The Canadian Navy has determined that the available budget will not serve to keep all of its warships at an acceptable level of readiness. Instead, they will keep 13 ships at high readiness; the others will be at a lower state of readiness. The highest readiness tier will include two task groups (each with one Iroquois-class destroyer, two Halifax-class frigates, a Victoria-class submarine, and a replenishment ship), one Halifax-class frigate ready to deploy in 21 days to NATO Standing Naval Force Atlantic, and four Kingston-class coastal defense vessels. The two task groups are defined as the Contingency Task Group (ready to deploy to a mid-intensity conflict in 30 days) and the National Task Group (ready to deploy to a mid-intensity conflict in 60 days). One of the Halifax-class frigates in each group will be designated as the "vanguard" ship, ready to deploy in 21 days. All of these ships will spend 120 days per year at sea so that they can remain at the top edge of combat efficiency. The second readiness tier will consist of five Halifax-class frigates and six Kingston-class coastal defense vessels. These will spend 80 days a year at sea conducting drills, coastal patrols, and sovereignty-enforcement missions. These ships can be expected to deploy to a mid-intensity conflict in about 90 days. The remainder of the Navy will spend only 20 days per year at sea. These will include ships on harbor patrol, extended refits, scheduled dockyard maintenance, and so forth. These ships would require 180 days to deploy to a mid-intensity conflict. Individual ships may be rotated between tiers at various times to account for maintenance schedules. --Stephen V Cole

A new third-stage motor for the Standard Missile (used by the US Navy for anti-aircraft work) has been tested. This will be used on the Standard-3, which is designed to be part of the Navy Upper Tier missile defense system. --Stephen V Cole