UK Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

FORBIN said:

4/5 years for equip only 4 with missiles recovered in more ! 1 Bill Livres ships without Harpoon !!!

...

Click to expand...

Jeff Head said:

Type 45 with Harpoons.
...

'bout time.

Click to expand...

Britain’s nuclear submarine effort is a monster-sized undertaking that keeps the Ministry of Defence’s top civil servant awake at night, the official admitted to the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee Wednesday.

Jon Thompson, the permanent undersecretary at the MoD and the man responsible for keeping defense spending in check, told lawmakers that renewing Britain’s nuclear deterrent was the biggest project the ministry was ever going to tackle.

“The project I worry about the most in relation to future financial risk is the nuclear enterprise. It’s a significant element of the overall equipment plan ... it most keeps me awake at night,” he told the committee during a session examining the MoD’s progress in improving financial management.

The defense nuclear enterprise covers the equipment, infrastructure and people required to deliver the UK deterrent and nuclear powered submarines, including the new Astute-class hunter killer boats and Trident missile boats.

The third of an expected seven Astute-class nuclear submarine fleet recently left the BAE Systems' yard at Barrow-In-Furness for sea trials.

Thompson, one of the principle architects behind the MoD’s improved control of its budgets in the last few years, said if the government goes ahead with plans to build a new generation of nuclear missile submarines, annual costs of nuclear-related work will exceed £5 billion (US $7.7 billion) a year compared with today’s figure of more than £3.5 billion.

Britain’s defense procurement and support spending this year is set at nearly £13 billion. Peak spending on the Successor nuclear deterrent program is expected to get underway next year and run until the late 2020s, consuming a major part of the equipment budget.

“It’s the single biggest future financial risk we face. The project is a monster. It’s an incredibly complicated area to estimate future costs but we will make them,” he said.

The Conservative government has not given an up-to-date estimate of the program costs. Previously, it has said the submarines would cost between £11 billion and £14 billion at 2006 prices and estimated an overall cost of up to £20 billion when infrastructure and other costs are wrapped in.

In its 10-year defense equipment plan of 2014-2024, the MoD said it planned to spend around £40 billion on submarine procurement and support.

Thompson said an updated equipment spending plan covering the decade up to 2025 is likely to be published in the next couple of weeks.

The Conservative government is expected to seek parliamentary approval next year to start building four Trident missile-carrying Successor submarines to replace the same number of Vanguard-class boats tasked with providing Britain’s nuclear deterrence.

The Labour Party, the main opposition party, has previously been committed to a credible nuclear deterrent, but the recent election of the left-winger Jeremy Corbyn as the party leader has thrown that policy into confusion.

Even so, the Conservatives would expect to secure approval for the program as a number of Labour Party members of Parliament would likely vote with the government or abstain.

BAE Systems and its industrial partners, Babcock International and Rolls-Royce, have been working on a five-year, £3.3 billion assessment phase ahead of an expectation of starting to cut metal on the first boat next year.

Functional engineering on the Successor is more or less complete and BAE is now into the spatial engineering phase ahead of the expected development and production go ahead in 2016.

The first of the new class of submarines is expected to enter service in 2028. Some long lead items are already being funded and infrastructure projects undertaken to allow construction and operation of the boats.

Aside from the Trident missile, Britain is collaborating with the US on a common missile compartment and associated navigation, fire control and launch systems.

General Dynamics Electric Boat already has a contract for the first 12 missile tubes destined for the Successor program.

Click to expand...

Jura said:

Some Is Better Than None
Royal Navy’s Diamond Gets New Gadgets

source:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

The crew of HMS Diamond have been reunited with their ship after spending months ashore while it received a multi-million pound upgrade. The Portsmouth-based

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

has undergone extensive maintenance and improvements since it returned from operations last July.
Work included installation of the potent Harpoon missile system and upgrades to communications and IT equipment. The ship also has a new gas turbine and stabilisers plus upgraded high-pressure salt water and air systems.

Her Commanding Officer, Commander Marcus Hember, said: “The day the ship’s company move back on board is a big day for us. “It marks the point at which we can take back full ownership of our ship and begin the process of regeneration. “Whilst it is a long process, we are all, ultimately, working towards our deployment in 2016, getting back out on operations and doing what the Royal Navy does best.”

The new systems and equipment will now be fully tested during several months of trials at sea and alongside in Portsmouth. On completion the crew will be put through operational sea training, testing their war-fighting and damage control skills ahead of Diamond’s deployment on operations next year.

Click to expand...

Equation said:

Jobs are increasing and the unemployment rate had decrease whenever there's a Democrat as president since the last two decades. I felt the Republican panders too much to the likes of Trump and his 1%er buddies, and now since he's running the polls they just can't seem to shake the Frankenstein that they made.

Click to expand...

Jura said:

... and I think this is related:
found it a moment ago in
UK and NATO navies take further small steps in developing ballistic missile defence

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

​

Aircraft Carrier Alliance said:

A cutting-edge 3D radar system, capable of detecting objects as small as a tennis ball and travelling at three times the speed of sound more than 25Km away, has been successfully installed to the Royal Navy’s future aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth.

Known as Artisan 3D the radar system will be used for the first time to deliver air traffic management, providing the aircraft carriers with unparalleled awareness and control of the skies around them. The successful installation of Artisan took place in late September, marking another major milestone in the preparation for sea trials.

The Artisan 3D system designed and developed by BAE Systems, can monitor more than 800 objects simultaneously from 200 to 200,000 metres and cut through radio interference equal to 10,000 mobile phone signals. The radar system has already proven its capability to deliver uncompromising air defence and anti-ship operations on the Type 23 frigate and helicopter carrier.

Les Gregory, Director for Products and Training Services at BAE Systems said: “Artisan is a ground-breaking radar system that delivers real capability to the Royal Navy in its supreme accuracy and uncompromising tracking. In addition, its world-leading electronic protection measure ensures that even the most complex of jammers will not reduce its effectiveness. We have already seen the radar perform excellently on the Type 23 frigates and are proud to be able to bring this advanced technology to the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers utilising its air traffic management capability for the first time.”

Rear Admiral Henry Parker, Defence Equipment & Support Director of Ship Acquisition, said: “The addition of such an effective system, which has already proved itself on the Royal Navy’s Type 23 Frigates, will provide HMS Queen Elizabeth with first-class radar performance. The construction of the Queen Elizabeth Class carriers has created and sustained thousands of UK jobs and will act as a spearhead for our naval capability for years to come.”

The new aircraft carriers will become the flagship of the Royal Navy and demand the very best radar technology to deliver uncompromising carrier strike capability anywhere in the world. The carriers will also be versatile enough to be used for operations ranging from supporting war efforts to providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Artisan 3D was designed and developed for the ACA at its sites in Cowes, Chelmsford and Portsmouth and the system is currently in use on the Royal Navy Type 23 frigates. Preparations to install the radar system on to HMS Queen Elizabeth have taken two and a half years with engineers from the Aircraft Carrier Alliance working closely with the Ministry of Defence. Part of this work included creating a life-sized mock-up of the carriers’ aft island in Cowes which was used to hone the radar’s interaction with the combat systems on-board the Queen Elizabeth Class carriers, to deliver an optimal integrated solution.

Click to expand...

​