The Ministry of Defence has issued a new tender for Atlantic Net, the opening phase of Project CABOT, which aims to advance the Royal Navy’s use of uncrewed and data-driven systems for anti-submarine warfare and maritime intelligence.
According to the tender, “the Ministry of Defence would like to announce the intention to publish an Invitation to Tender (ITT) to contract a Commercial Mission Partner(s) (CMP) as part of the Royal Navy’s Atlantic Net (AN) initiative in the near future.”
The MOD says Atlantic Net “will deliver Underwater Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance (ISR) as a service through a Contractor Owned, Contractor Operated, Naval Oversight (COCONO) model.”
The system, it continues, “will be data focussed, providing information direct to the Maritime Operational Commander ashore to inform decision making.” The framework, valued symbolically at £1 for each of its two lots, will operate between 17 December 2025 and 31 March 2026, according to the entry on the Find a Tender portal.
The first lot will appoint Commercial Mission Partners, each of whom will be awarded an individual call-off contract “detailing the milestones, deliverables and commercial terms that are specific and relevant to them.”
The second will establish a Potential Supplier Pool for additional firms whose technologies or services “may be of interest to the Authority and, consequently, may be contracted for through a Call-Off Contract at any point during the Term of the Open Framework.”
The notice also specifies that the procurement is “exempt from the Procurement Act 2023 under Defence Intelligence and National Security Grounds.” However, the MOD added that it intends to “follow the spirit of the Procurement Act where possible, hence the open publication of this notice.”
Atlantic Net represents the first phase of Project CABOT, which the MOD has described as designed to “accelerate the RN’s pivot to autonomy with a specific focus on Anti-Submarine Warfare.” It builds on prior innovation efforts under Project CHARYBDIS and the Defence Innovation Unit’s ASW Spearhead programme, and aligns with NATO’s wider Smart Defence initiative to create an automated anti-submarine warfare barrier using digital, networked systems.
Future phases, including Atlantic Bastion, are expected to bring those capabilities under direct Royal Navy control, employing government-owned Type 92 Sloop drone ships and Type 93 Chariot autonomous submarines.
The two phases aim to reduce reliance on crewed platforms and create a persistent undersea surveillance network capable of tracking submarine activity across the North Atlantic.
Will be interesting to see what tech is proposed under Lot 2.
Seems to be less of a focus on T92 and T93 as large platforms in this notice. Do the MoD expect there to be a less centralised approach to the initial Atlantic Net, maybe using lots of small UUVs as a sonar array rather than a SURTASS type towed array platform?
We currently use quite a few fixed sonar buoys in the GIUL gap, witches nice to detect something that goes through but if we can’t get there quickly enough it will have passed out of the range of the buoys before our ships can tag along.
Swapping to small drones that could follow a bit until the Type 26 arrives, or move to investigate something odd would be pretty helpful.
And thankfully nothing this size should be too expensive. It should be the price of whatever the boys are, plus a small engines, and as the programming isn’t a highly complex one compared to what some drones might need to do that software shouldn’t be too expensive either.
Contractor Owned, Contractor Operated, Naval Oversight (COCONO)….
So gone are the days a military system is operated by military people.
So in time of war, if this system detects bad guy – who gives the fire order? The tea boy apprentice on a government training scheme?
That’s phase 1 of CABOT. Phase 2 will be military owned and operated, but perhaps they feel that they can’t reach operational capability of the longer term solution quickly enough. Think of phase 1 as a filler capability.
As previously announced it will contractor owned and operated in the initial stages until it’s proven to be reliable and effective. This approach avoids the MoD buying junk.
So no need for Jack Tar?
“Project Cabot” does this mean we are going to drop all these off the Severn Bridge so they can float out to Sea ? Maybe they could be “Duck” shape and painted Yellow. 🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥
Better than tomato shaped and painted red.
Lol, a “Killer” Idea.
Those tiny little boats aren’t going to deter anybody.
Tiny little boats have no role in the strategic defeat / deterrence of the Black Sea fleet either, do they Nick?
🤦🏻♂️
Advertising everything doesn’t it give china and others massive opportunities to infiltrate and spy on us
It’s all interesting stuff, a true force multiplier. I just hope HMG don’t use it as an excuse for not buying conventionally manned warfighting assets.
I already suspect they will.
Hi Mate,
Hope you are well.
I tend to agree that will be the result. However, finding subs as always been the hard part of ASW and despite recent prognostications about transparent seas I suspect finding subs will remain a challenge, just that the subs will have to work harder. So having lots of small and hopefully cheap platforms wondering around the oceans providing early detection and tracking opportunities could be a significant force multiplier, provided you have enough platforms available in all weather conditions to be able to prosecute any contacts in a timely manner.
It seems that we are looking at two distinct types of drone platform now. Small sensor units that undertake a roving ISR role and large vessels capable of operating both independently and in coordination with crewed escorts. The latter combination I would see as being the main offensive capability (until autonomous vehicles can be trusted to sink the right vessel reliably..!). As such we will need enough SSN and frigates leading sub hunting groups of drone vessels to successfully act on the ISR data being provided by the kind of light weight drone being talked about above.
My guess is that 8x T26 frigates ain’t going to be enough, even with the Norwegian and Canadian T26’s in the mix – given the rule of 3’s for availability.
We shall see. There after all still plenty of time to order more T26 before the production lines start for slow down and hopefully some extra orders will come in for the T31 giving us more breathing room there as well.
Cheers CR
Interesting article in Naval Technology pointing out that along the Norwegian order might come an increased demand for mission technologies to fit in the mission bays, and that if we can standardise across both fleets, there will be economies of scale.
I think Canada and Australia could also be a possibility, but for UK companies to get going, MOD has to lead the way. Kongsberg also has a lot of good small underwater technology, so the opportunities for leveraging the frigate buy to lean into CABOT is there if we grasp it.
Good afternoon CR.
The concepts I have seen on the Atlantic Bastion show three T26 as well as all the UUVs etc. Assuming we provide two and the Norwegian provide one, given the rule of three you mention leaves only two more to support all other operations, such as CSG or amphib landings. We could certainly use a few more and I don’t think that an updated T41 with say Captas sonar will do the job.
“T41” lol, that’s how rumours start ! 😁
Fat finger trouble trying to type on an iPhone! Sorry. Good rumour though 😊
Ha, I do it all the time !
Only just picked up your reply, and on reflection that could be a good rumour. The Type 41’s came in the 1950’s, my dad served in the Lynx in 1957. Not much bigger than one of the Batch 2 rivers, and mounting two twin 4.5 turrets. The idea was to put up an anti aircraft barrage, of course rapidly outmoded, but really useful for ngs. Now who is for putting a 5” for and aft on a B 2 river to assist the marines as they storm ashore. Any takers?
Hi mate.
Good analysis. I can see more T31, if HMG actually do what they say they will, which I doubt.
But not T26.
Did I read somewhere each T26 and T45 would have a pair of autonomous alongside?
1SL was ambiguous, but BAE were looking to put them aside destroyers. Perhaps having two cheap and relatively noisy ships flanking the world’s most advanced, silent ASW frigate, could be a tad counterproductive.
OT but, not sure If you know, we are at 997200 comments and the 1 Million is fast approaching, as you said you were one of the few originals still here, I thought maybe you might want to mark the occasion somehow ?
Maybe do some sort of Speech, or tell some funny stories. How about a recap on some of the Articles from the very beginning ?
I’m sure you could have a chat with George and come up with something special.
What do you think ?
That was to Daniele !
Interesting, where are you seeing that post total?
I said no such thing. Sailor Boy, now under another ID that I’m aware of, told you once I had over 10k posts, and that was when comment history was available for study back to your first ever post.
A brilliant feature sadly lost.
Some might see that amount of comments as some sort of achievement! Others, including me, not at all.
Too much time on my hands sometimes, but a subject I immerse myself in.
I wouldn’t dream of doing anything of the sort, thanks, and I’m not an original either,.
This site had been up for a while before I stumbled across it.
There are several other poster IDs who have been here since when I started too, who haven’t played silly games switching their identities and who still post.
There are also ex and current military who have to post anonymously here too, for their own security, and that comment wasn’t aimed at them.
Thanks, but not a chance.
Oh, the other day you said there were a few on here from the beginning and you weren’t long after ! I thought you’d been here a long time hence my post.
The total is shown when you right click on a name, Inspect, you can see the comment total, not what each poster has accumalated.
I thought it was probably known as it was one of the first things I did when I got here !
Every site has Issues, this one seems to have lots of “One Offs” posting Inflamitory content, I’m not a lover of all that rubbish and try hard to just jog on bye, rather play the halfwit than a fool !
Anyway, Sorry, I just thought you were an original and might be interested.
Yes mate, I have been here a long time.
But I’m not an original.
No worries. 👍