The Ministry of Defence has confirmed plans to accelerate the procurement process for new surface fleet assets for both the Royal Navy and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, as confirmed in a recent parliamentary response.
Maria Eagle, Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, stated: “The Ministry of Defence and the Royal Navy are committed to accelerating the pace of procurement. In a period of ever-increasing technological advancement, the ability to harness new capabilities and leverage innovation at pace is critical to the Navy as a credible, modern and capable force.”
The minister said that the goal of speeding up procurement aligns with the broader objectives set out in the Defence Industrial Strategy. She added: “Accelerating procurement is recognised across Defence, forming an important outcome within the Defence Industrial Strategy, and is being considered as part of the Security Defence Review.”
In addition, Eagle pointed to structural changes designed to foster a more agile procurement process: “The establishment of the National Armaments Director Group as part of Defence Reform also seeks to energise the military-industrial relationship to drive pace into procurement.”
Define ‘speed up’ in a politicians gobbledegook
It takes 19 years instead of 20..!
Ten to fifteen years.
You can only speed up warship production if you’re going to increase the size of the fleet.
There is a reason why Govan and Barrow were set to such a slow speed and it’s to keep a continuous build for a small fleet.
It may not just be about ships.
Wondering what the hell this double-talk means in reality…
I am none the clearer as to whether by speeding up procurement, they mean the procurement process or delivery of the surface fleet. Now I want to see these new frigates and auxiliaries delivered sooner, but that takes us back to boom and bust, with no work for the yards. The answer is a bigger surface fleet. Even a notional nineteen escorts is nowhere enough, a 50% increase on that is where it should be. One thought to bear in mind is MRSS has been renamed Multi Role Strike Ships, this makes them active warships, should these be considered part of the escort fleet ?
I think the term escort is outdated, surfed combatant is the widely adopted term
The new MRSS are suppose to be able to defend themselves at-least in the air and surface.
Hi Paul,
If the MRS ships get counted towards the escort force it would be a something of a con unless they have a very real contribution to an escort force, e.g. an effective contribution to the air picture backed up with enough SAM’s to make a difference. However, given what little we know about their ‘strike’ role they should more correctly be classed as part of the amphibious force or perhaps multi-role ships, so including them as a conventional escort as well would be to double count them. I wouldn’t put that trick past any government though.
Cheers CR
CR,
Reasonablly convinced MoD budgetary relief will be forthcoming from HMG, w/in the foreseeable future. The already announced increase to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, will merely be an iinterim measure. Fully anticipate an increase in NATO defence spending goal to 3.5% of GDP on an expedited timeline, perhaps w/ intermediate threshold(s). NATO rationale: a combination of the policy influences of both Mad Vlad and the Donald. Reluctantly contemplating the possibility that the Donald may be playing 3 or 4D chess, whilst the rest of humanity is constrained to the traditional 2D version. The Donald has obviously mastered the technique of diverting attention from his real agenda, whatever that may prove to be. An intriguing, though very disconcerting, hypothesis … 🤔😳😱
Not sure that a man incapable of telling Helvetica Medium labels on knuckles from tattoos or who thinks by not doing trade with others will make you richer is capable of playing any dimensional chess other than one dimensional perhaps being generous. Fact is that term has been used by his idiot acolytes or more informed front men to disguise just how out of touch with reality he is to his less than sophisticated fanbase, one after all supported his election with such fervour are already primed to believe almost anything. Even idiots can often see the idiocy in others behaviour even when they can’t recognise their own or know their role is the pinnacle of their World and can’t face losing it by actually telling the truth like all those sacked during Donny 1. Musk and Vance typical of the first, Bessent and Rubio more typical of the latter, geez the poor guy Bessent struggles to hide the lies he knows he’s spewing as his nervous coughing so clearly reveals at every turn, would be funny if it weren’t so serious. Now Lutnick and Miller probably can’t distinguish between the two even themselves I fear just devoted to personal power projection in their very different ways, Batman and Robin turned to the dark side.
Hi Mate,
I hope you are correct in that assessment as we definitely need to step up and grow our armed services, particularly the RN.
The really galling thing is that the UK Government is still faffing around with the Strategic Defence Review and we know that the first draft hit Starmer’s desk before Christmas..! The best guess is that the cost of the reviews assessment gave the idiots at HM Treasure apoplexy and Starmer sent it back for a rethink. Since Donald Trump has thrown more bricks into the global political pond than most politicians can count.
As the Defence Select Committee reported, “We are going to need a bigger navy,” instead it continues to shrink? Madness. On the positive (?) side recent events here in the UK, namely, the arrest of a number of Iranian nationals on terrorist charges highlights to the British people that we live in dangerous times and the message seems finally to be getting through, may be.
We will see.
Cheers CR
If they get a medium gun (57mm), CAMM, NSM and hanger for a small ship flight they will justifiably be considered large surface combatants… if it’s just a few lighter cal guns ( 40mm) and a hanger for a small ship flight, then no they will not be.
Hi Jonathan,
Large Surface Combatants, yes, but not necessarily escorts. If they are configured to support the Royal Marines in the littoral then the heavier armament to you describe might be appropriate if the ship needs to be able to provide cover / over watch for a landing force (bearing in mind we don’t assault defended beeches any more). As such the resulting vessel may not be appropriate as a carrier escort, if it is intend to normally to stand off shore and use long range, high speed (large) boats to land the RM force. For example, they may not be fast enough to keep up with the carrier group.
All total conjecture at the moment, of course, but the one thing we do know is that the RM need something more than the support ships to get them ashore and to support their supposed raiding / strike role. If they are going to be able to strike at distance it might be quite a big ship… Oh hell, there I go again speculating. Fun though 🙂
Cheers CR
To speed things up you need a good procurement strategy and a willing and efficient civil service to make it happen.
We at present fail on both counts
Fleet needs to double in size bar the carriers . Everything in the forces has been cut to the bone and beyond..only corruption and lethargy is in fine health . Maybe actually encourage the white population to join and stay in for more than the minimum.. no more DEI crap . Ged rid of 90+% of the wobble heads in the MOD .. actually put serving senior officers into the procurement process . Whole rotten tree needs shaking .
Have no problem with DEI when it does as originally envisaged allowing real talent from non privileged groups to get to the level they are worthy of. It’s when it’s at the cost of more talented others that I have an issue with. After all a lot of the problems we still have in this Country is that merit isn’t truly supported just privilege the sort for instance displayed by both the BBC and the print unions for example well into the 90s. These things though more subtle are still with us today especially where public schools have great influence. Geez even the so called liberal Guardian was very selective of the type who got opportunities there and that was generally being pretty sniffy of the working class.
HMG need to order some first.
MROSS 2?
Stirling Class motherships?
MRSS?
More T31?
LCVP replacement?
And who builds these vessels?
👍
All the current warship, auxillary and submarines programmes urgently need a shift to the left. The time to rearm was three years ago. We’ve got to install a sense of urgency AND uplift the armed forces in terms of numbers
Totally meaningless statement. The pace of UK naval construction is set by the need to balance available funding with ensuring the shipyards have a continuous and commercially viable workload. Any meaningful speed up of construction of the T31 and T26 frigates would result in Babcock Rosyth running out of work by 2030, and BAE Systems Clyde a couple of years later. There seems little chance that SDR2025 will fill the resulting gap with an unexpected mass of new orders for the RN, whilst breaking the French and Italian domination of warship export orders is proving a tough nut. Best case is that SDR will confirm the T32/T92 project, and Norway will come good with a T26 order.
Man these people FFS.
Let’s face it, according to them,the first type 83 will be “ready” in the latter half of the 2030s.so at the rate these things are built in Britain,the last will probably finished in the latter 2040s. How old will the type 45s be by then ! With the reliability record of those things we can only be in exactly the same place as we are now using very old ships being flogged to death. Geniuses.
It would be very good if we got a faster
Tranche 2 T31 ( three)
MRSS ( 3+3)
Type 83 ( 3+ if it’s very large, 9 if normal size)
It all hinges around the SDR…..
They will have to order some more ships for sure.
What they actually are depends on what else is being ordered by whom else.
As I’ve said a few times: 3 T31B2 is a safe bet as are the MRSS being turned into frigaty things with guns and missiles.
Thing is that FADS is not a new concept at all and really dates back to T45’s inception. It then disappeared from view when CEC was buried: for a decent interval!
Unfortunately until Rachel from complaints understands a Laffer Curve and that she is sat on the wing part of it – things are not going to improve fast enough for the funding that is desperately needed.
Words are cheap. Action matters.
…interim…🙄
‘We’ll be ready for them in ’41’. British officer to George Orwell in 1938.
Of course Hitler by choice wasn’t ready for war till 41 either, so I guess it works both ways. I often wonder had it been delayed till 41 who would have been better placed, no easy answer I fear especially the way technology was going.
Probably the Allies tbh. The Third Reich without slave labour and the reasources of France, Poland, etc is not going to build up as much as they did from 39-41. France gets a lot more opportunity to modernise and equip it’s armoured formations (French tanks in 41 would probably mostly have Radios, the SA 18 would probably have been mostly phased out). Britain would probably have mobilised more of it’s reserves, but more critically, the British Army in 1941 would have had (depending on peace time production rates and when in 1941 we are talking about) about 7-10 armoured divisions (compared to zero in may 1940). There would also have been a chance to swap over manufacture from the 2lber gun to the 6lber which historically didn’t happen for a few more years. Hitler of course also increased the number of Armoured Divisions he had available, they almost double their Panzer Divisions to 23, but that’s with having most of Europe under their control for a while, so realistically a war begining in 1941 would have resulted in a Wehrmacht with maybe 15 Panzer Divisions facing 10 British, and maybe 8 or more French Armoured Divisions (Historically by 1940 there where 4 DCR’s (Division Cuirassee) and 4 DLM’s (Division Legere Mechanique, so after an extra year of production without combat losses, they’d almost certainly have more).
So “The Head of the Royal Navy has abruptly stepped back after 41 years in a shock move.” That’s not a good sign