Rolls-Royce say it welcomed Canadian Minister Maryam Monsef to break ground on a new expansion to its Centre of Excellence for Naval Handling equipment in Peterborough, Ontario.
Design and manufacture of the Rolls-Royce Mission Bay Handling System (MBHS) will take place inside the new facility expansion say the firm.
“The MBHS is an innovative, adaptable and flexible feature of the Global Combat Ship design, selected for the Canadian Surface Combatant (CSC), Australian Hunter Class and UK Type 26 programs. The Canadian Federal Government has already selected the Global Combat Ship design for the Royal Canadian Navy’s 15 new CSC ships.
This significant investment in the expansion of infrastructure to support the CSC program demonstrates the company’s commitment to developing advanced industrial technologies to benefit the Canadian economy and Canada’s Armed Forces.”
Rolls-Royce say it has already expanded its supply chain in Canada to meet the significant domestic and international export opportunities created by the Global Combat Ship program, enabling the company to sustain significant growth of the Canadian economy well into the future.
Bruce Lennie, Rolls-Royce, Vice President, Business Development & Government Affairs said:
“We are pleased to welcome Minister Monsef, MPP Smith and Mayor Therrien to mark this significant milestone in developing our infrastructure which will support the Canadian Surface Combatant program. This Centre will harness and build upon the wealth of Canadian engineering and technological expertise we have at Rolls-Royce. We look forward to growing our business in country, further developing our supply chain and enhancing our contributions to the Canadian economy.”
The MBHS has the capability to launch and recover naval vehicles and move containerised packages without the aid of a dockside crane.
The multi-functional system can also be easily adapted to support custom operational requirements, such as humanitarian missions, by providing the space for medical facilities and aid supplies. Read more about the Mission Bay Handling System here.
Good news and another stage in the successful Type26 story.
Be interesting to see who gets one into service first.
I say HMS Glasgow will be miles ahead. Hopefully.
Michael Portillos latest Railway Journey programme last night came up trumps again, he visited the Irving Shipyard in Halifax, Canada where their Type 26’s will be built.
Yeah and I bet Oz will build it’s own also, shame we couldn’t build more parts for our industry for them
Hopefully at some stage there will be a Spreadsheet of some sort comparing the Specs of the three versions of the T26.
It’s amazing to think that there could be as many as 34 Type 26 built between UK, Canada, Australia and NZ. Just hope the Canadians can find the Budget it get all their orders.
It just goes to show that when we design a vessel with well rounded capabilities and some that are standout our products will sell. We seem to hamper our industry by selecting highly specialised warships when most others want more general purpose.
Makes you think, all future designs need to be mk41 and camm compatible, aread for asw equipment ,allocated spaces for deck launchers, and have flexibility for a range of combat systems and radars. Then we might start seeing our sales grow.
Remember the Phase, ‘A Jack of All Trades, is A Master of None’!
The capabilities of this warship is a justification for a highly specialized warship over a more general purpose vessel to suit a role required of it.
Merion, I don’t mean it shouldn’t have a certain specialisation, just that it needs to be good to very good in all other areas as well, Just not exquisite.
T45s are exquisite at air defence but cant do long range land attack, asw work etc. If it had been designed to be easily rounded with capabilities in other areas it may have attracted foreign sales is my point.
I can not see any point in equipping the T45s with long range land attack capability, this role is best suited for SSNs with the element of surprise, and maybe possible in the future with the Type 26 frigate.
Arming the T45s with NSM would give a short range strike ashore capability.
Also the T45s do have some ASW capability with the Type 2091 sonar.
New Zealand hasn’t ordered Type 26, they have only just started scoping out what their future requirements for an ANZAC class replacement. New Zealand appears to be in no rush to replace the ANZAC that are currently going through a mid life update.
Any replacement will be subject to a tender and I wouldn’t be certain that Type 26 or 31 will win.
Mission Bay Handling System (MBHS)… A Crane.
But it’s Not just any crane it’s a Mission bay handling system Crane
As Crocodile Dundee might say, “Call that a Mission Bay Handling System? THIS is a Mission Bay Handling System.”
It still bothers me we are getting the lowest numbers of the type 26. Increase order to 10 and type 31to 10 then we will have 20 a good number.
30 is an even better number ?
Unfortunately there is no Santa, 8 is better than none. But what is even more disturbing are the reports from savethenavy.org on T31 with only 12 CAMM. That is a slap in the face. I hope that they are wrong because what is the point of 6000t frigate with so little to show for. I like the T31 but it needs a lot more love from the bean counters.
Remember T23 we’re going to sea into combat in Libya with just four seawolf. 12 CAMM is actually quite a bit for a warship only designed for medium intensity warfare. CAMM magazines is fairly easy to expand for a ship that already has the system installed. Having 12CAMM is way better air defence capability than the US Navy LCS.
It doesn’t have to literally be Stanflex but I wonder how expensive it would be to develop a modular Sea Ceptor (SC) silo for a minimum of 24, ideally a few more (36?) that could be lifted in and out when docked. Out of 8 T26 with 2 SC silos each and minimum of 5 T31 with 1 each there will always be 3 or 4 vessels in maintenance so fewer silos than ships could be purchased thus possibly increasing capacity for the silos that are purchased. Also, it would guarantee T31 a decent silo size since it would get whatever the modular drop-in unit supported and if the size could be more than 24, maybe 36, T26 gets a jump from 48 SC to 72.
It could also be a base concept to build on, e.g. if the silos are there and purchased then perhaps a receiving space could be put into T45 in the FFBNW Mk41 space to add 24 or even 36 SC there at very little cost. When the MCM vessels are renewed they could also look at a modular SC receiver being designed into that too since the more vessels that have it the more economies of scale come from being able to lift them out of ships in maintenance.
If the modular silo is sized such that it could also take the CAMM-ER version which I would hope is also a size and weight envelope within which MBDA could develop a VLS SPEAR 3 if that ever happens, then any vessel with even a single module installed, and of course having suitable radar, other electronics and CMS to use it, becomes pretty decently armed just from that one silo especially if it could be made 36 capacity.
Julian – I think a Modular VLS would be a good idea for Ships that don’t have them,plus as you say an enhancement for the T45.But as far as T26/31 go the VLS surely will be built in during their build,i don’t think they can be swapped out as and when they are needed like for example a CIWS.
Paul – I definitely wasn’t suggesting a Phalanx style fit based on type of deployment. For the examples I used no T26, T31 or T45 would ever sail without all its SC silos filled. The only time a silo would be removed would be for ships in relatively lengthy maintenance but as one extends the concept to more ships the number that are in such a state of maintenance increases thus increasing the savings to be had from not having perfectly good SC silos sitting in a ship that is in dry dock (as an example of the deepest level of maintenance).
With cold gas ejection on Sea Ceptor you can put them anywhere even in separate modules on deck at 100 KG a missile you can even reload magazines at sea. If a higher threat environment is encountered it will be easy to put more Sea Ceptors on a T31 however it’s worth noting that if you need more than 12 Sea Ceptors on a T31 for a Mission you are probably using the wrong ship.
ÇAMM -ER are just not longer, but wider too! They Cannot be quad pack in Mk. 41.
I mean wider then Standard CAMM.
That’s a false argument though. Just because one went with only 4 Wolf doesn’t mean 12 CAMM is good. That just means someone royally FUed that deployment. 12 CAMM is still a pathetic humiliation of the Royal Navy escorts.
And LCS is not a yardstick to measure by. It should be measured against thje Type 26 GP, which was what was SUPPOSED to be in service instead.
Isn’t the point of the warship strategy to just keep building T26s and especially T31s and sell off second hand ones to the likes of Chile (and NZ?).
There’s very little money in 2nd hand sales, and most of that goes to Bae for modernization costs. And I don’t think New Zealand is interested…
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jun/29/military.davidleigh
In the meantime:
The Australian Defence Deputy Secretary has been dispatched to remind the UK government it needed to honour its commitment to including Australian companies including job pledges, and that the $35 billion frigate program was not to be simply used to prop up British shipbuilders.
This comes on the back of a minor slouch with the French Naval Grouo over the submarine contract for the same reason.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-22/uk-government-warned-to-meet-australian-job-pledges-warship/11990536
We should give active consideration to CEFAR2 radar on all later British T26 to boost Aussie participation and possibly give us a base line ship that can then go on to replace T45.
CEFAR2 is Not really compatible with RN missiles.
RN missiles are fully active homing, so do Not Need to use X-band Radar like USN or RAN.
The X-band panels would Need to be stripped out, leaving just S-band panels.
A Big Redesign Job!
Assuming T26’s 4 to 8 are actually built I doubt if they will still use Artisan – maybe an evolution or iteration of Sampson would be more likely.
The Aussie ships are being built in Australia. Their subs are being built in France I believe. The French did well out of Rafale with the Indians and someone I’m sure will make money out of those Aussie subs.