Darren,
Bear in mind the maximum power that can be put into the water on QEC is 80MW (4 x 20MW motors). So although it has the ability to generate 110-120MW it would usually only use the different power generating methods (GT or diesel) to deliver efficiency in that power range. 30-40MW is quite a lot “hotel load”… unless they’re thinking of running a couple of rail guns 🙂
Last point is that QEC managed 27.1 knots… but was not fully loaded at the time. Almost the entire plimsole line was visible meaning she was probably running 10-15,000 tonnes light.
The RN has always been very cagey about ‘top’ speeds. They’re dependent on a whole range of factors. The T21’s were listed for years as 32 knots. In reality we know one hit 37 knots… A case in point is the QE Class. For years lots of people banged on about it only going 25 knots. What they’d missed was that 25 knots was the designed contractual minimum top speed at end of life (50 years old), with a dirty hull, worn machinery and all weight growth margin used up. The same people were then astonished when she hit 29.2… Read more »
Will Canada really be building 15 type 26 frigates? if they do then we are going to look stupid building only 8!. I hope we do build more than 5 type 31 frigates aswell.
They won’t all be anti submarine they are replacing two ship designs. They also don’t have 2 aircraft carriers and 10 nuclear submarines to pay for.
They also don’t have 2 aircraft carriers to protect, we do!
True but they replacing 2 ship classes for Canada. We have both type 26 for asw and type 45 for anti air warfare and then type 31 for general purpose the Canadian type 25 will be doing all 3. Hope this makes sense there not buying 15 full blooded type 26
The ones which will replace the Tribals, what AAW system are they going for?
Aegis CMS I’m pretty sure they are not taking the sea ceptor silo’s which probably means they will use ESSM.
The AAW version will be interesting. Especially if they don’t strip out all the rafting etc. from T26 base design to save dollars or beaver pelts or whatever the Canuks use for money. It is a shame the Tribal and Halifax replacements were merged. The Hobart is ideal for Canada.
I would love to get an independent assessment to compare if Aegis is better than PAAMS. As far as I know the UK has no work share in the Aster Missile itself and the US offered to transfer Aegis tech to the UK in a similar deal to the Spanish.
The F100 was around half the cost of the T45 so there is an arguement that if we had have ditched PAAMS and that European Frigate nonsense earlier we could have had 10-12 F100 of our own (although they prob still would have been cut to 6).
BB85. I may be wrong but the F100 price is without weapons, the UK Type 45 costs includes the lot. Hull build of the bigger Type 45s was around 600 million pounds, but that was back then, a few years after the F100.
Why do we look stupid? Canada doesn’t have a nuclear deterent to fund, or 2 x very large aircraft carriers and a fleet of F35s, Eurofighter Typhoons, P8 posidons need I go on…..
That’s the point we need more to do everything the Royal needs to do, and Canada only having 4 less total than Royal navy frigates and destroyers shows me we need more.
Prepare to look stupid Cam! Canada will indeed build 15 of the LM/BAE Type 26’s. This is cast in Canadian steel as the government has already said and they have signed off with Irving shipbuilding to build “no less” than 15 (with Canadian beaver pelts for money, no doubt)!! 3 or possibly 4 of the first Type 26’s will have a “full” AAW capability to replace the Iroquois Class Destroyers. Keep smiling. The world will not blow up…….yet. Cheers!
I would like to share your optimism about a complete 15 ship build but junior’s mismanagement on just about every file concerning Canada’s economy makes it a real challenge to fund this and a host of other projects. Every deputy minister is no doubt drawing up chop lists for confronting our looming debt crisis.
John Fedup: Nobody has mismanaged the world’s economy more than “that guy” down south. Canada’s economy is one of the best one’s in the world today…bar none. A 2% increase at a minimum to defence will solve a lot of problems with the military and have no negative effects on Canada’s very strong economy. Our debt crisis, as you say, if, and only if, we get into the “R” word, would be short lived. Canada’s economy is just too strong. Believe me, there will be no chopping of the Type 26!! Beside’s, Irving shipyards would fight that contract reduction tooth… Read more »
The combination of private, federal, and provincial debt is a ticking timebomb that will be set off by recession or a significant increase in interest rates or perhaps a combination of the two. Alberta has lost well over a 100,000 jobs and with oil likely to stay low, these jobs aren’t coming back. The dick of the South only makes things worse. As for Canada spending 2% of GDP on defence, NEVER happening, short of war breaking out, at which point it will be too late to matter.
In the long (and at least recently) ignoble history of Canadian defence procurement the problems come when one or other of the main political party decides to use the contracts as a political football eg Merlin for one. So far this hasn’t happened with 26. So far !
“ignoble history of Canadian defence procurement”
Yes. The funny thing is the Canadian Tribal class was one of the best escort design / projects post-WW2. A fantastic design that pushed the technology of the time with pragmatic choices for equipment and not bad budget wise.
The worst example of that was the cancellation of the Avro Arrow with much US interference and influence. Also, on another tack, lovely to see the New Canadian Ensign in the pic above. One of the strangest moves in Canadian armed forces history happened in the 1960’s when all three arms were combined into one as the CAF(Canadian Armed Forces). as part of this reorganisation, the Jack became the Ensign and the Ensign(the new National Flag) became the Jack. Over the years the 3 services have slowly re-acquired their previous identity notably with the rebranding of the Royal Canadian Air… Read more »
correction-..and the Ensign(with the new national Flag in the first quarter) became the Jack..
The Arrow was way over budget (1 million per jet became 8 million and this was based on 500 total!). Fast interceptors became obsolete and the Arrow wasn’t the only interceptor project that was cancelled. The mistake was in not utilizing the technology to develop a multi-role fighter. The biggest mistake of all was cancelling the Iroquois jet engine which more than likely would have allowed Canada to become a major jet engine manufacturer. The USAF liked the Iroquois engine so much they lent AVRO a strategic bomber (B-47) to use as a test bed.
If the Canadian budget allowed it would have been interesting for them to buy the Hobart class from Oz / Spain as a replacement for their Tribal class.
As I said sometime here I think this week / last week perhaps instead of buying T31 we should buy a single T26 with Sea Viper to see if it could be plumbed together……
Trading 5 frigates for a single additional ASW destroyer just as a test case wouldn’t exactly be the smartest procurement choice. I believe it was back in 2012 when at DSEI BAE said the Strike tubes could be Mk41 or SYLVER, and the Aussie design shows the platform is capable of supporting high power radars and more VLS, so Sea Viper (minus the S1850M volume search radar) would be a straight transplant. I’ve read that Aster 30 is capable of fitting in Mk41, so even in its current guise the T26 could fulfill an AAW role by carrying Aster instead… Read more »
We are trading 5 over priced FFBNW OPV’s for £1.3 billion. I know it is a rabbit hole many here like to travel down but the numbers for T31 don’t add up.
OK so Canada is ordering 15 of the T26 variations, Australia 9, the Aussies have just place an order for 12 Shortfin Barracuda submarines. The MoD or treasury really need to pull their fingers out as both of these nations will have a very credible navy. Yes I know the RN has nuclear subs but I really think it is time to either up the defence expenditure to 3% or remove the ballistic missile sub cost from the RN and put it back to the treasury.
Yup, And the latest Army figures show 77 thousand Troops or thereabouts. What the Hell Is going On ? Are these so called leaders Stupid ? Wake Up and smell the Vodka init FFS.
Assigning the SSBN costs back to the Treasury is a great idea. Unfortunately Cameron and Osborne, who cannot be sufficiently damned concerning defense matters, made it very difficult to unwring that bell.
On the topic of government clearances. It’s looks as though the Japanese government is going to move forward on the Izumo conversion and F35B buy… Wonder if this will lower the cost for future UK B model buys?
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/12/12/japan-moves-forward-on-aircraft-carrier-major-f-35-buy/
Cheers!
Not by much if at all for fly away cost. But through life cost? Perhaps as more F35b means more spares etc.
The Izumo looks tiny now we are used to seeing QE.
@ BB85 SeaViper is superior to AEGIS. My only concern is that it leaves out on a limb with the US and Australia and now it seems Canada. I wonder if she would be built the system around Standard instead of Aster too; that’s a swing and roundabout ‘discussion’ too. We have done our normal trick I think of being a bit too clever and working with Europe… In terms of effectiveness we would be no worse off with AEGIS, especially if we fielded a system as close to the current USN systems. A flotilla of Burke-esque vessels, say 12,… Read more »
AEGIS has been around for many decades. Although it’s updated all the time it’s still based on older tech than recently developed AESA based naval combat systems on other warships. But remember that AEGIS also has many other parts to it than just the radar. It has the CEC system that links it to the E-2C/D another other airborne and shipborne radars that give it range over the ships own radar horizon. Also the new flight 3 Burke destroyers will be fitted with the state of the art AN/SPY-6 radar which when fielded will be the most advanced and powerful… Read more »
I think T26 is the UK’s Burke class, we just have to go for it. If you take a look at the T26 it is far superior in every way (except radar) to the T45. So all we need to do in my opinion is upgrade the radar and we have a Burke class capability. I would also like to swap the 24 VLS in the centre for Mk41 or even the sylvers to up our ability to carry more missiles as realistically 132 is the new fully loaded requirement for a ship of this size and class. With T45… Read more »
Yes. If we had money I would be looking to replace T45 from ‘now’. T26 mechanically is what we should have done with T45.
“Battleships” ?
Type 26 with STANEFLEX……..
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-aHlnRjN8va8/XBR-I-WtT3I/AAAAAAABqgI/GYytadd5MZsau77hn3pr6dRrKlbg5usHwCLcBGAs/s1600/918d049cd58dfbdfdd37cc21614066ed8ac9ce14a7d2c8e6ef4f4143bfe8bd6d.jpg
Hi John Fedup! Your pessimistic attitude is refreshing if nothing else. Shows you really care!! If you remember the last NATO Summit, Canada has already signed on with the rest of NATO to reach at least 2% increase in defence spending by 2023.
Just another promise that junior will NEVER keep. We are barely above 1% now and you think our economy 5 years from now can support 2% GDP on defence in the unlikely event there is political support to do so?
It really is not up to “junior” now, as you call him. Canada will never faulter on it’s International commitments especially with NATO as “junior’ wants nothing less than for Canada to “be back” in the good graces of NATO. Believe me, 2% of GDP will happen sooner rather than later. Have A Great Navy Day, and keep smiling!!!