Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) has awarded Frazer-Nash Consultancy a new Naval Design Partnering (NDP) contract to establish and manage a framework for delivering technical design services for the Royal Navy.
The contract spans four years, with the option for a two-year extension, and follows on from a previous NDP contract which concluded in April 2024.
This NDP contract is aimed at facilitating concept design studies for future maritime capabilities, ensuring projects are well-researched and in line with the strategic vision for the Royal Navy.
According to Steve Conneely, NDP Team Leader, “The NDP will play a significant role in the concept design of maritime capabilities as part of the DE&S Gateway. We are delighted to have awarded this contract and look forward to working collaboratively as One Defence with the Royal Navy, the NDP Prime, and Framework Members.”
Key roles linked to the NDP programme will be created in Bristol, involving primarily UK companies within the framework membership, directly contributing to the UK’s defence industry.
Frazer-Nash Consultancy’s Operations Director, Nick Jones, highlighted the value of this collaboration, stating, “We are delighted to have been awarded this contract that will build on and strengthen our relationship with Defence Partners. We’re excited to contribute our expertise in naval technical design services to this collaborative endeavour as part of the One Defence team, providing the Royal Navy and wider defence with the support, knowledge, and capability they need to be successful in the future.”
The top image is assumed to be the current MoD placeholder for MRSS.
Main points:
Well dock
4x CIC on davits
Multiple Chinook flight deck with large hangar
Azipods
No obvious armament but apparently a fire control radar?
Evening SB, this is a very frustrating image. It would be good to get a more frontal, side on or birds eye of this. Looks can deceiving but it looks very underarmed. Maybe there are places for 57/49/30mm, Ancilia and CAMM.
Is this design what the MOD has ordered 3 of or is the other 3? It’s nothing like the Elliade BMT designs.
No designs have been ordered yet.
I think this is a placeholder just like the image of T83 that did the rounds, a means of encouraging thinking about the design without commitment to one doctrine or the other.
Odd that they have chosen to publicise it in such a minor contract notice.
Stuff must be going on behind the scenes following the collapse of Harland and Wolff. Perhaps a little publicity for MRSS is thought helpful to get things moving. This is the contract you might get if you buy in now…
*40mm
Hi Quentin, not evening here!
I think the no armament thing is deliberate
They probably haven’t decided on Phalanx and 30mm Vs 40mm, so don’t want to skew the offerings from the competitors one way or the other.
That nook on the side with sponson is very clearly a CIWS spot but nothing has been placed there.
Confusingly, I did an image search on it and couldn’t find a higher res image, or another angle. The one on this article doesn’t show the stern, but I’ll take your word for the well dock and azipods.
Previous renders I’ve seen of the MRSS have had a 30-57 mm turret mounted on the hangar roof, and a phalanx on the bow- although the general design was a different one. But I think we can make an assumption of RN’s/MOD’s expectation of armament for whatever the final design ends up being. Agreed there’s nothing obvious on this image though.
I like the larger flight deck and hangar- being able to run 2 chinook gives a lot of capability.
Well dock, I can see huge benefit in them, both in terms of disaster relief-type work and combat. It does add quite a huge pile of complexity (and so cost) though, which is why I’m a bit wary of insisting on it… with the proliferation of pretty long range AShMs, drones, etc. we probably need to reconsider amphibious ops carefully. I’m not sure we can move mass to shore quickly and safely enough to make it worthwhile. On the flipside, we’d be giving up some significant expeditionary amphibious capability…
It makes sense if this is just the header image to a press release that there isn’t a better publicly available image.
The interesting thing about this particular concept is that it comes directly from the MOD.
In the past we’ve only had Steller’s, BMT’s and BAE’s “projection” of what they think the MOD wants, but this demonstrates the actual thinking within procurement.
Most of the info is commercially sensitive hence why no weapons and indistinct radar, but in terms of the expected general layout it is quite informative.
This basically just looks like a Damen Enforcer design.