MOD to blow £36m on small boats to look after the big boats
G7The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is spending £36m on small patrol boats to defend navy ships. 18 new police patrol craft will start coming into service by July 2022. A government announcement claimed the small boats will operated by MOD Police and the Gibraltar Defence Police Forces.
Their roles will include looking after ships in harbour, creating cordons, and guiding vessels in and out of port. 16 will go to MOD police and two will head to Gibraltar, a key UK military outpost in the Mediterranean. They will be bullet proof and equipped with surveillance equipment.
The government website said:
The constant waterborne patrol and policing at UK Naval Bases will include HMNB Portsmouth, HMNB Devonport and HMNB Clyde, as well as the Gibraltar Naval Dockyard.
Vital security?
Virtually all Royal Navy ships have armed security and high-tech defence systems. But MOD minister Annabel Goldie said the £38m project was “vital” for security:
This £36 million investment allows our MOD Police and Gibraltar Defence Police Forces to enhance the vital security service they provide to our military bases at home and overseas.
She added:
Designed and constructed by maritime experts in the UK, this contract reaffirms our commitment to invest in homegrown industry knowledge and support the protection and creation of skilled jobs.
MOD Police
The MOD Police are a civilian police force which protects military assets. The boats will replace their existing fleet. The unit recently took a key role at the G7 Summit in Cornwall. A Forces News article from 11 June suggests that the MOD Police Marine Unit was involved in G7 security.
A senior officer in the unit said at the time:
The MOD Police logistics team have been heavily involved in the planning of the maritime operation, involving not just our own assets but those belonging to our Home Office force colleagues.
As the Canary has reported recently, many local residents have been deeply concerned about the securitization of the area during the summit.
Arms firms
Two firms appear to be the main beneficiaries of the contract. One is Maritime Specialised Technology (MST), based in Merseyside. The other is The BMT Group.
Specifically designed to reduce fuel consumption and improve operational efficiency, our new high-speed vessel design, with @MSTGroupGlobal has been selected by the UK @DefenceHQ for operations across the UK.
Read more https://t.co/wgMTfP0XU9#vesseldesign #navalarchitecture pic.twitter.com/UB4DjSKSI0
— BMT (@BMT_Global) June 16, 2021
A Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) database lists the BMT Group as having had export licences for Colombia and Myanmar. The same database suggested historical ‘revolving door’ links between the BMT Group and senior MOD, GCHQ, and National Archives figures.
According to one 2016 document, MST has offered “sales and support services” in 21 countries. These have included Oman, Russia, Brazil, and China.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Thomas Nugent
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Military buys equipment. Hardly worthy of a story.
Oh dear, you failed the Comprehension Test……which comes as no surprise. Your backers can’t have explained it you properly.
Apart from the use these boats will be put to shooing rubber boats with refugees in away from UKania’s dark shores, it show the Tories would rather spend huge sums on projects other than repairing the damage they’ve inflicted on our once-1st class health services……….but you Tories don’t use public health services do you so you don’t care !!!
I’m normally very happy with the canary’s reporting, but this really falls short of your usual standard.
Every navy in the world, throughout history, requires smaller ships to act along side the larger ones.
This sort of fleet keeps the major weapons platforms protected from various threats while keeping them within engagement range.
Say a volley of torpedoes are fired at an aircraft carrier or troop transport. The likelihood of them destroying all of them before a hit is slim to non-existent. This is where frigettes come in, they spot and take out the torpedoes long before causing any issue with the larger ship.
Your warmongering bent is showing. UKania & it Amerikan boss are pirating (usually oil) in our counrties waters & have no legal basis for being there. They deserve to be attacked & sunk. The Butcher of Britain is spending billions on weaponry to attack the brown people Biden orders. It they didn’t tour the world making enemies they wouldn’t be in harm’s way. Note also they don’t pick on well armed countries like China, Russia, India, etc…..always the small people……but that’s the mark of the true bully.
Of course I should not have written ‘pirating (usually oil) in our counrties waters & have no legal basis for being there.’ I meant ‘other countries waters’.
People who holiday abroad & misbehave usually pay the price…..
Where did I say to what use the equipment should be used?
Armed forces by equipment. This is not news.
Armed forces are a nessesary part of every nation, unfortunately.
Using that armed force to oppress, steal & attack other nations is wrong, something that the UK does continuously, which I agree with you.
Armed forces also protect, provide disaster recovery & emergency policing.
Use of equipment = re-read what you wrote. You didn’t say it’s all for fancy-dress parties………………..
“MOD to blow £36m on small boats to look after the big boats”
The suggestion that this is money wasted reveals the author’s misunderstanding of naval ships and craft (boats go under water) and their defences.
Since the attack by Al Qaeda on the USS Cole it has been standard practice for the Royal Navy to deploy small craft to deter similar suicide attacks.
Anyone in any British naval port will be familiar with the site of such patrol craft.
The attack on the Cole left 17 dead and 37 injured – is the author seriously suggesting that the men and women serving on board ships in harbour should not be protected from a known terrorist threat?
Oh dear, being a warmonger you of course have a one-sided attitude. Al Qaeda responded by a revenge attack on the Cole. The initial aggressors were the Amierikans. AQ just hit back.
Western aggression & resource thefts destabilses countries & makes them poorer. Indigenous groups appear as a result to hit back.
In response to Amerikan troops on Saudi soil who refused to go, a group of Saudis attacked the Twin Towers. It wasn’t a ‘terror attack’ it was a revenge attack against the hated Amerikan. It took that destruction to get the huge Amerikan base to leave Saudi Arabia.
UKania like Amerika makes enemies around the world so must expect revenge attacks in return….tit for tat you see !
I see the warmongers are here in numbers.
The way not to attract aggression is not to dish it out in the first instance, but ‘the West’ is run by greedy, selfish & aggressive people who dish out the damage but don’t like it when the damaged folk hit back…………and you’ll have noticed countries that are well armed don’t get attacked, so the weak get bombed & shot at.
I think all countries should have atomic weapons to defend themsleves with.
You seem to be mixing up what our armed forces are being used for by our political class with the practicalities of running that armed force.
You’re screaming about the purchase of hammers due to hammer related vandalism, which is detracting from criticism of the vandals.
All political decisions are coloured & those aims colour the practicalities of running armed forces. The issues are those of the endemic corruption seen in the Tory treatment of PPE & the catastrophic damage that cronyism has inflicted on UKania.
A major point you ignore is the billions spent on Amerikan nuclear weapons instead of observing the lessons of the 2016 Cygnus Exercise that Thatcher binned & where subsequent PMs left it.
Hence & due to more cronyism, 160,000 people died, & the Butcher if Britain now sally’s forth into boat building to attack, I assume, more brown people ?
‘All countries should have atomic weapons to defend themselves’
That seems reasonable since there are already plenty to go around already.
By the way, who exactly is our enemy?
I have visited over 30 countries including Russia and China. Everyone I have met has been very open and friendly.
The only people I have a problem with all native UK citizens, luckily I do have a great deal of tolerance. Love and Peace to all xx