Canada's Undersea Navy

The Canadian Navy's submarine fleet, obtained from the Royal Navy at a bargain price of under a billion Canadian dollars, is currently operating without torpedo armament, as reported in the Halifax Herald:

HMCS Windsor will be without torpedoes until 2006, a high-ranking Canadian naval officer says.

"That's probably right," Capt. Dean McFadden, who commands Atlantic operations, told reporters Monday night on board the submarine as it conducted exercises off the coast of Nova Scotia.

The Halifax-based submarine, which was originally supposed to be ready for operations in July 2001, began a year of testing last spring.

While the sub is not yet armed with torpedoes, which will be its only external weapons, it has embarked on several official missions.

I find it amusing that only the Canadian Navy could operate unarmed submarines and yet consider them to be fully functional. Sad as hell, but also amusing.

Another article in the Halifax Daily News has this:

"We are very fortunate today to have probably the most modern, combat-capable navy that we have seen in my career of 34 years," Rear Admiral Dan McNeil said recently at a conference in Halifax.

"Most Canadians don’t understand this; they like to make fun of us."

And that, Admiral, is because we remember what the Royal Canadian Navy used to be: the third largest navy in the world. The pride of the nation. Not what we're left with at this late date. We make fun because it's either that or slitting our collective wrists in anger and frustration.