John Swinney has visited Babcock’s Rosyth yard to see first hand how work on the Royal Navy’s Type 31 frigates is progressing and to underline the importance of naval shipbuilding to Scotland’s economy.
During the visit, the First Minister toured the Venturer Building, where five Inspiration-class frigates are taking shape for the Royal Navy. The programme is one of the centrepieces of the UK’s National Shipbuilding Strategy and is intended to replace the ageing Type 23 general purpose fleet while sustaining a steady drumbeat of warship construction.
Babcock says it supports more than 10,500 jobs across the UK and contributes over £500 million annually to Scotland’s GDP. At Rosyth, the Type 31 programme has driven investment in modernised facilities and advanced manufacturing processes, alongside apprenticeships and specialist engineering roles that feed into the wider defence supply chain.
Rosyth’s work on Type 31 sits alongside construction of the Type 26 anti-submarine frigates on the Clyde, together anchoring Scotland’s role in delivering the future surface fleet.
For Rosyth, the visit was an opportunity to showcase both the scale of the build programme and the long term industrial capability being developed on the Forth, positioning the yard as a key player in UK and NATO maritime manufacturing for decades to come.
And what support has the SNP given to development of ship building by Scottish yards. Answers on the back of a fag packet please.
Why do you need such a large space?
Absolutely.
They nationalised Ferguson’s. Which built sections for bae on the Clyde. They also bought bi-fab in burntisland which is now owned by navantia who are building the UK fleet support ships. Navantia are the company who rescued Harland and wolff after the UK gov refused them a loan so they could modernise to build the support ships that the government had just ordered. Think navantia managed to screw an extra £20 mill out the UK gov on that deal as well if memory serves.
How many fag packets is that??
They may have bought several yards but how have they supported the development of the yards while under Scottish Gov ownership? Didn’t see much Scottish Gov money or work going in that direction.
Postage stamp
It is embarrassing having the dreary Swinney visit the yard at all; the SNP behaviour on defence is appalling on a broad front.
I disagree.
It might limit the student politics level SNP pronouncements on defence.
HMS Active is progressing in the background.
Labour really need to bite the bullet and publish their DIP.
If they were really educated rather than just have attended university, they would order 2 more batches of T31s to deliver stability to the Babcock yard, while at the same time, stating that Batch 1 will be sold 10 years after launch, and carry on.
Further batches would be delivered and sold on at the same rate delivering orders for spare parts in the future, sustainable jobs and taking market share from competitors; it would also allow naval designers like N-A-B to develop their skill set and bring in younger recruits to cascade skillset and give us some kind of future proofing. Is that too difficult to stick into a spreadsheet, Rachel?
It’s possible they have MRSS in mind for Rosyth instead, but they aren’t publicly progressing that either.
I suspect you are right. But what size MRSS can you build at Rosyth; an Absalon with a slipway?
You could go a little bit bigger (155m-ish) by adding on the bow after it leaves the hall, that’s not too uncommon.
But I suspect an Absalon with a stern ramp is what the 1SL has in mind; he keeps saying how MRSS will be ‘smaller’ and more flexible. It will be a shame to lose out on LCU ability, though. Perhaps Babcock with their newly rediscovered ship design ability could create their own with a small well dock? BMT have Ellida Strike but that is definitely at the heavy end.
The challenge I suppose would be to design your stern ramp or well dock around your chosen CIC.
The only small-ish CUC (LCU replacement) design is BMTs, which is pretty much the same as the LCU10 at 30x8m. That would require some significant changes to fit in an AH140 derivative, it would end up being either a camel or practically a new design so Babcock should just design their own small, fast LPD or abandon CUC capacity. They could take 4 CIC which is what the raiding structure is designed around so that could be enough.
The advantage of a full sized LPD is it becomes so much easier to fit in 4 CUC or even two Wyvern LCAC.
So what’s the minimum viable size of force you want to land? A company with vehicles sounds ambitious for an ‘Absalon’.
CIC needs to be able to carry at a minimum 24 commandos or 6 with vehicles (The 6 is the absolute floor, it would most likely be 8 or 12). The upper limit for an AH140 base is 4 CIC and 2 Merlin, each of which can carry about the same.
So the maximum lift ashore is 144 troops which drops to 72 if the target is a long way inshore. Not sure how that relates to a commando company but the troops on board would probably be 1.5-2x than that as the landing craft could do multiple raids while one group rests and the other is ashore.
It’s all a bit hand-wavey but it’s the best I’ve got.
Thanks. I’m not military so please bear with me. Each light vehicle, Landrover/ Jackal/ Foxhound = 6 troops. 144 / 6 = a lot of vehicles. A Merlin can lift a light gun or a Landrover but nothing heavier. Just trying to picture force capability / composition vs distance vs number of trips. As you say, it’s a bit hand-wavey but I think I can manage to convince myself MRSS could be made to work with an Arrowhead 140. A Foxhound is 1/3 the length and less than 1/2 the beam of a CB90. Just saying.
I’m not military either, I don’t ven have the background!
The Marines light vehicles are actually beach buggy type things, it’s why they want to fit 2 in each CIC and each vehicle only has 3-4 people.
So the CIC with vehicles would go ashore and drive to the objective while Merlins would carry infantry directly so they don’t have to walk too far.
Is Belfast not best suited for MRSS while the Forth would be better for continued frigate production?
Depends on what the MoD go for for MRSS. If it’s a traditional LPD then Belfast is the only place that can build it. If it’s more of a ‘strike frigate’ or small raiding platform then there’s no reason why Rosyth couldn’t manage.
The reality is that something is going to have to be confirmed soon to keep Rosyth busy.
Designs will need to be refined and the long lead time components ordered.
Fabrication work for T31 starts to run down from around 2028 and finishes about 2030 so there is actually very little time.
As usual it will be run to the wire and more expensive than it needs to be as a result as major component suppliers will need to be incentivised to manufacture on the tighter timescales.
I agree. Pragmatically, feeding Rosyth is what will drive any decision. In the current financial climate I think an order for 3 ‘Absalon’ T31s in the DIP is worth a small bet. They could be combined with the 3 Bays in various permutations to create useful expeditionary / littoral response capability in a range of humanitarian, extraction and ‘constabulary’ scenarios. If the River 2 is first responder then a T31/Bay combo is the support. Beyond that you are into escort / carrier territory.
I don’t think the issue is NaB developing design skills.
It is more about keeping design teams together and working on the next thing so they are fully skilled at forming the core group to make the major decisions or we need the ship to do ABC therefore it will have X length; Y beam; Z draft with Q displacement. It is the very high level decision making that has to be right otherwise you go in circles USN style trying to squeeze a quart into a pint pot and discovering that it fails every time.
That’s the key lesson that keeps being forgotten, that unless the key requirements are nailed down early the rest of the project will go to pot. We got lucky with the QEs and T31 and the USN forgot what Zumwalt and FFG(X) were supposed to be.
We need to carefully articulate what MRSS and T83 are going to do and then stick to it, better a flawed but clear doctrine than a fudge.
That is where big and simple, T31 and QEC, always wins. There is always space to adjust or add things.
When you try and pack too much in a small hull the Constellation -> Consternation -> Cancellation Class flow is inevitable.
That’s why I’m conflicted about MRSS. A ‘strike frigate’ compact raiding design would allow strike armament combined with hull numbers but CIC is already pushing for the maximum boat that could be accomodated. We’d only ever get 3 Ellida strike but they would be big and adaptable for the future. Too close to call IMO until we hear more about the 1SL’s vision for the Marines.
I fear 1SL’s vision won’t get past Starmer’s inability to make any tough decisions. Coupled with Rachel’s inability to have any kind of long term plan….i hope I’m wrong but the ramp up should have started in 2014 if not four years ago and been on a set trajectory.
There is a moral and political imperative to find defence. Most of the population now get that.
Almost bottomless money is available for public sector pay rises or NHS.
Part of the problem with MoD finances was that a huge and partially funded pay rise was given to the boys’n’girls at the same time as more was jemmied into the defence spend definition which was only partially funded.
Gosh what a surprise. You would think that there is an election in the offing. (May7th)
You mean they might delay the DIP announcement until right before the election.
Shock, horror 😉 playing politics with defence.