Hmm, a single contract for the development AND installation of an unproven upgrade that can potentially detect periscopes. If MoD haven’t thought through the Ministerial briefing, the chances are that Raytheon is, indeed, driving this. Too much scope for requirement creep.
And the talk of Crowsnest. I can’t understand why this is taking so long. The latest "solution” is little different from the original winning bid in 1994 (the subject of a political overrule). My guess is another company has been paid to repeat the work of the original design, with no-one realising the latter actually exists. Which kind of begs the question what the original design would be like, and capable of, 20+ years later.
It all adds up to a dangerous loss of expertise across the many MoD disciplines (not just operators) required to deliver Maritime capability.