Canada’s only operational submarine just sank a U.S. warship

Prime Minister Mark Carney, at news a conference on the HMCS Robert Hampton Gray, to make an announcement concerning the submarine procurement for the Royal Canadian Navy. Photo by TIM KROCHAK

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Six days after the federal government said only one of Canada’s four submarines is seaworthy, that submarine sank an American warship off Hawaii.

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HMCS Corner Brook launched a Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo at the decommissioned cruiser USS Mobile Bay on July 12, and the Canadian shot was the one that sank it, CTV News reported. It was Canada’s first submarine at the Rim of the Pacific exercise in 12 years.

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Capt. Landon Creasy, the Canadian task group commander, said in a statement that live-fire targeting exercises are “invaluable to our submariners,” CTV reported.

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The U.S. Navy said in a release that Mobile Bay went down in waters 15,000 feet deep, more than 50 nautical miles off the northern coast of Kauai. The release said a second decommissioned ship, the amphibious assault vessel USS Peleliu, was sunk in the same area July 17.

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The release said units from Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Army took part in the sinkings, gaining proficiency in tactics, targeting and live-firing against a surface ship at sea.

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Vice-Admiral Jeffrey Jablon, commander of the RIMPAC combined task force, said in the release that sinking exercises are “a prime example of the strength and readiness our partnerships create.”

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Lieut.-Cmdr. Linda Coleman, a Royal Canadian Navy spokesperson deployed in Hawaii, said in a statement that the submarine proved it retains “precision strike capability” in complex marine environments, CTV reported.

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Submarine work at the exercise is usually less dramatic. A boat at RIMPAC will often act as a “clockwork mouse,” moving predictably so surface ships can practise tracking it, said Paul Mitchell, a professor at the Canadian Forces College who is writing a book on the Victoria Class. “No submariner wants to be a clockwork mouse because it’s boring and dull and there’s no glory in it,” he told National Post.

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A July 6 news release from the Prime Minister’s Office said Canada’s submarine fleet is aging, with only one of four submarines seaworthy. The release named Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems as the preferred supplier to begin negotiations on up to 12 new submarines, in what it called the largest defence procurement in Canadian history.

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Corner Brook is Canada’s lone operational submarine, National Post reported this month. Mitchell said the navy has to keep the aging boats running for another decade because it needs them to train crews for the incoming German-built fleet. “By hook or by crook, the navy has to make these things work for the next 10 years because they have to generate crews,” he said.