Ultra to provide towed sonar for CSC programme

Lockheed Martin Canada has awarded Ultra Electronics Maritime Sonar Systems a subcontract to provide a variable-depth sonar for the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC) programme.

Ultra will provide its Canadian-made Towed Low Frequency Active Sonar (TLFAS) under the terms of the subcontract.

As the ASW lead in the CSC programme, Ultra is already committed to pairing TLFAS with a hull-mounted sonar.

The new subcontract moves the development of the CSC ASW capability beyond the programme definition phase and ‘into the full manufacture and delivery of the vessels’ suite of sonars’, Ultra noted in a 3 February announcement.

According to Shephard Defence Insight, the CSC vessels will replace Royal Canadian Navy Iroquois-class destroyers and Halifax-class frigates once these older ships are retired in the 2030s.

The CSC programme is expected to start in the early 2020s with the first of 15 vessels  to be delivered by Irving Shipbuilding by the end of the decade.

However, the construction contract has not yet been signed — and Canadian budget oversight office PBO is set to release a report in February 2021 which is expected to describe an overall cost increase beyond the current estimate of C$69.8 billion ($52.7 billion).

Given the impact of COVID-19 on the Canadian economy and public finances, spiralling costs for CSC could threaten the future of the programme.

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