The Royal Navy recently announced its ambitious vision for the future underwater domain, stating that it must leverage cutting edge technologies from industry, academia and the RN innovation ecosystem to accelerate and de-risk future capabilities. Here Thomas Rooney, Technical Sales Manager and Jonathan Davies, Chief Scientist, at Sonardyne consider the options.
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On 29th March the MoD published a new document ‘The UK’s Defence Contribution in the High North’. Here we look at the strategy and the contribution that the RN is expected to make in support of UK Arctic interests.
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The Type 45 Destroyer is the Royal Navy’s primary Anti-Air Warfare (AAW) vessel. Other than the propulsion issues discussed in depth elsewhere, this article documents what has already been done to upgrade the class and the potential improvements to be applied later in their service lives.
The much-delayed National Shipbuilding Strategy ‘refresh’ document was finally published on 10th March. Here we examine the plan in the context of the future Royal Navy fleet.
A Private Finance Initiative provides the UK Ministry of Defence with four roll-on, roll-off (Ro-Ro) ships available to deliver military vehicles and other equipment around the globe. Here we look at these ships, plans to replace them and their tasks, including recent work to reinforce the British Army in Europe.More
On 21 February the MoD published the Defence Equipment Plan (EP) which focuses on procurement for the next decade. Here we take an overview of some of the implications for naval capability.
In 2021 the Accident Investigation Board – Norway (AIBN) published a detailed report covering the loss of HNoMS Helge Ingstad after she collided with an oil tanker in November 2018. There is much to be learned from this event that is applicable to the RN and global navies. In this in-depth, although far from exhaustive, article we describe the incident and look at some of the key lessons.More
2021 can be seen as another broadly positive year for the RN with the Integrated Review the maiden operational deployment of the carrier strike group the dominant stories.More
The RN currently has 18 frigates and destroyers in commission and this number will fall to 17 in 2022. Here we examine the justification for this reduction and the wider issues around fleet size discussed in the December 2021 House of Commons Defence Select Committee report titled “We are going to need a bigger navy”.