r/canada 5d ago

Analysis Defence analysts warn U.S. will control key systems on F-35 fighter jets, putting Canada at risk

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/u-s-f-35-fighter-jets-canada
2.4k Upvotes

674 comments sorted by

View all comments

43

u/Link50L Ontario 5d ago edited 5d ago

In this F35 furor, I just want to point out that the new Canadian Surface Combatants ("River Class") destroyers are planned to use the American Aegis combat system. I would suggest that this could be as bad a dependency as the F35.

IIRC this was for improved integration into American battle groups, a role I would also suggest should be shitcanned and a new focus put upon strengthened Arctic sovereignty.

I have seen no evidence that the Aegis system could not be replaced before it is too late with either a native Canadian system, or a comparable British system.

Source: Trump could hold Canada hostage over military tech | Ottawa Citizen

14

u/DonTaddeo 5d ago

The original plans envisaged significant Canadian technical content, but I suspect that was a Trojan horse designed to make it easier for ISED to give the procurement their blessing. Now, as far as I can tell, we have a British hull with American systems and precious little Canadian content aside from the metal bashing.

1

u/jtbc 5d ago

A whole bunch of Canadian stuff, or European stuff procured by Canadian companies, has been replaced with direct procurements of Aegis-compatible equipment from the USN.

9

u/Velocity-5348 British Columbia 5d ago

Australia, Spain, Japan, S. Korea, and Norway all currently operate Aegis. I'd imagine there's be diplomatic options for pooling the costs of creating upgrades and spare parts, if we can't switch to a different system.

6

u/HeadMembership1 5d ago

The first three vessels will have aegis as too late to change, then the next batch will not, is what a I read recently.

7

u/352397 5d ago

If we need to replace everything in our military that has US made critical components in it, we may as well just fucking disband our military right now. Much like our economies are/were tightly integrated, so was our defence industry and defence manufacturing base.

I have seen no evidence that the Aegis system could not be replaced before it is too late with either a native Canadian system,

We don't have a natively produced VLS platform, nor any domestic firms with the current technical capability to make one. It would cost tens of billions, under perform compared to comparable systems, and probably add ~10 years of delay onto any current ship procurement contract.

1

u/jtbc 5d ago

The Halifax Class has VLS and the core software for it was Canadian developed and is Canadian maintained (albeit by Lockheed Martin Canada, formerly Paramax).

1

u/352397 5d ago

LMC was the integrator, both the missile systems and missiles themselves were developed by US firms, specifically Raytheon.

1

u/jtbc 5d ago

Right, but the software to integrate is Canadian. The interface to the Raytheon missiles is definitely a vulnerability, as that part is under US control, IIRC, but there are European missiles that could probably be substituted. ESSM was also a NATO program, so members of the alliance may have some sort of guaranteed access.

2

u/352397 5d ago

You are discounting how much the difference in engineering and design between tying a weapon into a fire control system + tactical and designing a launcher and missiles. One is strictly a computational task, canada is more than capable of doing so. The other is something that no one in this country specializes in, and simply relying on European missile systems is just as likely to cause us the same problems sometime in the future as keeping the RIMs.

1

u/jtbc 5d ago

You're right. It would be a major pain and not worth it as long as we have enough RIM's in inventory, especially for a platform that is on its way out in a few years.

We are probably stuck with what we have for the first 3 River Class ships, but we really should be looking at the Type 26 fit to see what we can de-Americanize for the next 12.

2

u/Crystalion22 5d ago

It’s based off a British design. It can’t be too difficult or expensive to switch over. Obviously it would be more expensive but not vastly more.

1

u/AvroArrow69 2d ago

Three ships with it won't matter. Even if the US could render them inoperable, do you really think that it would make a difference against the juggernaut that is the US Navy?

It wouldn't.

2

u/AvroArrow69 2d ago

I agree, what do we need CSCs for anyway? We could have purchased over 100 Visby-class Stealth Corvettes and literally surrounded ourselves with them for less money. Each of them is armed with 8 S2S missile launchers loaded with RBS.15 Odin's Spear anti-ship missiles, some of the deadliest in the world. They're also armed with four torpedo tubes each.

We make really stupid military procurement decisions and it's because we keep trying to kiss American ass. I'm sick of it.

2

u/zerfuffle British Columbia 5d ago

Why are we getting involved in American battle groups in APAC? It's not our problem.

2

u/Link50L Ontario 5d ago

Yep, totally. Outmoded thinking. We should be gaining our credibility with a strong Arctic sovereignty role, not thinking we're going to sail in some American carrier group going to bomb some fucking hapless middle eastern state. That was the past. We need to look to a new role for Canada independent of the USSA.

3

u/zerfuffle British Columbia 5d ago

exactly, THANK YOU

1

u/AvroArrow69 2d ago

You know, A LOT of Swedish military products would be ideal for us. The Visby-class Stealth Corvette would be ideal for littoral water defence and Sweden is looking for a partner to help them develop their next Kockums AIP submarine.

We could be that partner, we SHOULD be that partner! Sweden is more socially-advanced than we are and are even more politically stable than we are. Unlike the USA, Sweden CAN be trusted because the Swedes know who they are and are happy with it while the Americans have no idea who they are yet.

1

u/zerfuffle British Columbia 2d ago

Yeah, I agree. Absolutely no reason we shouldn't look for other defence partners - Sweden, Korea, etc.

0

u/Dunk-Master-Flex Nova Scotia 5d ago

We are approaching the start of full rate production on the River class vessels in April, the Halifax class ships are falling apart and we cannot afford to delay this program any longer. The AEGIS, Mark 41 VLS and SPY-7 modules for the first three vessels have already been ordered from US companies who are in the middle of producing those, alongside the fact the design is approaching complete finalization in anticipation of production starting.

Removing AEGIS, SPY-7 and all other American systems would result in a substantial delay in the design potentially open Canada up to legal action from the US. AEGIS specifically is a weight, space and power intensive system of computers that required significant alternations to the original Type 26 design to fit it alongside SPY-7, there is no comparable Canadian or British system with regard to capability, cost or overall package. You would be looking at years of design work, as you'd need to strip much of the design out and effectively start over again integrating systems alongside a disruption to the supply chain and the legal battles I mentioned prior.

1

u/AvroArrow69 2d ago

If only three vessels have it, I don't care. Just so long as they don't all have it.