During the period that we took delivery of the F-18s we designed and built in Canada 12 Kingston Class coastal patrol vessels and 12 Patrol frigates. We also refit our 4 Iroquois DDH Destroyers ... total gut job and re-build, all of it at a cost of billions. The Harpoon anti-ship missiles, Sparrow surface to air missiles, Phalanx close-in defence guns, Mark 46 Torpedos and gas turbines on the Frigates are of American origin. Most of the rest of all 24 ships are of Canadian origin. Of special mention are the advanced Canadian designed and built integrated weapons and sensor control system and the stealthy funnels that eliminate the infrared signatures of the exhaust gasses (developed by the NRC, that technology is a current export of ours). There are also some European components: Guns, diesel engines, radars but the overall content is mostly Canadian.
This work was as large as, probably larger than the whole F-18 acquisition. Ships are big and really expensive. Except for the Orca Class patrol vessels built a decade ago, we are only just getting started with building the next generation of warships. We have three AOPS Arctic patrol ships under construction in Halifax, an AOR supply ship was just launched in November from Quebec City and two more are about to start in Vancouver. We have just spent $4.3 billion updating the weaponry, sensors and computer systems on the 12 Frigates and they are essentially up-to-date, again. The competition to build the next generation of 15 destroyers is due this month.
Major $$$$.
Big time $$$$, most of which is being spent in Canada. It dwarfs the F-18s and it is all on the same sort of scale as the crazy F-35 project.
