Supply ship won’t have weapons due to cost
NAVY VESSEL
Defence department bureaucrats rejected a plan to outfit the navy’s new supply ship with high-tech guns needed for its protection because they wanted to save money, officials with a Quebec shipyard say.
Davie Shipbuilding is pushing back against claims by the Royal Canadian Navy that the Asterix supply vessel it converted for the Canadian Forces can’t go to war.
Company officials point out Asterix can be used in combat as the vessel has been outfitted with similar navigation and other systems that will eventually be installed on a new future fleet of Canadian warships. In addition, the company has acquired insurance coverage for the vessel to operate in high risk and war risk areas, Davie noted in a statement on its website.
The vessel can also be outfitted with weapons, a capability Davie originally proposed to the Department of National Defence. But the installation of high-powered guns — in storage in a military depot — was turned down by bureaucrats as a cost-saving measure, Davie sources and industry representatives point out.
“The ship can go wherever the Canadian Armed Forces require it to go,” Davie wrote in response to questions about whether Asterix can be used in combat.
Naval officers acknowledged at a news conference in late January with Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan at CFB Esquimalt that a number of Phalanx guns are in storage but those are being saved so they can be outfitted on the new Joint Support Ships.
It is unclear when the navy will get those new supply vessels as construction has yet to start.
The Asterix, which is being leased to the federal government by a sister company to Davie, is being prepared to head to sea in March in support of Royal Canadian Navy operations. It is expected to be at sea for up to six months.
DND did not respond directly to questions about why it rejected the installation of Phalanx guns on Asterix.
But Pat Finn, assistant deputy minister for materiel, told a Commons defence committee on Feb. 1 that getting Asterix as quickly as possible was the main focus for the department. He said the Davie supply vessel is different from the Joint Support Ships in terms of its robustness. “We did not impose that upon a commercial ship, because of the speed at which we needed it,” he said. “What it needed to do, what kinds of areas it could go to, and the things it can do are quite different.”
Davie, however, disputes claims Asterix is not as robust. “Operationally it is able to perform an identical role to that of the potential future Joint Support Ships,” the company added.