Arctic Patrol Vessels: now with less sonar

The not-yet-fully designed Arctic patrol vessels may have a lot of capabilities, but sonar isn't going to be one of them:

Canada's new Arctic patrol ships will likely lack sonar capability, forcing them to use other methods to detect submarine threats in northern waters, a project official said yesterday.

"They will not have the ability to detect submarines," Captain Ron Lloyd, a senior navy planner, said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Both the operation and even the installation of sonar equipment on the new warships may prove to be impractical, he said.

"You're talking about a ship that's going to run up onto ice and all of the noise that ice makes and still be able to detect submarines," said Capt. Lloyd, who is the former commander of the frigate HMCS Charlottetown.

"From our perspective we have not examined that as a potential [capability] for this platform."

"What?" I pretend to hear you ask. "How are our not-yet-built Arctic superships supposed to deter eeeeevil Yankee and Ruskie nuclear subs if they can't even detect 'em?" A good question. Professor Dan Middlemiss is quoted in the article and he says that helicopters can be used (when the weather allows), and that would give some anti-submarine capability. Moreover, actually hunting submarines is primarily a job for other submarines in the modern era.

Still, you can't help but feel that the new boats won't have quite the same effect without the ability to "ping" the heck out of intruding subs.