The ‘Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ship’ project was originally for one ship to protect the UK’s critical underwater infrastructure. Two ships are now planned.
The above image is the RSS David Attenborough and is just a file photo as we have no concept imagery of the new ships.
Speaking to the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said:
“This week we saw the mysterious damage inflicted to the Nord Stream pipeline, and it should remind us all of how fragile our economy and infrastructure is to such hybrid attacks. Our intent is to protect them; our internet and energy are highly reliant on pipelines and cables.
Russia makes no secret of its ability to target such infrastructure, and it’s for that reason I can announce we have recently committed to two specialist ships with the capability to keep our cables and pipelines safe. The first multi-role survey ship for seabed warfare will be purchased by the end of this year, fitted out here in the UK and in operation before the end of next year. The second ship will be built in the UK and we will plan to make sure it covers all our vulnerabilities.”
The Ministry of Defence said last year that the ship (only one was planned at the time, remember), which will come into service by 2024, will be a surface vessel with a crew of around 15 people. The crew will conduct research to help the Royal Navy and Ministry of Defence protect undersea critical national infrastructure.
This may not be as new as you think, but at least we have confirmation.
Context and considerations: New RN vessel to protect undersea cables: https://t.co/yO3frx2uJK
Note: 1SL talked of “Two Ocean Surveillance Ships” in his Christmas video address to the fleet. pic.twitter.com/cEQQxLoDUr
— Navy Lookout (@NavyLookout) March 21, 2021
According to a news release from the Royal Navy last year:
“Undersea cables are vital to the global economy and communications between governments. Submarine warfare presents a particular risk of sabotage to undersea cable infrastructure – an existential threat to the UK. The ship will be fitted with advanced sensors and will carry a number of remotely operated and autonomous undersea drones which will collect data to help protect our people and way of life with operations in UK and international waters.
The vessels will also be able to support with other defence tasks, including exercises and operations in the Arctic which will become an increasingly contested area. The cables are crucial to government-to-government communications and the new capability will protect the interests of the UK and its partners and allies. The new ship is being developed as part of a wholesale modernisation of the Armed Forces which will be unveiled in the Defence Command Paper tomorrow. As part of the government’s Integrated Review, the Prime Minister has committed to invest in technologies and capabilities to protect British people from new and evolving threats.”
Another ONE. 😂
We need to monitor & defend many cables, pipes and other infrastructure 24/7. That is quite a challenge. Time for a radical approach.
If the MOD won’t do it then we should put it across to a new agency. This is Britain biggest strategic weakness and for all we know these capable and pipelines already have devices on them.
Considering GCHQ has over 200 such “taps” to intercept contents then I’d not be surprised if Russia can do much more with ease.
How do you protect cables under the sea? I get maybe these ships will watch cables a little at a time but what do you do when you find belgarod 200m under water with mini subs and ROV at the cables?
It’s a tough job and needs some thought. One solution needed is if said cables are ruined what’s the back up. Quick launch satellites? Cable laying in neither fast nor easy.
Got to start somewhere. Great news. There are some nice ship designs out there that could fit the brief
Really good points there. Resilience might better come from duplicating the assets and being able to rapidly replace them as much as it does from trying to protect them.
It’s an act of war or piracy. You are entitled to attack.
What do you have in mind design wise?
we could go down the route of many cables running and redundancy for them all to re route traffic between them. Makes it more difficult to have a single points of failure.
As they are normally commercial operations no company is going to want to lay 20 smaller cables instead of one big cheaper one.
Next would be satellites easy to assemble and launch quickly. They have to be cheap-ish. Even if they are only providing a limited service to begin with.
With the advent of starlink, one web etc they could also be part of the solution.
Then there is a priority system. Who gets to use any capacity left in the system.
I would not underestimate businesses response to suddenly losing connectivity.
Basically redundancy, decentralised systems that has back up.
It maybe none of that would work and we are totally stuffed.
Electronic sensors on the infrastructure, fixed Sosus type sonar arrays, and shore-based monitor stations.
You would not have a pipeline running across open land without basic security monitoring so a pipeline running through the sea should be no different.
considering i used to deliver concrete to a company that made undersea nets to keep cables and pipes on the seabed that is a very good point, because it, took a good week or two for the concrete to set, and the ship that came to collect them only turned up once every 2 months…
Monitoring of submarine activity by the likes of Belgorod requires a mix of SIGINT + SSNs and MPAs to track them, and these ship will not do that. However specialist surface vessels are also used by Russia with ROVs to either cut or lay mines or charges on pipelines and cables. It looks like Russia placed charges on the Nordstream pipelines some time ago, and then blew them remotely. These vessels can act as motherships to a range of UUVs – they can place and monitor sensors on critical infrastrcture to detect unusual activity, and deploy UUVs and ROVs to investigate, expose and confront any hostile activity. They will need to work with SSNs and MPAs to deter the likes of Belgorod, but they can make it very difficult for any attempt to go unseen.
Instead of messing around with some bespoke design we need a commercial off the shelf vessel. Basically an Offshore Supply vessel with a 30mm and Martlet missile on the front painted grey. The ship should be able to carry containers and operate divers and UUV’s as well as helicopters and drones. You can buy such ships in European yards for less than $50 million even from the high end. Use a fleet of 12 of these to replace Echo’s, Scott, Minesweepers and the Rivers. The MOD has the concept on the cards back in 2012 with the black swan.
We may have a design already ‘Boaty McBoat Face’ aka RSS Sir David Attenborough.
Yes that’s my concern £200 million each for RSS David Attenbourgh when we can get everything we need for $50 million or less and buy a fleet of 12 for two RSS DA class.
I would hope the second in class is cheaper and you wouldn’t need some of labs etc that on a research ship but you’ll never build for 50m in the UK.
I believe the 1st vessel will be such an OTS purchase.
Great news! Given MROSS was always going to be an indirect replacement for HMS Scott having 2 vessels will allow for deep sea hydrographic surveys to continue whilst the also placing a new emphasis on infrastructure security closer to home.
Can’t say that I agree with you, diluting the job that Scott does with monitoring cables. If she is in the Indian Ocean doing survey work, she can’t be in home waters monitoring cables! Scott needs to be replaced by a specialist vessel and allowed to concentrate on survey work.
Have to say I’m not entirely sure how any of this helps to actually ‘protect’ said miles of underwater infrastructure either.
Any Russian vessels with the capabilities to conduct such operations will have been followed be it surface or subsurface units. Dealing with them is a job for SMs,WS and aircraft, not a reconfigured DSV/PSV type vessel. MROSS vessels won’t be able to repair any damage to this infrastructure either, it’s a specialist vessel job, haven’t heard us ordering any of those either!
You have hit the nail on the head and that’s what I was kind of getting at in a previous post.
I can’t really see much more of a role for the ships other than sending down ROV to look for anything odd on the cable and then radio it back to HQ.
Now can this been done at a faster speed using sonar or some other Seabed observations tech I don’t know. But that can still only happen as fast as the ship can travel while using said tech.
The survey vessels ( especially HMS Scott) are vital and needed for the task they do. HMS Scott should be replaced with an equal or better vessel in addition to whatever these pipe survey vessels will do.
The Royal Navy has to keep its hydrographic abilities. They are vital for other ships especially submarines. It also makes money by selling the data. What other aspect of the forces can do that.
You don’t need a completely new vessel for this sort of work, not really, when a Sandown class minehunter could do the job if you put a different ROV onboard!
Using sonar could well work, not sure of the picture resolution, if it’s fine enough to discriminate small items (explosive charges) it is after all what they are designed for. It’s a slow laborious job, whether you use sonar or ROVs with lights and a camera. @GB might be able to shed more light on the subject.
Cables are much harder to detect and follow than pipes(because they are bigger), seabed cables are susceptible to being covered by sand and sediment due to the movement of ocean currents more so than oil pipelines, so it’s horses for courses where time is concerned.
There are relatively few vessels able to interfere with undersea infrastructure, SMs and specially equipped ships. Any Russian SM leaving the Barents is usually tracked via ASW assets, as would a Kilo be exiting the Baltic.
That leaves ships, so probably a 24/7 effort from large Istar equipped drones (predator/global hawk) should be able to give a bit of warning to activate required assets. Parking a T23 in the North sea will only have a limited effect, more to reassure Joe public then anything constructive.
You know for reassuring the public I never once thought oh we should have the navy bobbing around the North Sea. Maybe having better monitoring equipment for above and below the waves could help see any ship/boat coming into the North Sea.
At least as far north as tip of Scotland and the channel exit. Whether that’s possible or effective enough is above my pay grade.
Your right with Russian vessels (especially now) will be monitored when they deploy. Hopefully enough assets are available to keep track.
There are gains and losses with remote monitoring equipment, mainly in that it needs to be viewed by humans.
The NS isn’t a great place for remote acoustic listening devices, in that the area is very noisy. Lots of shipping traffic as well as all those oil/gas rigs. Highly unlikely that they would detect a quiet SM.
Using long endurance drones for surveillance might well work, certainly if they have AIS capabilities as well as high Res cameras. Either way it’s an expensive game to add to our over burdened AF.
Good. Will they have HMS prefixes, or are they civilian but crewed by navy personnel?
Believe it’ll be RFA Crewed
This is timely, but as ever it would be good to think that the deep thinkers in Whitehall had been proactive about this need rather than reactive. I’m not sure where the money will come from, but at least one can hope that it will come from the budget for the new National Yacht. It’s a vanity project and now that it’s ludicrous perpetrator has been hounded out I hope it will die very shortly.
“Deep thinkers in Whitehall”….ever thought of taking up comedy 😄
I was only trying to be nice to them…..!!🍷
We have 2 oceanographic survey ships HMS Scott and Enterprise about to leave the fleet, survey we could use these vessels in the interim.
How exactly are they planning to stop the US attacking undersea infrastructure? Biden literally followed through on his threat to destroy Nordstream 2, you can watch him say it on YouTube.
Hopefully that is true. The cowards and appeasers of Europe (Germany, France etc) need a rocket putting up them
Biden doesnt know what Biden is saying. Yes the video can easily be viewed but its hardly an glaring admission of what they would do or that they have done it.
Makes just as much sense for Russia to do it as it does for the US.
It makes zero sense for Russia to knock out its own pipelines. The main leverage it had over Germany was the ability to turn the gas back on, not deny it.
Russia will have discounted gas else where, so market price – say 30%. Attacks like these push up the market price helping Russia secure higher prices elsewhere. It also punishes Europe economically due to higher prices. With European reserves now quite high it unlikely to sell much more to Europe, so attacking pipelines to drive up prices is a net win. Russia has been manufacturing maintenance issues before these attacks as excuses to stop shipping gas to Europe.
And you think the USA would deliberately attack a NATO member in such a fashion – really!!
If it was from a SM, which US boat was/is in the Baltic? Same goes for a US ship with the ability to launch UUVs? It’s most likely something along these lines planted charges next to the pipelines. Please feel free to enlighten us all!
Yeah keep smoking the USA is our real enemy stuff.
He didn’t threaten to destroy the pipeline. He used language like “this project is a bad idea” we will not allow it etc to put pressure on European countries at a time when Russia had massed thousands of troops on the Ukraine border. We all know what happened next with those soldiers.
There was no suggestion we (the USA will blow it up). It’s not there style. Had the pipeline opened we would of found economic and diplomatic pressure being used.
What benefit does the USA get from blowing up an unused pipeline? It was never going to be used after Ukraine. The chances of being caught are high, then you have the fallout (could be quite literally) of that.
Nope not a chance. Nothing happens in politics with out someone leaking it at some point. The amount of people involved for the USA to conduct an operation like that would mean someone leak info at some point.
We will see when the UN, countries offer to survey the damage, investigate the cause the Russians will say no.
He said “there will no longer be a Nordstream 2, we will bring an end to it”. Not your made up vague statement of the project being a bad idea. It’s a direct threat. I’m not saying the USA are the enemy, but their government definitely acts in its own interests, whether those align with best interests of other nations or not.
Nope, there no sense in the US destroying the pipeline. US needs a strong Europe to partner it in countering China long term. The US needs a new leader in the Kremlin and Nordstream back on to ensure Europe doesn’t slide into a long term recession which will have a global impact taking the US economy with it.
There are still gas lines to Europe. The US only want those that pass through Poland and Ukraine to be used which ties the wet NATO partners into the current conflict.
Here’s a link to Anders Neilson who goes through who could of attacked the pipelines and why.
https://youtu.be/hk-0qJXyido
Spoiler alert he thinks is Russia and the argument he makes for it being them versus the USA, other countries, climate activists makes a lot of sense.
He does say in his video that some people also think its the USA that did it but explains why that’s wrong but also that once people come to that conclusion it stays with some even when proper investigations will show it wasn’t.
I’m happy to agree that my version of what was said was not an actual quote. I’ll be honest I couldn’t be bothered going and looking for the actual wording at the time.
The USA does put its own interests first sometimes but it also does a lot to work with other countries. All countries do this as they have to balance serving there own countries interest versus what’s good for the international community.
One more ship is that all lol. Why is there such lack of ambition in our ministry of defence?
Which other nations have announced building such platforms since the gas pipe lines got damaged?
It is incredibly difficult to find subsea cables/pipes!. They are never were you left them. So unless they have a TSS440 or equivalent! chances are the people responsible would be found before they found our cables/pipes.
This is a step in the right direction, but we need a lot more than 2 so why not take on a number of PSV’s from the oil industry and put on the kit we need. Also, what happens if the vessel/s in question detect a mine or a submersible planting a mine what then as their does not seem to be any ability for these vessels to do much other that detect and transmit the info for others which means either they will have to have a permeant escort which reacts to the info supplied to them or these vessels are to be equipped with some sort of UUV that can remove/destroy a mine or other UUVs trying to plant the mines.
And Cammell Laird can build them. I guess it depends if they are building the flagship yacht.
Or they could be off-the-shelf ships.
I think the flagship will be canned, essentially the RN has said its a waist of manpower.
Submarine cable map UK –
https://www.submarinecablemap.com
Google ran a cable to st Helena. Wow every days a school day
An offshore supply vessel would be ideal. Large rear deck for containers . Large knuckle crane to embark containers and equipment from any jetty anywhere the ship pulls in and possibly an A frame to the rear for ROVs.
Being able to operate underwater ROVs is a given.
The only real way to monitor cables and pipes is to route survey as MCMVs do with strategic sea access routes. Initially scan the sea bed around the cables and pipes and go back later looking for differences in the scans. That would indicate something has been placed there surreptitiously.
Route surveys are boring, repetitive but essential work. The RNs new drone boats and side scan sonars are doing this now in and out of Faslane so as to save allocating a Sandown and all of its crew to the task. Drones don’t need food, water, sleep etc. They will do it 24/7.
Divers are going to be of little value. ROVs can do their job if you need to go deep. Deep dives lead into the realms of sat diving and you need sat habitats which are massively complex and expensive to run and come with a huge support infrastructure outside the habitat to keep the divers alive. Mixed gases, Gas storage, pressurised habitats, medical support, transfer systems, bells.
These underwater gliders look ideal for this type of work?
Gliders are mostly used for environmental data gathering. I worked with some guys on a USNS large survey boat who used gliders a lot in there work. It was an interesting explanation of what they can do and how the data is used in the wider USN fleet.
Once again short sightedness decommissioned HMS Challenger in the 90’s, amazing!
It seems a kind of impossible task to protect hundreds or thousands of miles of undersea cable. Detect the hostile action, yes, but be everywhere along the cable – I don’t think so.