UK Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
RN has a big problem

Every time they embark on a new warship platform they start from a clean sheet design

Type 45, Type 26 and now Type 31e

USN has stuck with the same design for over 3 decades with incremental increases

Even they are thinking of using the same hull for LPX, LPD and others

Common hull design is used by many navys Chinese are using Type 054 design for coast guard

This reduces cost and brings down investment

Prior to the Type 45 programme they should have fixed the hull specifications

Then built 12 x DDG and 13 x FFG that’s 25 warships 6 more than they have planned
 

Obi Wan Russell

Jedi Master
VIP Professional
Breaking News: Gavin Williamson MP has been sacked as Defence Secretary over allegations he has been leaking what the 'inner circle' of the Cabinet has been saying about the Huawei 5g Phone network, which he denies. He was a rising star of the Conservative Party and unusually he was on top[ of his Ministerial Brief, being very pro-Defence and actually took the time to understand the state of and the needs of the Armed Forces rather than treating the job as a stepping stone to 'higher office'.

Fortunately, his replacement, Penny Mordaunt MP for Portsmouth North, is also known to be pro the Armed Forces, being a member of the Royal Naval Reserve and the daughter of a Paratrooper. Her constituency includes Portsmouth dockyard and if she 'toes the expected Government line' of salami slicing the MOD she will probably find herself de selected and voted out of office. I expect her therefore to be like her predecessor, that is 'in' the corner of the Armed Forces for a change instead of a Government stooge just there to supervise asset stripping. We shall see...
 

Pmichael

Junior Member
RN has a big problem

Every time they embark on a new warship platform they start from a clean sheet design

Type 45, Type 26 and now Type 31e

USN has stuck with the same design for over 3 decades with incremental increases

Even they are thinking of using the same hull for LPX, LPD and others

Common hull design is used by many navys Chinese are using Type 054 design for coast guard

This reduces cost and brings down investment

Prior to the Type 45 programme they should have fixed the hull specifications

Then built 12 x DDG and 13 x FFG that’s 25 warships 6 more than they have planned

Common hull design only makes sense if you steadily build ships of the same weight class. With all those gaps between types you can just start from zero and take adventage of technological advancement.
The fact that the USA still uses the Burke-class is a typical result of the Bush adminstration in the 00s, with not getting a replacement ready. You can bet that the Navy would love to get a replacement for the Burke ready.
 

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Common hull design only makes sense if you steadily build ships of the same weight class. With all those gaps between types you can just start from zero and take adventage of technological advancement.
The fact that the USA still uses the Burke-class is a typical result of the Bush adminstration in the 00s, with not getting a replacement ready. You can bet that the Navy would love to get a replacement for the Burke ready.

No they wouldn’t it’s called planning why have gaps in the first place, that was point of my post

Arleigh Burke production has reached 67 units delivered with keel for the 70th laid last month

10 are under construction and 22 on contract for Flight III

The finally tally will likely exceed more than 100 units starting from 1989 or even up to 120 if production keeps going

USN is sticking to AB
 

Pmichael

Junior Member
No they wouldn’t it’s called planning why have gaps in the first place, that was point of my post

Arleigh Burke production has reached 67 units delivered with keel for the 70th laid last month

10 are under construction and 22 on contract for Flight III

The finally tally will likely exceed more than 100 units starting from 1989 or even up to 120 if production keeps going

USN is sticking to AB

Flight III literally only happens because of the Zumwalt disaster. Ship is actually too small for the intended role. There was a 5 years gap between the last Flight II Burke and the Burke II Restart.

If you aren't the USA or China with massive ship building programs there is no need nor budget left to produce more than a few ships of a type.
 
run-of-the-mill dated May 1, 2019
Trouble ahead for the UK nuclear programme?
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Yesterday the Nuclear Information Service published their report “Trouble ahead risks and rising Costs in the UK nuclear weapons programme”. This is a brief response to some of the points and recommendations made in the report.

Although the Nuclear Information Service has an anti-Trident agenda and cannot be seen as an entirely objective source,
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
is a very credible piece of work. There are some points of contention but it does highlight serious problems brewing in the Defence Nuclear Enterprise, listing 21 specific risks it has identified. These risks need examination but using financial or industrial challenges as an argument to unilaterally abandon the UK nuclear weapons does not stand up. As a majority of citizens and MPs support the renewal of the deterrent, government has a responsibility to fully resource and effectively manage such a critical programme. The NIS suggestion that if the UK arbitrarily divested itself of nuclear weapons it would help bring about a ‘nuclear-free world’ is naive in the extreme.

Real analysis of nuclear programme costs is very problematic because of a lack of transparency, its incredible complexity and difficulty accurately forecasting future prices. The report relies on extrapolation to a large extent but NIS are broadly correct that costs are bound to exceed official MoD predictions. Trying to analyse the entire lifetime cost of the nuclear programme would be a difficult task even for accounting professionals in possession of complete current data. Publicising a huge estimated figure for something that will be spread over 30-40 years could be seen a propaganda tactic designed to scare people. We do not discuss other government expenditure such as the far greater costs of the NHS, Education or Welfare etc in giant 30-year blocks. The deterrent is also closely intertwined with the broader Royal Navy. Personnel, frigates, helicopters and nuclear-propelled submarines all play a part in supporting CASD but have myriad other roles and would be needed anyway, whether we had ballistic missiles submarines or not. Trying to define exactly what constitutes part of the cost of the deterrent is near impossible and the NIS report struggles with this.

Aside from the hard-to-quantify financial issues, the biggest threat to the success of the UK nuclear enterprise highlighted by NIS is the lack of Nuclear Suitably Qualified and Experienced (NSQEP) people. If you are going to lose sleep over anything, it is the lack of engineers and technicians available to UK industry as well as the difficulties the RN faces recruiting and retaining submariners.

Of immediate concern is the continuing delay to the Astute class construction. Although boat 4 (HMS Audacious) is effectively a ‘Batch II’ with some modifications over the first 3 boats, normal expectation would be that lessons learned would drive down the price and build time. Instead, costs are rising and the delivery schedule is for boats 4-7 is little better than boat 1. HMS Audacious was due to begin sea trials last year, then delayed to “Spring 2019” and it is now May with no sign of her leaving the yard. Loss of the skilled workforce on completion of the Vanguard class boats was always cited as the main reason for the initial delays to Astute construction. This is no longer relevant and an official explanation for the slow delivery and ballooning costs for the later Astute boats has never been provided.

Delays to the Astute programme could have knock-on effects for Dreadnought construction. Together with ageing Vanguard boats, the viability of CASD will be under threat in the 2030s. Much of the blame for this lies at the feet of the Cameron government that took the decision in 2010 to postpone the start of the Dreadnought programme by 5 years. This now creates pressure for the delivery of Dreadnought to be exactly on time, and as NIS points out, the signs this will happen do not look encouraging.

The interdependencies of the nuclear programme are also laid bare. Besides the headline submarine build programme by BAES at Barrow, sustaining CASD into the future relies on critical suppliers and infrastructure. This includes reactors manufactured by Rolls Royce in Derby, warheads made at AWE in Berkshire and submarine maintenance by Babcock in Devonport. Each of these supporting elements is experiencing its own challenges which must be overcome.

The NIS is correct when is suggests the MoD hides behind a veil of nuclear secrecy to obscure inconvenient facts from the public. Their contention is that government is so worried that if problems were exposed to real scrutiny, it would undermine support for the programme. This perhaps underestimates the intelligence of the public. If there was real honesty about the issues what is being done to mitigate them, there might be greater trust and understanding. It would also help deflate rhetoric of anti-nuclear campaigners that like to suggest it is a sinister, corrupt and unsafe enterprise on the verge of collapse.

The first 6 of the NIS report’s final 8 recommendations that relate to transparency should be embraced. Not only does the MoD need to solve the problems that have been identified, but there needs to be a complete examination of its communications strategy. It is obviously not possible to provide a running commentary on every detail of very sensitive work but far more clarity would help. On publication of the NIS report which will be used as ammunition by opposition groups, all the MoD would provide was a bland, catch-all statement to
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
: “Our nuclear deterrent protects us from the most extreme threats to our security and the Government is committed to delivering it as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.” This approach reassures no one and could be perceived as complacency.
 
Jun 1, 2018
Yesterday at 8:19 PM
I wonder what the armament of this 'whopper'
("... with a displacement of approximately 5,700 tonnes ..."
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
)
would be; I've read somewhere 1 m of the hull = 1 m Pounds, I'll leave it at that
and now (dated May 8, 2019)
MoD recognises the £250M price cap for Royal Navy Type 31e Frigate is unworkable.
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


gee it'd be just 6k tin can costing a quarter of billion, something the Whitehall didn't know, they need to check https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/th...ps-entering-service.t8175/page-15#post-551353
 

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
Captain Nick has been removed from commanding the HMS Queen Elizabeth

For driving his MOD car on the weekend???

This is a gross over reaction seriously?

While MP claim travel expenses when they don’t even travel

British at their best

Unless there is more to the story
 
Mar 22, 2019
Oct 19, 2018
while now
Britain to buy Wedgetail aircraft in nearly $2 billion deal
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
and (dated 13 May, 2019)
RAF to get second-hand jets as part of Wedgetail buy
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Two of the UK’s five on-order Boeing E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft will be converted commercial airliners, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed.

London on 22 March signed a £1.5 billion ($1.96 billion) contract for the 737-based Wedgetails, which will be operated by the Royal Air Force.

Modification of the airframes is due to be performed by Marshall Aerospace in Cambridge.

In a letter to the defence select committee, Stuart Andrew, minister for defence procurement, states that only three of the aircraft will be new-build examples.

“Boeing has sourced two 737NGs from the commercial market and secured a further three production slots on [its] Seattle production line in 2021 and 2022 to meet our needs,” he says.

No details of the age or history of the two second-hand aircraft have been revealed.

Modification of the first aircraft is due to start in 2021, says Andrew, with the final example to be completed in 2026. Work on each aircraft is anticipated to take around 24 months.
 

bd popeye

The Last Jedi
VIP Professional
Wow! I can't believe I beat Jura to this bombshell story;

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


The captain of the largest and most powerful ship ever built for the Royal Navy has been sacked for misusing its official car, it has been reported.

Nick Cooke-Priest is no longer in charge of the HMS Queen Elizabeth because he is believed to have driven the aircraft carrier's official car on weekends, according to The Sun.

A Royal Navy spokesman said: "We can confirm Captain Nick Cooke-Priest has been reassigned to a new role. We can only say that management action is ongoing and it would therefore be inappropriate to comment further."

Commodore Cooke-Priest, who joined the Royal Navy in 1990, had only been in command of the 280-metre, 65,000-tonne vessel, described by the Royal Navy as an "awe-inspiring warship" capable of carrying up to 40 aircraft, since last October.

He was never warned that using the Ford Galaxy for personal journeys was in breach of rules, the paper reports.

A former officer told The Sun: "Nick adores the Navy and has lost his career by doing what captains have done for decades - using the company car to get home. An innocent mistake has cost the Navy one of its best."

It is believed that major Royal Navy warships and their captains are loaned a car for use on official duties. An investigation found he had used the Ford as if it was his own, and found him guilty of an "error of judgment", according to The Sun.
 
Top