Babcock International Group has been selected by Saab to support the design for the development of the Swedish Navy’s new Luleå-class Surface Combatant.
Saab, commissioned by FMV, the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration, will design four ships for the Swedish Navy.
Babcock will initially provide engineering support including structural design and auxiliary systems, supporting Saab to complete the basic design phase.
During a visit to Babcock’s Rosyth facility in Scotland, senior representatives from the Swedish Navy, UK Royal Navy, FMV, Saab and Babcock met to mark the beginning of the ambitious new collaboration in naval programme delivery, which follows the Strategic Cooperation Agreement signed by Saab and Babcock at DSEI in September 2023.
Babcock and Saab will also work closely together to identify potential export markets for the Luleå design.
Mats Wicksell, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Area Kockums for Saab, said:
“We are proud to take on the mission to start the basic design of the new Luleå-class for Sweden and happy to cooperate with Babcock in this project. This is an important collaboration between Swedish and British shipbuilders, and I am looking forward to a close teamwork to strengthen the Swedish capabilities at sea.”
David Lockwood, Babcock CEO, said:
“This is a hugely important programme for the Swedish Navy, Saab and Babcock. Our collective capabilities in Karlskrona and Rosyth will ensure we deliver a class-leading design for the new Luleå platforms.”
Well if it’s for the Swedish with out a doubt it’s going to be a top Trump 🍺
What Sweden is after? corvette?
Hasn’t been decided as yet what to call it, though in essence this is Frigate sized (3000 to 4000 tons likely against 680 of the Visbys) and will have multi role functionality with air, surface, sub surface and land attack capabilities with room for new technologies in the future though they are playing it relatively safe with the base design as Visby delays were considerable due to big commitments to innovation at the time. These don’t replace that class though Visby itself is now nearly 20 years old so might go at some point but the latest were only entering… Read more »
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lule%C3%A5-class_corvette
With Babcock here in a jv with Saab you wonder then if any of this work will be channelled into their T32 /MFP concept? And would the RN have a use for a similar sized vessel, say for coastal/offshore infrastructure patrol?
Yep, agreed Hopefully we’ll be able to partner up to some extent and get greater bang for our buck.
I love Swedish military cooperation, they are great at it and easy to work with.
Visby replacement (Visby being 72.7m 640t ship) looking to go up to 100m and probably a pretty decent jump in displacement, the main goal being to improve range on the ship for further operations. If we were to replace the River class at some point and wanted to give work to Babcock shipyards some joint work would be nice, as the Visby class has some interesting features, probably a bit over spec for an OPV mind you.
Great people to work with – well educated, predictable and civilised……expect good standards and things to be thought through by small teams who know what they are doing.
Was this contract signed today or yesterday?
O/T Airbus Helicopters and Babcock Win 12-Year Contract for French Ministry of Interior Fleet Support. Babcock is also involved with modifying and transferring H-160 helicopters to the French Navy.
Babcock involved with saab. Bae involved with saab with helping with gripen export and glight controls. Sweden, cough GCAP. Who said that?
Strepsil for that cough Coll?… Lol. 😆
lol
Sweden had previously said the hulls of these “heavy corvettes” would be built abroad and towed to Sweden for fitting out.
Does this mean they are likely to be a variation of Type 31/Arrowhead 140/120 ?
Arrowhead 120 would seem to fit the requirement 120m LOA and ~4000t.
And would they be built in Rosyth or Poland?