UK Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

according to DefenseNews Here are the UK defense programs that could land on the chopping block
Expectations that the British military will face serious capability cuts amid budget woes have been in play for months. Now, with a mini-defense review coming to a conclusion, proposals are emerging about what may actually be axed in order to balance the books.

For the moment, the potential capability cuts remain media speculation, and some of it might turn out to be wide off the mark. But the new proposals to cut British firepower further, appearing mainly in The Times newspaper, are being treated seriously in London by analysts and others.

Rumors seem to revolve heavily around possible cuts to the Royal Navy, with some predicting that the Royal Marine numbers will be cut substantially alongside the axing of the two amphibious assault ships HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark.

Over the weekend, The Times reported that Rear Adm. Alex Burton, commander of the U.K.’s Maritime Forces, resigned last month. He hinted that the Navy’s two remaining assault ships were in line for the axe in a recent tweet: “I can work around the temporary lack of a flat-top [aircraft carrier) but I couldn’t work around delivering theater entry without HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark.”

The departure of Burton has not yet been confirmed by the Ministry of Defence.

Axing the two assault ships would mean that the British lose the ability to deploy troops across the shoreline by landing craft. With the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean already due to be decommissioned earlier than expected, in 2018, the British would have to rely on one of the two new 65,000 tonne aircraft carriers now being readied to join the fleet to provide the deployment of troops by helicopter.

Other possible reductions to the Royal Navy’s already under resourced fleet of surface vessels include two minehunters, which could be retired, and an ocean survey ship that could be sold.

The Navy’s new fleet of 28 Leonardo-built Wildcat multi-purpose rotorcraft is also apparently being threatened with the axe, leaving the service to rely on the larger Merlin platform. The final Royal Navy Wildcat was only delivered last year. The helicopters are also used by the British Army.

A spokesman for Leonardo’s UK helicopter business said axing the Navy Wildcat’s would severely damage capabilities.

“It is for the government and the MoD to decide defense priorities but we believe it would be a massive loss to the Royal Navy’s capability if a decision is made to withdraw the Wildcat. Such a decision could also damage export prospects for the helicopter,” said a spokesman.

The British Army could also lose a chunk of its helicopter capabilities. Reports say that squadrons will be cut and the entire 34 strong Gazelle observation helicopter fleet retired next year.

The defense budget shortfall over the next 10 years is rumored to be at between £10 billion (U.S. $13.2 billion) and £30 billion (U.S. $39.5 billion), although to date, the MoD has yet to admit publicly it even has a problem.

The failure, so far, to achieve the £11 billion efficiency target set in the 2015 strategic defense and security review (SDSR) and the weakening of Sterling against the dollar post Brexit referendum are believed to be responsible, in part, for the shortfall.

The British government is committed to an annual budget increase of 0.5 percent above inflation until 2022, but that’s reckoned not to be enough to fund an ambitious review of 2015.

Further adding to budgetary strain, the British are planning to spend £178 billion on equipment over the next 10 years with new ballistic missile submarines, F-35 fighters to equip the carriers and Type 26 and Type 31e frigate fleets.

The British government said in the SDSR that money saved by efficiency cuts (largely a euphemism for capability reductions) could be ploughed back into the budgets of the armed services.

But not all are confident such savings will materialize. Howard Wheeldon of Wheeldon Strategic Advisory pointed the finger at Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon as being part of the problem, saying if he couldn’t grip the situation he should go.

In a commentary published Oct. 9, Wheeldon called claims of defense investment a denial of a budget crisis.

He also stated: “Unless Sir Michael Fallon gets to grips with the worsening situation soon, particularly given the rising level of geo-political tensions and threats, and starts to bring some order, honesty, integrity and leadership into what appears to have been allowed to become a very disorderly situation, I am bound to consider that the only satisfactory way out for him would be [to] pass the mantle of the defence portfolio responsibility to someone who can restore confidence.”
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now
BAE Systems to cut UK jobs, slow final assembly rates
2 hours ago
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BAE Systems is to shed nearly 2,000 jobs across several of it’s U.K. operations, with the brunt of the cuts coming at Warton where the company makes and assembles Typhoon fighters and Hawk jet trainers.

Europe’s top defense company announced Oct. 10 that some 750 workers will be made redundant at Warton, northwest England, as its adjusts capacity to build fighters and trainers to match its order book.

BAE plans to produce 20 Typhoons this year, and that figure is expected to nearly halve to 11 in 2018.

The company confirmed it would be slowing final assembly rates but declined to detail how 2019 output might look. Financial analysts in the U.K. say as few as five jets could come off the Warton assembly line during that year.

The company is facing a dearth of orders for the moment, causing the proposed slowdown in what is one of its flagship programs.

BAE previously slowed production in 2015 to enable Warton assembly lines to be stretched ahead of expected export orders materializing.

A 72-aircraft order for Saudi Arabia has recently been completed, and BAE has jets for the British Royal Air Force and the Royal Air Force of Oman yet to be delivered.

The Typhoon program, however, received a massive and potentially crucial boost in late September when the Qatari and British governments announced they had signed a letter of intent for a deal to supply 24 Typhoons. The timing for the completion of any deal remains unclear for the moment.

BAE said Qatar was also in line to order six Hawk trainers as part of the possible Typhoon deal.

A deal with Qatar could be a short-term lifeline for the Hawk. Fulfilling the current Hawk order book for delivery of jets to Saudi Arabia and Oman will keep the jet trainer line alive into 2019, and a Qatar deal, depending on the timing, could take production into approximately 2021, according to a BAE spokeswomen.

Qatar is in the throes of a massive increase in air power capabilities, with Dassault Rafale and Boeing F-15 combat jets already due to join a force that currently has only six aging Alpha Jet trainers and a squadron’s worth of Mirage 2000 strike jets.

BAE is now conducting negotiations with Qatar over firming up the letter of intent; but unless the deal can be concluded quickly, it’s possible a gap may develop between the last of the current orders and the assembly of Qatar jets at Warton.

The BAE decision to reduce the workforce appears to confirm that a long awaited top-up order for 48 aircraft from the Royal Saudi Air Force is not expected in the immediate future.

“The timing of future orders is always uncertain, and to ensure production continuity and competitive costs between the completion of current contracts and anticipated new orders, we now plan to reduce Typhoon final assembly and Hawk production rates,” the company said.

Aside from assembly work, BAE will also deliver structures to Leonardo, the company’s Italian partner in the Eurofighter Typhoon joint venture, to fulfill an order from Kuwait for 28 jets secured by Italy. That work is expected to run until 2022.

Airbus is the other industrial partner in the program. All the companies have their own Typhoon assembly lines.

In total, nearly 1,400 people are expected to see their jobs axed across the military air business, with the Brough aerospace engineering site and Tornado strike jet support activities at the British Royal Air Force bases at Marham and Leeming also taking big hits.

Other cuts will see 340 jobs go in the maritime services sector, which is primarily responsible for running the Royal Navy base at Portsmouth, southern England, and maintaining Type 23 and Type 45 warships as well as 150 redundancies at the Applied Intelligence cybersecurity business.

“We are announcing actions at some of our UK sites to align our workforce capacity more closely with near-term demand and enhance our competitive position to secure new business,” the new CEO of BAE Systems, Charles Woodburn, said in a statement Tuesday.

The company employs 34,600 people in the U.K., of which nearly a third work at Warton and the nearby Samlesbury plant, which is largely geared toward producing structures for Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter.

Typhoon production, support and upgrade accounts for about 4,000 jobs at BAE.

It’s not all bad news in the air sector for BAE. F-35 work is on the rise, the company signed a deal with Turkey earlier in the year to help develop a future fighter for the government in Ankara. And the preliminary design and development phase of a future unmanned combat air system being pursued in a joint program with France could soon get the go-ahead.

In a separate move, Woodburn also announced a restructuring of the company’s U.K. businesses.

“The organisational changes we are announcing today accelerate our evolution to a more streamlined, de-layered organisation, with a sharper competitive edge and a renewed focus on technology. These actions will further strengthen our company as we deliver our strategy in a changing environment,” said Woodburn, who replaced Ian King as CEO on July 1.

Both the Platforms & Services UK and the P&S International management structures will dissolved to make way for stronger and more streamlined air and maritime businesses.

The principle change will be in the air sector where BAE is combining its Military Air & Information operations of Saudi Arabia, Australia and Oman, as well as BAE Systems’ interest in the MBDA missile joint venture with Airbus and Leonardo.

The company said in a statement that the revamped air sector will bring together international capabilities and expertise to more effectively compete for international export and collaboration opportunities.

BAE’s operations in the U.S. are not impacted by the restructuring or the job losses, said a company spokesman.

The restructuring has also seen a shuffle of some personnel at the top of the company. Nigel Whitehead takes up the new role of chief technology officer, having previously headed up the company’s programs and support business in the U.K. Chris Boardman, currently the managing director of the Military Air & Information business, will be appointed as group managing director for air and joins the company’s executive committee.
 

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Almost all delivered to RAF at less 143 /160 very very few losses, 2 new FS whose one next year replace Tornados units with F-35B.
 

FORBIN

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Merlin HC4

Merlin HC3i
Royal Navy will fit seven HC3 with folding rotor heads as an interim (3i) measure until the full HC4 upgrade is available

Merlin HC4/4A
The conversion of 25 RAF HC3/3A for RN use in hand with the first flight taking place in November 2016.
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HM2 cockpit, folding tail/blades and other adaptations for naval use
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Why your CVF should not moonlight as your LPH

In
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we argued that HMS Ocean (LPH) should be retained and then replaced. If this does not happen the official plan is for the RN to operate the Queen Elizabeth class (QEC) aircraft carriers (CVF) in the LPH role. Here we look at how this might work in practice and why this solution is flawed.

The RN is currently developing its concept of operations for the QEC with a broad definition of their purpose called Carrier-Enabled Power Projection (CEPP). CEPP offers four main capabilities – Carrier Strike, Littoral Manoeuvre, Humanitarian Assistance and Defence Diplomacy. The carrier strike role is what the QEC were originally designed for but the requirement to perform the littoral manoeuvre/LPH role has been added and then expanded during their construction. HMS Queen Elizabeth will go to sea without the full modifications for the role and will be occupied working up and operating as a strike carrier with the F-35, at least for most of her first commission. She could be expected to enter major refit around 2025 when she will be modified. HMS Prince of Wales is being constructed with these modifications from the outset, essentially internal changes to accommodation, equipment storage and access for the embarked military force. F-35 trials will be conducted with HMS PoW in 2020/21 but she may then be configured and tested in the LPH role soon after.
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I recalled Mar 20, 2017
for those who remember Feb 6, 2016

Type 45 Destroyers:Written question - 67575
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Q
Asked by
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(Portsmouth South)
Asked on: 13 March 2017
"To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when he plans to award contracts for the Power Improvement Project for the Type 45 destroyer class."

A
Answered by:
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Answered on: 16 March 2017
"On current plans, we anticipate that the Ministry of Defence will be able to award the contract for the Power Improvement Project for the Type 45 Destroyer class in early 2018."

(related, dated May 2016 though:
Project Napier sees twin-track plan adopted to resolve Type 45 problems
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vaporware?
after I had read now
How much will it cost to fix the Type 45 Destroyer fleet? October 13, 2017
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The cost of fixing the propulsion issues on the Type 45 Destroyer fleet has now been confirmed.

A contract to fully rectify issues within the Type 45 Destroyer fleet will be awarded in 2018 it has been confirmed.

Asked by Flick Drummond, Member for Portsmouth South:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, when he plans to award contracts for the Power Improvement Project for the Type 45 destroyer class.”
Answered by Harriett Baldwin, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Ministry of Defence:
“On current plans, we anticipate that the Ministry of Defence will be able to award the contract for the Power Improvement Project for the Type 45 Destroyer class in early 2018.”

A staggered refit was also announced, which will involve cutting into the ships’ hulls and fitting additional diesel generation capacity, this has become known as Project Napier.

According to the Royal Institute of Naval Architects:

“Project Napier was established in 2014 with two core work strands. The first of these, known as the Equipment Improvement Plan (EIP), is continuing efforts to enhance system reliability and to meet the original design intent in the near term.

The second component of Project Napier is a longer term Power Improvement Plan (PIP), intended to improve overall system resilience by adding upgraded diesel generators to provide the electrical generation capacity required to meet the overwhelming majority of propulsion and ship power requirements without reliance on WR-21.”

Project Napier will cost £280 million, according to Government figures.

The reliability issues with the intercooler lead to occasional near-complete power generation failures, temporarily disabling not only propulsion, but power generation for weapons, navigational systems, and other purposes, leaving the ships vulnerable to “total electric failure”.

HMS Daring’s engines failed in the mid-Atlantic in 2010 and had to be repaired in Canada, with further repairs for engine failure in 2012 in Bahrain after it encountered propulsion problems while on patrol off the coast of Kuwait.

In June this year, Ministry of Defence officials admitted that the ships were breaking down because the intercooler could not cope with the warm waters of the Gulf.

Manufacturers Rolls-Royce of the fully functioning, non-problematic turbines said that the intercoolers for the WR-21 had been built as specified, but that conditions in the Middle East were not “in line with these specs”.

The MoD said:

“The Type 45 was designed for world-wide operations, from sub-Arctic to extreme tropical environments, and continues to operate effectively in the Gulf and the South Atlantic all year round.”

First Sea Lord Admiral Philip Jones clarified:

“WR-21 gas turbines were designed in extreme hot weather conditions to what we call “gracefully degrade” in their performance, until you get to the point where it goes beyond the temperature at which they would operate… we found that the resilience of the diesel generators and the WR-21 in the ship at the moment was not degrading gracefully; it was degrading catastrophically, so that is what we have had to address.”

It should be noticed that despite the problems, the Royal Navy has been able to deploy the Type 45 fleet in 9 month cycles with no real issues cropping up.
 
Sep 26, 2017
Aug 27, 2017

... updating
Sep 16, 2017

the Venator was #2 above ... now (dated 25 September 2017) Babcock, BMT team as start gun fires for Type 31e programme

... and the rest is behind paywall at Jane's
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and
BAE Systems teams with Cammell Laird for UK Type 31 frigate build
Posted on October 18, 2017
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Cammell Laird and BAE Systems announced an agreement to collaborate on the construction of Royal Navy’s future Type 31 frigates.

Commercial shipbuilder Cammell Laird would act as prime contractor while BAE Systems would be supplying its warship design and combat systems expertise.

The teaming agreement has been formed in response to the UK defense ministry’s request for information and will now be part of a competitive tender process.

Cammell Laird CEO John Syvret said the company is proposing an innovative frigate design, known as ‘Leander’, based on existing and proven BAE Systems’ naval ship designs.

“Our commercial approach to design selection on merit ensures that Leander meets the T31e requirements with a high level of adaptability to attract the widest range of international customers,” he said.

Syvret further said the Cammell Laird consortium will include the A&P Group of shipyards and members of the broader UK supply chain. He said this approach has proved successful in the construction of the £150million new artic survey vessel the RSS Sir David Attenborough, currently being built at Cammell Laird.

The defense ministry expects the first ships to be in service by 2023, built under a price cap of £250M each for the first batch of five frigates.

The Type 31 frigate will replace five of the Royal Navy’s Type 23 frigates. The other eight Type 23s are already set to be replaced by the upcoming Type 26 class.
 
Today at 6:18 PM
Sep 26, 2017

and
BAE Systems teams with Cammell Laird for UK Type 31 frigate build
Posted on October 18, 2017
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related is the question Has the Clyde really been betrayed over the Type 31 Frigate or is there more to it?
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With the news that BAE don’t intend to assemble the Type 31 Frigate on the Clyde, we ask if the yards have really been betrayed or is this a result of a shifting shipbuilding strategy?

The Clyde is working on 5 Offshore Patrol Vessels and is planning to build 8 Type 26 Frigates, compared to an original plan to build 13 Type 26 Frigates at the yards in Glasgow.

As we
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, BAE Systems has announced a partnership with Cammell Laird, who would ‘Prime, build and assemble’ the vessels at their Merseyside facility while the Clyde will focus on the Type 26 Frigates.

If the bid is successful, Cammell Laird would be main contractor with BAE providing design and combat systems.

BAE themselves say that shipbuilding capacity on the Clyde will be full until the mid 2030s while the Ministry of Defence want the first of the new Type 31 Frigates in service by 2023.

BAE say the move will allow them to ‘appropriately support the National Shipbuilding Strategy’ whilst ensuring the delivery of the five Offshore Patrol Vessels and the first three City class Type 26 frigates currently on contract, ‘to time, budget and to the highest quality standards.’

Shipbuilders union GMB earlier accused the Government of reneging on guarantees to build the Type 31 Frigates on the Clyde. While the Clyde will still be working on 13 vessels, 5 of them are Offshore Patrol vessels and 8 are Type 26 Frigates.

Mr Cook of the union GMB told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme:

“These five frigates which Fallon is talking about today were promised to the Clyde as part of the massive cuts. In return, we would have had a state-of-the-art frigate factory to be able to produce the ships at the price that the MoD wished to pay, and we could attract foreign orders.”

Cook also said that there was “no frigate factory, and now no five ships” and that “there has definitely been a reneging – there has been a betrayal on the 13 frigates on the Upper Clyde”.

“Let’s be clear that the Type 31 contracts were originally promised to the Upper Clyde, so while shipbuilding communities across the UK would benefit from a work-share programme of the Type 31 work, this will be at the expense of the Upper Clyde despite its own future already being secured until the 2030s.”

We spoke to a source intimately involved with shipbuilding in Glasgow regarding the practicality of building the Type 31 on the Clyde and he told us:

“I think it’s the obvious answer from an industrial point of view but the question is capacity.

There isn’t any at Govan while T26 is in build.”

Sir Michael Fallon said the first of the new ships are due to be in service by 2023 and shipyards would be encouraged to ensure the vessel was competitive on the global market by working with “global partners”. He said:

“This new approach will lead to more cutting-edge ships for the growing Royal Navy that will be designed to maximise exports and be attractive to navies around the world.”

Nia Griffith MP, Labour’s Shadow Defence Secretary, responding to the publication of the National Shipbuilding Strategy, said:

“I welcome the publication of the National Shipbuilding Strategy and the commitment to the long-term future of our shipbuilding industry. But as well as investing in our naval fleet, we must also invest in the men and women who serve in our Royal Navy.

Despite warnings over many years, our Navy is facing a crisis in recruitment and retention. The Government is on course to miss its own target for the size of the Navy and we simply do not have enough sailors to crew our naval fleet. Experienced personnel are leaving the Navy because of dissatisfaction with pay and conditions. If the Government was serious about properly resourcing our Royal Navy it would lift the public sector pay cap and pay our servicemen and women properly.”

Why has the plan changed?
The MoD is hoping to reduce its reliance on BAE and cut the costs of procurement by spreading shipbuilding across civil and naval yards.

To this end, the government are implementing the results of an independent report into the National Shipbuilding Strategy by Sir John Parker which recommended that the Type 31 Frigate build be spread across the UK, with blocks and components being constructed in yards in both Scotland and England.

The National Shipbuilding Strategy is intended to be a “radical, fundamental re-appraisal of how we undertake the shipbuilding enterprise in the UK, intending to place UK naval shipbuilding on a sustainable long term footing”.

BAE themselves signalled their own reluctance to bid for the Type 31 Frigate as prime contractor due to concerns of a “race to the bottom” on price.

Speaking to The Herald
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, BAE managing director Iain Stevenson said:

“We do want to be involved in Type 31. But we have questions. Does it have a budget? What are the timescales. We have not got solid facts. Type 31 could be a race to the bottom.

If it is a front price contract people might bid for it to win and it and it might put them out of business. We would not, because we are BAE Systems.”

In a press release BAE say:

“In response to the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) evolving requirements as outlined in the National Shipbuilding Strategy, BAE Systems will bring together its warship design and engineering capability and combat systems expertise with Cammell Laird, the commercial shipbuilder, in a Teaming Agreement to bid for the manufacture of the Type 31e, an adaptable general purpose frigate.

BAE Systems is focused on the manufacture and delivery of the two QE Class carriers, the five River Class Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPV) and the first three City class Type 26 warships, as well as continuing to develop and upgrade combat management systems on all Royal Navy ships. Taking account our current and future workload, including Type 26, our shipbuilding capacity on the Clyde will be full until the mid 2030s.”

What does the order book on the Clyde look like?
BAE Systems was recently awarded a contract by the Ministry of Defence worth £3.7bn to manufacture the first three of the eight Type 26 Frigate fleet.

Eight Type 26 Frigates are to be built in total, the contract for the second batch will be negotiated in the early 2020s. Ordering in batches is common for projects of this size around the world and was last seen with the Royal Navy for the Type 45 Destroyers and recent Offshore Patrol Vessels. The Type 45s first batch order was for three vessels for example.

This work will begin after the five Offshore Patrol Vessel order is finished and will last until the mid 2030’s.

Conclusion
Sir John’s aforementioned independent report to inform the recent National Shipbuilding Strategy recommended:

“There is no precedent for building two ‘first of class’ RN frigates in one location in the UK. Type 26 is a critical project for the RN and the Nation. Type 31e is urgently required to maintain RN frigate fleet numbers and to establish a UK exportable light frigate. Against this background risks need to be assessed and evaluated in a responsible way by all stakeholders.

A separate lead shipyard or alliance appears to be the best way forward for Type 31e to minimise overall risk. Regardless of choice, BAES would remain in a position to compete for Type 31e work on combat systems, design support and in block build if capacity is available.”

This recommendation has been met.

In summary, BAE have decided not to bid as prime contractor for the Type 31 and instead have decided to partner with Cammell Laird for reasons outlined above.

The defence giant had already signalled their reluctance to build the vessel and it’s now clear that building them on the Clyde isn’t feasible if they’re to enter service when required, there’s no capacity.

While this has reduced opportunities for the Clyde to build more frigates after the Type 26 production run in 2035, it is good news for UK shipbuilding in general if it goes ahead.
if you asked me (LOL) I stick to Sep 16, 2017
...
third point: I still think the BAE will win
 
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