New UK Frigate Proposals Coming Together

BAE Systems is finishing proposals to build a new generation of frigates for the Royal Navy and has begun delivering details of the bid to the British Defence Ministry ahead of a decision expected by the end of the year, company officials said.

 

The Royal Navy is looking to acquire 13 of the Type 26 frigates for a total of roughly £4 billion (US $6.6 billion), with the first of the warships expected to be delivered starting late 2021 to provide what will eventually become the backbone of the fleet out to around 2060.

The warships will replace the Royal Navy’s aging Type 23 fleet.

 

“Initial documents to support the business case for Type 26 have been submitted. The process is underway but not finalized yet. We expect that to be complete by the end of the summer,” a BAE spokeswoman said.

BAE is concluding a four-year, £150 million assessment phase on the Type 26 this year and hopes to get the development and build phase approved in order to start cutting metal in 2016.

 

The 6,000-ton Type 26 is primarily intended for anti-submarine warfare, but the design gives the Royal Navy the versatility that is essential given its small number of surface combatants — 13 Type 23 frigates and six Type 45 destroyers.

 

“We are planning for a class of 13 ships, but this will be confirmed at the main investment decision, which is expected towards the end of 2014,” an MoD spokeswoman said.

 

BAE’s proposals are based on a 13-ship fleet, but Jeff Searle, the company’s program director, told reporters on June 3 that he “expected a phased commitment” by the MoD.

 

During a parliamentary debate in December, defense procurement minister Philip Dunne said there would be an initial order for eight Type 26s, but the MoD spokeswoman last week would not comment on whether that remained the case.

 

Dunne told Defense News in a recent interview that getting the Type 26 build program under contract was one of his priorities ahead of the general election in May 2015.

That’s a view BAE would echo, industry executives said.

 

The Type 26 deal is one of several planned major defense equipment investments that the government is attempting to get approved ahead of the election, a strategic defense review and potentially further defense spending reductions all threatening to impact the sector next year.

 

More immediately, though, is the question of exactly what effect, if any, an upcoming Scottish independence referendum vote might have on naval construction programs here.

 

Opinion polls are showing a majority in favor of remaining part of the UK, but a “yes” vote on Sept. 18 can’t be ruled out.

 

Independence would likely seriously impact the timing of approval and number of hulls for a Type 26 program, which is slated to be built at BAE’s surface warship yards in Glasgow, Scotland.

 

The British government has consistently said Royal Navy warships have to be built in the UK.

 

That point was reiterated Aug. 12 when Britain’s new Defence Secretary Micheal Fallon announced that a £348 million deal with BAE for three ocean-going patrol vessels would continue in Scotland only if voters reject independence.

 

“UK warships are only built in UK shipyards,” Fallon said in a statement.

 

The government options to build surface warships elsewhere appear somewhat limited. BAE is in the throes of closing its other UK surface warship yard at Portsmouth, southern England, as part of a major downsizing in build capacity.

 

That leaves BAE’s nuclear submarine building facility at Barrow-in-Furniss and a small yard run by Babcock International as the only two operations working on naval orders south of the border.

 

Babcock’s Appledore yard in southwest England is building the second of two 90-meter offshore patrol vessels ordered by the Irish Naval Service.

 

BAE is proposing updating its Scottish shipbuilding capabilities, but that also depends on the outcome of the referendum.

 

The favored option is a £200 million investment in the Scotstoun yard on the Clyde and closure of the nearby Govan facility, but a dual-yard approach is also on the table.

 

The BAE spokeswoman said a decision on the investment proposal is expected toward the end of the year, with the update work beginning next year.

 

The first of the new 90-meter patrol vessels will be delivered to the Royal Navy in 2017, with all three warships handed over by the end of 2018.

 

The warships are destined to undertake operations in home waters as well as globally in roles conducted by frigates and other larger vessels such as anti-piracy, counterterrorism and anti-smuggling.

 

The intent to purchase the warships was announced by the British government in November.

 

In part, the patrol vessels are being constructed to fill the gap in work between completion of two aircraft carriers now being built for the Royal Navy and the start of the Type 26 program.

 

Under an earlier business agreement with BAE, the government would have had to pay for shipyard workers to effectively sit around do

ing nothing until the Type 26 program gathered construction momentum later in the decade.

 

The future of the three relatively new River-class offshore patrol vessels that the new patrol warships will replace will be decided by next year’s strategic defense and security review.

 

Larger than the River-class vessels deployed by the Royal Navy for fisheries protection and other duties in home waters, the new warships will be capable of landing AgustaWestland’s Merlin helicopters and have more room for embarking personnel.

 

BAE said the new warships, adapted from a design already in service with the Brazilian and Thai navies, will have a range of 5,500 nautical miles, be globally deployable and capable of ocean patrol.

 

Britain's High-Tech New Plan to Rule the Waves

The Royal Navy is in the midst of a radical reboot—and that’s on top of the secret edge they’ve got on every other fleet.

 

After too many years of hearing senior U.S. Navy officers gripe about budget cuts and political interference, it’s refreshing to hear a flag officer sounding optimistic.

 

Britain’s First Sea Lord—the Royal Navy’s senior officer—is Sir George Zambellas, educated as an aeronautical engineer, a helicopter pilot by specialty and a confessed “antisubmarine warfare guy.” He was in Washington late last month, in part, on a mission to boost the Royal Navy’s capabilities, which former defense secretary Bob Gates had casually trashed in a British radio interview this year.

The Royal Navy, Zambellas said, “is seeing signs of expansion—which is a really weird place to be.”

 

Including its new aircraft carriers, the evolving Type 26 Global Combat Ship—a Swiss Army knife of a warship for antisubmarine warfare and a multitide of other missions—and a forthcoming replacement for its ballistic missile submarines, the navy will have half of the U.K. military’s procurement budget for buying weapons by the early 2020s. The Royal Navy has been through much deeper cuts than any U.S. service—only now, Zambellas warns, is the U.S. Navy facing a switch from “outcome-led to resource-led” planning. That’s a polite way of saying that the U.S. military is going to have to live in the budgetary climate that other nations have had to deal with for the past decade or two.

 

As noted here a few weeks ago, U.S. leadership in military technology is no longer taken for granted worldwide. One of Zambellas’ most interesting comments was a personal observation from a U.S. Navy commander following an exercise with one of Britain’s new Astute nuclear attack submarines—“the most advanced in the world,” according to Zambellas.

 

“How the hell did you do that again?” the American officer said. “That’s really annoying.”

“That,” in this context, almost certainly refers to the achievement of a new level of stealth. The Cold War-era catchphrase among antisubmarine warfare (ASW) operators was: “If you can’t hear anything, it’s either a diesel-electric or a British nuke.” Key technologies like pumpjet propulsion (which slashes noise at high speed) came out of the U.K. in the 1980s and did not reach the U.S. fleet until the late 1990s.

 

Zambellas stresses cooperation rather than competition. It is a point of pride that the U.S. and U.K. are teamed on the development of the Common Missile Compartment for the next generation of ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). At an operational level, an increased emphasis on interoperability that started some years ago, in the Persian Gulf, is producing results: One of the Royal Navy’s newest surface combatants, a Type 45 anti-air-warfare destroyer, “is operating as an integral part of the U.S. carrier task force,” Zambellas says, noting the significance of the fact that the U.S. Navy “is comfortable enough to allow its premier asset to be protected by a U.K. ship.”

 

The Type 45 is also the vehicle for the U.K.’s contribution to ballistic missile defense, which has hitherto been a wide-open gap in national capability. Zambellas confirmed that HMS Daring, the first-of-class Type 45, took part in BMD exercises in the Pacific early this year, with a focus on looking at the economics of the operation. “You have to be very careful not to create the most expensive weapon in the world” to counter simple missiles, he said.

 

The new carriers are primarily designed to join coalition operations, Zambellas says. (The near-unanimous view in the Royal Navy is that next year’s defense review will set a date for the second carrier to join the active fleet.) Together with SSBNs and BMD, carriers are the navy’s strategic assets that belong under national control, Zambellas said.

 

Zambellas has one major strategic concern: In just over a month, on Sept. 18, Scotland will vote on independence. “If you ever find yourselves with a naval attaché from Scotland, you’re in serious trouble,” he joked to the Washington audience. Asked about contingency planning for a Yes vote, he responded: “I feel the hand of a parliamentarian on my shoulder—so, no, we’re not doing any contingency planning and it isn’t going to happen.” But he adds seriously and carefully: “The Royal Navy and Marines are closely matched to their current strategic tasks, with no spare capacity.” The loss of Scottish bases would have “a disproportionate” impact on efficiency, he said. 

 

The R.N. has critical assets in Scotland: the SSBNs are based at Faslane and their missiles and nuclear warheads are handled and loaded at Coulport, close by. The carriers are being assembled at Rosyth, which has the only naval dry dock in the U.K. that can accommodate them for repairs or maintenance. Also in the Navy’s sphere: if the Royal Air Force, as expected, restores its maritime patrol capability, its most northerly base in England is more than 200 miles from the North Atlantic than RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland.

 

Sea warfare and land warfare are interdependent, as a study of Nelson’s wars will tell you: Nelson and his fellow admirals fought many battles to take control of seaports or neutralize forts that threatened their movement. The Scottish referendum could underline that lesson.

 

 

After an exercise with one of Britain’s new nuclear attack submarines, a U.S. Navy commander had a simple question: “How the hell did you do that?”

U.K. May Alter Warship Timetable to Save Jobs at BAE Shipyards

BAE Systems Plc  and the British government are in talks to adjust warship manufacturing to avoid disruptions from reducing levels of work, according to Bernard Gray, the U.K.’s chief of defense material. 

The timing of the shipbuilding already included in the government’s equipment plan could be adjusted, Gray said yesterday at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. “Our aim, of course, is not to form some gap where nothing happens but to have a successful transition,” he said. 

BAE, which consolidated U.K. warship building capacity in 2009, lacks work to sustain three shipyards in England and Scotland and is considering closures to adapt to demand. After completion of two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers due to start coming into service in 2018, activity will dip before the building of Type 26 frigates commences. Several thousand engineering jobs are at stake, according to the Unite union. 

“We are working with the industry to make sure we have a smooth transition between the aircraft carriers and Type 26,” Gray said. “There are a variety of choices.” 

U.K. shipbuilding is “at a multi-decade high,” said Gray, who didn’t address how many shipyards the government wants to sustain. “There is some relativity to consider here about what the appropriate size of the shipbuilding industry is going to be for a sustainable, long-term future.”

The shipyards involved in a potential adjustment are located in Portsmouth, England, and Scotstoun and Govan in Scotland. 

Overcapacity, Duplication 

BAE Chief Executive Officer Ian King said last week that discussions with the government are taking place. The company, Europe’s  largest arms manufacturer, has announced possible job cuts of as many as 3,500 workers in its U.S. naval shipyard business as the Pentagon reduces spending. 

Gray said industrial capacity concerns stretch beyond the U.K. because of multiple suppliers of frigates and four makers of aircraft carriers. “Within Europe we have overcapacity and duplication,” he said. 

The situation is similar in areas including armored vehicle production, where Europe will have 23 manufacturing programs in the next decade, Gray said. More cooperation is needed between allies, the former Financial Times journalist said. 

“The challenge for us is looking at the programs of the future -- what are we prepared to do to pool and share,” Gray said. One opportunity to cooperate could come on a future utility vehicle for ground forces, he said. 

‘Do Better’

The U.K. and France agreed in 2010 to cooperate more closely on national security issues, including on a range of defense equipment programs. A U.K. spending review in the wake of the pact and last year’s change in French government have hampered advances, stalling cooperation in missile and unmanned aircraft programs. 

“Our collective progress has not been as swift as either of us would want,” Gray said. “We should do better than this.” 

BAE said last week it will buy back shares worth as much as 1 billion pounds ($1.52 billion) over three years after demand outside the U.S. and the U.K. helped swell cash reserves. The move pleased some BAE investors, who had opposed a plan to merge with European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. (EAD) That effort failed on opposition from the German government.

UK - BAE could snub Portsmouth with new frigate build

Portsmouth dockyard could miss out on building the first of the Royal Navy’s new class of frigates,. A well-placed source has revealed a BAE Systems executive told them the new Type 26 programme will begin in the firm’s yards in Scotland later this decade.

It comes as BAE reviews whether to carry on building ships in Portsmouth – potentially placing 4,000 local jobs at risk.

A company spokeswoman said the decision on where it will build the Type 26s won’t be finalised until 2014.

But a Westminster source said: ‘At a meeting last week, BAE said the first Type 26 will be made in Glasgow.

‘From what BAE said, there would have to be investment in its facilities to accommodate the Type 26 in Portsmouth, so the first one will be done in Scotland.’

There are fears this will mean Portsmouth may never see any of the much-needed Type 26 work.

There will already be a gap in work from the end of 2014 when city shipbuilders complete the last parts of the navy’s aircraft carriers.

Defence economics expert Dr Michael Asteris, of the University of Portsmouth, said: ‘In the absence of alternative orders, this would be pretty bad news for Portsmouth.

‘This raises the question of what will happen to the yard in Portsmouth because mothballing it is not an option. You wonder if this is the death knell?’

BAE Systems employs 1,700 shipbuilders at Portsmouth Naval Base.

These jobs are at risk under the company’s review which began in January.

As reported last week, an economic study warned as many as 2,300 local supply chain jobs could also be lost if the defence giant stops building ships in the city.

BAE’s review is solely focused on the future of its shipbuilding division.

The 1,300 Portsmouth jobs in its ship maintenance and repair facility for the navy’s fleet are not affected and the MoD has stressed Portsmouth Naval Base will continue to be the home of the Royal Navy fleet.

As previously reported,  BAE is pushing for all 13 of the Type 26 frigates to be based in Portsmouth from 2020 to increase its fleet repair and maintenance operations within the naval base.

This could offset some job losses within the shipbuilding side of the dockyard.

Amid the uncertainty, a campaign has been launched to keep Portsmouth’s shipbuilding industry alive.