3 months in UK carrier contract 12 months late
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3 months in UK carrier contract 12 months late
The Times is reporting this morning that 3 months after signing a joint contract with BAE and Thales for two new carriers, they have "given notice that the project may be running 12 months late". With an end date of 2012/2015 place your bets on actualy dates now. Costs overrun will, of course, be a seperate sweepstake.
Which is nice.
BAE-Thales carrier deal in difficulty
By Russell Hotten
A DECISION by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to split a £10 billion aircraft carrier contract between BAE Systems and Thales has already run into problems.
Three months after the MoD said that work on the warships would be carried out by an Anglo-French joint venture, the companies have given notice that the project may be running 12 months late.
It was hoped that BAE and Thales would by now have structured the terms and work share of their controversial partnership in time for a meeting of the MoD’s Investment Appraisal Board (IAB) yesterday. The IAB received little more than a progress report.
In January, under what many saw as a compromise deal, the MoD awarded BAE the contract to build the carriers, but to Thales’s designs. That arrangement is now causing tensions.
BAE is currently assessing whether it can build someone else’s design to the price and timetable that the MoD wants. The two carriers are due to enter service in 2012 and 2015.
Sources talk of squabbling over the extent of Thales involvement and of BAE pressing the MoD to move away from a fixed-price contract towards the more flexible Target Cost Incentive Fee (TCIF). Under TCIF, BAE would share far less of the risk of cost overruns, good for its shareholders but not for the taxpayer, who would have to pick up the extra bill.
A source involved in the project said that there was “always going to be a lot to achieve, but things are just not going as hoped. There are delays and that may mean cost overruns”.
Many analysts felt that the MoD and Royal Navy preferred the Thales bid, but that awarding the contract outright to the French would be politically unacceptable. Thales, although it has extensive UK interests, is owned 30 per cent by the French Government.
Instead, the MoD announced a partnership bringing together, it said, the best of both contracts. Under the joint venture, Thales would get 30 per cent of the work and MoD officials would sit on the joint venture’s board.
Thales said that the two sides are “developing good relations”. BAE said: “We are getting along just fine.”
By Russell Hotten
A DECISION by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to split a £10 billion aircraft carrier contract between BAE Systems and Thales has already run into problems.
Three months after the MoD said that work on the warships would be carried out by an Anglo-French joint venture, the companies have given notice that the project may be running 12 months late.
It was hoped that BAE and Thales would by now have structured the terms and work share of their controversial partnership in time for a meeting of the MoD’s Investment Appraisal Board (IAB) yesterday. The IAB received little more than a progress report.
In January, under what many saw as a compromise deal, the MoD awarded BAE the contract to build the carriers, but to Thales’s designs. That arrangement is now causing tensions.
BAE is currently assessing whether it can build someone else’s design to the price and timetable that the MoD wants. The two carriers are due to enter service in 2012 and 2015.
Sources talk of squabbling over the extent of Thales involvement and of BAE pressing the MoD to move away from a fixed-price contract towards the more flexible Target Cost Incentive Fee (TCIF). Under TCIF, BAE would share far less of the risk of cost overruns, good for its shareholders but not for the taxpayer, who would have to pick up the extra bill.
A source involved in the project said that there was “always going to be a lot to achieve, but things are just not going as hoped. There are delays and that may mean cost overruns”.
Many analysts felt that the MoD and Royal Navy preferred the Thales bid, but that awarding the contract outright to the French would be politically unacceptable. Thales, although it has extensive UK interests, is owned 30 per cent by the French Government.
Instead, the MoD announced a partnership bringing together, it said, the best of both contracts. Under the joint venture, Thales would get 30 per cent of the work and MoD officials would sit on the joint venture’s board.
Thales said that the two sides are “developing good relations”. BAE said: “We are getting along just fine.”
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Well blow me, nobody saw this coming, did they!
I hardly think it can be classed as "squabbling" when Thales wants a decent level of involvement in building its own design!
Looks like we'll have our shiny new JSFs by 2012 but nothing to park them on.
I hardly think it can be classed as "squabbling" when Thales wants a decent level of involvement in building its own design!
Looks like we'll have our shiny new JSFs by 2012 but nothing to park them on.
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I was talking to a rep from Thales recently who noted that there is no agreement whatsoever between the two companies and that splitting the contract was a really bad idea.
One can only hope sanity prevails now and that we move to a single contracter. I also think BAE are pushing their luck, if I were them I would shut up and build the thing to the contract given to me rather than trying to change it given that they arent exactyl falovur of the month right now. ...
One can only hope sanity prevails now and that we move to a single contracter. I also think BAE are pushing their luck, if I were them I would shut up and build the thing to the contract given to me rather than trying to change it given that they arent exactyl falovur of the month right now. ...
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This already has all the hallmarks of another famed Euro c*ck up. Why can't we just buy a couple of American models (new or used, I don't mind) before it's too late? Any fishhead comments? 
So - BAE Systems, having been given some input into this, wish to continue to screw the taxpayer for all they can get? Mmmm.
Methinks that a 'sort this out by x or Thales build the things' edict is required, but about as likely as the Iraqi information minister turning up to deliver the next Pentagon briefing...
Methinks that a 'sort this out by x or Thales build the things' edict is required, but about as likely as the Iraqi information minister turning up to deliver the next Pentagon briefing...
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Yes Archi - remember they are cheese-eating surrender monkeys at heart, and that as such they can't be allowed to have the work. Much better that BWoS make a hash of it, then the tabloids will have lots more to write about over the coming years.
Didn't someone on PPRuNe predict this several months ago?
Why are BAE Systems allowed/expected to control and manage the entire project themselves? Would it not be more sensible for the DPA/MOD(N) to run things? There have been rumours of problems with the Astute class SSN, now CVF. Whats the likelihood the Type 45 Destroyer will be delayed/won't work properly?
Why do I get the feeling that the capability gap left by the planned retirement of the Sea Harrier will last longer than six years? (As if that wasn't bad enough.)
Why are BAE Systems allowed/expected to control and manage the entire project themselves? Would it not be more sensible for the DPA/MOD(N) to run things? There have been rumours of problems with the Astute class SSN, now CVF. Whats the likelihood the Type 45 Destroyer will be delayed/won't work properly?
Why do I get the feeling that the capability gap left by the planned retirement of the Sea Harrier will last longer than six years? (As if that wasn't bad enough.)
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I am sure that, a few weeks ago during the "war", the government said they were putting the Thales contract for the new carriers on "hold" or something like that, implying that is was because of the French attitude towards the "war" etc.
As for giving the contract to BWoS, this would allow them to make another major c**k up, costing us, the taxpayer, another small fortune. I am not in favour of giving the French the contract, but at least they have some recent previous of building carriers, and by all accounts CDG is a fairly good bit of kit now.
Why can the government not just bite the bullet, buy American, and at least we would have a chance of getting the carriers on spec, on time and on cost?
As for giving the contract to BWoS, this would allow them to make another major c**k up, costing us, the taxpayer, another small fortune. I am not in favour of giving the French the contract, but at least they have some recent previous of building carriers, and by all accounts CDG is a fairly good bit of kit now.
Why can the government not just bite the bullet, buy American, and at least we would have a chance of getting the carriers on spec, on time and on cost?
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Financial Times:BAE says it cannot build ships to budget. Lex: BAE Systems.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.
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Camel Design Corporation.
Taking Tornado, Nimrod 2000 and Typhoon as examples seems to demonstrate that BAe couldn't assemble an Airfix Spitfire on time and to budget.
They have teams of people at Warton who would form committees to determine whether the Spitfire really only had one engine, then they would issue a specification for a glue that could fasten two submarines together in a kerosene environment. If their was a requirement to make the propellor go round they would design their own battery rather than use an off the peg PP3.
They have teams of people at Warton who would form committees to determine whether the Spitfire really only had one engine, then they would issue a specification for a glue that could fasten two submarines together in a kerosene environment. If their was a requirement to make the propellor go round they would design their own battery rather than use an off the peg PP3.
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so yet again, MoD are going to get a third rate version of the product they, ahem, "signed up" for, 15 years behind schedule, £16bn over budget, and can hold 1 aircraft, and thats a remote controlled helicopter owned by the captain. BAE will not go out of business, and will continue to win further contacts from the government to replace the entire RAF with a budgie for £2bn (£154bn by end of programme) , the Army with a small rodent for £2.99 from Pet City (£324bn after refit programme when research into combining hamster and gerbil DNA produces a Gemster, not a Harbil) , and the rest of the Navy with an upside-down plastic bathtub with no plug. (bespoke Plug costs £16tn) 
So please tell me, why did BAE bid at a level it knew it could never deliver to? Oh did it do that with the Nimrod too? AND Typhoon??
So please tell me, why did BAE bid at a level it knew it could never deliver to? Oh did it do that with the Nimrod too? AND Typhoon??
Jeeezzzzus......and what's this of perhaps doing a "smaller" one with only 20 a/c? So - to do it cheaper and on time, you intend to tear up the design and start afresh? And what's the point? At this rate, the Shar boys ought to practice landing-on Ocean, or perhaps the QwhatasillynameQ research trimaran they're sending the balloon up from. Or perhaps just a really big mexeflote towed behind a Type 23. Maybe Bwos could manage that one. Didn't they do that in 1918? (in fact, I think I'd get my dad's toolbox out..) ******r it. Cancel the contract, don't give 'em a penny, and give the lot to the French.
More sophisticatedly, call in Swans, Vospers, Thales, MODN, and the DCN, and ask 'em if they can do the job better. The BAe-owned yards can come in as subcontractors, on condition of no design authority and stiff penalty clauses for late/crappy delivery. Even if we didn't change horses, it might put the fear of God in 'em.
PS, I don't think the Americans have built a carrier for anyone else since 1945. Have they actually sold one in living memory?
More sophisticatedly, call in Swans, Vospers, Thales, MODN, and the DCN, and ask 'em if they can do the job better. The BAe-owned yards can come in as subcontractors, on condition of no design authority and stiff penalty clauses for late/crappy delivery. Even if we didn't change horses, it might put the fear of God in 'em.
PS, I don't think the Americans have built a carrier for anyone else since 1945. Have they actually sold one in living memory?
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I have a vague recollection that at least one small decomissioned carrier was sold post 1945 to a private US buyer, if that helps. I think he was a minor entertainment personality of some sort.
Details.....no, can't remember them, sorry, but doubtless someone will. ORAC?
Seems to me that a couple of early-retired US carriers refitted into service as a stopgap while t'Baron has his sh1t sorted for him wouldn't be a bad solution....but then I'm only a humble foreign civilian.....
Details.....no, can't remember them, sorry, but doubtless someone will. ORAC?
Seems to me that a couple of early-retired US carriers refitted into service as a stopgap while t'Baron has his sh1t sorted for him wouldn't be a bad solution....but then I'm only a humble foreign civilian.....
Somehow I feel that the idea of 't Bungling Baron Waste o'Space getting his excretia assembled sometime within the next 50 years is perhaps somewhat porcovolant.....
Is there any evidence that he knows that 't boats actually have to float? "Sithee by 'eck, lad. It don't say as much in 't contract, tha' knows...."
As for FSTA, 2 competing consortia are bidding, 1 of whom (the 767 consortium TTSC) has the benefit of 't Baron's mob as a major member........
Hmmm - EuropHoon...MRA4....these aircraft carriers.... All of which have been on time, on spec and on budget, haven't they?
Is there any evidence that he knows that 't boats actually have to float? "Sithee by 'eck, lad. It don't say as much in 't contract, tha' knows...."
As for FSTA, 2 competing consortia are bidding, 1 of whom (the 767 consortium TTSC) has the benefit of 't Baron's mob as a major member........
Hmmm - EuropHoon...MRA4....these aircraft carriers.... All of which have been on time, on spec and on budget, haven't they?
Ignoring escort carriers built for the RN in WW2, there have been some US carriers sold/loaned to other nations.
The old Spanish carrier , the Délado, was sold to Spain in 1973, after being on loan for a couple of years before that - it was the USS Cabot (CVL-28) in its previous life.
The US also loaned the French the carriers Bois Belleau and Lafeyette (formerly CVL 27, Langley & CVL-24, Belleau Wood respectively).
There was also some discussion within the Admiralty about borrowing/buying one or more of the modified Essex class after the cancellation of CVA-01. I have a dim recollection of seeing/hearing that there may have been talk of getting the USS Franklin D Roosevelt as well, but I could well be making that up.
The old Spanish carrier , the Délado, was sold to Spain in 1973, after being on loan for a couple of years before that - it was the USS Cabot (CVL-28) in its previous life.
The US also loaned the French the carriers Bois Belleau and Lafeyette (formerly CVL 27, Langley & CVL-24, Belleau Wood respectively).
There was also some discussion within the Admiralty about borrowing/buying one or more of the modified Essex class after the cancellation of CVA-01. I have a dim recollection of seeing/hearing that there may have been talk of getting the USS Franklin D Roosevelt as well, but I could well be making that up.
Juliet, the Melbourne was one of the British Majestic class - I think it might have been the name ship. Melbourne was a light fleet carrier design - a tad smaller than the Forrestals!
Of course, the simplest interim solution is to buy this one :
http://www.frenchcreekboatsales.com/...e_Number=BOP12
http://www.frenchcreekboatsales.com/...e_Number=BOP12
Mmmm.... you may be onto something. If we buy Vikrant from the Indians, we'd have a brand new(ish) two-ship class of aircraft carriers, all for less than a JSF. Brilliant!