- Thales Canada was contracted by Lockheed Martin Canada to supply S2087 towed array sonars for the Royal Canadian Navy's future River-class destroyers.
- Canada becomes the 20th navy to select a CAPTAS family sonar system, joining operators including the British Royal Navy and Australia's Hunter-class frigate program.
Canada’s Royal Canadian Navy will equip its next generation of warships with the same submarine-hunting sonar system that the British Royal Navy operates, after Thales Canada secured a contract from Lockheed Martin Canada to supply the S2087 towed array sonar for the future River-class destroyers.
The award makes Canada the 20th navy worldwide to select a system from Thales’ CAPTAS family, placing the Royal Canadian Navy in a community of operators that includes some of the world’s most sophisticated anti-submarine warfare forces and directly strengthens the interoperability that Five Eyes intelligence partners and NATO allies depend on when hunting submarines together.
The submarine threat that drives this procurement is more acute today than at any point since the Cold War. Russia has invested heavily in modernizing its submarine fleet, deploying advanced boats including the Yasen-class nuclear attack submarines and Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines that are among the quietest in the world. China’s submarine program has expanded dramatically in both numbers and capability. Both nations have demonstrated willingness to use their submarine forces for intelligence collection, undersea infrastructure surveillance, and positioning that NATO navies must counter with capable detection systems. The Arctic Ocean, which Canada is constitutionally and strategically obligated to defend, is a priority operating area for Russian submarines precisely because ice cover historically complicated detection, and the thawing of Arctic ice is opening new routes that increase rather than decrease the strategic significance of undersea surveillance in Canada’s home waters.
The S2087 is not a new or unproven system. The British Royal Navy has operated it for years, and Australia selected it for the Hunter-class frigates currently under construction, giving the system a track record in allied fleets that removes the development risk associated with unproven technologies. A towed array sonar works by streaming a long cable of hydrophones, underwater microphones, behind a ship as it moves, placing the sensitive sensors far from the vessel’s own noise signature and allowing them to detect acoustic emissions from submarines at ranges that hull-mounted sonars cannot approach. The S2087 specifically operates in low frequencies, which is significant because low-frequency sound travels farther through water than higher frequencies, extending detection range dramatically in the deep ocean environments where submarines prefer to operate. In complex littoral environments, meaning the shallow coastal and choke-point waters where submarines might be encountered near ports or straits, the system’s design allows it to perform against the challenging acoustic conditions that shallow water creates.
Ian Krepps, CEO of Thales Canada, described what the S2087 delivers for the River-class program:”The S2087 adds a critical layer of capability to the River-class destroyers, ensuring Canada’s surface combatants are equipped to operate effectively in contested maritime environments. As we deliver this advanced sonar system, Thales remains deeply committed to Canada, investing in local expertise, strengthening sovereign capabilities, and working alongside Canadian industry to safeguard the nation’s security for decades to come.”
The CAPTAS sonar family that the S2087 belongs to was originally developed through a collaboration among the British, French, and Italian navies, three of NATO’s most capable maritime forces, giving it a multinational engineering pedigree that no single-nation program could replicate. Thales celebrated the order of its 100th CAPTAS variable immersion towed sonar system in 2025, a production milestone that reflects both the design’s commercial success and the manufacturing maturity that supports long-term supply chain confidence for navies committing to the system for decades of service.
Canada’s selection of the S2087 under the Build-Partner-Buy framework, which prioritizes cooperation with the United Kingdom and other trusted European allies over open global competition for systems where allied interoperability and technology access are strategic considerations, reflects a deliberate policy choice to embed the Royal Canadian Navy’s capabilities within the same sensor architecture as its closest intelligence and military partners. When a Canadian destroyer operates alongside British or Australian frigates in a NATO exercise or a real-world submarine hunt, shared sonar systems and compatible data formats allow the ships to share acoustic data, corroborate contacts, and coordinate prosecution of a submarine contact in ways that incompatible national systems cannot support.
Lockheed Martin Canada serves as the Combat Systems Integrator for the River-class program, coordinating the contributions of multiple specialized suppliers into a coherent, integrated combat system. Stephen Isaacs, General Manager for Lockheed Martin Canada Rotary and Mission Systems, described how the Thales selection fits that broader industrial picture: “The River-class Destroyer Program delivers significant economic benefits to Canada, bringing advancements in Canadian technology and manufacturing all along the Canadian supply chain. This selection is a prime example of how our partners contribute to that Canadian ecosystem.”
The industrial dimension that both Isaacs and Krepps emphasized is not simply contract boilerplate. Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy includes an explicit commitment to ensuring that the River-class program, which will be among the largest defense procurements in Canadian history, generates meaningful technological and economic benefits within Canada rather than simply purchasing foreign systems with minimal domestic content. Thales’s commitment to working with Canadian industry partners throughout the sonar system’s lifecycle, keeping maintenance and upgrade capabilities under Canadian sovereign control, addresses the dependency risk that comes with relying entirely on foreign support for a critical military capability.
The River-class destroyers will replace Canada’s Halifax-class frigates and the retired Iroquois-class destroyers, becoming the backbone of the Royal Canadian Navy’s future surface combatant fleet. The S2087 sonar is among the first confirmed systems for that program, and its selection establishes a benchmark for the kind of proven, interoperable, allied-compatible technology that the River-class will carry into service.