According to the latest Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) data released by the Ministry of Defence (MOD), the Brimstone 3 project has encountered significant obstacles.
The project’s objective is to sustain the precise, low-collateral air-to-surface Brimstone capability on the Typhoon platform and integrate it onto the Protector platform.
As per the Senior Responsible Owner’s Delivery Confidence Assessment rating, the project has moved from an “Amber” status in Q4 of the 2021-2022 financial year to “Red” in Q4 of 2022-2023. “Compared to financial year 21/22-Q4, the Delivery Confidence Assessment rating at 22/23-Q4 decreased from Amber (IPA rating) to Red (SRO rating).”
The primary factors attributed to this shift are challenges in sourcing suitably qualified and experienced people across the programme and delivery teams, and within the industry.
“There are challenges with resourcing sufficient suitably qualified and experienced people across the programme and delivery teams, and within industry. A series of deep-dives, along with a monthly Programme Board with the new Senior Responsible Owner have been put in place to address these challenges.”
The project’s timeline remains steady, with an approved end date of 30th April 2029. Nevertheless, the project’s budget, forecast variance, and total baseline whole life costs have been exempted under Section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 due to “commercial interests”.
On a political and defence point. We should be identifying educational, defence or training requirements and offering a free ride through university for those that sign the contracts with us.
Investing in real skills and qualifications will never be a waste.
Looking at Unis these days anybody that goes there will graduate with a VERY unhealthy attitude towards the military🙄
100% agree there should be some incentive around courses we need people for both militarily and as a nation.
I found it interesting to look at ‘HESA’ stats for unis. Recommend looking it up. It’ll show numbers of students studying each subject. Look at social sciences and psychology versus STEM. Some guidance to our younger citizens needed I think.
Why do you need a left leaning grad to do those jobs maybe an apprentice.
Ah, a shortage of engineers and project managers?.., who’da thought! With the run down of manufacturing and the shift to low paid service ‘industries’ over the last 30 to 40 years it’s hardly surprising there is a shortage of trained, skilled and crucially experienced people.
As the war in Ukraine is reminding us large modern wars are fought as much in the engineering offices and on the factory floor as they are on the batllefield.
So much for the post industrial age..!
Politicians take note.
Cheers CR
A broadly similar issue with the other thread ref Spear cap 3. Seems we aren’t turning out enough suitably qualified peoples days!
Its ok having lots of universities to help educate people, but offering the right sort of courses probably helps too….
I have an MSC in Electrical Engineering. On that programme of about 20 to 30 there were two Brits, the rest were Chinese and Indian and a smattering of others from other nations. I don’t blame people for taking other routes. I’m not recommending engineering to my children. There’s little corporate incentive to be an engineer, career development is limited with opportunities reserved typically for people and money management. Back at uni, you have a harder time of it, rack up the same debts and after all this there little respect for STEM in society. I bet the new Labour,… Read more »
Yes, that is a massive own goal is it not? In the quest for universities to make more money, they have opened up courses to chase foreign students (whom they can charge more). Somewhere down the line this is/has had a detrimental effect of home grown talent getting on a course. The other side is as you say in your post ref being STEM in society, hugely undervalued. I have to wonder what exactly ‘boy wonder’ is bringing to the House with his vast 25 years of knowledge/experience. Not that I’m against anyone having the right to become an MP,… Read more »
It was obvious that was going to happen once the uni’s had the go ahead to charge for courses , had their grants reduced and had to become self sufficient & allowed to charge more for foreign strudents to attend the course.
I bet many of those bemoaning the lack of British STEM students were exactly the same people who moaned when uni students didn have to pay for their course and called students idle sponging basterds.
Those who state “leaving school at 15 never did me any harm ” etc etc.- short sighted tossers all .
Totally agree all excuses to save money and overcharge our gov due too poorly handled negotiations. I’ve a B.sc(Hons) 24 years safety critical experience software engineering, also hardware, ex military and security cleared. I can’t even get interviews at most of these places. Utter twaddle excuses.
This echoes my experience of applying for jobs as an experienced engineer in the UK. Salaries are low relative to Europe and, despite apparent shortages, interviews are hard to come by.
And as the Parliamentry commitee recently infered, the UK is shot through with unfiltered PRC influence & investment, so many of those Chinese could take our expertise back to improve their threat levels against us & our allies. One guy at the end of his PhD downloaded the entire science(or was it physics?) database at his Uni to take back to the PRC with him.
Hi Deep32,
Certainly education is an issue, but I agree with what many others are saying about society’s attitude towards STEM careers / professionals and this is reflected in industry’s career and reward structures.
It is not helped by the boards’ focus on maximising profit – see what happened to Boeing when they switched from a focus on quality, safety and engineering to time and cost with non qualified managers forcing through engineering decisions…
Cheers CR
Well said. We noticed the start of the decline when we first worked together 20 years ago. It will take a dedicated push to reverse the trend, which sadly I don’t think will be happening in the near term.
Hi Mark, hope you are well. As a few of the posters above have stated there are serious issues with our university structure and how they are able to charge overseas students. On the plus side some engineering companies are bringing in apprenticeships with some of them leading to degree level qualifications. Whether it is enough to reverse the trend..? Well that is billions of pounds question… The trouble is industry won’t pay engineers what they are worth, won’t ensure a senble and rewarding career path and all too often preferring to bring in contractors which means no team development.… Read more »
No really an issue considering the current Brimstone missile in service is best in class.
A year or two will make little difference.
Surely its being killed off because Lockheed wont give it space on F35?
Typhoon arent going anywhere anytime soon plus the requirement to integrate into the drones will see it have a long life.
Lockheed F35 is only going to be the best aircraft out there until 2035-, after then they will have to be more flexible and quick.
With KF21, tempest, ghost bat, drones and so on coming online customers won’t put up with huge lengthy issues.
I hope the new aircraft, drones can be a lot more flexible, speedy to integrate stuff onto, update etc. If the operating and maintenance requirements and costs can be brought down also it makes them a game changer.
Brimstone isnt slated to be fitted to our F35 fleet, its only for Typhoon. Spear 3 on the other hand is slated for F35. Its all delays it seems, whether due to us or Lockheed.
US pushing JAGM – since we picked it for Apache. Offering cheap price and pushing commonality and interoperability on F35.
They are doing the same with AIM260 they want Meteor MLU cancelled and will manage this by integrating US weapons soon and pushing UK weapons back in to the 2030’s.
This should really come as no surprise to anyone
JAGM and Brimstone are not on F-35…
What Meteor MLU are you talking about?
The USMC intend fitting JAGM to F35C “Farther into the future, the USMC wants to equip its AV-8B and F-35B fighters with JAGM Increment 3. Note, however, that there’s no set schedule for missile upgrades. On the export front, if JAGM is added to F-35Bs, it will be competing with the MBDA Brimstone and SPEAR missiles that Britain plans to integrate into its own F-35B fleet” Also check this link for USMC plan – USMC. It would not be in the US’s commercial interests to allow an ‘alien’ weapon to be integrated to F35 without the US having a competitive… Read more »
JAGM has repeatedly been mentioned for Fast Air employment, but the US has resolutely not funded integration.
There are no plans at present to put JAGM on F-35. Brimstone’s integration effort was cancelled by the UK a decade ago as the Spear 3 programme started up.
So neither Brimstone or JAGM will ‘win’…
The real competition is MBDA Spear and SDBII…which the US is winning, for the simple reason they have a working missile…
Yes we need to push brimstone and Spear 3 to Apache and also on Navy eg Wildcat we should push to be on as many platforms as we can. Then you have scale to reduce overall production cost and also can sell to others that have these platforms. Else USA will slowly kill off our industry.
The link for the UK GOV website :MOD Government Major Projects Portfolio data, 2023
Ta
Meanwhile, our PM said to our youngsters aiming to go to the university to
“THINK SMALL”…
Here we go again. ISD remains, they say. How many times have we heard that? Oh, and we couldn’t possibly let anybody know what the costs are. Amazing. So everything is normal in the world of UK procurement.😡
Previous defence cuts and erratic ordering has made it very difficult to maintain the experienced and trained staff needed – we really need to start planning for the long term and train and retain a workforce in sufficient numbers. Not going to happen of course.
Consequences of Jornalism.
Brimstone 3 first test firing was in March 2019 and was reported as entirely successful by MBDA. So presumably the problems/delays are in integration on to platforms. In contrast, it seems that Sea Venom development has problems with the missile itself.
That was Brimstone 3A, Brimstone 3B completed test firings in 2021 as well.
It’s the only production version now.
Same issue around SQEP is likley to affect the GCAP programme
How can we have engineers when so many people work from home pushing figures and words about on a computer. At 76 I am retired now but worked at engineering from a 16 year old apprentice till retirement. Although you served a 5 year apprenticeship and gained some paper qualifications you were always treated as a second class employee. A little girl junior in the office was treated better so mo wonder there is a dearth of engineers.
Okay cool. Now what does “moving into red” actually mean?
Start advertising salaries higher than middle management, in the 100Ks, for engineers who are currently paid average 50-60K, and you’ll get the staff you want.
Nobody wants to touch defence work because of the security hoops to jump through, high pressure, middling salaries and potential moral grounds of (offensive) weaponry being used by the PM du jour choosing to ignore (lack of) WMD advice.
Why do that work when for the same pay other companies offer the same or better pay, less hours, and potentially more fun work?
Source: Me and other engineer mates.
Spot on. You have this right on the nose.