Canada’s purchase of all four Upholder Class diesel electric (SSK) submarines from Britain has been both criticized and ridiculed since the first boat arrived in Canada.
First came the argument that they had sat for too long and would never become operational without a tremendous amount of work and money, by which time they would be useless. Monetary commitments in other areas of Canada’s military has slowed the progress on the boat’s becoming fully operational, but finally, all except HMCS Chicoutimi are heading in the right direction. HMCS Victoria is working up after her long refit, making room for HMCS Corner Brook, the current star of the group to enter her refit after spending a few years traveling far and wide and capturing that all important periscope shot of a ‘target’ in the form of a British aircraft carrier through her periscope. Surely that dissuaded the nay sayers as to the boat’s capabilities once and for all.
My favourite argument however has always been why didn’t we just build our own? That is a nice dream, but given the highly technical skill sets required to construct modern submarines, there was no possibility Canada would be able to manage that feat nor should we have spent the vast resources to attempt it.
In case anyone needs further convincing in regards to that, one only has to look at the other Country who contemplated purchasing the British submarines. Australia thought it over and decided to skip the Upholders’ and instead embarked on an ambitious plan to construct six units of the Collins class SSK’s.
I’ll let this article titled ‘Not a single submarine seaworthy’ tell the rest of the story - click the link to view the story from Australian National Affairs. Canada made a great deal and even with one boat currently in the water is in better shape than Australia with its six boats in various stages on inoperability.
HMCS Corner Brook recently made the news again by hitting bottom while on a training cruise. I’ve read that if you haven’t done that, you’re not trying hard enough. Personally, that’s more excitement than I’d want to experience submerged but I’m sure once Corner Brook sets sail after her refit, she and her crew will continue with their steady stream of underwater adventures.
0 comments:
Post a Comment