Since we haven't actually purchased any new submarines yet, now is probably the best time to ask if we SHOULD buy new submarines.
I'm certainly not going to argue against the usefulness of submarines or against the quantity being proposed (anything less than 12 realistically doesn't really give you a big enough deployable fleet to have a significant military impact). But just like nobody will argue against the usefulness of aircraft carriers you can argue whether they are right for the RCN.
My take on submarines for Canada is based on the following assumptions/opinions:
- in a war neither the Russian or Chinese surface fleets will risk approaching the North American coastline where they would come in range of US aviation assets.
- any Russian/Chinese subs that approach our coasts are likely to be longer endurance nuclear boats rather than conventional subs.
- given our plan to purchase MOTS conventional subs our boats will not be used for extended under ice operations.
- since we are only likely to have up to four boats available at any given time and with the limited underwater range/speed of conventional subs (relative to nuclear subs) we are more likely to keep our sub fleet deployed on our side of the Atlantic/Pacific in a defensive role rather then deploying to the far side of the oceans in an offensive role.
Of course none of the above is written in stone. We could face enemy conventional subs in our own backyard or we could end up forward deploying a boat or two to the Far East or Norwegian Sea but I'd argue that these are more likely to be the exceptions rather than the rule.
So if the primary role of our subs would be to counter enemy submarines on our side of the oceans and we we will likely only have two available at any given time on each coast to cover our vast maritime domain and the nuclear boats we are facing are faster, have greater endurance and can go under ice where we can't follow, then do conventional submarines give us the best bang for our buck?
I'm again going to make an assumption that nuclear subs (which would counter many of the above issues) are off the table for political, technical and economic reasons. So the question then becomes what OTHER ASW capabilities could we purchase for the same money that we'd be putting into a fleet of 12 x conventional submarines? Additional surface combatants? More MPA's? Uncrewed systems? Would a mix of these alternate systems actually provide us greater coverage than the submarine fleet?
Again, I'll fully acknowledge the unique capabilities that submarines bring to the table, but in terms of opportunity cost are the benefits of a submarine fleet greater than the sum of the other capabilities we could buy for the RCN for the same cost?
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