Frankly, the armament to me isn't the important part of the article. as long as the ship is modularized like comparable ships (the Dane's Svalbard for example), it would be able to add heavier weapons and/or missiles to the mix prior to deployment.
The most important tidbit is that the plan now is to buy six ships, instead of up to eight. That's a big difference, as it essentially means at least one, maybe even two fewer ships for deployment, based on the typical rotation of rest, refit/repair, and operations.
It was bad enough when Harper cut it from three heavy icebreakers capable of year round operations to these 'Arctic patrol vessels', capable of maybe six months operations up there. Now, we're going to lose two of these less capable ships as well?
$1:
He said the Conservatives have been trying to shoehorn their purchases into a pre-arranged budget rather picking equipment that makes sense.
"As Canadian citizens, our government should decide what it needs to do the job and then budget accordingly, not pick a budget and then look to see what you can get," said Bowring.
"If this happens, we will wind up spending billions of dollars on ships that can't do the jobs we need, or not have enough of them to job when and where we need it."
This is the reason why we "can't" afford the JSS, yet another of the Conservative's key programs from their 'Canada First' platform.
So much for Harper and the Conservatives loving the CF.