HMCS ''Saskatchewan'' was a that served in the

Royal Canadian Navy The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN; french: Marine royale canadienne, ''MRC'') is the naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of 2021, the RCN operates 12 frigates, four attack submar ...

(RCN) and later the

Canadian Forces } The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF; french: Forces armées canadiennes, ''FAC'') are the unified military forces of Canada, including sea, land, and air elements referred to as the Royal Canadian Navy, Canadian Army, and Royal Canadian Air Forc ...

. She was the second Canadian naval unit to bear the name . The ship was named for the

Saskatchewan River The Saskatchewan River (Cree: ''kisiskāciwani-sīpiy'', "swift flowing river") is a major river in Canada. It stretches about from where it is formed by the joining together of the North Saskatchewan and South Saskatchewan Rivers to Lake Winn ...

which runs from

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

in Canada. Entering service in 1963, she was mainly used as a

training ship A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old hulks used to house class ...

on the west coast. She was decommissioned in 1994 and sold for use as an

artificial reef An artificial reef is a human-created underwater structure, typically built to promote marine life in areas with a generally featureless bottom, to control erosion, block ship passage, block the use of trawling nets, or improve surfing. Many ...

. She was sunk as such in June 1997 off

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Design

The ''Mackenzie'' class was an offshoot of the design. Initially planned to be an improved version of the design, budget difficulties led to the Canadian government ordering a repeat of the previous ,Milner, pp. 223–224 with improved habitability and better pre-wetting, bridge and weatherdeck fittings to better deal with extreme cold.Gardiner & Chumbley, p. 45 The original intention was to give the ''Mackenzie'' class

variable depth sonar A towed array sonar is a system of hydrophones towed behind a submarine or a surface ship on a cable. Trailing the hydrophones behind the vessel, on a cable that can be kilometers long, keeps the array's sensors away from the ship's own noise sour ...

during construction, but would have led to delays of up to a year in construction time, which the navy could not accept.

General characteristics

The ''Mackenzie''-class vessels measured in length, with a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

of and a draught of .Gardiner & Chumbley, pp. 44–45Macpherson and Barrie (2002), p. 256 The ''Mackenzie''s displaced fully loaded and had a complement of 290.Macpherson and Barrie state the complement as 245 (12 officers and 233 enlisted) The class was powered by two

Babcock & Wilcox boiler A high pressure watertube boiler (also spelled water-tube and water tube) is a type of boiler in which water circulates in tubes heated externally by the fire. Fuel is burned inside the furnace, creating hot gas which boils water in the steam-gene ...

s connected to the two-shaft English-Electric geared steam turbines providing . This gave the ships a maximum speed of .

Armament

The most noticeable change for the ''Mackenzie''s was the replacement of the forward /50 calibre Mk 22 guns of the ''St. Laurent'' design Caliber denotes the length of the barrel. In this case, 50 caliber means that the gun barrel is 50 times as long as it is in diameter with a dual

Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public i ...

3-inch/70 calibre Mk 6 gun mount and the presence of a fire-control director atop the bridge superstructure. The bridge was raised one full deck higher than on previous classes in order to see over the new gun mount. The class did retain the rear dual 3-inch/50 calibre gun mount and for

anti-submarine warfare Anti-submarine warfare (ASW, or in older form A/S) is a branch of underwater warfare that uses surface warships, aircraft, submarines, or other platforms, to find, track, and deter, damage, or destroy enemy submarines. Such operations are t ...

, the class was provided with two Mk 10 Limbo mortars. The ships were initially fitted with

Mark 43 torpedo The 10" Mark 43 torpedo was the first and smallest of the United States Navy light-weight anti-submarine torpedoes. This electrically propelled 10-inch (25-cm) torpedo was 92 inches (2.3 m) long and weighed 265 pounds (120 kg). Described ...

es to supplement their anti-submarine capability, but were quickly upgraded to the Mark 44 launched from a modified depth charge thrower. This was to give the destroyers the ability to combat submarines from a distance.

Sensors

The ''Mackenzie'' class were equipped with one SPS-12 air search radar, one SPS-10B surface search radar and one Sperry Mk.2 navigation radar. For detection below the surface, the ships had one SQS-501 high frequency bottom profiler sonar, one SQS-503 hull mounted active search sonar, one SQS-502 high frequency mortar control sonar and one SQS-11 hull mounted active search sonar.

DELEX refit

The DEstroyer Life EXtension (DELEX) refit was born out of the need to extend the life of the steam-powered destroyer escorts of the Canadian Navy in the 1980s until the next generation of surface ship was built. Encompassing all the classes based on the initial ''St. Laurent'' (the remaining ''St. Laurent'', ''Restigouche'', ''Mackenzie'', and vessels), the DELEX upgrades were meant to improve their ability to combat modern

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

submarines, and to allow them to continue to operate as part of

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

task forces. The DELEX refit for the ''Mackenzie'' class was the same for the Improved ''Restigouche''-class vessels. This meant that the ships would receive the new tactical data system ADLIPS, new radars, new fire control and satellite navigation.Milner, p. 278 They exchanged the SQS-503 sonar for the newer SQS-505 model. They also received a triple mount for

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s that would use the new Mk 46 homing torpedo. The Mark 46 torpedo had a range of at over with a high-explosive warhead weighing .

Construction and career

''Saskatchewan'' was ordered in 1957 and was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one o ...

on 29 October 1959 at Victoria Machinery Depot Ltd.,

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

. The ship was launched on 1 February 1961.Macpherson and Barrie (2002), p. 258 The ship was supposed to be launched on 31 January, but poor weather forced the delay. In September 1961 she was moved to Yarrows Shipyard at

Esquimalt, British Columbia The Township of Esquimalt is a municipality at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. It is bordered to the east by the provincial capital, Victoria, to the south by the Strait of Juan de Fuca, to the west by Esquim ...

for completion. She was commissioned into the RCN on 16 February 1963 with the classification number DDE 262. ''Saskatchewan'' originally deployed to the east coast, operating out of Halifax. In April 1963, while transiting to the Pacific, ''Saskatchewan'' was deployed off Haiti as part of an international force monitoring an insurrection against the sitting president, François Duvalier. In October 1963, she transferred to the Pacific. On 8 September 1968, the ship ran aground in the Gulf of Georgia. The captain was later found guilty of negligence by a court-martial on the matter. The destroyer returned to the east coast in February 1970, when she relieved as flagship of

STANAVFORLANT Standing NATO Maritime Group One (SNMG1) is one of NATO's standing naval maritime immediate reaction forces. SNMG1 consists of four to six destroyers and frigates. Its role is to provide NATO with an immediate operational response capability. Hi ...

, the standing fleet of

. In 1973, ''Saskatchewan'' returned to the west coast and remained there for the rest of her career, with both the RCN and later the Canadian Forces's

Maritime Forces Pacific In the Canadian Forces, Maritime Forces Pacific (MARPAC, french: links=no, Forces maritimes du Pacifique, FMAR(P)) is responsible for the fleet training and operational readiness of the Royal Canadian Navy in the Pacific Ocean. It was once referre ...

, largely as a training ship. In July 1982, the destroyer was sent to track the Soviet spy ship ''Aavril Sarychev'' which had been monitoring the North American west coast. She underwent the DELEX refit at the Burrard Yarrow Shipyard in Esquimalt from 27 May 1985 to 17 June 1986. In Fall 1986, she was among the Canadian warships sent to Australia to participate in the 75th anniversary celebrations of the

Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the principal naval force of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (CN) Vice Admiral Mark Hammond AM, RAN. CN is also jointly responsible to the Minister of ...

. The ship remained a training ship as part of Training Group Pacific until she was paid off by on 1 April 1994.Barrie and Macpherson (1996), p. 55 ''Saskatchewan''s hulk was purchased by the Artificial Reef Society of British Columbia in 1997 and she was scuttled off Nanaimo on 14 June 1997 as an artificial reef.

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

* * * * * * *

External links

HMCS ''Saskatchewan'' (DDH 262) – readyayeready.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saskatchewan, HMCS Mackenzie-class destroyers Cold War destroyers of Canada Shipwrecks of the British Columbia coast 1961 ships