Conversion work on RFA Proteus is now in its eighth month and she is still in the shipyard. This former commercial vessel will become the UK’s first Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance (MROS) ship. She was purchased in response to the growing threats to critical subsea infrastructure and was expected to be operational by now.
Preparing her for naval service was supposed to be relatively straightforward, primarily painting her grey and the addition of some military communications equipment. In January the MoD promised “the vessel is due to be operational in Summer 2023.” but by June the Defence Minister was claiming the in-service date could not be made public for “operational security reasons”. It appears she will not be leaving Cammell Laird until September at least. It is unclear exactly what has been the cause of the delay but crew generation and safety certification issues are understood to be contributing factors.
Unfortunately, her initial period in service will be short as she will need to return to Merseyside by the end of the year to be dry-docked for her Lloyds survey inspection which is due every 5 years. This will probably be undertaken in parallel with additional capability insertion work.
Besides procurement of the ship, the RN has been working with the MoD’s specialist Salvage and Marine Operations (SALMO) team and civilian experts to equip her with suitable ROVs and UVVs to perform the surveillance task.
This ship will doubtless prove to be a great asset and a couple of months added to the schedule is not a major problem, although the threat that MROS is intended to counter is considered to be acute. Delays to this project are just another example, among many, of the MoD over-promising and under-delivering on procurement and support.
Main photo: Andy Mahon
The delay isn’t the end of the world, stuff happens, but the Minister’s response really isn’t acceptable.
This kind of nonsense gives the MOD a bad name, not to mention the way it reflects on the Minister who repeats it. If you won’t simply accept you got something wrong there’s no impetus to get it right next time. Not to mention that when Healy chooses to hide behind the same formula, gifted to him by Cartlidge, the cycle perpetuates.
Can we assume John Healey’s question was a slip of the tongue when he called the ship ” the new subsea protection vessel formerly known as RFA Proteus”? As far as I know it hasn’t been renamed and is still in the RFA.
Just shows they know nothing and just blag their way through!!
I was thinking more of the possible strikes being discussed in the RFA, and whether they were considering crewing Proteus as a government-owned civilian or RN ship rather than RFA. I don’t know if Healey would have been briefed, much less if he’d have let it slip out this way.
Ten to one, the RFA can’t get enough Marine engineers with an electrical ticket to man the ship.
Maybe the MoD should follow the Montgomery Scott practice of multiplying all estimates by 4, so as to maintain the reputation of being a miracle worker?
(Star Trek III)
Thankfully they don’t. In any project there’s are things within the PM’s control, and others that are outside of their control. So the question is not that it’s entry into service is late, but whether the slippage was within the MoD’s control or not.
That would be silly. No place for logic here, just outrage or angst!
I always thought this site more civilised, outrage and angst I associate with U.K. Defence Journal…
I like they kept the flight deck above the pilot house no bodged attempts to move it aft. When Protector came into service I was hoping the would do similar. No helicopters, but two flight decks could have been useful at times at anchor.
How useful this platform will be I don’t know.
That’s it.
It’s my understanding they will not be using the flight deck at all. It’s simply being left in place as there is no reason to spend the money to remove it. It’s only designed for light rotors and I believe even a wildcat would be to heavy for it.
The helideck has a 12.8 ton weight rating and a 21 metre size restriction. It has been designed for S92 size commercial offshore helicopters so will accommodate Wildcat and Merlin.
My mistake it’s actually the Stirling castles helideck that’s not rated for navel rotors and is not planned to be used.
There is a lot to keep a track off with all these new hulls. In a few months we will all know whats what with them.
Indeed, it’s going to be very interesting to see how these all shake out especially the different roles for stirring castle and proteus.
Maybe they will find out that sea bed sensors for surveillance plus small manned submarines like the norwegian Ula class (1100 tons) for interception will best after all?
Although not able to be used for landing its still a useful clear space for winch operations.
Are you sure?
got confused between which ugly was which ( they are both practical ships…but only their mothers would love them).
Dont be silly its a Drone shield and has anti laser glass fitted. To confuse the enemy it will anchor and ‘hover’ stern first.
I think we need a map to orientate ourselves to the scale of the ‘problem’…..
And there is the problem. Should utility companies etc be made to install passive defence and alarm measures for cables and pipes? Should these companies be levied with a hypothecated tax direct to the RN budget line?
There are measures in place. But how does a dumpy little tub get there quick enough to do anything? And to do what exactly? Register a protest with the offending state?
Perhaps we need something more like this…………..
This isn’t just our problem, despite the vast amount of seabed infrastructure going out of our shores. A joint approach (NATO/JEC) is needed to harness enough surveillance assets to monitor this lot. Then of course you eed something to respond with when required….
Exactly.
I guess by managing persistent surveillance so we are not surprised. Seabed sensors and large long-endurance UUVs can patrol cables and pipelines, but will need support ships to put down ROVs and divers to maintain these systems.
Yes. I think there will need to be layers of systems.
Don’t know about pipes, but I think you will find that the cables have alarms on them, that inform their respective operators that they are being tampered/interrupted.
What makes you think they don’t already?
HMT + Hypothecated Tax = NO
You cannot control everything. It is impossible. The best course of action is to have the capability to install a new cable as fast as possible.
The fibre optic cables close to shore are incredibly thick – they would be hard to cut and you would be able to monitor any adversary vessel close to shore trying to locate said cable and interfere with it. They are regularly maintained as well.
Beyond the contienental shelf the cables are really thin about twice the diameter of hose pipe. Finding that cable 3km down, buried in the silt on the floor would be a challenging task. There are 8 joining us and the US, so finding all 8 and cutting them before NATO finds you? Tricky.
Yes. I know. They are relative safe physically. But their length makes them vulnerable too. Though we need a sea bed engineering asset I am not sure it will end up performing the task HMG want it do. Response can only be reactive not pro-active. I think some could be cut before NATO knew.
The right answer would be our NATO partners would invest in an MROS, between us, the French, Norway, Dutch you would have enough assets to cover it.
I dont think Crimea is the right colour.
The Nordstream subsea pipelines being blown up last year shows how easy it would be to sabotage our gas/oil pipelines and power cables and internet links , the seabed is too big to patrol and what this ship would do in an incident seems pretty pointless . We are leaving ourselves too exposed particularly in the push for offshore wind energy with all the cabling that’s so easy for a determined force to cut leaving us in the no carbon future with no electrical power supply .
By ‘determined force’ you mean a kamikaze force as coming so close to the U.K. to attack our wind farms would put them well in the range of NATO air-forces in addition to NATO navies. The UK’s wind farms aren’t clustered in a single location with a single cable to shore, so said ‘determined force’ would virtually have to circumnavigate the British Isles to cut us from all offshore wind energy generation.
Even if such an impossible feat were performed, we’d still have on-shore wind, solar, nuclear, and continental interconnectors to ensure our lights stay on.
You also fail to understand the purpose of this ship. It’s not for going head to head with Russian frigates trying to cut undersea cables, because that’s not how they’d try to do it.
He said determined force. That could mean anything including submarines and special forces.
Your really are a product of ‘current year thinking’ aren’t you? Solar and wind to keep the lights on……….>larf<
Well since 40% of our energy production is renewables and 15% nuclear….they literally do keep the lights on.
No our nuclear stations, gas stations, and (2) coal stations cover base load. That’s what keeps the lights on.
Wrong. The renewables cover base load, with other more expensive or polluting options such as coal only being spun up as a last resort.
Can’t do. Too variable.
Here’s what the grid says…
National Grid: Live (iamkate.com)
Just because you do t understand how they do doesn’t me they can’t.
They are base load because they are spread out in windy locations ensuring there is always electricity generated.
Base load is from nuclear power stations, have you been reading the Sun again?
You’re the one obsessed by The Sun, I wasn’t even aware it was still being printed – paper based reporting is so 20th Century.
Wrong, base load comes from a mix of sources, including nuclear and renewable.
Evidence please What I can see for yesterday, at 4pm , gas was able to scale up to the evening peak , while wind was falling after 4pm
Solar of course peaked around midday and was very low both morning and evening peaks
The reliable fossil fuel generators now follow the price curve because of the carbon taxes so low output during most of day when spot prices lower and high during morning and evening peaks when price rockets
You mean I understand science and don’t deny man-made climate change lies me the flat-earthers do…
Renewables already keep a third of the UK’s lights on, though you obviously live in the dark and away from actual facts.
I think the U.K. would notice the thousands of special forces or dozens of submarines needed to perform this action.
Anyone using the term ‘MSM’ has already lost the argument. Tin foil hat wearing brigade that deny the moon landings, deny climate change is happening, think 5G masts are evil, believe in chemtrails and think Soros/Gates rule the world.
Do they please tell me what starts the wind turbine up and don’t say wind there is no doubt climate change is real if fact every planet in our solar system is undergoing climate change and as far as I know no other planets have humans on them at least not 7/8 billion maybe it’s something to do with the radiation from our sun which has more mass than all the other objects in our solar system put together just a thought
Err it’s pretty obvious how wind turbines start up, it’s called wind.
But you’ve obviously bought into the nonsense about them needing diesel generators due to misreporting of this incident.
https://www.energyvoice.com/renewables-energy-transition/480700/scottish-power-wind-farm-turbines-diesel-generators/
No every planet in the solar system is not undergoing climate change.
There is naturally occurring climate change.
There is also man-made climate change.
Generally, natural occurring climate change is very slow, barring sudden events such as super volcano eruptions or extinction level meteorite strikes. The climate change the earth is currently undergoing is rapid – ie man induced.
Super volcano events? like the one in Tonga 15 Jan 2023, seems to have had a world wide effect from the size and the blasting of water into the stratosphere.
Seems that locally its the coldest it been on this tropical island since the 1970s
Not sure what all this has to do with saving the Royal Navy.
FWIW, there is no “climate crisis”. Yes we are still fortunately recovering from the Little Ice Age, but no big deal. We should be much more worried about the already overdue likelihood of another glaciation, during which in the last one Montreal was under 2 miles of ice.
Here is the record of the NOAA’s US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) weather station network of high quality rural weather stations, established about 20 years ago, to avoid effects of urban heat islands etc. Of course never mentioned in the news.
As to CO2 emissions we came to an all time low (in danger of killing off all plant life on earth) before the present fortunate increase. Plants and crops ideally want about 3 times the present levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, ask any greenhouse grower.
Regardless of all that why not keep this site focused on saving the Royal Navy, rather than getting distracted on the political and quasi religious topics such as “climate change”.
Cheers
John
This website isn’t about saving the Royal Navy. But the RN, like all parts of society, will have to do its part in the push for net zero.
FWIW all peer-reviewed research published in recognised scientific journals over the past 20 years all indicative that a dramatic change in climate is occurring as a result of human activity. I think I will take the weight of scientific evidence over your back of fag packet pseudo-science. It might wash with your fellow conspiracy cultists, but won’t with most people.
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare branch of the United Kingdom’s armed forces. It is one of the oldest and most renowned naval forces in the world, with a history dating back centuries. The Royal Navy’s primary role is to protect and defend the interests of the United Kingdom and its allies at sea. It also plays a key role in supporting international peace and security through various maritime operations.
Key functions and responsibilities of the Royal Navy include:
The Royal Navy has a diverse fleet that includes aircraft carriers, destroyers, frigates, submarines, and various support vessels. Its personnel undergo rigorous training to become highly skilled in their respective roles. The Navy’s history, traditions, and contributions to global maritime security have made it a respected and influential force on the international stage.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/
Glad to see you’re up to speed with the rest of us on the function of the Royal Navy, though your fingers are probably tired from all that pointless typing….
Chinese Navy, also known as the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, here’s an overview of the Chinese Navy:
Please note that developments may have occurred after my last update in September 2021. For the most current and detailed information about the Chinese Navy, I recommend consulting recent sources, news articles, and official statements.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/
Regenerate
Theres a reason why Nobel prizes are awarded some 20-30 years after the ‘discovery was published’
Peer review is a crock, its replication which establishes the validity of research. You also misunderstand most research isnt ‘truth gathering’ with 2 sides like a court might work, its real purpose is to find and promote new research techniques and as an aside it becomes the new normal until its overturned.
Many of the readers would know much science – by not all- from before the 70s is invalid now.
Any research that works backward from what the author considers a known truth and the research is just to confirm that isnt science at all
I well remember the Assoc professor in my university days, telling us explicitly a claim in the text book was wrong – it was Fluid mechanics- and he as a published author was right
Your attempts at sounding scientifically minded are laughable with your claim
“much science from before the 70s is invalid now”
to be hilarious.
Usually science is just further refined as we gain new insights through new abilities to determine and measure results. It’s rare that something is found completely invalid, and if it is, it’s usually rapid lily – such as the recent room-temperature superconductor claims.
I look forward to your providing a second earth so that we can conduct a control group experiment of what happens to it without any fossil-fuelled industrialisation.
It’s typically 20 years for Physics, if you’d bothered to look it up.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Physics
You seem to have no comprehension how science is performed. You don’t, as you have done, choose the position, “that man-made climate change doesn’t exist”, and dismiss all research that supports it and only accept that which agrees with your position.
I was skeptical when the first research was published as there is no way we can test climate models in the same way we can test aerodynamics. The picture is muddied that there is probably some natural climate change occurring which may be reinforcing or diminishing the results of man-made climate-change. However the observed changes are occurring far faster than would be naturally seen. My greatest concern is that the sheer complexity of the climate means that models will underestimate the effect of feedback loops and connections that we have not made.
“know much science from before the 70s is invalid now”
Patently untrue. Newton’s Laws still apply, E still equals mc2, alternating current still alternates, objects still fall down and not up, etc, etc.
What happens is that science finds more accurate descriptions of previous discoveries or that they only apply under certain conditions.
As you hold the Nobel Prize for Physics in such high regard, here’s the link to the details of the 2021 winners for their work on climate modelling which identifies man-man climate change.
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2021/popular-information/
False
I see also that Sean is a believer in credentialism and scientism and unable to apply Scientific Method that he learned at school
Please explain what created the extreme weather in XVI Centurty culminating into giant drought of 1540 in Europe. Not you, neither any scientist can explain it.
Please explain the changes in climate from year 1000 to year 2000.
You and no sceintist can.
You missed the part in Scientific Method that proves that sometimes the only proof is that is not possible to have a proof.
A disingenuous argument there by AlexS.
Please do tell me the number of weather stations, earth observation satellites, and climate models were in use at that time to determine the weather fluctuations that Europe experienced at that time? I’ll supply you with the answer, zero on all counts. Science is evidence based, while we can gather and analyse a vast amount of measurements today, it’s impossible to magic them up from centuries ago. The best we can do is examine ice cores, which give global measurements, not regional ones.
Your stance that we can can’t determine climate change now, because we cannot definitively a small regional variance nearly 500 years ago is farcical, and you know it.
really there is no right or wrong so I respect your position it’s just not mine
Yes there is a right and wrong.
It’s wrong to claim that wind turbines need anything other than wind to start up. To claim otherwise is untrue.
Not from my point of view we are here having our own individual experience of consciousness as Gandhi said even if you are surrounded by people and in the minority of one the truth is still the truth when he said that he didn’t mean he was right and everyone else was wrong he was saying that he would always listen to his wisdom rather than someone else’s knowledge as do I and so should you so if you think man made climate change is real then that is your truth but as I said it’s not mine
Your point of view is simply a philosophical opinion. I prefer scientific fact to philosophical relativism. You may sincerely believe the earth is flat but that doesn’t make it so.
That was a complicated task and far from easy. I bet the USN and RN had to call on a Scandi SSK to act as a delivery truck.
Wind contributes next to nothing. I would be more worried about them going after the Continental links.
Wind is actually the UKs second largest energy source at 26+ percent of our production in 22.
Stats are wonderful aren’t they?
One thing we have is wind and waves…personally I think solar is a bit of stretch in the Uk, ok for roof tops and micro generation from spare space..but we should not be taking up fields of solar…wind on on the other hand….it’s cheaper that gas…wind, wave, tidal and nuclear can manage the energy mix….we can then keep all our oil reserves for manufacturing ( which is what we really need to be keeping a finite resource for…not burning for power when we can get it other ways…run out of oil you run out of plastics….that’s bad news).
As an owner of 16 panel PV array and 9.2 kilowatt battery I agree that it is for the home and not a substitute for power stations.
But wind is fickle. And wave technology never seems to get anywhere and I have been following the technology since the 70s.
Personally I would prefer to see fracking. Pump the gas into our wonderful plastic yellow pipe network and use it to fuel local generators. We break the country up into myriad cells. That way nobody can take out 50 power stations in a single after.
Yes oil should be for materials not for fuel.
Great let’s frack and have earth tremors or quakes to add to the issues we have in the U.K…. The geology of the U.K. is different to those part of North America where fracking is successfully done.
(But “geology” is a science, so you’ll dismiss that as being MSM propaganda….)
You are so right………
Usually, whereas you aren’t
https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/how-much-uks-energy-renewable#
But in the coldest hours in the year, when demand is very high, wind typically produces very little.
Even if there are times when we have low wind all we actually need to do is ensure we have good long term energy storage…one study found the Uk did not use wind generated energy that could have hearted 1.2 millions homes due to lack of energy storage capacity..while in the same period it pissed away 60bn on gas imports….a very stark figure is that it costs £60 per Mwh to generate wind energy and at one point the cost of generating energy from imported gas was £3,000 per Mwh..The simple truth is not going to renewables is what is cost us on our electricity bills, creates a massive issue of energy security for the nation and most importantly of all and the thing that people simply will not get there heads around ( because they simply don’t want to believe it’s possible is that continuing to burn fossil fuel for energy will see humanity die by the many hundreds of millions if not billions and that’s if we are lucky….continuing down the track we are on as a species will see a 6degree + warming plus a very high and likely chance of a catastrophic runaway warming event that will kill every human on the planet and end most of life on earth….that’s what the science says always has always will….
But the problem is that energy storage is rather expensive. With intermittent generation you will always need back up generation or storage. To this you could add that solar and wind typically do not produce inertia etc which is needed for a well functioning grid. Nota bene, i am not negative to wind per se but it does not strenghen the power balance in the coldest hours of the year when demand is peaking.
indeed, this is one of those times where very good planning come in, we could start to use electric cars as a massive national battery…there are limited trials at present but the opportunity that electric vehicles hold on grid stability is huge. Also energy storage is one of those infrastructure invest to save opportunities…dinorwig is still the classic example of energy storage…..where you have water and a gradient you have the potential to store energy. It’s these bold infrastructure plans that would have saved the UK a fortune….just the EBSS will have cost the UK 27billion pounds….and we got nothing from it…just gave our national treasure to the gas and oil producers…we would have been far better putting that money into infrastructure such as energy storage to make our renewable infrastructure work better.
No its not . Still need reserve generation for when renewable output is low and various faults occur.
Dont forget power generation is AC and thus voltage and more importantly frequency needs to be stable. Renewable in general except for hydro/geothermal doesnt provide that grid stability – because if your frequency provided by rotation of large turbines at a constant speed is just a bit out , the computer controlled system management will flick off the unstable parts in a micro second.
That’s what you have nuclear, hydro and tidal for, you simply don’t need to burn fossil fuel.
*homes* only use about 1/3 of the power generated. What about the other 2/3
I think you missed the point, it was just noting how much power was wasted by not having backup storage…it could have been homes or businesses..but the piece I was quoting from used homes as an example of how much energy was wasted.
HMS CHALLENGER was the first
All this servery the cables nonsense. Close to impossible. Instead, follow the likely perpetrators.
I don’t understand the strategy that led to this vessel, so I presume as it’s been decided it’s too expensive to do anything real about the threat to undersea infrastructure, that this is just window dressing, political theatre to look like it is being taken seriously?
How is one ship with ROV’s going to survey / protect 10’s of thousands of Km of undersea cables?
Russian (and Chinese?) threat systems need to be delivered by SSN, SSK or surface vessels. So don’t we actually need more P8, MQ9B Sea Guardian, fixed sea bed acoustic arrays, and maybe cheap “towed array tugs” for surface and sub-surface surveillance that picks up the delivery system before an enemy ROV or even UUSV sized threat can do something like tap or cut the cable???
All Proteus can do is confirm site and severity of damage after an event, or maybe find cable taps….?
All Proteus can do is confirm site and severity of damage after an event, or maybe find cable taps….?
Exactly. You can’t defend the cables. The RN does needs a seabed engineering platform. It is a reactive not a proactive platform. There is just enough need for it to make procurement worthwhile. The Russians have a large seabed engineering capability. But the only state to have actually attacked undersea infrastructure is the US aided by ourselves.
Or… It does the equivalent of route surveys on lines and pipes. When doing it again you compare the before and after. Any “Boxes of interest” that have appeared between surveys can be investigated. MCMV do a similar thing for mines. makes spotting actual mines easier because you have a before and after comparison.
Route surveillance would still be a huge task.
Yes. Technology allows seabed sensors along areas of interest to keep watch constantly – subject to some intern keeping alert /off social media to respond to warnings
Certainly would but you have to start somewhere because at the moment…there is nowt!
Understood, I have served on Hunts, I have done route surveys, I still think this is a capability largely designed to shut the door after the horse has bolted, and that is why I question its value compared to investing in pro-active surface and sub-surface surveillance 🙂
After the explosions in the Baltic sea gas pipelines, which by now have been traced back to the Ukrainians- or ‘shadowy groups’ linked to them as euphemisms in places like NY Times have said, Russia has been more careful in recent weeks over its sea bed assets such as Black Sea gas pipeline which reaches from Caucasus area to European Turkiye.
Not by accident this was also the area a small Palau registered vessel was intercepted by a russian navy warship and ‘inspected’
HI Sutton has covered the seabed risk for this pipeline but a different vessel which was attacked by Ukrainian drones and the map comes from his site
More Russian disinformation.
I see you’re ignoring this…
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2021/popular-information/
The Russians and Chinese must love this site, I’m sure they appreciate all the armchair “experts” letting everyone know what RFA Personnel have stupidly told them, having already been briefed on security procedures and being given the “loose lips, sink ships” talk I’m disappointed they’re still releasing info on the vessel and can’t believe the fools in the comments section are repeating what they’ve heard in this open forum, if any of you had any respect you wouldn’t be contributing to putting the safety/security of the vessel and her crew in danger.
Still trying to figure out what information isn’t already publicly available via the MOD press releases or classification society information.
“Growing threat to critical subsea infrastructure”
Really?
All of these points about the severe vulnerability of the UK’s energy supplies are, frankly, all very old hat.
Please go onto Youtube:
“If the Lights Go Out”
This accurately predicts the many threats to the UK’s vital power supplies from our over-reliance on offshore wind and foreign gas. This video even accurately predicted the “deniable” demolition of the Nordstream pipeline.
Ukraine 2022:
Russia quite-deliberately targeted Ukraine power networks (i.e. their national electricity grid: both power stations and key hubs such as substations)Therefore, last year, more Ukrainian civilians died in house fires than were directly hit by Mr V Putin’s bombs and missiles (i.e. as a direct result of civilians needing to light fire indoors. They were simply trying to keep warm during those major power cuts in their very cold winters) https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-winter-fires-russia-war-1.6669382
UK 2022
Last winter, an exceptionally mild one, the entire UK National Grid was down to having just 1% spare electricity generating capacity (in total, over the whole network).That was why in 2022 the government ordered coal fired stations to be taken out of mothballs and put on warm standby.“If the Lights Go Out” was first broadcast on BBC 1 in 2004
Meanwhile, the MOD procurement departments are having a committee meeting: to decide what is the right shade of grey (a choice of 50) to paint Proteus….
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)