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  7 août 2019 | International, Naval

  A hazy future: Amid a competition to build British frigates, a UK shipyard hits hard times

  By: Andrew Chuter LONDON — The Northern Irish shipyard that built the Titanic ceased business Aug. 5, and its part in a bid to build a new class of the general-purpose frigate for the British Royal Navy appears to have sunk with it. Harland and Wolff was the lead U.K. yard in a proposal by German-based warship company Atlas Elektronik to build five Type 31e frigates for the Royal Navy. But the Belfast shipyard of Harland and Wolff went into administration after a 158-year history, which included production of the Titanic and ended with its parent company insolvent and running out of offshore renewable-energy work that had become the mainstay of its business. Industry executives, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that unless Atlas has a plan B, the bid has likely been scuttled by the Belfast yard slipping into administration and thus putting the jobs of 125 on-site workers at risk. Atlas Elektronik UK did not return calls regarding its bid. British warships must be locally built, but designs can be foreign. Atlas Elektronik UK is offering parent company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems' Meko A200 frigate to Britain. Currently, Atlas Elektronik and its U.K. partners Harland and Wolff and Ferguson Marine Engineering of Scotland are vying for the deal against rival proposals led by BAE Systemsand Babcock International. An announcement by the Ministry of Defence on a winning bidder for the program worth more than £1.25 billion (U.S. $1.52 billion) could come next month. The procurement competition was aimed at breaking the local maritime monopoly of BAE Systems. Sharing work across the shipbuilding sector via the Type 31e was part of a national shipbuilding strategy published by the British government in 2017. A strategy review was completed this year by its author, John Parker, but the findings have not been published by the MoD. New Defence Procurement Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyn, the fourth such minister in three years, will likely give Parker's findings a close review. Trevelyn has no previous ministerial experience, but she is known in maritime circles for her membership of Parliament's all-party group on shipbuilding and ship repair, which recently published a report advocating for the domestic production of a new fleet of logistics support ships. However, it's unclear how long the government, and hence the new ministerial team at the MoD, will survive given the political uncertainty here around Britain's exit from the European Union and murmurings of a general election. Buy British? The logistic vessels, known here as fleet solid support ships, are not considered military vessels by the British government; this is so the government can procure them more cheaply overseas. A competition is underway with a U.K. team led by BAE Systems bidding against overseas rivals. But the tide may be turning, as there's parliamentary pressure that two or three large supply ships be built locally. The industry executives who spoke to Defense News said that although the upcoming DSEI defense show had been touted as a possible venue for some kind of an announcement, the timing was — like most other defense issues — clouded by political uncertainties, including the appointment of a new defense secretary and defense procurement minister as part of the government reshuffle by the new prime minister, Boris Johnson. An MoD spokesman said the department wouldn't provide a running commentary on the Type 31e competition or Harland and Wolff's part in it. However, the spokesman did suggest an announcement could take place after DSEI. “It would be inappropriate to comment on Harland and Wolff's involvement in the Type 31e program, whilst this is subject to an ongoing competition," the spokesman said. “The competitive design phase is proceeding to schedule. The outcome of the competition for the design and build of the ships will be announced by December 2019.” All three bidders have been in a competitive design phase ahead of submitting their proposals in late June. The MoD previously ran a competition for the Type 31e (the "e" stands for export), but it halted the procurement effort when all of the bidders failed to submit fully compliant bids. The Royal Navy wants the first of the five Type 31e frigates handed over during 2023 to start replace aging Type 23 frigates in its fleet. Some analysts and industry executives think that's a tall order. The government originally demanded a price tag of no more than £250 million per frigate, although earlier this year, industry executives said the budget restriction had been abandoned, as the MoD agreed to supply more equipment and systems at its own expense. Atlas Elektronik isn't the only company with Harland and Wolff on its team. Babcock International also listed the Northern Irish yard in its proposal. But Babcock has various options, including using its site at Rosyth in Scotland, where the second of two aircraft carriers being assembled for the Royal Navy is now virtually complete. “Our solution for the T31(e) requirement includes a flexible U.K. build approach that can accommodate the use of a range of delivery sites,” a Babcock spokesman said. BAE's plan is to build it's Leander-class warships at the Cammell Laird yard near Liverpool while its own yards on the River Clyde in Scotland focus on completing the design and build of eight Type 26 anti-submarine warfare frigates destined for the Royal Navy. Three have been ordered so far. Steve Turner, the assistant general secretary for manufacturing at the Unite union, said there are strategic defense interests why the Belfast yard should be saved. “The shipyard works with BAE on the Dreadnought [nuclear] submarine program, has an important part to play in the building of the Royal Navy's new Type 31e and is central to the U.K. consortium's bid to build the Navy's fleet solid support ships,” Turner noted. “All this proud workforce needs is a temporary boost from government and a commitment from U.K. ministers that they will back U.K. shipbuilding by block building the new fleet solid support ships in yards across the UK." Harland and Wolff is not the only potential Type 31e supplier in a tough spot. Ferguson Marine, which has a yard on the River Clyde and has been part of the Atlas and Babcock proposals, is experiencing significant cost and time overruns building two ferries. Nationalization by the Scottish government is one option under consideration for the financially fragile company. https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2019/08/06/a-hazy-future-amid-a-competition-to-build-british-frigates-a-uk-shipyard-hits-hard-times/

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  1 avril 2024 | International, Naval

  Russia to start from scratch on some submarine parts amid sanctions

  The West has hit Russia with economic sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, making it difficult for the country to procure foreign-made components.

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  15 février 2021 | International, Naval

  It will be at least a decade before Canada sees any of its new frigates

  New frigates are being packed with more combat capability than comparable ships of allies Murray Brewster It will be 2031, at the earliest, before the navy sees the first of its new frigates; a setback brought about partly by the fact Canada, Britain and Australia are still feeling their way around how to build the ultra-modern warship. The outgoing president of Irving Shipbuilding Inc., which is in charge of constructing combat ships for the federal government, said he anticipates steel will be cut on the first of the new generation high-end warships by mid-2024. "We have been trying to take an honest look at where we are and what it will take to build the ship," said Kevin McCoy who recently announced his retirement from the East Coast shipbuilder. The current estimate is that it will take up to seven-and-a-half years to build the surface combatant, a timeline being used by Britain's BAE Systems Inc., which is constructing the first of what's known as the Type 26 design. Both Canada and Australia are building their own variants. "Early on [in the shipbuilding process] estimates are not very good," said McCoy. "Early estimates are not very good for price; they're not very good for size; they're not not very good for duration," McCoy said. "The British ship has a seven-and-a-half year build cycle. So, we're locked in. We said our build cycle will be seven-and-a-half years as well." If they can find ways to speed up the process, they will, he said. ANALYSIS Battle of the budget: DND gears up to defend cost of new warships in the new year Serving military member sues DND over mould exposure on warship Ottawa awards $2.4B contract to finish building navy's supply ships If that timeline holds, it means the federal government's marquee shipbuilding strategy will be two decades old by the time it produces the warship it was principally set up to create. While Irving has been pumping out smaller, less complicated arctic patrol ships and Seaspan, in Vancouver, is building coast guard and science vessels, the strategy conceived by the former Conservative government was driven by the necessity of replacing the navy's current fleet of Halifax-class frigates. Originally, when the shipbuilding strategy was unveiled, it envisioned Canada receiving the first new frigate in 2017. A lot of water, wishful thinking and even money has gone under the bridge since then. Building off existing design The current Liberal government, since taking over in 2015 and embracing the strategy, has been opaque in its public estimates of the build time; suggesting, in some documents, a delivery time in mid-2020s while other more internal records have pegged the first new frigate in the 2027 timeframe. The Department of National Defence, in a statement, acknowledged some of the design and build intricacies are now better understood, and because of that; the first warship will be "approximately 2-3 years later than the previous estimate." A spokeswoman echoed McCoy's remarks about finding ways to move construction along. "We continue to look for efficiencies and are actively working with industry to accelerate the project in order to deliver this important platform to the RCN as soon as possible," said National Defence spokesperson Jessica Lamirande. One of the ways they could do that, she said, would be to construct some, less complex modules of the warship early, the way it has been in the navy's Joint Support Ship project at Seaspan's Vancouver Shipyard. $1 billion and counting: Inside Canada's troubled efforts to build new warships Industry briefing questions Ottawa's choice of guns, defence systems for new frigates McCoy, a blunt-talking former U.S. Navy admiral, suggested the expectations going to the surface combatant program were ultimately unworkable because the federal government came in expecting to do a so-called "clean sheet" design; meaning a warship built completely from scratch. It was the shipyard, he said, which ultimately inched the federal government toward building off an existing design because of the enormous risk and expense of purpose-built ships, a position the Liberals adopted in the spring of 2016. The selection of the British Type 26 design by the Liberal government has spawned criticism, a court challenge and will figure prominently in upcoming reports by the auditor general and the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Combat capability packed into ship The nub of the complaints have been that the frigate is not yet in the water and is still under construction in the United Kingdom. The defence department acknowledged that adapting the British design to Canadian expectations and desires will take a year longer than originally anticipated and is now not scheduled to be completed until late 2023, early 2024. Canada, McCoy said, can expect to pay no more $2.5 billion to $3 billion, per ship as they are produced, which is, he claimed, about what other nations would pay for a warship of similar capability. "This is a big ship, lots of capability" he said, indicating that full displacement for the new frigate will likely be about 9,400 tonnes; almost double the 4,700 tonnes of the current Halifax-class. How much will Canada's new frigates really cost? The navy is about to find out PBO pushes up cost estimate for Canada's frigate build by $8 billion McCoy said what is not generally understood amid the public concern over scheduling and cost is the fact that the Canadian version of the Type 26 will be expected to do more than its British and Australian cousins. Where those navies have different warships, performing different functions, such as air defence or anti-submarine warfare, Canada's one class of frigates will be expected to perform both because that is what the government has called for in its requirements. Dave Perry, a defence analyst and vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, has studied the program and said he was surprised at the amount of combat capability that was being packed into the new warship. "On the one hand, Canada's one [class] of ship will have more combat capability than many of the other classes of ship that our friends and allies sail with, but it also adds an additional level of complexity and challenge getting all of that gear, all of that firepower into one single floating hull and platform," he said. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-shipbuilding-decade-frigates-1.5912961