By Scott Taylor
A startling headline and sub-head in a recent National Post story read as follows: "Canada's top sailor says he's sure we could stop Russia or China from trespassing in Arctic: The country’s new Arctic and offshore patrol ships only carry a 25-mm cannon, but Canada's top sailor says that could quickly be supplemented with other weapons."
My initial reaction was to presume that this was some sort of 'click-bait' gimmick to lure in astounded readers.
However Vice Admiral Angus Topshee, the Commander of the Royal Canadian Navy, did indeed tell the National Post that he is confident the RCN could stop Russia or China from transiting through the Northwest passage without official permission. Topshee is so confident in fact, that he believes Canada could do it solo. “We wouldn’t need the allies to come to our aid. We could deal with it ourselves,” said Topshee. “We have the capacity to deploy our ships up there right now to stop them.”
There is a lot to digest from Topshee's claim and at first glance it would seem ludicrous to think we could deter the Russian or Chinese navies with a 7,000 ton Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship (AOPS) which mounts a single 25mm cannon.
I believe what Topshee is suggesting is that with the AOPS, Canada could potentially meet 'presence with presence' to confront any Russian or Chinese naval incursion into our waters. If it evolved into a hostile engagement, we would be toast.
It is also needs to be clarified that the AOPS, despite having the word Arctic in their name, have only a limited ice-breaking capability. While the AOPS can operate in ice up to 1.5 metres thick, the heavy Russian and Chinese ice-breakers can handle more than 2 metres of ice.
The Russians are currently conducting sea trials on the newly launched ice-breaker Ivan Papanin which is reportedly capable of carrying cruise missiles. For those not familiar with naval weaponry, a cruise missile easily trumps a 25 mm cannon.
This past September the Peoples' Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) of China deployed three heavy ice-breakers to the Bering Strait Arctic Ocean approaches. For the record, China and Russia recently participated in a joint naval exercise in the Pacific named Operation OCEAN 2024. It involved a combined 400 warships and 120 aircraft.
At last count the RCN has taken delivery of five of a total of six AOPS, with the final ship to be complete next year. However due to a crippling shortage of trained technicians the RCN can only put one AOPS to sea at a time.
There has also been a lot of significant 'teething troubles' with the AOPS. In addition to excessive flooding and contaminated water supplies, the AOPS still cannot deploy with the planned for Cyclone maritime helicopters. “Right now, it’s got a hangar, it’s got a flight deck — that’s the easy part,” VAdm Topshee told the National Post. “The complicated piece is that, in order to be able to land that helicopter on the deck, secure it on the deck and then bring it into the hangar — there’s a couple of changes that have to be made.”
For the record, the AOPS were ordered in 2011. The first of the class, HMCS Harry DeWolf was launched in 2018 and commissioned in 2021. Three years later the RCN can still not operate a helicopter from their flight decks which was an integral part of the ships' design from the outset. However we are to understand from VAdm Topshee that if hostilities were imminent, somehow the dockyard workers in Halifax and Esquimalt could suddenly transform these AOPS into battle worthy vessels. “They’re not intended to be front-line combatants,” VAdm Topshee said of the AOPS. “They have everything they need for the missions that we anticipate that (they’ll) do. Were we to get into a wartime environment where we felt … they could come directly under threat, then there’s the capacity to install other weapons in sort of an ad hoc manner — very similar to how you would defend an army forward operating base.”
It was almost exactly one year ago that VAdm Topshee released a very blunt video commentary entitled 'The State of the Royal Canadian Navy'. VAdm Topshee acknowledged that the chronic shortfall in personnel -over 20 per cent of authorized strength -would lead to the RCN failing to meet its readiness objectives in 2024 and beyond. That message was aimed at his own internal RCN audience but Topshee's commentary gained widespread media attention for his brutal honesty.
Now 12 month's later we are to believe that the RCN stands ready to confront Russia, and China in the Arctic without the assistance of our allies? That is one hell of a comeback. If only it were true.