Naval backbone: the type 26 anti-submarine warship awaiting approval
This month sees a key moment in the UK defence shipbuilding programme with the official naming of one of the Royal Navy’s two new aircraft carriers.
It was not always certain that the project to build the carriers would go ahead. Following the 2010 general election, outgoing prime minister Gordon Brown warned that Rosyth’s dockyard – one of the largest local employers in his Fife constituency – could face the axe if the government cancelled either carrier.
The plan survived cuts to the defence budget under the Strategic Defence Review, which saw large reductions in troop levels. There were cuts to equipment programmes, too: after long delays and technical problems, at a total cost of £3.2 billion, the Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft project was scrapped. The report also marked the early retirement of the joint-force Harrier aircraft, the Harrier GR7/GR9 – a measure designed to save money for the purchase of the Queen Elizabeth-class carrier. The Harrier fleet made its last operational flights in December 2010.
But the large naval dockyard of Rosyth, established in 1909, is still busy. As PE went to press, HMS Queen Elizabeth was due to be named at the dockyard on the Firth of Forth. For David Downs, engineering director at the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, which comprises Thales, Babcock, BAE Systems and the Ministry of Defence, it will be a proud moment.
Rosyth will then prepare to start receiving segments of HMS Prince of Wales, the second carrier. Blocks of carrier have been built at shipyards around the country and final assembly takes place at the Rosyth dockyard.
Downs describes the process of manufacture as “unusual”. For example, the last of the main hull sections for HMS Queen Elizabeth, LB04, had to undertake a 600-mile voyage via giant barge to Rosyth. Its route took it around the northern coast of Scotland. BAE took more than two-and-a-half years to construct the block, using a team of 1,500 workers.
Downs says: “None of us were born the last time an aircraft carrier was designed in this country.”
It was inevitable that an alliance was required, he says. “The size and scale of the project was such that there wasn’t a single entity in industry that could have built the whole lot. It had to be a UK-wide enterprise involving partners – and of course the Ministry of Defence. It needed all the shipyards available.”
While the second carrier is constructed at Rosyth, BAE’s yards in Glasgow are likely to be involved in the first steel cut of the type 26 global combat ship in 2016 – providing the programme is rubber-stamped by the government at the end of the year. A 6,000-tonne, low-noise, 149-metre vessel with vertical launch silos, towed-sonar-array, and medium-calibre gun, type 26 is an anti-submarine warship now at the detailed design phase. By the 2030s, it is intended to be the “backbone of the UK’s surface fleet, and a strong industrial base is essential to sustaining this naval capability”, says BAE. If the programme goes ahead, it will involve 13 ships, the last of which will be delivered in the middle of that decade.
Both of BAE’s yards in Glasgow, Scotstoun and Govan, depend on the type 26 programme going ahead, and the company is considering what to do with both yards. Preliminary work has begun on new manufacturing facilities at Scotstoun but a question mark hangs over Govan’s future. Geoff Searle, who is responsible for the programme at BAE, says: “We’ve been doing some site clearance and demolition at Scotstoun, but we’re working on the detailed design of the facility. The decision to commit to build is dependent on getting the type 26 contract at the end of the year.”
He adds: “As well as a new facility at Scotstoun, we’re looking at an option for using Scotstoun and Govan, similar to how we built type 45 [see box, right] but with some upgrades. If we consolidate all of our shipbuilding on a single site in Scotstoun, we’ll look at the future of Govan. There may be other options for that site – or we may end up closing it.”
Some 200 companies are being invited to tender for the next phase of the type 26 programme. About 70-80% of these are either British companies or have bases here, but more mainland European companies are getting involved than in the past, says Searle.
Rolls-Royce is supplying propulsion systems, David Brown gearboxes, Raytheon the integrated navigation and bridge systems, and Babcock the air weapons handling system. GE Power Conversion is supplying electric propulsion motors and drive systems. French company DCNS, one of the leading shipbuilders in Europe, is working on the vessel’s propulsion shaftlines, and Swiss firm Tyco International’s fire and integrated solutions business in the UK is to supply and design its fixed firefighting systems.
Simon Rooks, sales director for oil and gas, marine and energy at Tyco in the UK, where the company employs about 5,000 people, says the relationship with the military has been built up over many years. Defence sales probably account for 10% of its business in Britain, he adds. “We have engineers who specialise in defence work because you need to understand the language, the environment and the security implications.”
The challenge is to take commercially available systems and integrate them into bespoke ship designs. Selection as a supplier involves a “tough and time-consuming” process, he says. “We’ve been around the environment a long time, but they put you through the hoops commercially and technically – and they are right to do so.”
The type 26 hull has been optimised for low noise using the latest computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques, says Searle. “That has been a big help in refining and optimising it,” he says. CFD was coupled with scale model testing in a Qinetiq test tank. The ship will operate on electric propulsion to cut down on noise during anti-submarine operations and the first ship may enter service in the early 2020s, he says. “It’s a fantastic long-term programme for the US and UK supply chain.” The programme will support 8,000-9,000 jobs if it goes ahead.
The type 26 programme is critical to the industry’s future, but the programme helping to sustain the sector has been the carrier building, as well as submarine build at Barrow-in-Furness (see box below). “HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales have been vital to the shipbuilding industry,” says Downs.
Propulsion tests on HMS Queen Elizabeth await. As for the other carrier, the bulk of HMS Prince of Wales has been constructed, he says. “We need to get Queen Elizabeth out of drydock so we can get Prince of Wales in. It won’t be long before we have two ships in place.”
Meanwhile, trade unions at the yards may find themselves at odds with Scottish nationalism. They are concerned about the potential impact of Scottish secession from the UK. Officials from the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions last month met the secretary of state for Scotland, Alistair Carmichael, to express concerns that the MoD contracts sustaining the industry might disappear in the event of a ‘Yes’ vote in September.
So shipbuilders might well find they are urged to vote to remain part of the UK. Guidance from Holyrood on the matter is said to be lacking. As Scotland ponders its fate in terms of remaining part of the UK, it’s an anxious time for many in shipbuilding.
Royal birth: the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier in dry dock
Portsmouth wins destroyer maintenance
BAE Systems has been awarded a £70 million contract to manage support, maintenance and upgrading for the type 45 destroyers.
The deal will sustain 100 roles until November 2016 at the company’s operation in Portsmouth, where more than 1,000 jobs were lost almost a year ago – marking the end of shipbuilding there but the retention of repairs and maintenance work.
At the time the job cuts were announced, BAE employed around 1,200 staff in Portsmouth and 3,200 at Scotstoun and Govan in Glasgow, Rosyth, and Filton in Bristol. Across these other sites, more than 800 positions were axed.
BAE said the type 45 contract underlined the company’s capability in servicing and upgrading the Royal Navy’s fleet. It services the Royal Navy’s four river class vessels under a £22 million contract awarded last year and services all type 23 ships based at Portsmouth as well as managing HM Portsmouth Naval Base for the navy.
Minister for defence equipment, support and technology, Philip Dunne MP, said: “This contract is good news for Portsmouth. It will protect the skills of around 100 expert engineers and makes clear that the future of the city’s ship support industry is bright.
“It is essential that the ships receive top-class support, and Portsmouth has the skills needed to do this. This is another demonstration of the Royal Navy’s commitment to the shipyard, which will continue to play an important role in the city’s future.”
The six Daring Class type 45 ships – HMS Daring, HMS Dauntless, HMS Diamond, HMS Dragon, HMS Defender and HMS Duncan – are the largest and most powerful air defence destroyers ever operated by the Royal Navy. They were designed and built by BAE Systems. The first three ships were assembled by BAE’s surface fleet solutions, constructed, as with the carriers, from partially prefabricated blocks built at different shipyards. The first ship, HMS Daring, was launched in February 2006 and commissioned in July 2009.
The ships were built to replace the type 42 destroyers that had served during the Falklands War. The destroyers’ Sea Viper anti-air missile system ensures that the type 45s can destroy incoming threats from the air while BAE’s Sampson multi-function radar can simultaneously detect and track more than 400 targets, providing a fully automatic operation when rapid reaction is required.
The Govan shipyard, which built one of the type 45 blocks, would have been a different place without the destroyer. If the contract had not been awarded, the shipyard would have needed to focus more strongly on international customers to survive.
In May, BAE Systems launched Artful, the third of seven Astute-class submarines being built for the Royal Navy, into the dock at its site in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria. The company is investing more than £300 million in the site to prepare for the planned construction of the successor to the Vanguard-class submarine, which is awaiting approval.
Artful, a 97m, 7,400-tonne, nuclear-powered attack submarine, is undergoing the next phase of its test-and-commissioning process ahead of sea trials next year. The first two vessels in the Astute class – HMS Astute and HMS Ambush – have been handed over to the Royal Navy, while the others are in various stages of construction.
BAE is also leading on the design of a replacement for the Vanguard – which carries the nuclear deterrent Trident – working alongside the Ministry of Defence, Babcock and Rolls-Royce. BAE is the UK’s only designer and builder of nuclear-powered submarines, and the redevelopment of Barrow is intended to ensure it remains at the forefront of submarine design, build, test and commissioning. The programme to replace Vanguard remains subject to final approval in 2016. If approved, the project would see the first new submarine enter service in 2028, says BAE.
Demolition of some existing buildings at Barrow began in April. Works include an extension to the Devonshire Dock Hall to include a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility; two new major buildings that will house pressure hull units ready for shot blast and paint, and the integration of submarine equipment modules; and refurbishment of the site’s main fabrication facility. The company also intends to build a 28,000m2 offsite logistics facility to store submarine parts and materials.