UK Defence Forum

Excellent news and a procurement envelope before the next election is also very welcome.

Second vessel is in all likelihood funded by the scrapping of the national yacht.

Solid decision making and prioritisation returns.

Repulse wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 07:35 It’s a good move. For a 100% available capability 2 vessels are essential. Would like one or both to have an ice breaking capability also, given the role will stretch from the Artic to the Azores.

Even something like the Canadian Harry deWolf Arctic OPV. They have a Polar Class 5 Icebreaking rating, which should be sufficient for RN service in Norwegian / Greenland / Barents Seas.

wargame_insomniac wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 18:01Even something like the Canadian Harry deWolf Arctic OPV.

I hope we can build them cheaper than the Canadians

Poiuytrewq wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 18:16

wargame_insomniac wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 18:01Even something like the Canadian Harry deWolf Arctic OPV.

I hope we can build them cheaper than the Canadians

I am not sure how good a state is the Canadian domestic shipbuilding industry. Not sure what else they have built recently.

Maybe time for a second copy of RSS Sir David Attenborough?

Caribbean wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 19:52 Maybe time for a second copy of RSS Sir David Attenborough?

Is it a different mission? Rather than taking supplies etc to fixed Antartic research stations for six months a year, it would be monitoring undersea cables and gas pipelines etc at whole load of locations for 12 months a year (albeit if two ships for High North can alternate active deployments to allow time for crew training & leave and ship repair & maintenance).

https://www.navylookout.com/protecting- ... e-by-2023/

Great Article and informative movie, very informative. I strongly recommend to watch though it. Great technlogy, it is.

Caribbean wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 19:52 Maybe time for a second copy of RSS Sir David Attenborough?

Gabriele Molinelli does agree with you:

wargame_insomniac wrote: ↑04 Oct 2022, 19:05

Caribbean wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 19:52 Maybe time for a second copy of RSS Sir David Attenborough?

Gabriele Molinelli does agree with you:

It does seem to have most of the desirable attributes already.

Offboard systems handling and hangarage, heavy duty crane, moon pool, 60 day endurance and 19,000km range, automated station keeping, silent running, helicopter/ UAV hangers, ice-capable hull (level 4), lots of spare room (laboratories) that could be re-purposed to UUV/ UAV control rooms, cargo space that could also be adapted for additional fuel/ water/ supplies /other. Another big, adaptable hull

Maybe add diver/ diving bell support and decompression facilities/ med bay.

I don't think it would take a lot to tailor it for a different role.

I think was geeting confused between HMS Protector and RSS Sir David Attenborough....
Whoops!!


IIRC RSS Sir David Attenborough was built in blocks and then assembld by Cammell Laird.
Not sure what work Cammell Laird have got on at the moment.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/1 ... veillance/

Ben Wallace to buy seabed warfare ship 'now' for underwater surveillance
Modified warship to counter increased Russian threat after sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, Defence Secretary says


A new ship that can launch drones to keep the seabed under surveillance for threats to underwater cables and pipelines will be purchased for the Royal Navy immediately because "I need it now", the Defence Secretary has said.

The “seabed warfare ship” will be specially modified to counter the increased threat from Russia in the wake of a suspected sabotage attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline to Germany.

Ben Wallace stopped short of blaming Russia for the attack in an interview with The Telegraph, but said it was clear that it was a "deliberate act".

Drones and other undersea technology will be launched from the ships, in a bid to better protect critical national infrastructure. Design work on a second, bespoke vessel will start in 2023.

Ben Wallace said: “Britain [is] deeply vulnerable because we are so dependent on our internet cables.

“We will have to do a lot more work to look at those infrastructures to satisfy ourselves that there is no more vulnerability.”

On Monday night, the Royal Navy moved a Type-23 frigate to the North Sea to work with Norwegian counterparts, providing security to workers on gas pipeline infrastructure.

HMS Enterprise, an Echo-class survey vessel, is already patrolling the area following concerns about Russian naval activity.

The first of the two 'Multi-Role Ocean Survey Ships', to be known as the Seabed Warfare variant, will be operational by the end of next year.

This vessel will be specifically equipped with underwater drones and other sensitive technology similar to the Russian micro spy submarine Losharik, which is thought to be capable of tapping or destroying internet cables.

The second ship, to be used for “deep water military data gathering”, will be a longer programme and built in the UK.

The defence secretary said the reason for buying and modifying an existing vessel from the open market was that “I need it now”.

He said the world is “too vulnerable” to take the risk of delaying the purchase to design a ship from scratch.

“We’ll commission a second one with slightly different functions.

“We often see - and have done over months and years - suspicious activity by Russian spy ships and Russian vessels doing things in the region of our cables and pipelines.

“It’s not uncommon [to see] Russian spy ships.”

He said it was “no secret” the Russian Navy’s Special Mission Submarine programme, run by GUGI (the Main Directorate of Deep Sea Research) and based in Olenya Bay on the Kola Peninsula on the coast of the Barents Sea, was targeting critical national infrastructure in the North Atlantic.

Investigations are still ongoing into the blasts on the Nord Stream pipelines on Sept 26, for which western countries had no warnings, Mr Wallace said.

“We didn’t have any direct warning that this was going to happen, I don’t think anyone did.”

Although no country has yet been blamed for the explosions, Mr Wallace said “it looks like a deliberate act” which could draw a response from Nato.

“If it was a deliberate and malicious act by a hostile state [the response] would probably be planned through NATO,” he said on a visit to British troops in Poland.

“Nato would have to think about how it would respond.

“In parallel, depending on how the pipeline was damaged, there would be work for all of us to check our own infrastructure and protect it.”

Mr Wallace said the pipeline attack was being treated as a crime by Danish and Swedish authorities.

“The legal status is that it's in the economic zone of both Sweden and Denmark but is in international waters,” he said, cautioning “if the Russians wanted to turn up and investigate - to help - there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

“They could just turn up and do it, so it’s important we keep an eye out.”

However, the defence secretary said any potential offer of help from Russia during the ongoing investigation would not be taken up.

“I always think it’s best to keep the fox away from the chicken coop,” he said.

Repulse wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 07:35 It’s a good move. For a 100% available capability 2 vessels are essential. Would like one or both to have an ice breaking capability also, given the role will stretch from the Artic to the Azores.

Would the RSS David Attenborough design work there the. If not a full Ice breaker was it not ice strengthend ?

Dahedd wrote: ↑06 Oct 2022, 07:53

Repulse wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 07:35 It’s a good move. For a 100% available capability 2 vessels are essential. Would like one or both to have an ice breaking capability also, given the role will stretch from the Artic to the Azores.

Would the RSS David Attenborough design work there the. If not z full I've breaker was it nit icw strengthend ?

Yes - RSS SDA has an Ice Level 4 hull and Level 5 propulsion (where 1 is the most capable and 7 the least)

From memory Level 4 is new ice up to 1 metre thick with old ice inclusions (apologies if I misremembered) at up to 3 knots. Level 5 is without the old ice inclusions (but hopefully they won't be reversing into the ice )

wargame_insomniac wrote: ↑04 Oct 2022, 19:05

Caribbean wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 19:52 Maybe time for a second copy of RSS Sir David Attenborough?

Gabriele Molinelli does agree with you:

We should have ordered two sister ships immediately after RSS Attenborough was complete, Cammells went through all the pain of learning how to build ships again, the workforce was in place, just crack on.

wargame_insomniac wrote: ↑04 Oct 2022, 19:05

Caribbean wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 19:52 Maybe time for a second copy of RSS Sir David Attenborough?

Gabriele Molinelli does agree with you:

We should have ordered two sister ships immediately after RSS Attenborough was complete, Cammells went through all the pain of learning how to build ships again, the workforce was in place, just crack on.

So HMS Boaty McBoatface 2?!

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!

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"

SD67 wrote: ↑06 Oct 2022, 13:22 Doveryay, no Proveryay

"Why? Because, I like it!"

First to get the reference gets to splice the virtual mainbrace!

SD67 wrote: ↑06 Oct 2022, 09:33

wargame_insomniac wrote: ↑04 Oct 2022, 19:05

Caribbean wrote: ↑03 Oct 2022, 19:52 Maybe time for a second copy of RSS Sir David Attenborough?

Gabriele Molinelli does agree with you:

We should have ordered two sister ships immediately after RSS Attenborough was complete, Cammells went through all the pain of learning how to build ships again, the workforce was in place, just crack on.

When I read the National Shipbuilding Strategy Refresh in March 2022 I was really pleased - for the first time we seemed to be learning the right lessons from USN having a 30-50 year shipbuilding plan. With CVN having an expected service life of 50 years and most other ships being 30 years. So the USN would have a drumbeat production plan of e.g. as a rough example: a CVN every 5 years, a LHD every 3 years, a LPD/LSD every year, 2-3 DD evey year etc.

But having come up with a 30 year plan of every ship class and approx numbers, for both RN and other UK government departments, then we have nt stuck to it. Yet again we were looking at delays for ordering not just the MROSS but also 3*Fleet Solid Support Ships and 6*Multi Role Support Ships.

Especially given the release also this March of strategy paper The UKs Defence Contribution in the High North, where the need for MROSS that could operate in the Arctic was obvious. We need that drumbeat for those shipyards that are going to primarily producing RN ships so that they can retain heir trained staff, and also on individual ship classes to obtain benefits of economies of production efficiencies.

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
Depressing

donald_of_tokyo wrote: ↑04 Oct 2022, 15:02 https://www.navylookout.com/protecting- ... e-by-2023/

Great Article and informative movie, very informative. I strongly recommend to watch though it. Great technlogy, it is.

You were saying?

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/plans-new-na ... -confirms/

Mr Wallace told MPs he was prioritising the procurement of the multi-role ocean surveillance ship (MROSS) instead of the flagship.

"In the face of the Russian illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and (Vladimir) Putin's reckless disregard of international arrangements designed to keep world order, it is right that we prioritise delivering capabilities which safeguard our national infrastructure," he said.

That meant he had "also directed the termination of the national flagship competition with immediate effect to bring forward the first MROSS ship in its place".

Mr Wallace told MPs the MROSS would "protect sensitive defence infrastructure and civil infrastructure" and "improve our ability to detect threats to the seabed and cables".

If Ben Wallace is saying he wants it delivered early next year hull 1 will obviously be an off the shelf buy. I read somewhere that it would manned by RFA, not so sure about that..

hovematlot wrote: ↑08 Nov 2022, 16:26 If Ben Wallace is saying he wants it delivered early next year hull 1 will obviously be an off the shelf buy. I read somewhere that it would manned by RFA, not so sure about that..

Yes - the original statement explicitly stated that hull will be an off the shelf buy.
Not yet sure which companies or designs being considered.