80 trillion won Canadian submarine procurement project, Korean DSME 3000 is a strong candidate

‘Honorary Citizen of Pyeongtaek’ Canadian military head history… Must appeal with high performance and defeat Japanese rival models

Canada is the second largest country in the world after Russia and rich in resources. With a population of over 38 million, it has all the conditions for a great power. On the other hand, Canada’s military power is very poor, not commensurate with its national strength. This is because, despite facing Russia and the Arctic Ocean between them, it has been virtually free riding on the U.S. defense power.

Since the Cold War, Canada has largely entrusted the protection of its air defense and maritime sovereignty to the United States. Air defense operations are overseen by the US-led North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Norad is a combined air defense system that operates as a single command system with the forces achieved through cooperation between the US and Canadian air forces. In fact, it has been a long time since it was operated as a ‘one-man show’ in the United States. Due to the old and obsolete Canadian Air Force fighter jets, when problems occur in the Bering Sea, the Arctic Ocean, and the North Atlantic Ocean, US Air Force fighters are scrambled.

Coastal defense is also in charge of the United States. The North American coast is threatened by Russia’s strategic nuclear-powered submarine (WNP) to the east and China’s strategic nuclear submarine to the west. The coastline is so long that a large number of anti-submarine warships and patrol aircraft are required. The Canadian Navy is only pretending, but in reality, the US Navy is in charge of patrol operations. The defense in the Pacific is the US Navy’s 3rd Fleet, and the Atlantic side is in charge of the 2nd Fleet. The United States, which suffers from a severe shortage of combat ships and submarines, has long been pressuring Canada to make a substantial contribution to the defense of the North American continent, but Canada is not budging.

Given the level of Canada’s military power, is it so dependent on the United States? The main fighter of the Canadian military, the world’s eighth largest economy, is the old CF-18, which began to be introduced in 1982. In the U.S. Army, it is a fighter of the same type as the F/A-18A/B Hornet, which was retired long ago. The CF-18 is still the only main fighter for the Canadian Forces, 40 years after its introduction. Initially, Canada was planning to introduce F-35A fighter jets by participating in the US-led Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) development project. However, the center-left Liberal Party, which was the opposition party at the time, overthrew the Conservative government’s F-35 introduction project, and it ended in vain. In the end, Canada has become a country that virtually lives on the ‘air defense umbrella’ of the US Air Force, with only a few outdated fighter jets that are over 40 years old.

Canada’s naval power is no different. Canada’s coastline is the longest in the world, but its naval power is only 12 frigates, 12 corvettes and 4 submarines. The flagship Halifax-class frigate is a 4,770-ton medium-sized combat ship, but in terms of armament, it is not as good as the 3,000-ton class of quite a few countries. The Kingston-class corvette is only a small 970-ton ship, and its armament is only one 40mm cannon and one machine gun, which are weaker than the Korean Navy’s Chamsuri-class high-speed boat. Canada has virtually entrusted the task of protecting the vast seas of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, including the Arctic Ocean, to the US Navy.

In the past, Canada’s security free-rider strategy worked. In the confrontational composition with the Soviet Union and China, the U.S. was in a hurry. The United States had to defend its own country, as well as the skies and seas of Canada, by squeezing out its insufficient military power. The situation began to change during the Donald Trump administration, which was crying out for ‘America First’. The United States has condemned Canada for free riding on national security and has strongly pressed it to increase its military capabilities. As security threats from Russia and China toward the North American continent intensified, the US military suffered from the aftermath of the so-called ‘Sequester’, a massive cut in the defense budget during the Barack Obama administration. The Trump administration argued, “It is difficult to properly protect the front yard of the United States, let alone Canadian airspace and territorial waters.” To a large extent this was true. As the defense budget was drastically cut during the 2nd Obama administration, major military power reinforcement projects were canceled or postponed. In the process, repair and maintenance schedules for existing equipment were also delayed, making the shortage of fighters, combat ships, and submarines in the US military very serious. In particular, there was a significant shortage of submarine power to protect the North American continent from greatly strengthened Chinese and Russian underwater power.

As of April, the US Navy has a total of 51 attack submarines, including 22 Virginia-class ships, 26 Los Angeles-class ships, and 3 Seawolf-class ships. Among them, the second Seawolf-class ship collided with an unknown underwater object in the South China Sea in 2021 and became inoperable, so the US Navy currently has 50 attack submarines available. These submarines take turns repeating maintenance, training, and operations. Once they start maintenance, they should be docked for a year or two. There are at most 17 submarines that the US Navy can actually use in an ‘operational deployment’ state. With this capability, it must track and respond to 28 nuclear-armed submarines, including 12 Russian strategic nuclear submarines, 10 cruise missile nuclear submarines, and 6 Chinese strategic nuclear submarines.

Britain’s blood alliance supports some of the defense of the Atlantic Ocean, but the UK’s attack submarines are only 5 ships and their operation rate is low, so it is not much help. This is the reason why the US is trying to give Australia an attack power even while breaking the nuclear non-proliferation principle. In the future, if Australia possesses 8 to 13 attack submarines, it is judged that 3 to 4 of them will be put into the mission to respond to China’s strategic nuclear submarine. It is to reduce the mission load by having key allies have high-performance submarines. This US strategy also applies to Canada, which has been consistent with security free riding for a long time.

At the end of the Cold War, Canada considered introducing an attack submarine to defend the Arctic Ocean with the support of Britain and France. The plan to acquire an attack submarine, which first appeared in Canada’s ‘Defense White Paper’ in 1987, was eventually abandoned when the United States, which was convinced of the end of the Cold War, came forward with the principle of nuclear non-proliferation. Instead of attack submarines, Canada has imported four old diesel-electric submarines from the UK, called the Victoria class, and is operating them. The Victoria class is a fairly large submarine with an underwater displacement of 2400 tons, but after being introduced to the Canadian Forces, it did not work properly. The Victoria class is a complex that requires huge maintenance costs due to all kinds of defects, and a fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in 2004 even caused a fatal accident. After the accident, Canada invested a lot of money to improve the Victoria class, but the performance of the submarine did not improve significantly.

As a result, in 2017, the Canadian Parliament began to argue that it should purchase 12 new submarines to respond to the rapidly changing security environment. The theory of introducing a new submarine, which had drifted in the political world, is gaining momentum with the establishment of new departments in the Canadian Ministry of Defense and the Navy. And the person pushing it is, surprisingly, Army General Wayne D. Eyre.

Wayne Air, then deputy commander of the United Nations Command (right), receives a hanging scroll with the Korean name Ye Yeong-su (芮榮守) written on it from the ROK-US Alliance Friendship Association on June 4, 2019. After returning home, General Eyre was promoted to general and was appointed Chief of the Defense Staff of the Canadian Forces in 2021. [유엔군사령부 제공]匮䅔䕇剟噅卉佉㵎搥

The Canadian Forces, which is an integrated military system, has the highest command above the Army, Navy, and Air Force Commands, and its head is the Chief of the Defense Staff. Air, who was inaugurated as the Chief of Defense Staff in 2021, has a brilliant overseas dispatch experience. As a brigadier general, he served as deputy commander of the 18th Airborne Corps of the U.S. Army, and after being promoted to lieutenant general, he was appointed to Korea as the first non-American deputy commander of the United Nations Command (UNC) with the full support of the United States. General Eyre’s appointment as Deputy Commander, UNC, was at the request of the Department of Defense. General Ayre also actively carried out his mission, showing off his friendship with the United States. When he left office in June 2019, he was presented with the Korean name of ‘Ye Yeong-soo (芮 榮 守)’ from the Korea-US Alliance Friendship Association, and was also made an ‘honorary citizen’ of Pyeongtaek City, Gyeonggi Province, where he worked. The reason Captain Ayre puts a strong drive into the project to introduce submarines is that he is well aware of the lack of submarines in the U.S. blood alliance. At a defense policy staff meeting held in Ottawa, Canada in March, he announced that he would make the introduction of submarines a top priority, and said he was actively supporting the submarine project on behalf of the Navy.

Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force Daigei-class submarine. [일본 해상자위대 제공]

Since the Canadian military’s submarine procurement project is in the preliminary research stage, the total project cost has not yet been released. However, according to Canadian media, it is likely that the plan to introduce 12 submarines at a cost of 60 billion dollars (approximately 79.62 trillion won) will be considered. This is an amount that includes full life cycle costs, and the net acquisition cost will be between one-third and one-half of the total project cost. The actual cost of acquiring a submarine is estimated to be 2 to 3 trillion won per submarine. The Virginia class of the US, the Astute class of the UK, and the Chifra class of France are examples of attack submarines that have recently attracted worldwide attention. However, each of these submarines costs 3 trillion won, and it is virtually impossible for Canada to introduce them because they are single. Among conventional propulsion submarines, high-performance models with excellent sustained submergence capability are bound to be on the list of candidates. In this case, the candidates are narrowed down to two types: the Korean DSME 3000 model and the Japanese Daigei class.

In September 2021, Korea’s first submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) live-fire training was conducted on the Navy submarine Dosan Anchang-ho. [국방과학연구소 제공]

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering’s DSME 3000 is the latest model with a lithium-based battery based on the Dosan Anchang-ho class submarine and dramatically increased its ability to sustain submersion. It is known that it has an underwater displacement of more than 3,700 tons and the ability to launch a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). The specific specifications of DSME 3000 have not yet been disclosed, but the KSS-III Batch-2 model, which is expected to be the most similar to it, has an underwater displacement of 4000 tons. The capacity of the missile vertical launch tube has also increased from 6 to 10. If ballistic missiles are not loaded, dozens of missiles can be operated by installing vertical launch tubes for other missiles such as Tomahawk in this space. The submarine uses HY100 high-strength steel and achieves a high speed of 37 km/h at a depth of 250 m. The high-performance sonar mounted on each part of the hull can find and attack enemies underwater and on the surface. Canada is the most powerful submarine you can buy in your budget. On the other hand, the Daigei class is the latest model in which Japan’s submarine technology is concentrated, and has a slightly larger size than the DSME 3000. Like the DSME 3000, it has a lithium-based battery. In terms of attack power, it is inferior to DSME 3000, but its underwater operation ability is evaluated as the best in the world.

According to sources in the defense industry, the Canadian Navy plans to give a high score to the follow-up logistical support capability in the project to introduce new submarines. These are fields such as construction in the form of introducing local technology, education and training of submarine operators, and consulting on submarine operation. Korea, which already has experience in exporting several submarines and training operators, has a great advantage. Compared to Japan, which has no experience in exporting combat ships, it can be said to be an absolute advantage.

The Canadian Forces Defense Policy Strategy is currently being drafted, and it is expected to be announced in the second half of this year at the earliest or next year at the latest. It is necessary for the South Korean government and military officials as well as comrades who worked with ‘General Ye Young-soo’ in Ottawa, who has a special relationship with the ROK-US alliance, before the project gets on the right track. If Canada’s project to introduce super-large submarines takes place in advance to preoccupy an advantageous position, it will be possible to expect the ‘jackpot’ of the largest submarine export since Dangun.

《This article
Weekly Donga 1385
was published in

Shin In-kyun, CEO of Self-Defense Network

Source: Donga

Mark

Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.