Navies often adopt what an opponent used against them

Are there historical parallels for Canada buying submarines after its record of hunting U-boats?

Russia's enthusiasm for destroyers and torpedo boats after the Russo-Japanese War shows how experience of an opponent's weapons can reshape a navy's own force.

A navy that has learned how dangerous a system can be may also understand its value better than an uninvolved observer. After the Russo-Japanese War, Russia invested heavily in destroyers and torpedo boats. Numerous light combatants remained an important feature of later Russian and Soviet forces. Canada's need for submarines is treated in the same practical way, and its chosen purchase is judged the safer of the two options considered. An anti-submarine role does not prevent a navy from finding its own submarines useful.