Maybe we should take a leaf out of Italys book be honest and say x% is funded from the Industry/Levelling up budget the payoff is in 10 years

On that basis Babcocks would win the build contract every time and BAE would be out of the shipbuilding business. Their cost base is much lower. IMHO it would rapidly trend towards the French model where there is one supplier Naval Group with Thales as a minority shareholder, supplying radar, CMS et...

If you were advising the government about where to place resources would it be to counter say blowing up a gas pipe line in the North Sea or closing the English Channel or blowing up a gas pipeline in sangu gas field off Bangladesh or closing the Singapore strait what do u think has more of a econo...

A mate who’s a London based Tory councillor, closely involved with one of the leadership campaigns. Neither Sunak nor Hunt are into defence and Wallace has come under a lot of pressure to suck it up for the sake of party unity. Hunts wife has her own program on chinese state tv and Infosys only clos...

Wallace has already been told he’s not getting three percent or any other commitment for that matter other than “a pledge to do my utmost to keep the country safe”, he hasn’t walked.

As T32 is not funded yet and Treasury are looking for cuts the BAE proposal would be an easy way of kicking it into the long grass. More time needed for studies etc turn it into a low cost research project and push it to the right. Maybe a couple of export T31s for NZ come along to keep Rosyth ticki...

Donald - san Youre assuming Babcock are the same as BAE. I’ve not worked for Babcock but I know people who have, a few things to bear in mind. They move people around - both between sites and between lines of business within a site. Not every discipline is Frigate-specific. A quality inspector is a ...

THE Absalon is slow, because it has only 2 diesels. IMO an Absalon variant with a second engine room could still have a ASF style layout without an issue. Lots of adaptions required but it is possible. Looks impossible for me... Doubling the diesel generator (including its intake and exhaust), enla...

The problem is both H&W and Cammell Laird have no cash to make a bid. Somebody else would have to bankroll the bid. Should BAE buy Cammell Laird so it can be a sister yard of Barrow like in VSEL days? Or Babcock buy H&W? Interesting question. Navantia will bankroll the bid because most of t...

We should be sending a team of observers - you know just a bit of quiet benchmarking. That might focus a few minds.

Assuming cancellation, does this mean we now have 500 turrets / CTA40 systems sitting around without a home?

Pillboxes in Ukraine? Maginot Line v2.0?

“Never underestimate the determination of an RAF officer to get himself qualified on a 737”
anonymous

Some wag on twitter was joking about helping Ukraine by donating them to Russia

Yes - devil you know and all that in the global energy cold war we need all the allies we can get. And they're unlikely to be allowed F35s anytime soon. A Batch 4 Typhoon with all the goodies might fit the bill nicely.

Interesting, Scholz was in Riyadh just recently cosying up to MBS, maybe the deal is back on. Surely the Tornados cannot last forever

The UK yards could then confidently bid for the MRSS contracts around 2030 They will need a large backer. I am expecting Navantia to be the prime contractor supported by BMT. There is another option and that is for HMG to invest in a mega-yard somewhere in the UK. This would involve concentrating a...

I’d guess probably not, it would likely be another consortium bid with Navantia backing them. But then how different is this from RBSL/Boxer or Leonardo/AW149? In terms of secrecy / obfuscation at a wild guess I’d say politics rearing its ugly head ie Team UK committing to assembly in Rosyrh may not...

It depends on the overall quality of the proposal. If BAE are saying "we're going to charge you 3 billion and we won't invest in the yard, once this contract is finished we'll just shut up shop like we did at Portsmouth" and Navantia are saying "We want to be a long term player in the...

I have to admit I have some sympathy with the MOD on this. When was the last time BAE / Babcock built this kind of ship? It could end up costing a packet. And would you really want to distract their attention from T31/T26? But if Navantia can commit to knowledge transfer and upskilling at either Cam...

These deployments seem like a great recruitment tool and/or training exercise for future crew of T26s.

At minimal cost we've rekindled old partnerships and flown the flag, good stuff

Unfortunately Treasury call the shots and Treasury have a short term cash based perspective. There’s a reason we haven’t built a nuclear power plant in 40 years. Departments can produce all the strategy documents they like but until there’s fundamental reform at the center it’s all just talk Depress...

Caribbean wrote: ↑06 Oct 2022, 10:50

SKB wrote: ↑06 Oct 2022, 10:14 So HMS Boaty McBoatface 2?!

I suspect any offboard systems are going to end up with some inventive names!

How about HMS "Doveryay, no Proveryay"

Maybe time for a second copy of RSS Sir David Attenborough? Gabriele Molinelli does agree with you: https://twitter.com/Gabriel64869839/status/1576902868228984832/photo/1 We should have ordered two sister ships immediately after RSS Attenborough was complete, Cammells went through all the pain of l...

Maybe time for a second copy of RSS Sir David Attenborough? Gabriele Molinelli does agree with you: https://twitter.com/Gabriel64869839/status/1576902868228984832/photo/1 We should have ordered two sister ships immediately after RSS Attenborough was complete, Cammells went through all the pain of l...

Open Source info - the body is the same diameter as Aster 15/30