The Ministry of Defence has awarded a £2.33 million contract to procure and support replacement navigation radars for Royal Navy Type 23 frigates after warning that the existing equipment is unsupported and a failure could prevent a ship from sailing, the UK Defence Journal understands.
The contract details notice, published on 30 August, covers replacement Second Naval Navigation Radar equipment and associated in-service support. The contract was signed on 30 July and runs until July 2031, with options allowing it to continue until July 2033.
Defence Equipment and Support awarded the requirement directly rather than holding a competition, citing technical reasons, urgency and the need to maintain the operational capability, readiness and safety of the Armed Forces.
The MOD’s justification states: “The MRUP team are in an unusual and unplanned position whereby the current SNNR used on Royal Navy Type 23 Frigates is unsupported; as SNNR is a critical system this presents a significant risk to Navigational Safety for the T23 vessels and a risk to the operational capability of these Royal Navy vessels.”
It added: “The failure of a Navigation Radar will result in a high-level Operational Defect (OPDEF) and could prevent the ship sailing. With this in mind timescales to procure a replacement radar are of the upmost importance.”
The requirement forms part of the Maritime Radar Update Programme and is intended to replace the existing Second Naval Navigation Radar while minimising changes to the frigates themselves. According to the procurement notice, the MOD sought equipment with the same properties as the existing radar so that existing shipboard infrastructure could continue to be used. This was intended to avoid additional design work and reduce the time needed to carry out the replacement.
The department stated: “Due to the necessity to replace the radar at the earliest opportunity, the Authority will seek to limit any change on the platform. The Authority’s requirement is therefore for a radar which has identical properties to the current radar so as to enable the existing infrastructure on the platform to be used.”
It continued: “This will remove the time required to undertake design work, and to model interaction with it and other systems. This approach will also ensure that the time required to update the radar on the platform is kept to the bare minimum and that the impact on platform readiness is limited, thereby enabling an update to be done whilst a vessel is operational.”
The MOD concluded that the Hensoldt S Band Turning Unit and Antenna was the only system meeting those requirements.
The contract notice lists Kelvin Hughes Limited as the supplier, while the direct-award justification names Hensoldt UK Limited as the company with which the MOD intended to place the contract. The agreement also contains a series of options for additional work. These include fitting Multi-Display Multi-Function Displays to additional Type 23 frigates, producing technical publications, providing additional operator and maintainer training and carrying out security testing.
Later options cover the possible replacement of existing RT1084 equipment with Hensoldt UK equipment using the SharpEye system, modifications identified through an earlier concept design study, and combinations of those changes. One option specifically covers replacing existing RT1084 equipment with a new Hensoldt UK Multi-Display Multi-Function Display and Mk11 S-Band SharpEye radar.
The initial five-year contract can be extended through two one-year options. The earlier voluntary transparency material associated with the procurement estimated that the wider requirement could be worth up to £3.5 million if options were taken up. The contract includes quarterly performance measures covering helpdesk responsiveness, equipment availability, delivery of reports and contract documents, and responses to technical assistance forms and requests for quotation.
This is why we can’t have nice things 😓
Wonder will all the 23’s make it to the end of the contract?
And how many remaining T23s will then get their NSMs and the T45s and hopefully all T31s? The T26s can also take as with Aus, Canadian and Norwegian ships so will RN do the same? Be good to gave some ashm backup onboard.
The sound of chickens coming home to roost.
‘An unplanned position’. Am I missing something here?
Did they not know beforehand that support for this system was due to be withdrawn? Or did they know beforehand but took no action?
Because either way…!
I suspect they were holding to get away with not upgrading it. Although I’m curious how a navigation radar goes out of service.
I wonder if the manufacturer has withdrawn support for its current operating system, like happens with iPhones.
£2.3 million is loose change. Found problem, found solution, found supplier transaction sorted. Time wasted – very little.
In this sort of situation MOD have done well and just applied a simple fix. Appropriate in the circumstances. Although many will still moan.
It is but considering it’s only covering what 8 vessels, it seems a lot for money for a simple navigation radar.
8 vessels! you do have 5 frigates not 8.
Doing business in the public sector is expensive and the whole thing needs to be done and supported on the fly. To be fair I can’t imagine many suppliers wanting this work at this low price.
We’re going to need to find a way to nail our politicians to a cross for dumb short term decisions which create enormous consequences.
I’d like to see the life peerages stripped from Cameron and Hammond et al.
We need to make morality tales out out of the ashes of bad decsions in order to scare future politicians into better behaviour so when the choice is between foreign adi and a Royal Navy then they get forced into the correct decision.
Agreed. Not sure what is possible but some sort of accountability is certain.
Healey has his day of reckoning coming up in just a few short weeks, no more wriggling, no more delay, no more accounting trickery he will either step up or commit treason when he stands up to deliver the budget.
Situation still desperate. I think he will close the £5b? immediate gap in the ( low) DIP spend, add a token extra so he can claim his resignation was justified and lay out some sort of plan to achieve the 3% target. My guess is additional tax revenue from a few £b from windfall tax on banks, the mansion tax and a simplified, fairer inheritance tax regime. I reckon Burnham will approve Rosebank exploitation ( more tax revenue) and do a deal with the EU as close as he can get without breaking the labour manifesto commitment not to rejoin the single market – bit more growth. We will see 2 new frigates doing sea trials before the end of the year. Saw an interesting Times post that Navantia have been told to accelerate delivery of FSS.
It was known that this was problem and was ignored.
2003 the transport fleet needed the latest TCAS, the MOD thought it would get away with an exemption until it was made crystal clear by the FAA we would be barred from entering US airspace. All for the sake of saving a penny. I could go on but what the point. Nothing changes.
The legacy political parties have absolutely decimated the Royal Navy with their horrendous incompetence – shortsighted decisions – underfunding – mismanagement and cuts.
Same for the Royal Air Force and British Army.
If Russia attacks the UK and causes substantial damage and casualties every Prime Minister – Defence Secretary and Chancellor from David Cameron on forward should be charged with dereliction of duty plus treason and should be punished accordingly.
All this tealy started 30 years before Cameron, under maggy thatcher