Naval guns made by a British company are fitted to almost all United States Navy and Coast Guard ships yet to hardly any Royal Navy vessels, the Treasury Committee has been told, the UK Defence Journal understands.
The claim was made at a Treasury Committee evidence session on defence spending and finance on 3 June 2026, which questioned three experts on how the UK funds its defence and on the relationship between the Whitehall departments that approve defence spending.
Andrew Kinniburgh, Director-General of Make UK Defence, gave evidence alongside Lucia Retter, Assistant Director for Defence and Security at RAND Europe, and Max Warner, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Kinniburgh raised the example as he argued that there was British defence industrial capability the United Kingdom was not making use of. He pointed to MSI Defence Systems, based in Norfolk, which makes naval guns. “They’re on hardly any UK ships, they’re on US ships, US naval ships, and Coast Guard ships, almost all of them,” he said, noting that the Royal Navy instead chose the Bofors gun, made in Sweden, for its vessels.
The point formed part of a wider argument that the UK has untapped industrial capacity that could be drawn on as defence spending rises, rather than the country needing to build capability from scratch or import it. Kinniburgh said there was capability in British companies that was not being used domestically, citing the guns as one illustration.
Asked whether such a firm could quickly scale up to supply the Royal Navy if it won an order, having reached its manufacturing capacity making guns for others, Kinniburgh said it probably could do so without much difficulty. The volumes produced for the United States were so high, he said, that the additional quantity needed for the UK would be relatively small by comparison.
MSI Defence Systems, known for its naval gun mountings, makes small-calibre stabilised mounts of the kind used for close-in defence against small craft and other threats. Kinniburgh’s account placed its guns across large numbers of US Navy and Coast Guard vessels.
I think I read somewhere that they’ve stored a load of 30 mm guns away and, for some reason, they’re not fitting them. An example is the QEcand PoW that are designed to take 4 each of these guns but, they’ve never been fitted. Why buy new if we’ve already got a stockpile of the things?
I do recall that ‘close range’ was quite a labour intensive WE department and have wondered if the reason for not fitting them is a lack of people (with knowledge and experience) to maintain them? If so, a detachment of RMs could do the job with a bit of direction from a PO. Again from dim and distant memory, the Royals were good in this role.
I wonder if they will be putting them on the type 26.
So the msi mount, not what the MK44 bushmaster II? Both are not exclusive to naval platforms. The Terrahawk Paladin is the land variant. Slightly misleading.
Fitted for, but not with, is the stupid expression used. QE and POW very poorly protected
Apart from the human cost of losing the crew how much national treasure would be lost not only if a carrier is sunk, but is lost with all F35s and Helicopters. Did we learn nothing from the Falklands about arial threat and how fallible missile systems on air defence can be.
This is reckless almost criminal negligence and can only end badly.
If not a pair of 40mm they could easily put these four 30mm where they were designed to go. The three Phalanx’s and 4x30mm is exactly same armament as on HMS Ocean so why is it so hard to replicate? A pair of marinised RapidSentry LMM launchers might be useful too. And why not upgrade the T45s with these latest 30mm if also going on the T26s and FSS’s? Why no Paladin or Tridon for the UK land shorad? Are people asleep to all this?
If not a pair of 40mm they could easily put these four 30mm where they were designed to go. The three Phalanx’s and 4x30mm is exactly same armament as on HMS Ocean so why is it so hard to replicate? A pair of marinised RapidSentry LMM launchers might be useful too. And why not upgrade the T45s with these latest 30mm if also going on the T26s and FSS’s? Why no Paladin or Tridon for the UK land shorad? Are people asleep to all this?
*sorry for the duplication. Bloody irritating.
From what I understand, even though the LMM mount on the bustmaster RWS was successful on the Type 23, it was concluded that the back blast plume was to blame damaging the area. I imagine it would be the same on the rapid ranger. I would like to know if Thale would have considered an ejection launch or a small booster module like on Starstreak in it. I guess that would ho against the cheap factor.
MSI defence makes weapons mounts. Most of the guns used are US made Bushmaster cannon.
AEI Systems, ,now Turkish owned, holds the design rights to Rarden cannon and makes actual guns in different calibres, typically with low recoil forces like the 30 mm Venom.
So none of this answers the question, why?
Are the RN gold plating again where good enough would suffice?
What are the reasons?