UK Defence Forum

Lord Jim wrote:How about the Arrowheads being built in Denmark and fitted out in the UK.

Didn’t the Danish construction yard close in 2012?

Whilst value for money for the tax payer should be important it shouldn’t be the be all and end all. The problem is that it is seen in isolation rather than a joined up strategy that would give savings / benefits over time.

Now that the T31 IMO is dead in the water, I’d see the following for the next 20 years:
- BAE builds the T26 and ultimate replacement to replacement to the T45 - if Scotland ever becomes independent it will be a long process and would move to somewhere like Cammell Laird.
- Cammel Laird focuses on building RFA ships - 2 FSSs, 2 new Class* then a future LHD.
- Appledore focuses on building a new (Venari) MHPC class

* Given that funds for a new LHD are probably a while away, and with the eventual withdrawal of RFA Argus and RFA Victoria, I’m thinking that there is a need for a new RFA class if 2 ships - the roles would cover:

- Supporting a 5 ASW Merlin Helicopter group, for example for operating in the North Atlantic.
- A SF base capable of hosting a company of RMs / SFs with ability for helicopter and small boat insertion (e.g. 4 LCVP sized craft on davits and rear loading ramp).
- An Aviation Support Ship to work alongside a LPD
- Modular hospital for HADR

Alongside this scrap the 2nd reserve LPD, and make Amphibious Assault a part time capability, ultimately replacing the other LPD with a large 40,000t LHD.

Lord Jim wrote:How about the Arrowheads being built in Denmark and fitted out in the UK.

If you're looking to save money you might be better off building the blocks in the same Estonian and Lithuanian yards that the Iver Huitfeldt blocks were built in.

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.

Simple solution, a British consortium submits a competitive bid.

I honest to God hope these ships end up being British built. But the industry has to be able to compete in a competitive market.

Cammell Laird won the contract for the RSS following an international tendering process.

Repulse wrote:Now that the T31 IMO is dead in the water

IMO, wishful thinking on your part. Dropping to only 14 escorts is unacceptable. Even if the T31 is not the "full fat" escort that many want, it will at least be capable of supporting CVF operations, in a way that neither the Rivers or the fantasy Venari can. However, off-topic.

The FSS does seem to have a lot riding on it's shoulders at the moment. Everybody and his dog wants to shoehorn evermore capability into these hulls. I have a radical proposal - lets just make them really good at delivering stores and equipment, both to ships at sea and to forces on shore. The budget should cover RAS, VERTREP, mexeflotes and a steel beach. If funds permit, improve the ships ability to deliver stores, but leave out the ASW capabilities, Aviation Support, medical facilities etc. Three seems to be the minimum that we need if we are ever to operate both CVFs at the same time.

For Aviation Support and PCRS, I would propose either a small LPH, or possibly a design based on the Bay-class. I think that Argus has shown that the two functions can co-exist reasonably well.

I would agree make the ship really good at delivering stores where they are needed. all they need is a full width hangar for 2 Merlins and for me a well dock to allow stores to shore capability when in support of Amphib ops or HADR mission

RichardIC wrote:

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.

Simple solution, a British consortium submits a competitive bid.

I honest to God hope these ships end up being British built. But the industry has to be able to compete in a competitive market.

Cammell Laird won the contract for the RSS following an international tendering process.

So you think Cammel Laird was the lowest bidder?

Dream on.

As it was, the ship was designed in Norway.

Caribbean wrote:

Repulse wrote:Now that the T31 IMO is dead in the water

IMO, wishful thinking on your part. Dropping to only 14 escorts is unacceptable. Even if the T31 is not the "full fat" escort that many want, it will at least be capable of supporting CVF operations, in a way that neither the Rivers or the fantasy Venari can. However, off-topic.

The FSS does seem to have a lot riding on it's shoulders at the moment. Everybody and his dog wants to shoehorn evermore capability into these hulls. I have a radical proposal - lets just make them really good at delivering stores and equipment, both to ships at sea and to forces on shore. The budget should cover RAS, VERTREP, mexeflotes and a steel beach. If funds permit, improve the ships ability to deliver stores, but leave out the ASW capabilities, Aviation Support, medical facilities etc. Three seems to be the minimum that we need if we are ever to operate both CVFs at the same time.

For Aviation Support and PCRS, I would propose either a small LPH, or possibly a design based on the Bay-class. I think that Argus has shown that the two functions can co-exist reasonably well.

I am not suggesting a merge of the FSS role and the multi-role Aviation Platform - please read my commments again.

Whilst I hope you are correct that your 5 T31es (if they happen) turn out to be useful, the fact that the RN has rejected the bare bones designs already suggested due to cost it’s pretty damn obvious it will be f-Ing useless. My view is just build 2 more T26s.

Pseudo wrote:

Lord Jim wrote:How about the Arrowheads being built in Denmark and fitted out in the UK.

If you're looking to save money you might be better off building the blocks in the same Estonian and Lithuanian yards that the Iver Huitfeldt blocks were built in.

If you are looking to save money, build them in the UK. A very significant percentage of anything ordered in the UK goes back to the treasury through taxes paid by companies and employees, as well as the taxes paid by the businesses they spend their wages with.

Ron5 wrote:So you think Cammel Laird was the lowest bidder?

I said they won following an international tendering process.

clinch wrote:If you are looking to save money, build them in the UK. A very significant percentage of anything ordered in the UK goes back to the treasury through taxes paid by companies and employees, as well as the taxes paid by the businesses they spend their wages with.

This is all going round in circles now.

Repulse wrote:the fact that the RN has rejected the bare bones designs already suggested due to cost it’s pretty damn obvious it will be f-Ing useless

I would love to see a quote confirming that the RN has rejected them, because I haven't seen one yet. HMG has pulled the plug for now, which could be due to money issues, but it's much more likely that the legal/ procedural issues were at the root of it, as stated. The two consortia involved both seem to think that, from their perspective, the project is both on track and of a standard to be acceptable to the RN.

clinch wrote:A very significant percentage of anything ordered in the UK goes back to the treasury through taxes paid by companies and employees

Indeed, around 36.9% comes back to the Treasury via taxes etc. according to an IFS UK tax briefing I was reading a few days ago.
Edit:

Repulse wrote:I am not suggesting a merge of the FSS role and the multi-role Aviation Platform

Not aimed at you, sorry - should have put more of a separator statement in there - there have been plenty of suggestions along those lines in this thread. Combining every facility under the sun into what is, after all, a specialised freighter. I would however, challenge your point that we only need two. If we are, over time, replacing all the other logistics ships with the SSS, then I would have said that we actually need more, not less.

I agree with the economic when looked at as a whole but that doesn't help the Defence Budget. If the ships cost 30" more to build in the UK then that is 30% that cannot be spent elsewhere. Now if that 30% was covered by a DTI subsidy for regional growth or similar then fine.

Lord Jim wrote:I agree with the economic when looked at as a whole but that doesn't help the Defence Budget. If the ships cost 30" more to build in the UK then that is 30% that cannot be spent elsewhere. Now if that 30% was covered by a DTI subsidy for regional growth or similar then fine.

That's the fault of the arseholes we've got running the country on some weird internal market. The simple fact is that because of employment and taxes paid, the cost of anything we order in the UK really costs a third less than the headline figure.

So if we don't subsidise the programme the MoD should get a rebate to cover the increased purchase price. Either way the MoD's budget is not there to create or maintain jobs.

Lord Jim wrote:I agree with the economic when looked at as a whole but that doesn't help the Defence Budget. If the ships cost 30" more to build in the UK then that is 30% that cannot be spent elsewhere. Now if that 30% was covered by a DTI subsidy for regional growth or similar then fine.

Not that simple. Main engine will be imported. Steel as well. I am not saying you are wrong, but we need more clear facts. Are there any such analysis?

But, I agree it will amount to more than 15% and possibly 20%.

And anyway it is not related to mod. Some other agency shall promote such program.

RichardIC wrote:I said they won following an international tendering process.

You were promoting the same methodology that awarded the RSS to Cammel Laird be used for the FSS contract.

However, without knowing the criteria under which the RSS contract was awarded, your proposal has very little merit.

Caribbean wrote:The two consortia involved both seem to think that, from their perspective, the project is both on track and of a standard to be acceptable to the RN.

I'd love to see the quote that supports this

donald_of_tokyo wrote:

Lord Jim wrote:I agree with the economic when looked at as a whole but that doesn't help the Defence Budget. If the ships cost 30" more to build in the UK then that is 30% that cannot be spent elsewhere. Now if that 30% was covered by a DTI subsidy for regional growth or similar then fine.

Not that simple. Main engine will be imported. Steel as well. I am not saying you are wrong, but we need more clear facts. Are there any such analysis?

But, I agree it will amount to more than 15% and possibly 20%.

And anyway it is not related to mod. Some other agency shall promote such program.

If you add in cost avoidance like not having to pay unemployment benefits to layed off UK workers and the societal benefits, others have estimated that awarding the contracts at home is worth several times their value. The French in particular, are strong advocates.

What is the Japanese view? It seems to me that most Japanese naval equipment is home produced.

I understand the wider benefits to the UK but we should not be spending more than we have to of the Defence Budget to support jobs and industry. Other departments have funding to do just that. The alternative is for the MoD to charge every other department when its assets are used to provide support and also for he construction of the platforms that may be asked to provide assistance and the training and support of the personnel who operate them.

Lord Jim wrote:I understand the wider benefits to the UK but we should not be spending more than we have to of the Defence Budget to support jobs and industry. Other departments have funding to do just that. The alternative is for the MoD to charge every other department when its assets are used to provide support and also for he construction of the platforms that may be asked to provide assistance and the training and support of the personnel who operate them.

So we end up sending all our jobs abroad, the economy contracts and the defence budget gets even smaller.

Ron5 wrote:So you think Cammel Laird was the lowest bidder?

Are you suggesting there were other better offers?

Lord Jim wrote:So if we don't subsidise the programme the MoD should get a rebate to cover the increased purchase price. Either way the MoD's budget is not there to create or maintain jobs.

Tell that to people employed by the MoD. Seriously though, I don't think that taking in to account the domestic economic benefits the proportion of funding that would be returned to the exchequer through tax is a bad idea. It'd provide an advantage to domestic bids and minimise the requirement for subsidies.

clinch wrote:

Lord Jim wrote:I understand the wider benefits to the UK but we should not be spending more than we have to of the Defence Budget to support jobs and industry. Other departments have funding to do just that. The alternative is for the MoD to charge every other department when its assets are used to provide support and also for he construction of the platforms that may be asked to provide assistance and the training and support of the personnel who operate them.

So we end up sending all our jobs abroad, the economy contracts and the defence budget gets even smaller.

Well if we want to manufacture our own kit then we have to pay for it, so hands up all who want a 5-10% increase in income tax. I am not saying all defence procurement should go to the cheapest bidder, there are areas where we are still top table manufacturers in the area of defence but building what are basically merchant vessels is not one of them. If we had a vibrant and profitable ship building industry like we used to have I would see no problem, but we have to pick out battles when it comes to retaining highly skilled manufacturing job and capabilities. Would you prefer to see the numbers of actual warships cut further so we can spend money we don't need to buying RFAs form UK yards that cannot compete on the world stage. No industry can survive today relying in orders from the UK Government. They either have to expand internationally like BAe or achieve exports sales. If we are going to simply pay whatever in the name of job creation we might as well re nationalise all out current defence industries, pay people's wages from taxation and watch things gradually fall apart.

Ron5 wrote:

donald_of_tokyo wrote:

Lord Jim wrote:I agree with the economic when looked at as a whole but that doesn't help the Defence Budget. If the ships cost 30" more to build in the UK then that is 30% that cannot be spent elsewhere. Now if that 30% was covered by a DTI subsidy for regional growth or similar then fine.

Not that simple. Main engine will be imported. Steel as well. I am not saying you are wrong, but we need more clear facts. Are there any such analysis?
But, I agree it will amount to more than 15% and possibly 20%.
And anyway it is not related to mod. Some other agency shall promote such program.

If you add in cost avoidance like not having to pay unemployment benefits to layed off UK workers and the societal benefits, others have estimated that awarding the contracts at home is worth several times their value. The French in particular, are strong advocates.
What is the Japanese view? It seems to me that most Japanese naval equipment is home produced.

Yes, in Japan, we keep buying weapons within our country, but the issues are complicated. These companies are not making big profit from it, has their own "main body" and they just keep those business as a duty/obligation. Now it is becoming relatively unhealthy, because each and every weapons are getting more and more expensive and thus less number.

Anyway, our system is not so good. On ship building, we don't have SSBN or big CV, and therefore somehow keeping the "pace" of escort building. On "other" vessels, our merchant ship building industry is not yet dead, so it is not that difficult.

Not easy to compare with UK.

Someone said, Japan is subsiding our own ship building industry. I have no idea, how and to what extent?

shark bait wrote:

Ron5 wrote:So you think Cammel Laird was the lowest bidder?

Are you suggesting there were other better offers?

Not sure how you got there.

I'm pretty sure the RSS design & build was one contract not two. Kinda like the Type 31 program where detailed design and build will be one deal.

So there's plenty of room for the combined CL/RR bid to have been superior other than on price.

But the original poster implied (at least to me) that the CL bid was won on price alone and that future RFA ships should be awarded in the same way. I vehemently disagree with that blinkered viewpoint and so do many others.