Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/196923
M Modeling & Simulation Warfare centre key to surface combatant weapon evaluation MBDA's Aster 30 missile, part of the PAAMS air-defence missile system. 18 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2013 www.vanguardcanada.com Ian Coutts, is a freelance writer, author of four books, and a frequent contributor to Vanguard. His writing has appeared in Toronto Life, Canadian Business, the Globe and Mail, and elsewhere. Think of it as a cool CGI movie. A Canadian patrol frigate makes a sonar contact – a submarine, some distance ahead. As a helicopter keeps watch overhead, the frigate races forward to engage the craft skulking in the underwater terrain. The wake the ship leaves, the sonar signature of the submarine, every detail is perfect – and perfectly virtual. It isn't happening in the North Atlantic but on a server inside the home of the Canadian Forces Maritime Warfare Centre at CFB Halifax. In June 2010, the Canadian government announced its National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy, the largest peacetime shipbuilding program in Canadian history. The program called for icebreakers for the Coast Guard and, for the Royal Canadian Navy, new supply ships, Arctic offshore patrol vessels and a reported $25 billion program to replace the three remaining Tribal class destroyers and the 12 Halifax-class frigates with 15 new vessels. As the RCN's go-to establishment for refining and disseminating naval tactics, the Maritime Warfare Centre will play a key role in the selection of the future Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC). Big defence procurements are always fraught affairs, but the purchase of new warships is especially so. And not just in terms of the cost. These ships will serve with the RCN – indeed, will compose its backbone – for decades to come. The navy has to get this right. And the Maritime Warfare Centre will play a key role in the process. The warfare centre was originally established in the early 1950s, around the time of the Korean conflict and not so very long after the end of World War Two, to make sure, as Captain (N) Doug Young, the centre's recently appointed commander puts it, that the navy did not lose "the corporate knowledge we had gained over a couple of wars." As an example of the tactical work that is the centre's bread and butter, Young cites the first-ever use of a unmanned aerial vehicle aboard a Canadian warship during the 2011 mission supporting the uprising in Libya. "That was new ground. We asked the ships to develop a tac note [tactical note] saying, 'Here is something we had and here's how we used it.' Then that goes out to all ships for use. They give us feedback on what they think – on what tactics need to be changed, and the comments will be collated and the tac note changed." This "tactical cycle" is a continuous process, with tactics being constantly tried (in exercises and on active service) and improved upon, and then put forth as doctrine. In addition to tactical analysis, the centre's other mandate is advising on force development, reporting directly to the Director General Navy Force Development in Ottawa. Right now, a big part of force development is the new surface combatant, specifically helping develop the statement of requirements for any possible bids. "Our part will be about the capabilities for the weapons and sensors," says Young. He emphasizes capabilities. "We don't look at specific systems and say, oh, it's got to have a 76 mm gun." The navy may, for example, want these ships to be able to attack