The Crowsnest Airborne Early Warning system will achieve full operating capability next year after a spend of £425.7m, only to be retired four years later in 2029.
The information came to light in the following response to a Parliamentary Written Question.
James Cartlidge, Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, stated:
“The Crowsnest Airborne Early Warning system achieved initial operating capability in July 2023 and is on track to achieve full operating capability next year in time to support a Carrier Strike Deployment in 2025.
Under current plans CROWSNEST will retire on 31 December 2029. The capability was not extended in the Integrated Review 2021.
As of 31 December 2023, the CROWSNEST Programme has spent £425.662 million. This is within the original approved whole life budget for the programme of £459 million.”
Competition to enhance Royal Navy early warning capabilities
Current plans are to replace Crowsnest fitted Merlins with an uncrewed air platform, do you have a better idea?
Here’s information on the current plan.
Royal Navy looking at fixed-wing carrier based drone for AEW
However, a notice issued by the Ministry of Defence is asking for viable alternatives.
“Royal Navy Carrier and Littoral Strike Groups need a capability that provides air and surface surveillance that enables over-the-horizon situational awareness. This capability ensures Commanders can detect, track and recognise surface and airborne objects, and respond to them efficiently. So, in partnership with the Royal Navy, the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is pleased to launch the Look out! Maritime Early Warning Innovations competition, which aims to develop alternative future concepts for the Early Warning systems currently deployed in Maritime Task Groups.”
Current early warning maritime capabilities are delivered by sensors mounted aboard airborne platforms, with the current assumption for a follow-on for Crowsnest (an airborne early warning system fitted to the Merlin Mk2 helicopter) being a singular large radar sensor mounted on an uncrewed air platform.
“DASA welcomes alternatives that are not based on this approach and match or exceed current airborne capabilities. We are seeking a potential successor to Crowsnest, which has a planned out-of-service date of 2029.”
Submit a proposal If you have an innovative idea that can enhance:
- surveillance horizons and/or target detection capability
- operational effectiveness through timely processing and dissemination of information
- operational efficiency through optimisation of system functionality
What early warning maritime challenges do the MoD want you to overcome?
- improving threat detection and situational awareness, including detecting, tracking, recognising and identifying hostile and non-hostile contacts, on the surface of the water and in the air
- enhancing information processing and dissemination, including integrating the data from sensors and other air and surface platforms within the Maritime Task Group into a composite picture of activity to enable timely decision making
- optimising efficiency by minimising workforce requirement through a reduced operator and support burden
- novel or innovative methods of combining system functionality will also be considered, alongside solutions to enhance decision-making efficiency
Thinking of submitting a proposal?
The closing date for proposals is Tuesday 6 July 2021 at midday BST.
Click here for the full scope in the competition document.
Capability gap coming up!
Yes I wished I could be as certain of the the 6 lottery numbers this Saturday !
Given the complexity of these systems, how important they are for adequate carrier protection, and the impression I get that we’re not yet even at the stage of detailed specifications for a procurement I fear that this is going to be more of a capability chasm!
That’s one thing us Brits are good at! If happens too often. Remember the Falklands?
Yep, old enough to remember it although I was only a kid at the time.
We always knew crowsnest was only an interim solution so why in the hell are we only looking at a replacement now?
Thinking of submitting a proposal?The closing date for proposals is Tuesday 6 July 2021 at midday BST.
Click here for the full scope in the competition document.
Really?
surely it will be extended given that a better/uncrewed replacement is unlikely to be ready so soon?
I think we all know that will get extended
Cool…. so that’ll be a good excuse to retire about 10 Merlins then….. Saving lots of money and no longer needing so many Pilots…… It’s all good.
Or re-role them as ASW or HM2?
There’s minimal conversion to become AEW so they’ll probably go back to their ASA role.
Agree, if HMG genuinely have woken up, as reported recently by our defence secretary, to the need for more frigates then the Merlin’s will need to be retained for ASW platforms.
Believe it when I see it. I see nothing but cuts cuts cuts and incompetence.
MOD obviously getting all the s**t news out before the chancellors budget next month, which is a bit of a change seeing as they normally try and ‘bury’ such news along with big exciting announcements. 🤔
Back to ASW mate. Which is what the most Merlin should be doing if they’d got on and properly replaced the S King ASCS7s with the 11 or so Merlin that didn’t get the HM2 upgrade.
They’ve stated as such regards drones, to get Merlin cabs back to their main role.
Let’s see, I try to be positive.
Good summary mate 👍
It’s Friday, positivity is good!
Agreed that they absolutely should be back into ASW
They need to really make their minds up about avoiding gaps that A blind man and his dog can see, The repurposing of Merlin’s was never going to be anything other than a short term and inadequate stop gap. And it’s bombed, 5 years late and still hasn’t passed into official IOC. I know they have Vixen and Ark Royal on the go but they need to work at pace or bite the bullet and not deploy them anywhere that isn’t covered by land based AEW. And Yes my tongue is firmly on my cheek about that one. As for… Read more »
Yep Lusty mentioned years ago the HM1s remaining became spares cabs. Tragic.
I believe Japan also buy small numbers year in year to keep fleets numbers.
I just don’t understand our country.
Thanks. I think a few here answered my question.
Frank,
Hi, personally enjoy your rather droll sense of humor, but suggest that you may wish to include the 😉 emoji to cue the broader audience not to interpret comments too literally.
Buy E2D`s off the shelve and enable then to be operated off what we have (cats & traps)
The problem is money. £200m per aircraft, say 8 of them, plus converting both carriers to full cat and traps – not the lightweight systems proposed now, 2Bn per carrier. Even if we had a spare 3-4Bn, not convinced that’s the best us of it or – more fundamentally – that single node AEW, however capable, is the future.
Just notice the cost point has been made and countered. And, more embarrassingly, that I added my cost guesses up wrong.
Another brillian UK programme. We’re now looking at Drones…for how long before we gat around to thinking of ordering something.
Just watch that gap open up….
CATS and Traps and E2D ?
Got 4 Billion lying around?
When the MOD issued its request for information for electromagnetic cats for QE drones it specified a max of 29,000 kg. I think the gross weight of E2D is 19,000 kg.
Yeh that isn’t happening for a decade or more. If the money is even available, again, got a couple billion spare in the 10 year budget plan?
Did a bit of googling, earlier article on here listed a MTOW of 24,000kg, max trap of 21,000kg. At 90m long the “Stingray” cat might be able to loft a mostly loaded E-2, MTOW for them is apparently 26k kg. The CdG does it with a 75m cat but maybe their E-2s tank after launch to top up their fuel? No idea there.
Point is, looks practical, but just adds weight to the “why weren’t they built as CATOBAR to begin with”?
The reason they weren’t built with catobar is history…arguably because BAe share of F-35B won out over F-18 or the ultimately indignity of Rafale 🙂
Anyway, we are where we are. Hawkeye and a refuelling tanker would trsnsform QE capability. Maybe Uncle Sam have been frank about our cheeseparing solutions.
A lot was to do with the then cost of EMALS and the recovery system. However, along with that, specifically EMALS wasn’t ready. To be blunt, it still isn’t fully ready. The USS Ford still can’t launch F35s. The EMALS is only cleared to launch F18s and E2C/D. To put that into context, if we’d gone down the EMALS route. The carriers would have to operate F18s to this day, the Rafale possibly if it was cleared (though we would have had to pay for the clearance). Though it does mean the carriers could have had Hawkeye. One thing I… Read more »
E2D is expensive and requires a lot of crew, although they’re excellent platforms.
Ultimately, though, they’ll be replaced in the USN in the next decade with drones with the same purpose that the RN are looking for now- so we may as well skip the step and get in on the drones. Bringing E2 into service along with the Cats and Traps could take as long as a drone platform when you factor in all the crew training.
Take your points on cost and timescale. Does seem like leapfrogging the technology is the way to go.
It’d make a nice change for us! There is always the risk of trying something others haven’t, but I don’t think that there’s loads of that in this instance. The airframes are mostly there, it’s just optimising. It’ll likely be the launch gear that takes the longest to get right, and the RN are already moving towards wanting that anyway.
No longer in production and according to head of USN are already obsolescent tech wise. Drones and CEC are the future.
Well that simplifies things! Thx.
“No longer in production and according to head of USN are already obsolescent tech wise. Drones and CEC are the future.” Based on the latest reporting that I’ve seen I’m fairly certain that you are mistaking here. France just signed a contract for 3 E-2D just last year. Northrop who makes the aircraft and Lockheed who makes the radar also signed contracts last year. Northrop was for the latest lot 11 tranche of airframes. The usn has also already funded 80 of the planned 86 aircraft with the possibility of the additional orders as they plan to keep the line… Read more »
“Mind the Gap”!
Interestingly Bae have just shown a mystery drone at World Defense Show in Riyadh with no further explanation. No idea what it’s for mind but at least good to see the Taranis and Manta technology still being further developed it seems.
LINK
Let me guess, as is the way of the MOD, Crowsnest will be retired early in which to save money with its world beating replacement coming on line 10 years later. No doubt to much fanfare by the people in charge that the replacement shows the Government is spending money in the right places regards defending the country.
Or maybe not ! The Mojave trials may open other possibilities which don’t require Cats and Traps.
Interestingly Bae have just shown a mystery drone at World Defense Show in Riyadh with no further explanation. No idea what it’s for mind but at least good to see the Taranis and Manta technology still being further developed it seems.
(hopefully this contribution with the link will be approved soon)
Yeah, looks pretty cool- good write up on the Warzone on it.
To me, it looks more like a loyal wingman to F-35B/Typhoon/Tempest; compared to most AEW platforms it’s pretty fast with 5 hours’ mission time, So may not be what we’re wanting for sustained overwatch. It does have 500 kg internal payload, so could fit a fairly decent radar in there, I would think?
This Is BAE Systems’ Reworked, Stealthier Uncrewed Combat Aircraft Concept (twz.com)
Yeah, looks pretty cool- good write up on the Warzone on it.
To me, it looks more like a loyal wingman to F-35B/Typhoon/Tempest; compared to most AEW platforms it’s pretty fast with 5 hours’ mission time, So may not be what we’re wanting for sustained overwatch. It does have 500 kg internal payload, so could fit a fairly decent radar in there, I would think?
I see that in your article about the “current proposal” for Crowsnest replacement, the deadline for submissions was July 2021. So knowing MoD as we do, it’s 100% safe to assume that tremendous progress has been made in the last two-and-a-half years, thinking is mature and things can speed ahead in a way that will deliver the replacement on time and on cost. And no, you can’t have some of what I’m smoking.
So long as we have a replacement up & running in time it shouldn’t be a problem. Heli AEW was a stopgap back in the 1980s. Hopefully a drone AEW will be far more capable.
baffling when no alternative is actually operational! was the recent upgrade not fit for purpose?
furthermore, wouldn’t a dedicated awacs drone also require some type of catobar system? orherwise i seriously doubt that a lightweight drone (not needing catobar) could have a powerful radar and carry enough fuel for extended range.
my 2 cents
In a word “No” it isn’t, cept no one will fess up about it.
Really?
Well done HMG/MOD 👏👏👏👏👏 Great use of public funds.
A few questions
What is this capability being replaced by?
Will the replacement be ready by 2029 when Crowsnest leaves service so there is no capability gap?
How much additional funding is a drone or fixed wing carrier based AWACS going to cost?
Is this being done to free up the too few Merlins we have, as our best ASW platform?
I can see a lot of money being spent duplicating a capability.
So is the replacement Mojave?
Mojave is likely too small for the AEW radar, as it’s based on the MQ-1. They also have STOL kits available for the MQ-9B, which is the Protector drone we already have on order- that’s probably the better shout if we want to go that route.
I only suggest Mojave because that’s the drone on the POW trials. Agree bigger is better.
No worries, I spent quite a long time thinking that the Mojave actually was protector- they look so similar! it’s hard to work out scale from a photo.
Yeh, model aeroplanes have come on a lot since I was a lad.
😂
Some of the videos coming out of Ukraine are terrifying in terms of multiple FPV drones tearing into Russian infantry- nowhere to hide, can’t run fast enough. I imagine the skies will soon be the same in terms of larger UAVs
MQ4-C Carries a AN/ZPY-3 X Band 360’ AESA Radar, along with lots of other kit that a purely AEW CEC node STOL drone wouldn’t.
We need some of these (https://www.twz.com/nasas-quiet-short-takeoff-and-landing-test-jet-is-up-for-sale) fitted with the Saab Erieye radar system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erieye). 🙂
I note with interest that the request for proposals doesn’t state that will must replace Crowsnest with another airborne radar based system of some kind. While I’m no expert the performance of infrared search and track (IRST) technology does seem to be advancing at a notable rate and it is common knowledge that these systems are now considered indispensable on modern fighter aircraft. IRST offers significant potential benefits compared to radar, such as lower weight, cost, and electrical power consumption requirement – all extremely useful attributes for a relatively small and lightweight UAV one might think. One might posit that… Read more »
Sadly passive optical technology will always have a performance disadvantage to active. The sensor used in say a Pirate IRST, is similar to that used in a digital camera. Where you have a smallish square (1” to 3”) covered in photoreceptors. The higher the number of receptors increases the optical resolution. However for an aircraft target some 30km away. The IR based receptors are relying on the energy the aircraft is emitting. Be that from its hot exhaust, the atmospheric friction as it passes through the air, or the difference between the ambient air and the aircraft itself. This energy… Read more »
Another massive waste of money then.
It looks like they announced the 2029 out of service in 2021 – it’s at the 2021 gov.uk page for new capabilities – so they’ve had a while to work this out.
It will be interesting to see how big an aircraft they need to launch, considering the size (and presumably weight) of the radars on the E-7 and GlobalEye. And how they manage with transmitting the data it collects over the distances needed. A BACN too?
Well it is about time they replaced the Searchwater bassed system for something modern. An AESA solution should be looked at on a drone or other platform. We need to modernise our AEW. However I think we should have started building a modern solution some time ago so we could have skipped the whole Crowsnest saga.
Agree on both points. I have always thought of the radar’s capability as being somewhat crap. Worth skipping over.
We need far more ASW capability. Build more merlins and equipment RFAs to carry 3 or 4 not 1 or 2.
A good idea would be to give T45 a Merlin helicopter with an AEW – that way the T45 can shoot over the radar horizon. Such a system could have won the Falklands war single handed.
Yet another example of Ineptitude, incompetence and corruption regarding taxpayers money, politicians, business and military ‘stuff’.
Why say this? because there will no doubt be something else foisted upon the MOD, to replace it.
Why replace it? If it works, leave it be, and use it till it falls off.
Right another zillion £’s saved… next!
I get the feeling that it’s really a disguised indicator that it isn’t really up to the job and even less so by the end of the decade. Fine tolerating it in peacetime but probably, now that they have to face a world of actual conflict, a chilling proposition to contemplate. I guess when it wasn’t crucial it seemed a cheap option that could be tolerated a little longer term but now feels anything but.
The Crowsnest Searchwater radar dates back to the Nimrod. Tr has had a few facelifts but basically it is the same system. One example of the early system was even sold to China. The F35 has a better radar then the one on Crowsnest. That should tell you something. I think the whole Searchwater saga was about saving money and giving jobs for the boys. There were alternative offerings for the Crowsnest a option based on the F35 radar AESA and an Israeli option, again AESA. We picked the same old thing with just a shinny new interface.
AEW was going to be a problem from the moment the STOVL design was ordered in 2008. But it is astonishing that the RN has taken so long to get a less than satisfactory and now short term partial solution into service. A large part of the delay is the fault of the main contractor, Lockheed Martin, who else? Given how little the UK has managed to deliver by way of unmanned platforms, it seems inconceivable that a UCAV AEW will be ready by 2029. Or that an electromagnetic launch system will be designed, tested and installed by then. Whether… Read more »
Mojave is too small, with not enough payload and not enough power. Maybe an MQ-9B STOL can get a little closer, but it will be far from ideal. If there’s money, buy a tiltrotor soution; if not extend Crowsnest.
I realize Mohave would not be powerful enough. Just curious why nothing has been said about the trials that might give a hint about future plans.
Leonardo’s tilt rotor business platform might work as a mini-E2/V22, if we aren’t going with a drone.
I may have been slightly unfair to LM. According to a UKDJ article in July 2017, the RN only placed the contract in Jan 2017 after 17 years of planning. What was expected to then take 2 years dragged on until IOC in 2023. Essentially that was just to transfer an existing radar system to an existing helicopter.
Just a thought but the USN has the MQ-4C Triton that works alongside the P8 Poseidon both they and RAN have ordered some.
Big for a drone at 14,000 KG but they carry an Airborne AESA search radar right up to 56,000 feet. Endurance is 30 hours.
And we just trialed a Mojave on POW so just I wonder if they are thinking of a carrier version like Sea Guardian (folding wings) but Radar rather than a weapon load.
Maritime search radars use less power than AEW ones. I have read that Triton has about 30kVA vailable, which might not be enough for AEW radar, but radar technology is advancing so fast, it might be, or at least enough to be substantially better than Crowsnest.
Unless we already have a carrier-ready UAV platform completed, I can’t see them sticking to that 2029 timeline.
I’d also question if any current UAV would have enough power for a relatively large radar or fuel capacity to give the required endurance.
But more generally, why are we scrapping a system after only 4 years of being fully functioning? Doesn’t seem like a good use of money.
wonder what the radar capabilities and data link on Peregrine are like in comparison to crows next? possibly could be a fill in, or a enhanced version on the coming larger cam-copter model. Alternately likely the STOL version of GA sea guardian drone but with an air optometrist ASESA radar.
Really? Yeah right.
Another excellent example of pathetic idiotic MoD decision making (sic).
Scrap the entire ministry and let the services manage themselves again.
Could afford more across all services without that bloated mass, even if the RAF were kept around 😉
I’d honestly be surprised if there’s a fixed-wing drone out there that can get aloft with an AEW radar and full fuel load, from the deck of a QE Class without Cats and Traps. Very happy to be corrected on that front though.
I’d imagine that the launching mechanism will take more time to bring online than the drone though, given how much work there is in the UAV space at the moment. While we’re at it, would be great if the same airframe could handle airborne refuelling as well.
Agreed, finding an air vehicle able to mount a suitable radar, its power supply and the link back to the Carrier together with the necessary on-board management system will take a long time and probably much of this will be need to be entirely of new design to fit into the constraints of operating from our carriers. Consequently, the Integration and test activity will be similarly lengthy and very costly if done properly – as will have to be if it is to be viable. On top of this the fleet of AEW systems will be small so will it… Read more »
To be honest, if we still had the Sea King ASaC’s. They would do a fine job, for what is required over the Red Sea. Even though the AsaC’s used Searchwater. Which is an old mechanically scanned pulse-doppler X-band radar, pinched from a Nimrod. It was very good at its job, which was primarily looking for sea skimming missiles. However, it was also found that it was also very good at ground mapping, where it did sterling service in Afghan. The Crowsnest is a development of ASaC. Where it kept the same front end, but replaced the back end with… Read more »
We should have dumped Searchwater decades ago for a modern system, what we have today is a legacy system that is not up to the job. As AEW is a key element in carrier defence I think the MoD has dropped the ball again. Just as they did in the 1980s by not giving the fleet AEW. They hustled it up pretty quickly after ships started getting sunk….
the lack of ability to put in place key defence components is staggering,
Interesting thought. Crowsnest surely has a missile detect range an order of magnitude greater than Manpads and Soviet era SAMs. And if it remained in Richmond’s Sea Ceptor umbrella could probably also protect itself with EW as a failsafe. It would be a great test for the system.
Without at least two UK escorts present, it would be a bit difficult to keep a continuous watch. We’d need to add Argus to the mix for the hangar space.
All f35 b navies have this issue. Tilt rotor probably will be the fix.
Maybe a silly suggestion, if they’re also looking at a manned solution could the F35B platform be stretched and modified to be more a AEW like I think the Harrier Blackjack project was? Are they looking at an Osprey AEW or even seeing if a Hawkeye could fly off the QE carriers? Or, more of a jet powered drone?
And will these Merlin’s then be converted back to their ASW roles?
As far as I know the USN/USMC are not looking at making the Osprey in to an AEW platform. I think it was in the 90’s when they did a rough and ready trial. Where they used a S3 Viking radar mounted on a mechanism that was fitted to the ramp. The mechanism lowered the radar antenna below the ramp. From what I remember it didn’t work very well due to the vibration of the ramp causing the radar to malfunction. There was also a sketch of an Osprey with a triangular PESA antenna on the roof. Can’t remember the… Read more »
Thanks again for your replies Davey, they’re top notch. Great education as are others here too. There’s always seems so much potential for doing and getting better all the time! Continuous evolution.
No doubt leaving us with a capability gap for years.
And one would have thought that AEW for the carriers would be rather important.
Jesus H Christ.
What a fabulous use of half a billion pounds, putting a slightly updated existing radar system onto another helicopter…..
This sort of pissing money away has to bloody stop.
What will be next I wonder, no doubt another wonderful ” minimum risk” solution 😣
That could buy a T31 with a bit of change…🙁
“Current plans”…So they have funding to support until 2029. If funding and contracts get raised between now and then , then its OSD will move right.
Bit of a non-story really
Exactly
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/poland-to-purchase-balloon-based-radar-system/
To be replaced by a trillion dollar jackdaw-nest system… at some point.
oh what a waist of money if only you had given the RFA that money you may not be in the mess you are now!!! You could have maintain people and had at least an additional new AO or evem 1 x FSS. You could have evem kept both one if no both Waves in service!!!!!