Future Solid Support Ship

[Jake1992]

The thing that’s still getting to me is how all builders said it couldn’t be done for the price set. Can someone please explain to me how 3 SSS can’t be built in the UK for £1.5bn. I know they are not “simple” ships like the tides but £500m per vessel not being enough sound very odd to me.

[RichardIC]

Can someone please explain to me how 3 SSS can’t be built in the UK for £1.5bn.

It's not up for people here to explain how it can't. It's down to UK industry to show that it can.

[donald_of_tokyo]

The thing that’s still getting to me is how all builders said it couldn’t be done for the price set. Can someone please explain to me how 3 SSS can’t be built in the UK for £1.5bn. I know they are not “simple” ships like the tides but £500m per vessel not being enough sound very odd to me.

No idea. But, the fact (?) that 3 (?) bidders all failed to accomplish it means, it cannot be done.

It means the requirement is very strict (very fast RAS, too much automation, ... or any other?), or contains many "other" money (5-10 years of support?). If so, relaxing these requirements are essential (and I think MOD is doing it now, for the next RFP). Another possibility is that other navies' "AO's cost" is false (i.e. only the hull cost). Also note that Canadian case is eye-watering expensive. Anyway I'm afraid we might never know the truth.

Independent issue is, how much the UK-origin bid cost higher. 10% or 30%? Also, before going into TAX refund issue, it is also very important to know how many money will actually be "thrown into" UK economy. Surely NOT 100% (diesels, navigation, many machineries, NOT ALL have British origin). It is also the case in Navantia-bid. How much will be spent in H&W, how much in UK, and how much abroad? Even in other bids (is Japan team still there?), of course not 0%. For example, if my memory works, nearly 30% of the cost of Tide-class tanker project was spent within UK (fitting out at A&P or other place?).

The end result might be, bid goes to UK, but Treasury ignores "TAX refund" and the total cost fixed. And RN will get less capable ships (or only 2 hulls). Is this OK or NOT. We must think of it, I guess?

[Tempest414]

In my head I had that the 3 ships could not be built for 1 billion in the UK I may be wrong but this figure of 1.5 billion is new or did I miss something

[Jake1992]

The thing that’s still getting to me is how all builders said it couldn’t be done for the price set. Can someone please explain to me how 3 SSS can’t be built in the UK for £1.5bn. I know they are not “simple” ships like the tides but £500m per vessel not being enough sound very odd to me.

No idea. But, the fact (?) that 3 (?) bidders all failed to accomplish it means, it cannot be done.

It means the requirement is very strict (very fast RAS, too much automation, ... or any other?), or contains many "other" money (5-10 years of support?). If so, relaxing these requirements are essential (and I think MOD is doing it now, for the next RFP). Another possibility is that other navies' "AO's cost" is false (i.e. only the hull cost). Also note that Canadian case is eye-watering expensive. Anyway I'm afraid we might never know the truth.

Independent issue is, how much the UK-origin bid cost higher. 10% or 30%? Also, before going into TAX refund issue, it is also very important to know how many money will actually be "thrown into" UK economy. Surely NOT 100% (diesels, navigation, many machineries, NOT ALL have British origin). It is also the case in Navantia-bid. How much will be spent in H&W, how much in UK, and how much abroad? Even in other bids (is Japan team still there?), of course not 0%. For example, if my memory works, nearly 30% of the cost of Tide-class tanker project was spent within UK (fitting out at A&P or other place?).

The end result might be, bid goes to UK, but Treasury ignores "TAX refund" and the total cost fixed. And RN will get less capable ships (or only 2 hulls). Is this OK or NOT. We must think of it, I guess?

All very good points but still when compared to the “simpler” tides built in a more efficient yard are we really saying the complexity of SSS and the 10-30% difference in efficiency costs 4 times the amount ? I find it very hard to believe.

I’m starting to come to the mind that these companies know that politically HMG have to build them in the UK and have to build them soon so are looking to take advantage of this to get more profits from the build.

[donald_of_tokyo]

All very good points but still when compared to the “simpler” tides built in a more efficient yard are we really saying the complexity of SSS and the 10-30% difference in efficiency costs 4 times the amount ? I find it very hard to believe.

Not sure. Daewoo bankrupted right among the Tide build, as I remember? It could be "benefit" from dumping? Not sure.

I’m starting to come to the mind that these companies know that politically HMG have to build them in the UK and have to build them soon so are looking to take advantage of this to get more profits from the build.

The last RFP was done long before COVID19 outbreak. In those days, there were severe discussion if SSS build must be restricted within UK, or just do international open competition. If I remember correctly, surely the atmosphere is NOT so much "no abroad" than now it is. In that case, international competitors sole "survival" strategy will be to bid cheap. What is worrying is the next bid. With "build in UK" pressure, the bidder might do it, which is actually a "Cartel" = illegal. So, to make it happen, MOD must "require" to build it within UK, say "more than 50% of the cost must be put directly into UK economy", or alike?

[Jake1992]

All very good points but still when compared to the “simpler” tides built in a more efficient yard are we really saying the complexity of SSS and the 10-30% difference in efficiency costs 4 times the amount ? I find it very hard to believe.

Not sure. Daewoo bankrupted right among the Tide build, as I remember? It could be "benefit" from dumping? Not sure.

I’m starting to come to the mind that these companies know that politically HMG have to build them in the UK and have to build them soon so are looking to take advantage of this to get more profits from the build.

The last RFP was done long before COVID19 outbreak. In those days, there were severe discussion if SSS build must be restricted within UK, or just do international open competition. If I remember correctly, surely the atmosphere is NOT so much "no abroad" than now it is. In that case, international competitors sole "survival" strategy will be to bid cheap. What is worrying is the next bid. With "build in UK" pressure, the bidder might do it, which is actually a "Cartel" = illegal. So, to make it happen, MOD must "require" to build it within UK, say "more than 50% of the cost must be put directly into UK economy", or alike?

I agree that the idea of only UK build wasn’t 100% back then like it pretty much is now but there was a lot of political pressure across the board for that, just all at the the uproar that happened when a Spanish build was proposed.
Yes it would be a cartel and that would be illegal if you could prove it. The one thing I always look at in the manner is the UK “big” 6 energy companies, they’re meant to be in competition with each other but year in year out all 6 put up the prices by nearly bang on the same amount with in a month of each other and up unit the last few years they had 80% of the market. By anyone looking in it looks very much like a cartel but it proving it.

[SW1]

Will we be applying the same economic illiterate overseas built rhetoric with such gusto to all military equipment purchases or just boats?

[dmereifield]

Will we be applying the same economic illiterate overseas built rhetoric with such gusto to all military equipment purchases or just boats?

I think it would apply to anything with a significant value (half a billion or more?) and where UK plc has legitimate capacity/capability to do it...but who knows

[SW1]

Will we be applying the same economic illiterate overseas built rhetoric with such gusto to all military equipment purchases or just boats?

I think it would apply to anything with a significant value (half a billion or more?) and where UK plc has legitimate capacity/capability to do it...but who knows

You could apply that to rather a large number of aircraft programs being procured from Texas, Arizona and Washington state. I would suggest great care about what exactly the definition of U.K. built should mean.

[dmereifield]

Will we be applying the same economic illiterate overseas built rhetoric with such gusto to all military equipment purchases or just boats?

I think it would apply to anything with a significant value (half a billion or more?) and where UK plc has legitimate capacity/capability to do it...but who knows

You could apply that to rather a large number of aircraft programs being procured from Texas, Arizona and Washington state. I would suggest great care about what exactly the definition of U.K. built should mean.

I don't disagree, just my suggestion on how the politics of this will be

[ArmChairCivvy]

putting down a £1.5 billion order in NI and Scotland....

and Devon, may be?

[Jake1992]

putting down a £1.5 billion order in NI and Scotland....

and Devon, may be?

We do have to keep this in mind, while it’s all good spending money to keep shipbuilding going in Scotland and NI English yards can’t be forgotten else you’ll really end up alienating the English against the others especially with the way the SNP are.

[Tempest414]

For me the Scots have the escorts to build a nice three way with CL and HW Belfast and Appledore for the FSS

[Ron5]

As I've said before, I think the only UK option is a Bae/BMT design built by CL with Bae/BMT assistance.

No other yard apart from CL has the capability or capacity and after McBoatyface, even that's debatable. HW has no facilities or workforce apart from a dock. Rosyth is busy with T31 then CVF refits. Appledore is too small. Govan is busy with T26. Barrow is busy with submarines. Have I missed anywhere?

Doesn't preclude blocks being built elsewhere but surely it has to be CL.

[Poiuytrewq]

In my head I had that the 3 ships could not be built for 1 billion in the UK I may be wrong but this figure of 1.5 billion is new or did I miss something

It used to be £1bn so something has moved in the right direction.

At £1.5bn for 3xSSS they would need to be extremely impressive to justify the price tag considering the pressures on the budget elsewhere.

A BMT/Navantia/H&W/CL partnership would be pretty optimum. Use BMT/Navantia expertise to the full and float blocks from Belfast and Appledore to Birkenhead for assembly. Good for the Union and good for UK plc.

Also it will be interesting to see in any of the proposed design have been adapted to fit in with the LSG concept.

[ArmChairCivvy]

float blocks from Belfast and Appledore to Birkenhead for assembly. Good for the Union and good for UK plc.

The Union will need good things right now and in your plan all nations (Wales within a touching distance) could partake: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... 10.svg.png

[Ron5]

HW doesn't have the ability to build blocks. In the Navantia plan, blocks are built in Spain and floated to the UK.

[Ron5]

From Shephard Media

Investing in the future

After the publication of a series of landmark documents aiming to review the country’s shipbuilding sector, the UK is focusing on reinvigorating its domestic shipbuilding and increasing competitiveness in the sector based on the recommendations put forward.

Richard Thomas

Senior Editor – Naval

In a bid to revitalise domestic shipbuilding in the UK and increase competition among the dwindling facilities able to manufacture naval vessels, two landmark documents were produced to provide a roadmap towards a sustainable future: the 2016 report by Sir John Parker into the country’s shipbuilding sector and the MoD’s subsequent 2017 National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS).

In the respective four and three years since publication there have been as many setbacks as successes and – ahead of the vast changes that the twin heads of the COVID-19 pandemic and Integrated Defence and Security Review will bring – it is time to ask, how successful has it been?
Constructive criticism

Following the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review conducted by the UK government, a series of key recommendations were drawn up for the naval arm of its armed forces, which included a commitment to maintain a fleet of 19 frigates and destroyers, with the ambition to increase hull numbers by the 2030s through the introduction of a more flexible, lighter and cost-effective general-purpose frigate.

Sir John Parker was commissioned in Q1 2016 by the UK government to produce a report into how to develop a new NSS that would drive changes through the UK’s naval shipbuilding sector, which had suffered significantly through decades of fleet reduction efforts and spending cuts by the MoD.

Shipbuilding was seen as a dying skill in the UK and, given the decision to ensure warships would continue to be built in the country, it was decided something had to be done in order to secure the industrial capacity for the future.

One of the main themes of the strategy would be the attempt to increase the diversification in the sector, with some seeing the near monopoly held by BAE Systems in naval shipbuilding as being detrimental to a sustainable future for those that remained. Some historied shipyards had closed their dry docks to naval manufacturing, including BAE’s own Portsmouth facility, as hull numbers dried up and consolidation was perceived as the only way ahead.

On 29 November 2016, Parker’s report was published. Initial observations spoke of an MoD programme acquisition system that was too complex, had an ‘insufficient sense of pace’, with too many involved in the process that thought ‘they have a vote, or even a veto, in the process’. Procurement of new naval vessels for the RN took ‘far too long’, with the notion that the complex make-up of modern warships as a viable reason for this deemed not sufficient to alone account for continuous programme delays and cost overruns.

Among additional issues identified by Parker – such as the engagement of senior decision-makers too late in the acquisition process, a loss of continuity as people move into and out of programmes, cost growths, delays and poor risk evaluation – was that the MoD had ‘lost expertise in both design and project contract management’.

Parker said that the identified factors led to a significant growth in specification, scale and end cost of the vessels and carried a risk that equipment could become technically obsolete before contracts were finalised.

Also addressed was the then state of the UK’s shipbuilding sector, which in the years since has contracted further still. The report identified BAE Systems’ sites at Scotstoun and Govan as the only locations in the UK used to design, construct and deliver complex warships, which was an exclusive arrangement held by the company and the MoD.

The terms of business agreement (ToBA), which began in 2009, saw the MoD initially order three OPVs, which would become known as the Batch 2 River class and rise to five hulls, in order to sustain shipbuilding skills ahead of the start of the Type 26 build programme. At a combined cost of £635 million ($845 million) and average unit price of £127 million, these relatively simple vessels are some of the most expensive ever procured relative to their size at £63,500 per tonne. In contrast, the £3 billion Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers come in at around £46,000 per tonne.

To further highlight the expense of the River-class programme, three virtually identical OPVs built by BAE Systems were sold to Brazil for £133 million, after Trinidad and Tobago withdrew from the initial purchase.

Nick Childs, senior fellow for naval forces and maritime security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, considered that the BAE Systems ToBA with the MoD, while being ‘controversial at the end’, was at its inception a ‘logical’ approach.

‘The BAE [Systems] terms of business agreement, which became so controversial in the end, at the time looked like in many ways a very logical way to approach things, based on an agreed drumbeat and level of work. Once that got knocked off course, then suddenly everything else was not quite so logical,’ he detailed.

Regarding other shipyards in the UK, Parker’s report stated that Babcock’s Appledore OPV programme, which saw it build four vessels for the Irish Naval Service, and the building of the Natural Environment Research Council’s new research ship at Cammell Laird were ‘clear demonstrations’ of competitiveness in the sector. Babcock’s Appledore site closed in 2019 but is set to reopen under the Harland and Wolff banner after being acquired by InfraStrata in August.

The report further added, however, that there were ‘very few UK companies with sufficient financial and industry capacity and capability, expertise and naval ship knowledge’ that could compete for lead shipyard status, or indeed combine with other firms in an alliance for a series of naval vessels.
A change in strategy

Following consideration of Parker’s points, the UK MoD published in 2017 its long-awaited NSS, which in the government’s own words outlined an ambition to transform the procurement of naval ships, increase competitiveness in the country’s maritime industry, grow the fleet by the 2030s and export UK ships overseas.

One of the central arms of the strategy would be the commencement of a new frigate procurement programme, dubbed the Type 31e – ‘e’ being for export. In time, this frigate would lose the alpha element of its designation, becoming the Type 31.

A total of five frigates would be acquired in the first batch to make up the numerical shortfall following the reduction of the Type 26 frigate build from 13 down to just eight vessels. They would also be cheap at £250 million per ship (compared to the £1 billion Type 26) plus some government-furnished equipment taken from the retiring general-purpose Type 23 frigates, although this latter element in the end has been severely downsized.

The strategy outlined an intention to have the first of the Type 31 frigates in service by 2023, but this date has since slipped to the right.

Initially, the competition saw Cammell Laird and BAE Systems put forward its Leander design, a stretched version of the Khareef corvettes built for the Royal Navy of Oman a decade previously. Very much at the light frigate end of the naval spectrum, the design envisaged potential lengths of between 99-120m and would likely displace no more than 4,000t.

In 2017, Babcock initially put forward its own 120m-long Arrowhead design, but by 2018, the programme had been stopped by the MoD, citing a lack of compliant bids and competition. Cammell Laird was known to have been disappointed by the decision to halt the programme.

Following the restart, for its part Babcock returned with an offer based heavily on Iver Huitfeldt frigates, designed by OMT, in service with the Royal Danish Navy. Displacing in the region of 6,000t, it utilised a mature design and provided a clear distinction in the offering, with the company claiming that it could be built either as a block build across UK shipyards before assembly or from the keel up at its Rosyth facility.

A new entrant into the competition saw Atlas Elektronik UK and ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems enter the latter’s 3,700t MEKO A-200 design.

In the end, 2019 saw the winner emerge as Babcock and its Iver Huitfeldt-derived platform, which in July 2020 passed the design review ahead of the start of construction. Babcock is expected to deliver the last Type 31 to the RN by 2028. As it stands, the build schedule plans for steel to be cut for the first-in-class frigate in 2021, with delivery to the RN by 2024, although entry into service could stretch to 2027.
Key tenets

As a cornerstone of the strategy, the Type 31 programme has to succeed, and unsurprisingly, Babcock is confident that it will deliver.

In a written statement, a Babcock spokesperson told Shephard that the Type 31 programme was a ‘game changer’ for UK shipbuilding, with the company ‘committed and invested’ in supporting the central tenets of the NSS to increase capacity and capability of the country’s maritime industry.

Moreover, the spokesperson said that the 2016 report into the UK’s shipbuilding sector by Sir John Parker brought ‘significant MoD and industrial innovation’ to the acquisition process of the Type 31 programme, which saw a move away from the traditional warship procurement process. ‘The Type 31 programme delivers one of the key tenets of the Parker report around the strategic reform of UK shipbuilding,’ the spokesperson confirmed.

Babcock’s Rosyth site has undergone significant infrastructure changes in order to fulfil the programme requirements, including the construction of a modular build hall where the parallel build of two Type 31 frigates can be undertaken and an automated panel manufacturing line.

According to the spokesperson, Babcock is also working with the UK government in an effort to secure export sales for the platform through the General-Purpose Frigate Export Working Group, a programme that company officials were described as being ‘hugely excited about’.

Childs, meanwhile, spoke of a reluctance to invest in the promises that underpin the NSS in relation to the Type 31 programme. ‘There were two elements to the Type 31 programme. One is that it would build at least five ships for the Royal Navy, that there would be an initial order for five but that they would keep on building them to try and regrow the fleet. We will have to see if that happens. And the other element was that it was going to be a success on the export market, so there is a question there as well,’ he cautioned.

However, Childs added that the Type 31 had ‘moved forward much quicker than previous programmes’, although ‘not without a few bumps in the road’, given the design differs from what was originally envisaged.

‘It is among other things resulting in the investment in a new frigate factory in Rosyth and it is producing a greater spread of industrial base capability in terms it is not a BAE monopoly any more. But again, how long that can be sustained is the question,’ he stated.
Contract controversy

The second of the major procurement efforts that would underpin the NSS is that of the Future Solid Support (FSS) ship programme which will deliver up to three new vessels to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA). These vessels will support RN deployments around the world and form a key element to the carrier strike group when in service.

However, unlike the Type 31, the FSS was allowed to be tendered overseas as the vessels are not classed as warships, the first in a series of controversies and delays to hit the programme. The project was suspended in 2019 after initial proposals from national and international industry were deemed to provide poor value for money.

At the time of the suspension, the competition was being contested between a UK consortium and a joint bid from Spanish shipbuilder Navantia and UK-based design bureau BMT.

In February this year, before the COVID-19 pandemic locked down much of the UK economy, Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace told Shephard that the FSS restart was awaiting ‘sign-off’ from the Treasury.

More recently, Gen Nick Carter, Chief of the Defence Staff, told the Defence Select Committee on 7 July that requirements for the FSS programme were ‘being rewritten’ ahead of an expected reissue.

Carter was unable to say whether the vessels will be classified as warships, thus requiring the competition to be available to UK-only bids, or whether it would be available to the wider international market. ‘They will be painted in warship colours, but it depends how the requirement gets written,’ he told committee members.

However, some members of parliament have called for the FSS programme to be awarded to UK yards. On 6 July, responding to a parliamentary question from Labour MP Kevan Jones regarding the FSS timeline and whether UK shipyards will benefit from the procurement, Wallace said he is ‘keen for it to get under way as soon as possible’ and had asked for it ‘to be brought forward from the proposed date’.

Additionally, Wallace said that ‘the plus side’ was that the FSS vessels are not ‘highly complex’ and he did not think that ‘it would take long to build them’ once the competition restarts.

Currently, solid support requirements are performed by its sole remaining RFA Fort-class replenishment ship, Fort Victoria. The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review saw first-in-class Fort George culled from the fleet in a cost-cutting measure and scrapped in Turkey, while Fort Austin remains mothballed and unlikely to return to sea.

For Childs, the ‘mood music’ had shifted as to whether, politically, the FSS programme would be made available to international competition when it is eventually restarted. ‘What the outcome will be is uncertain because we don’t really know what is going to happen with the programme. That then raises questions about what the actual viability is, what the political ambition is, that in the end these ships will be built in the UK and whether that is a good long-term proposition.

‘If they are only going to build those ships, then it is going to be a fairly temporary, potentially quite expensive, boost to employment for a period of time,’ Childs explained.

The Babcock spokesperson, meanwhile, said that the company ‘would support’ calls for an FSS solution to be sourced from TeamUK – an industrial alliance set up to respond to the programme. ‘We believe that an alliance of UK shipbuilders and the broader UK supply chain can bring huge benefits and inject real value into the economy,’ the spokesperson said.
Has it worked?

Through the tens of thousands of words written, the strategies considered and reports published, the question remains: will the UK’s naval shipbuilding sector be in a stronger position at the completion of the NSS? The answers are mixed.

Monty Long, business development and strategy director for defence and security at naval design firm BMT, considered Parker’s 2016 report and the 2017 response by the government as being ‘well intended’, praising the ‘short-term interventions’ by the MoD, the success of BAE Systems in exporting of the Type 26 frigate design (to Australia and Canada) and Type 31 as ‘the start of the drumbeat’ of UK warship manufacturing.

‘However, with a limited pool of national complex warship designers requiring naval architecture, naval engineering, electrical, electronic, weapon, systems, environmental, safety and human factor engineering skills, it is evident that design house resources have to effectively pool together to meet the national demand,’ Long explained.

Continuing, he said that as a consequence, ‘the MoD’s desire to compete the design for each new platform is becoming stifled by the ever-smaller pool of design resources that readily understand the operational requirements and doctrines of the RN/RFA and can design accordingly.

‘Shipbuilding primes have become the focus and the design houses end up vying for subcontractor roles on relatively short-term contract arrangements, without much recognition for future skills development and capability growth. Whilst this is concentrating the currently available skills, it is not adding breadth to the industry nor creating a healthy ship design sector.’

Could the UK find itself facing the same problem in the long-term, having to write a new strategy to sustain indigenous naval shipbuilding and design capabilities? Childs considers that more will become clear once the ongoing Integrated Defence and Security Review is concluded.

‘I think what happens to the industrial base and sustainability of the current National Shipbuilding Strategy, and therefore whether or not it will have to be revisited, has got to be founded on what emerges in the Integrated Review as to what the UK’s global posture and defence and security ambitions are.

‘If they are founded on more or less a maritime and air Global Britain strategy and continue to be backed up with funding, then there is a possibility that things could be set for the future,’ Childs explained.

He said that the understanding of the need to be agile and clear-eyed were positives from the implementation of the strategy. Much will depend on whether emerging from the Integrated Review is a ‘sustained ambition’ for the UK’s maritime future. ‘If that all changes, then everything will probably have to change,’ he warned.
Staying on course

Long said that while diversification of the industrial base ‘was welcomed’, the skills needed for complex design and manufacture were ‘notably higher’, which in turn narrowed the field of individuals and companies that can undertake the work. Together with the investment needed to gain and sustain key design and manufacturing skills, this drove up costs to the buyer.

Ship design companies could potentially have to make a choice as to which side of the industry they would follow, according to Long. ‘There is a market choice to be made for design houses: commercial or complex defence. Sitting in both camps is a challenge. With a strong national and international presence, BMT is a forerunner in supporting complex and semi-complex ship designs for the UK and export.

‘We support the transfer of knowledge and skills with considerable learning from experience through working in the global market and with different manufacturing yards. Within the UK, smoothing the demand and certainty of orders remains industry’s ongoing call, but budgetary interventions, and global affairs, can interfere with the best-made plans,’ Long stated.

[Poiuytrewq]

HW doesn't have the ability to build blocks. In the Navantia plan, blocks are built in Spain and floated to the UK.

Why was H&W (Belfast) included in the original Team 31 bid if the facility isn't capable of building blocks?

[ArmChairCivvy]

‘Shipbuilding primes have become the focus and the design houses end up vying for subcontractor roles on relatively short-term contract arrangements, without much recognition for future skills development and capability growth. Whilst this is concentrating the currently available skills, it is not adding breadth to the industry nor creating a healthy ship design sector.’

Good point. AS for cruise liners we are among the leaders in design, whilst not building any
- with all the cancellations in that sector, some relevant designers would be coming available (whilst there are areas where only experience fro warship design counts)

[dmereifield]

putting down a £1.5 billion order in NI and Scotland....

and Devon, may be?

Yes, please. Make it so

[albedo]

Good point. AS for cruise liners we are among the leaders in design, whilst not building any
- with all the cancellations in that sector, some relevant designers would be coming available (whilst there are areas where only experience fro warship design counts)

Maybe they could be put to work on a new class of cruisers? Would be interesting to see where they place the main ballroom!

[Scimitar54]

You mean The Wardroom! Usually somewhere under the quarterdeck.

[Ron5]

HW doesn't have the ability to build blocks. In the Navantia plan, blocks are built in Spain and floated to the UK.

Why was H&W (Belfast) included in the original Team 31 bid if the facility isn't capable of building blocks?

It also featured in the original Type 31 build proposal. Guess what.