L-12 Ocean - Early Planning
In 1981 the Government concluded that their likely needs did not warrant replacement of the specialist amphibious ships "Intrepid" and "Fearless" which would be phased out by 1984. This judgement was revised following the Falklands con?ict and was followed by an announcement, in December 1986, that the Government had decided to retain an amphibious capability in the long term. This announcement recognised that securing a nearby foothold on land was essential to any amphibious operation and specified that part of the amphibious force was to consist of two Aviation Support Ships.
Each Aviation Support Ship was to be capable of embarking, garaging and maintaining atoperational readiness 12 Sea King Mark IV helicopters and was to have a ?ight deck with 6 helicopter landing spots, as well as accommodating 800 Royal Marines together with their weapons, vehicles, and stores. The requirement was defined in a Staff Requirement and the procurement of a first of class vessel was endorsed by the Department's Equipment Policy Committee in September 1986.
The Aviation Support Ship competitionTenders Were invited in October 1988 under a procurement route based on the philosophy of "Whole Ship Procurement". This concept, previously used on the Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment vessel program, required the contractors to take responsibility for all systems [including weaponry] fitted to the vessel as well as to design and build the ship.
Following a presentation to industry, a relatively broad specification was drawn up to encourage tenderers to be as innovative as possible, with the proviso that the cost should be within the Department's budgetary provision of £105 million at 1988 prices. To assist them, tenderers were provided with a copy of the staff requirement. Where tenderers assessed that capabilities were not affordable within this ceiling the Department asked for option prices to be separately identified to allow them to make cost / capability trade-offs during tender evaluation.
Prior to the competition, one potential supplier, [which was neither VSEL nor SwanHunter] had assured the Department of their ability to provide a vessel within the budget of £105 million. The Department did not therefore undertake the studies which they would normally conduct to assess whether the funding available matched the capability required even though those capabilities had been expanded since the original funding calculations had been completed.
In the event, three consortia [of the seven companies and consortia invited to tender] submitted bids in Iuly 1989. None of the tenders was assessed as fully compliant nor was any assessed as capable, without some enhancement, of adequately meeting the technical and primary role requirements within the cost ceiling. The Department's overall conclusion was that an operationally acceptable ship could not be obtained within the target price.
Against this background, and partly as a result of the delays caused by Operation Granby and deliberations over the cuts in defence expenditure as a result of the 1991 'Options for Change' White Paper, the Department considered that no useful purpose would be served by involving tenderers in a protracted, expensive and detailed tender clarification process which would almost certainly not result in an affordable, compliant design. Both tenderers in the LPH competition confirmed that they had not received any feedback on this decision from the Department.
The 1990-91 "Options for Change" defence structure review, following the end of the Cold War, cut the size of the Army by about one third. However, "Options for Change" confirmed the Department's intention to retain an amphibious capability in the long term. Funding for the first Aviation Support Ship was therefore confirmed with an in service date of 1996, although the second was deleted from the program.
Given the funds available, the capability required proved to be unrealistic. The Department would have been prudent to validate the realism of the budget set for this vessel rather than relying on an assurance from one potential supplier, especially given the costs of running such a competition, and the previous incidences of over optimism from industry on the likely costs of other major defence projects. Informing industry of the funding ceiling and providing copies of the staff requirement allowed industry the ?exibility to tailor their bids. Similarly, by requesting option prices for aspects of the requirement not met within the cost ceiling the Department provided a good basis upon which to assess the cost of meeting the requirement.
During the period of uncertainty caused by "Options for Change" the Department took the opportunity to assess how much it would cost to procure the vessel envisaged in the Staff Requirement. Thus, the Department were implementing the first of the lessons learned from the competition. This exercise resulted in a potential funding requirement of £218 million at 1991 prices. Since this was not regarded as affordable, options to reduce the cost were then examined. The early stages of this process involved a consultation with Swan Hunter. The Department carried out work to assess the effect of easing the requirement. This involved reducing the troop carrying capacity, reducing the vehicle carrying capacity, progressively reducing helicopter operating capability as well as reductions in some elements of the combat systems.
The Department identified four options of which only one, which reduced troop carrying capacity by a third and vehicle capacity by half, met the minimum acceptable operational requirement at a cost estimated by the Department to be close to the revised financial provision of £169 million [1993 prices). Accepting this option meant reducing the vessel's operational capability including: less stringent signature requirements, cutting the self defence capability and reducing accommodation standards and space for vehicles, stores and provisions. This meant for example, that no active self defence equipments were to be fitted. Instead, the vessel was to rely on other warships for protection in out of area operations. However, this could give rise to some operational constraints since the top speed of the proposed vessel was to be significantly less than that of most other warships. Despite these relaxations, in the Department's view, the reduced capability of the vessel would still satisfy the essentials of the aviation support concept. As a result, they revised the Staff Requirement which, in turn, formed the basis of the specification for the subsequent LPH competition.
For the LPH competition the Department provided a document which illustrated the operational environment in which the vessel could be expected to operate. This document, referred to as the Operational Scenario, was written in 1989. It was based upon a Cold War scenario of a task group being sent to reinforce northern Norway. In the Department's view this remains an appropriate scenario since, despite the changed defense environment, the vessel would still be expected to operate in confined coastal areas with similar performance implications. However, for northern Norway the performance implied, for example in terms of the draft, low speed and manoeuvrability needed for the Lofoten Islands, is more stringent than would be the case in some other operational scenarios. The approach adopted would ensure that the Royal Navy was provided with a vessel sufficiently capable to meet most of the likely operational circumstances.
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