Future Solid Support Ship

Contains threads on Royal Navy equipment of the past, present and future.
Lord Jim
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Lord Jim »

Ron5 wrote:Google it dude, plenty of places to find out what was written.

You could start here:

https://bullishnews.com/babcock-in-talk ... -contract/

:D

It would have been nice if that is the link that was posted instead.

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Caribbean »

Ron5 wrote:I read that article and thought I was having a stroke.
Just how many times did it go through Google translate to get that way?
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RichardIC
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by RichardIC »

I ust recently read about Meyer Warft (big in cruise ships... which, in their trn, tend to be big, too)
- Goliath , in their yard was mentioned
- does not need to be the same "Goliath"
- but is "ours" still there?
It is still there and it hadn't been sold as recently as two weeks ago.

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publ ... 16/144853/

Lord Jim
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Lord Jim »

Jesus, just tried to read the version Ron5 linked to, and I thought some of the Robo translations on You Tube were bad.

Regarding the contract, my view is the same, If Babcock and BAe can build the ships for the same price as an overseas builder, with support form the DTI if necessary then that is fine. But the Defence Budget is not there to support or create jobs so if they cannot then the contract should go to the best value company.

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Ron5 »

Lord Jim wrote:Jesus, just tried to read the version Ron5 linked to, and I thought some of the Robo translations on You Tube were bad.

Regarding the contract, my view is the same, If Babcock and BAe can build the ships for the same price as an overseas builder, with support form the DTI if necessary then that is fine. But the Defence Budget is not there to support or create jobs so if they cannot then the contract should go to the best value company.
Doesn't that rather depend on how you calculate the price?

If you calculate it as the money paid by HMG via the MoD minus:

a) that part of the money returned to HMG via taxes to the Treasury
b) the money that would have to be paid by HMG via MoWP to the layed off workers in unemployment benefit
c) the money collected by HMG in taxes resulting from other sales of the product itself or any of the systems/parts developed for the ship

In other words, other countries like France, Italy, Spain, Korea & Russia, massively subsidize their naval shipbuilding because of the national benefits of spending their tax payer money in their own country.

The UK, quite rightly, doesn't believe in subsidizing UK ship building (well at least the conservatives don't) so it needs to develop a mechanism to award the work to UK enterprises to be performed in the UK, without unduly penalizing the MoD and it's very limited budget.

To me this is so blindingly obvious but the finest minds in the UK Treasury (and there are some very fine ones if their educational qualifications are to be believed) are quite unable/unwilling to find a solution.

I fear they cling to Gordon Brown's globalization fantasy where in a perfect world everything is performed wherever it can be done most efficiently. So labor intensive work in countries with low labor costs and highly skilled work (ike services) performed in highly developed countries like the UK.

Of course this is total bullshit because if only a handful of countries work this way, they will be exploited by those countries that put themselves first. Look at the barriers China has put in place to keep out US and UK high skilled businesses. Look at the way China flaunts IP ownership rights and steals ideas/designs.

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Scimitar54 »

Wholeheartedly agree. There is also the important point of actively nurturing a strategic defence capability that it is essential to retain. Solid Support Ships built over the next several years, will make it easier and cheaper to build the Albion and Bulwark replacements to follow.

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Lord Jim »

I think we are agreeing here in that the UK Government need to play the game the same way other do, namely build them in the UK but provide financial aid to industry to allow them to compete with oversea shipyards. As pointed out this also brings benefits from tax etc. This would however be a very difficult about face for a Conservative Government to come to terms with, and would set a precedent for other industries that could be similar to a can or worms. Countries that have retained significant ship building capacity and skill like South Korea have ship yards that are as high tech as you can get. We learnt lessons form the previous tanker programme and I am pretty sure the issues that arose there would not be repeated if the FSS vessels were built there. The difference in price between there and what a UK company could offer would be substantial, but is HMG is will to cover this, recouping some of this through collected taxes and so on then fine. But any money to do this must NOT come out of the MoD Budget.

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RichardIC
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by RichardIC »

I’m sure this is reading more into it then there is. However in the Arrowhead 140 brochure there is reference to the build strategy allowing “parallel..... pipeline demands.”

I’ll take that as oblique reference to FSS build by the same partnership.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

RichardIC wrote:as oblique reference to FSS build by the same partnership
... or building RN T-31s and T-31e's (differently specced) in parallel?
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by abc123 »

Maybe the Italian system where Ministry of Industry pays IIRC 500+ mil. euros ( Gabriele exact numbers? ) for Italian-made defence equipment annually, isn't so bad? Same thing with Ministry of Transport/fishing paying for OPVs etc.
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clinch
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by clinch »

Lord Jim wrote:Jesus, just tried to read the version Ron5 linked to, and I thought some of the Robo translations on You Tube were bad.

Regarding the contract, my view is the same, If Babcock and BAe can build the ships for the same price as an overseas builder, with support form the DTI if necessary then that is fine. But the Defence Budget is not there to support or create jobs so if they cannot then the contract should go to the best value company.
......and the country loses money. I think Parker or someone else estimated that, built in Britain, 37 per cent of everything we spend comes back to the Treasury.

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Ron5 »

https://navaltoday.com/2018/06/01/seasp ... struction/

Interesting to read that the Canadian national shipbuilding strategy requires support ships (like RFA) to be built in Canada. I guess the UK is so much smarter than them (heavy sarcasm).

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Defiance »

and paying through the nose for the honour.

http://edmontonjournal.com/news/nationa ... f88ce45882

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Just about every existing design was pitched to Canada, for modification to their specific requirements. Did they see the light? No, a head-on car crash is building up, starting with the normal Gold Plating:
"Pat Finn, the head of procurement at the Department of National Defence, said the new price tag came as the government decided to do an additional analysis of the project and include other items it had not previously included.

In some cases equipment for the ship has been purchased so there are better costs available on those items, Finn said in an interview Monday. Also taken into account was new infrastructure and the delays with the program, which, in turn, drove up the price as the cost of material increased over the years.

“The build period has changed quite dramatically,” Finn acknowledged.

At one point, the first ship was supposed to arrive in 2012. That has been changed a number of times with the government later hoping for a 2018 delivery and then a 2019 arrival for the first vessel.

The Department of National Defence is now hoping for the delivery of the first ship in 2022 or 2023."

They do have the same sort of risk assessment and cost assurance function as what has been, with great pain, created within our process (that's where all the NAO quotes flow them, they are not holding a calculator in one hand while typing their reports on the other).
... and how does it look, seen through that prism?
"Finn said the new costing model for the JSS is more akin to the one used by the parliamentary budget office. That office had an even higher estimate for JSS when it concluded in 2013 that the final tally for taxpayers would be $4.13 billion."
A cool £2.4 bn for 2
Now, were we planning to get 2 (or 3?) for a bn?
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by shark bait »

Ron5 wrote:I guess the UK is so much smarter than them (heavy sarcasm).
It's not smart to pay through the roof to maintain a merchant ship building capability.
@LandSharkUK

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Stating the obvious: how do you get from 1.2 bn per piece to a third(?) of a bn
- use existing base designs
- compete the build
- retain the military fitting out (in house or in-country); then, at least changing or upgrading that part can be done quickly, as and when needed

Looks like we are (finally) headed in that direction: light at the end of the long & dark tunnel ;)
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Ron5 »

https://navaltoday.com/2018/07/13/turki ... ment-ship/

Gosh these people are sooo stupid to build their own supply ships themselves.

Lord Jim
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Lord Jim »

The specs for the Turkish vessels will differ from those for the RN and Canadian SSS. I cannot dee the Turkish Navy deploying a task force into the Northern Atlantic anytime soon. Seeing the Canadian problems it is good to see we are not alone in having a screwed up procurement process. Government support for industry is on the whole a good thing as long as the money to do so comes form the right budget and Defence is not the one that should be used.

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Timmymagic »

Lord Jim wrote:Seeing the Canadian problems it is good to see we are not alone in having a screwed up procurement process. Government support for industry is on the whole a good thing as long as the money to do so comes form the right budget and Defence is not the one that should be used.
Agreed. As long as the procurement process is fair, and includes the financial benefits to treasury and the country in the figures we should look for the best deal. Anyone looking to recommend the Canadian system should look at the cost of the Asterix. It's not far from the cost of 3 Tide Class....

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Ron5 »

Timmymagic wrote:
Lord Jim wrote:Seeing the Canadian problems it is good to see we are not alone in having a screwed up procurement process. Government support for industry is on the whole a good thing as long as the money to do so comes form the right budget and Defence is not the one that should be used.
Agreed. As long as the procurement process is fair, and includes the financial benefits to treasury and the country in the figures we should look for the best deal. Anyone looking to recommend the Canadian system should look at the cost of the Asterix. It's not far from the cost of 3 Tide Class....
Cost or price? because that's the nub of the argument.

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Ron5 »

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... ilt-abroad

Yeah I know, it's the Guardian but still of interest even if rather unreliable.

Lord Jim
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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Lord Jim »

Simple solution, the Department for Trade and Industry subsidises a UK yard to enable it to built the FSS at the same price as those submitted by overseas ones.

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by dmereifield »

Lord Jim wrote:Simple solution, the Department for Trade and Industry subsidises a UK yard to enable it to built the FSS at the same price as those submitted by overseas ones.
Yes please, but we know that's not going to happen with this useless bunch in charge

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Aethulwulf »

Ron5 wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... ilt-abroad

Yeah I know, it's the Guardian but still of interest even if rather unreliable.
The interesting/puzzling thing about this article is why publish it now?

The GMB freedom of information request that it is based on was released back in April, and was well reported at the time. I can't see any reason for this story to be published now, unless something new is going to come out in the next few days. Maybe this article is just preparing the water for a bigger splash to come...?

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Re: Future Solid Support Ship

Post by Lord Jim »

How about the Arrowheads being built in Denmark and fitted out in the UK.

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