Type 31 Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

[rec]

All the more reason to have a National Shipbuilding Strategy that includes a non BAE shipbuilder to be given the Type 31 frigate:
Either License builkd the Danish Absalon (buying the design rights) at Camil laird + Babcock
or Venators 110

[shark bait]

Won't work, 5 frigates are not enough to sustain industry, plus they've already been promised to the Clyde yards.

[rec]

Won't work, 5 frigates are not enough to sustain industry, plus they've already been promised to the Clyde yards.

The proposal from David Cameron which hasn't changed was at least 5, so fully possible to giuve 5 to the clyde

[shark bait]

Work it already promised to the Clyde, so assuming there is a increase in hulls we would build 5 on the Clyde, then 1 or 2 elsewhere?

That's sounds like a terrible plan for maintaining efficiency's and skills. What we need in that respect is a single yard pumping out complex warship's at a constant pace well into the future.

The shipbuilding strategy should deliver work through to the start of the T47 build. Although apparently it won't do that as it won't touch the T26, so won't be a particularly credible document.

[ArmChairCivvy]

apparently it won't do that as it won't touch the T26

??? What,
another non-event.

At least the dfence industrial strategy was a well-written document; nevermind that it never happened after its release.

[Spinflight]

One does wonder how many Humphreys are involved in writing these documents which are never implemented.

What exactly is the point of them supposed to be?

[Clive F]

Wild Idea.
Build 6 new Type 45's with "working power plants".
Cross deck all the clever stuff from the old ones (batch 1) to the new ones (batch 2).
Rebuild old T45's at leisure with "simple" weapons fit (ie cheap).
Don't bother with T31's

Clive F

[Ron5]

hey thats the nature of the business they are in. they are a monopoly now in the UK market with massive pressures to buy British from the public/media/politicians and they Abuse that position. Blairs defence industry diversification policy caused. There is Business and there is profiteering and BaE are guilty of that.

You really don't let facts get in the way do you?

oh let me see Nimrod, SA80 the ability of the UK to build to time and budget or now even produce Heavy armour, Artillery Ammunition, warships.........

P-8 - Boeing
Reaper - General Atomics
Apache - Boeing
Ajax - General Dynamics
Foxhound - General Dynamics
F-35 - Lockheed
A400 - Airbus
AMRAAM - Raytheon
Phalanx - Raytheon
MARS - DSME
Voyager - Airbus
L129A1 Sharpshooter - LMT
Minigun - GE
M2 - GD

That's one heck of a Bae monopoly. I had real problems finding any UK kit ordered from them since 2010.

Opinions not based on facts = bigotry.

[shark bait]

??? What,
another non-event.

He tends to be a credible source. If correct it's ridiculous and can't possibly address long term industrial capabilities.

One does wonder how many Humphreys are involved in writing these documents which are never implemented.

What exactly is the point of them supposed to be?

Exactly, hiring experts to make expert decision and then not following through because it isn't convenient. It does seem to happen far too often, not just defence, the Heathrow mess also ignored a massive long study.

Wild Idea.
Build 6 new Type 45's with "working power plants".

Sounds crazy horrible revisiting a closed chapter, especially now the final fix is funded. What would be the benifit?

[Repulse]

My view is unless we get more than 5 T31s, just buy more T26s. Whatever happens I'd like to see the MHPC concept restarted and accelerated based on the Venator 90 design and get ships built outside of Scotland also.

[Gabriele]

He tends to be a credible source. If correct it's ridiculous and can't possibly address long term industrial capabilities.

It was in the same infamous Defence Committee hearing from a few weeks ago that gave me (and i think many others) a horrible idea of the current first sea lord's worth.

The conflict between Type 26 and Shipbuilding Strategy emerged out of this surreal exchange of questions and non answers:

Sir John [Sir John Parker, author of the Shipbuilding Strategy] is going to report in time for the autumn statement. When he
does, will he also lay out the production timetable for the Type 26? If not, when will that come?

Harriett Baldwin: The building of the eight frigates is obviously part of what he is looking at in the national shipbuilding strategy, but the actual decision on the main gate will be a separate part of the overall process.
They are independent but interrelated.

Q140 Mr Gray: So when will we know the production schedule for the Type 26?

Harriett Baldwin: You have heard from previous witnesses that it is a
subject for ongoing negotiations. At the moment, we are unfortunately not
really in a position to share with the Committee how the commercial
aspects of those negotiations are going. That would involve sharing things
about that.

Q141 Mr Gray: Obviously I wouldn’t want you to share commercially sensitive
information. That was not the question. But quite plainly, the capabilities
of the Royal Navy depend on knowing when the Type 26 will be available.
The question is, when will we know the production schedule for the Type
26? We are talking about Type 45s and Type 23s, and we need to know
when the Type 26s will be built in order to think about that. Just saying
that it is commercially sensitive does not answer the question. When will
the production schedule for the Type 26s be available?

Harriett Baldwin: Obviously the discussions involve optimising the timing
of that schedule. Tony, do you want to talk a little bit more about the
precise timings?

Tony Douglas: Understandably, this is a key question that is very much
at the heart of the work that I am undertaking on behalf of Her Majesty’s
Royal Navy. I understand your point that you cannot hide behind the veil
of a commercial negotiation. None the less, the schedule component of
this is at the heart of closing out an appropriate deal that maps the
requirements of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy, maps into the requirement of
the Type 23, optimises value for money, and delivers a build schedule that
drives performance with BAE Systems. We are right in the middle of that
at the moment—

Q142 Mr Gray: I am terribly sorry, Mr Douglas—I hope you don’t mind me
interrupting—but that sort of language is straight out of a management
consultant’s logbook. The question is, when will we know when the Type
26s are going to be built?

Tony Douglas: That is a very clear closed question. Avoiding
management speak, as you described it, I cannot give you a precise date
because it is subject to a commercial negotiation. However, I do not
believe that we are talking about this being drawn out for any long period
of time. We are now committed to closing out a build schedule with BAE
Systems. Industry has a big part to play, because it has to step up to the
plate in driving performance through value and lead time compression. I
believe that we will be able to bring a definitive set of dates in the relative
short term. I cannot give you a time and date at this point.

Q143 Mr Gray: Okay, but if that is not announced by the time of the national
shipbuilding strategy at the time of the autumn statement, surely that
blows a pretty big hole in the national shipbuilding strategy. How can Sir
John bring forward a sensible strategy for national shipbuilding if he does
not know whether and when the Type 26 can be built?

Tony Douglas: I do not believe that risk will play out by the autumn
statement.

Q144 Mr Gray: You don’t believe that risk will play out by the autumn
statement. Good answer.

http://data.parliament.uk/writteneviden ... /35261.pdf

Since that exchange, i've very much struggled to put any faith into this piece of paper. How can it even come up with a workable, detailed plan without having any real say (and apparently not any real knowdlege ) in the biggest surface ship programme the Navy faces over the next 20 years? He needs to at least know the timeframe. At the very least he has to have some kind of control over the timeframe, to try and determine how other projects might interlock with Type 26, and where the work might take place.
Otherwise, how can it even work?

I fear we'll end up with an inconclusive piece of paper full of very up-in-the-sky concepts with little in the way of real plans and even less in the way of committments to actual ships to be built. Add to it the fact that multiple successive governments would have to stay true to the path traced by the document, and i'm sure you'll see by yourself where my doubts and fears come from.

The last answer by Tony Douglas might or might not imply the setting of a timeframe in time for the Autumn Statement, but even that would be pretty damn late. I don't know how much they are telling sir Parker; i hope he knows a lot more than us, but i really do not like what i'm seeing so far.

[bobp]

A lot of management gobblegook about nothing intermingled with political soundbites and for that these civil servants get oodles of tax payer funding and mega salaries. Meanwhile no ships are built. I despair.

[Ron5]

I know a lot about commercial contracts and I can tell you with 100% conviction that there would be absolutely nothing commercially sensitive by these clowns saying "we're putting together a contract to build three T26's and we'd like delivery of one every xx months starting in year yyyy and we'd like the contract signed by the end of zzzz".

If the contract eventually came out saying xx changed and yy moved then so effing what, they can just say we did it to save money or whatever.

I mean what the heck can they say that Bae doesn't already know?? Commercially sensitive my backside. More like keeping Parliament and the electorate in the dark about their deceits and plots.

They're all effing liars. If they tried this crap in front of McCain, they'd be looking for new jobs by the morning.

[Ron5]

As for the shipbuilding strategy: to me, it's always been a ploy by Pinocchio George not to order any warships. Completely meaningless fluff. I assume the author is doing it to get a seat in the Lords. That's how the UK operates apparently.

[marktigger]

Let me see Ron

Challenger Now BaE
Warrior Now Bae
FV432 Now Bae
Terrier Bae
AVLB Bae
CVRT Bae
Raiper BAE
L118 BAE
AS90 BAE
L16 Bae
Skynet BAE
Stingray
Tigerfish
Seawolf
Viking

thats just of the top of my head

[Spinflight]

That's how the UK operates apparently.

Pretty much...

Well as long as your findings are the findings they want to hear. Sadly it's difficult not to think of the UK in terms of disdain we used to reserve for corrupt banana republics.

[Ron5]

Let me see Ron

Challenger Now BaE
Warrior Now Bae
FV432 Now Bae
Terrier Bae
AVLB Bae
CVRT Bae
Raiper BAE
L118 BAE
AS90 BAE
L16 Bae
Skynet BAE
Stingray
Tigerfish
Seawolf
Viking

thats just of the top of my head

Good grief, find all this old tat in a history book? You said they had a monopoly TODAY not 30 years ago AND most of your items were from companies that had no connection with Bae when the systems were bought. Let me correct it for you:

Challenger - Vickers
Warrior - GKN
FV432 - GKN
Terrier Bae - Hey, you got one right!!!!!
AVLB Bae - I assume you mean Titan, another one correct!!
CVRT - Alvis
Raiper - so old, Bae was called BAC
L118 - RO
AS90 - Vickers
L16 - RO I think
Skynet - EADS
Stingray - GEC
Tigerfish - 3rd one correct!!
Seawolf - BAC now Bae
Viking - Hagglunds

4 out of 15. Evidence of a monopoly = zero. Grade F.

[shark bait]

BAE's 'monopoly' totals around 16% of MOD supplier expenditure

[donald_of_tokyo]

Sorry for trial.

Cutlass, Made it from THALES page, modified (power point) to add 15m in the mid and 3 m extension astern.

cutlass_image_(speculation)_20160811.png

For comparison, original Khareef.

khareef_2.png

[Repulse]

I must admit I thought for a while that Cutlass could be a good RN ship, but really looking at this option it gives no meaningful capability. I'd rather go for the Avenger as at least the additional cost is giving the ability to permanently deploy a helo.

[donald_of_tokyo]

I must admit I thought for a while that Cutlass could be a good RN ship, but really looking at this option it gives no meaningful capability. I'd rather go for the Avenger as at least the additional cost is giving the ability to permanently deploy a helo.

Sorry I couldn't catch your point. Cutlass also can deploy Helo, as you know. Or you think Avenger can deploy Merlin?

# by the way, I am also not so happy with the outlook of Cutlass.

[Repulse]

Sorry I couldn't catch your point. Cutlass also can deploy Helo, as you know. Or you think Avenger can deploy Merlin?

# by the way, I am also not so happy with the outlook of Cutlass.

Sorry, what I meant was that the cost of the Avenger should be much less than the Cutlass, but the main "real" benefit of both is being able to carry a helicopter. The additional capability that Cutlass brings over the Avenger is really on paper rather than being able to put it in harms way.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Terrier Bae

Bought twice (in the by now time-honoured fashion).

Ron might remember on how much compensation for the first, cancelled round the Gvmnt aceptd, out-of-court?

The time it has taken with the T45 propulsion issues (since the official, but nor widely distributed 2011 report suggests to me that the two parties have silently gone through arbitration... expert witnesses and all that, to assess the case and the contracts relating to it. Namely, to get compensation it would not have been enough to sue just BAE, but also RR).

[marktigger]

gone through arbitration with the tax payer again picking up the bill Maybe HMRC should now look at recovering £289 million+ from BaE profits. And do the same every time they try and Fleece the tax payer!

[ArmChairCivvy]

I was purely speculating why it has taken so long (2011-2016) to announce the resolution.