STEWART PENNEY / LONDON
The UK's unconventional end to its CVF future aircraft carrier competition brought victory to both contestants. But will the split work?
A statement by UK defence secretary Geoff Hoon to Parliament at the end of January initiated the next phase of one of the country's most important procurement programmes, the CVF future aircraft carrier for the Royal Navy.
Hoon's announcement brought an unconventional end to a fiercely fought contest between BAE Systems and Thales UK. Neither won outright: each received a chunk of the deal for two ships. While BAE will have overall programme leadership and control of systems integration, the design will be that proposed by Thales, which is likely to have around one-third of the work.
The CVF selection followed other key decisions taken in recent years, all of which will shape UK sea-based, and therefore expeditionary, warfare from 2012. First, the US-led Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) was chosen in January 2001 to meet the UK's Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA) requirement to replace the BAE/Boeing Harrier GR9 in Royal Air Force and RN service, also from 2012. In October the same year, Lockheed Martin's F-35 JSF was selected over its Boeing rival, while in September last year, the UK opted for the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) JSF over the US Navy's CV conventional carrier JSF.
The decision to choose STOVL in preference to CV affected BAE's and Thales's final CVF bids. Until that point, the rivals had been designing CV and STOVL versions of their respective ships. Following the September 2002 decision in favour of STOVL, each bidder was told to refine their bids by taking the larger CV design and adapting it for STOVL operations (Flight International, 10-16 December, 2002).
The Ministry of Defence says this decision was taken as the JSF will be in service for 35 years while the two CVFs will be in service for at least 50 years, and there is no guarantee that another STOVL-capable aircraft will be available to replace the F-35.
Washington questions
More-sceptical industrial observers note that this gives the UK a fallback should the US Marine Corps, the principal customer for the STOVL JSF, radically change its strategy - a view perhaps focused by the ongoing debate on the future of USMC/USN strike aviation and questions in Washington on the number of JSFs to be procured.
The two ships - the second will enter service in 2015 - will absorb £2.9 billion ($4.5 billion) in building costs, while another £6.5 billion will be spent on through-life costs. The ships will be built in the UK - that, despite some of the emotional outbursts suggesting France would receive the work in the run-up to selection, was a requirement of the programme. Defence procurement minister Lord Bach in January described the CVFs as "the biggest, most powerful warships ever to be built in the UK", and as such they are too big to be built in a single shipyard, so Vosper Thornycroft in Portsmouth on the south coast, the builders around Newcastle in the north east and those on the River Clyde in Glasgow are all expected to receive work.
Chief of defence procurement Sir Robert Walmsley says the Thales design promises greater flexibility and adaptability. Industry sources add that another factor in Thales's favour was that its team had done more initial design work, including more than one iteration process. MoD officials comment on the "maturity of the Thales design" and have also noted that the Thales team included BMT Defence Services, specialist naval architects that have worked on numerous RN programmes.
An MoD source says that during the competition it became clear that neither bidder had sufficient resources for the programme, so the alliance strategy "is a major part of derisking the programme". The source adds: "I believe this is the least risky solution, each competitor had weaknesses that could not be ignored."
Bach says the decision to create an "alliance" of the two bidders "combines their considerable strength". The alliance will also include the MoD, whose stake Walmsley said in January would total "less than 10%". Walmsley says that including the MoD in the alliance "recognises that it bears some responsibility for the programme, so will take a modest share of the consequences". He adds: "Every major defence programme has discussions, if not disputes, between the prime and subs. We've tried to incentivise both parties, that's precisely what a risk-sharing alliance motivates."
Since the decision to bring the MoD into the alliance, the three parties have been locked in negotiations that will define who is responsible for what aspects of the programmes, and the risks that each will assume. It should also make clearer the build strategy for the ship, and allow selection of critical suppliers.
Thales UK chief executive Alex Dorrian told Flight International last month that the negotiations are defining how the programme is managed: "Not workshare, but global responsibility for who manages what." Negotiations are expected to conclude shortly, which will allow the so-called "main gate" approval - the final ministerial go-ahead - to be given as planned in December, with a contract for the ship build expected in the second quarter of next year.
A big difference between the BAE and Thales bids was that the former had selected several key suppliers, while Thales intended to run competitions to select key systems.
An earlier UK ship programme, the Type 45 anti-air warfare destroyer, was also thought to be heralding a new era of alliances and co-operation after a decision to split the shipbuilding between BAE, which was to build some ships and have overall programme management, and Vosper Thornycroft, which was to have some design responsibility and build some vessels. This strategy delayed implementation, and finally was reorganised to allow yards to construct the same section for all ships - and all but the first will be assembled at BAE's Barrow yard in north-west England.
Type 45 lessons
Walmsley says "Type 45 taught us an awful lot" and those lessons will be applied to CVF. Both bidders have submitted designs that will be built in sections. The Thales proposal splits the ship into five "superblock" sections, each running from the keel to the top of the ship. These will be self-contained units that will be towed to a single yard for final assembly.
Only time will tell whether the unconventional finale will bring two conventionally successfully ships.
Source: Flight International
