The RN’s ageing Type 23 frigates will benefit from continued SEA support. Credit: UK MoD/Crown copyright HMS Lancaster was built on the Clyde as the fourth of the Type 23 frigates joining the Fleet in 1992. This versatile multi-role ship can typically be deployed drug-busting in the Caribbean or East of Suez on maritime security patrols. All the ships in the Type 23 class are named after Dukes, in this case, the Duke of Lancaster – who is also better known as Her Majesty the Queen. The British Monarch is the ship’s very special sponsor and Her Majesty takes a keen interest in Lancaster’s activities around the globe. In 2013, HMS Lancaster spent seven months in the North Atlantic and Caribbean, successfully seizing drugs worth a total street value of £160m. During six raids, the ship intercepted 1.2 tonnes of cocaine and almost 1.5 tonnes of cannabis. 23 drug runners were detained, effectively disrupting the distribution of drugs throughout the region. Lancaster visited all six of the British Overseas Territories in the region and the Commonwealth states of Jamaica, Belize and Barbados while also making calls into the islands of Curacao, Martinique and visiting Columbia in South America. The ship also took part in Exercise Unitas a multi-national exercise involving 16 warships and submarines from nine nations ranging from Canada to Chile. On returning from her deployments HMS Lancaster is often greeted, wherever possible, by a Lancaster bomber of the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, which provides a fly past over Portsmouth harbour. *** Local Caption *** Pictured is HMS Lancaster afer her last Replenishment at sea (RAS) with RFA Gold Rover.

UK-based Sea will provide in-service support to the Combat System Highway (CSH) on Royal Navy (RN) ships as part of a new five-year contract with the UK Ministry of Defence.

In an 11 May release, SAE stated that the contract will include a range of in-service support for (RN) surface ships and shore-based facilities, including performance monitoring, ongoing technical refresh, and obsolescence reporting as the equipment technical authority for the CSH network.

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To this end, SEA will provide support for a number of RN ships, including the Type 23 frigates, the RFA auxiliary oiler replacement vessel, and landing platform dock ships.

The CSH network enables operators to determine combat system status, providing a high-speed communication backbone fitted to surface vessels to pass information between C2, sensors and weapons system to an integrated combat system.

Having designed the CSH in the 1980s, SEA has provided in-service support throughout the life of the network, including several iterations of technology refresh, according to the release.

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SEA is currently under contract for a number of on-going support projects with the Royal Navy. It is providing technology refresh and in-service support for the torpedo launcher and countermeasures systems on the RN’s Type 23 ships as part of a recent contract, giving the in-service team an existing knowledge of the interface of these systems, which are connected to the CSH.

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The company is also under contract manage and update the RN’s in-service sonar equipment.

Modularity key influence in naval sector

In March the SEA signed a memorandum of understanding with Danish equipment provider SH Defence to explore the development of modular solutions for future naval platform designs and retrofit projects.

The partnership will be focused on incorporating SEA technology such as the KraitSense anti-submarine warfare system, and torpedo launch systems into the Cube, a modular capability designed by SH Defence for hosting and deploying specialised equipment on naval platforms.

Intended to be a plug-and-play mission module for air, surface, and subsea domains, SH Defence’s Cube provides infrastructure to handle and move mission modules on deck or replace existing modules in the host vessel’s mission bay.

In doing so, the Cube system is designed to provide platforms with multi-mission capabilities, likely a key element among navies with smaller fleet numbers lacking the depth to dedicate single roles to vessels.