Overview

Hydro Group plc specialise in the design and manufacture of subsea and defence environment electrical and optical connectors, penetrators, cable assemblies and terminations for the defence industry and Ministry of Defence (MOD). With many years experience, Hydro Group plc is a major operator and supplier to the defence industry, providing solutions for specialist defence industry subsea applications. Hydro Group plc is at the forefront in the development of defence technologies, with involvement from prototype concept through to design and manufacture of electrical and optical connectors, penetrators, cable assemblies and terminations. Hydro Group plc and its business streams Hydro Bond Ltd and Hydro Cable Ltd supply the complete package including sonar and accoustic solutions, umbilical / armoured / fibre optic cables, hull and bulkhead penetrators, electrical and optical connection systems for data, power and signal transmission.

Hydro Group plc holds the certification approval to ISO 9001:2008 to design and manufacture subsea electrical and optical connectors, electrical pressure hull penetrators, associated subsea electrical cable terminations, installation of electrical and optical connectors, specialist underwater and harsh environment electrical and optical composite cables, tethers and umbilical’s.

Hydro Group plc has participated in a huge number of high profile defence industry projects. Our customer portfolio includes the Ministry of Defence (MOD), all major subseadefence related contractors and operators in both domestic and international markets. Hydro Group plc specialise in the following area: Active Towed Sonar Suite, Bow and Dipping SonarSensor Suite,Tethered Communications Systems, Subsea Accoustic Signature Range, Accoustic Buoy, Mast Systems, None Penetrative Mast Optical Communications, Flank Array Sonar, Pressure Hull Penetrators, Water Tight Bulkhead Penetrators, Splice Blocks, Mine Counter Measure Systems, ROV Mine Hunter,AUV and Accoustic Hull Recognition.

INTERESTING READING: Defence Industry

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) states that its principal objectives are to defend the United Kingdom and its interests and to strengthen international peace and stability. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) does not foresee any short-term conventional military threat; rather, it has identified weapons of mass destruction, international terrorism, and failed and failing states as the overriding threats to the UK's interests. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) also manages day-to-day running of the armed forces, contingency planning and defence procurement.

HISTORY

During the 1920s and 1930s, British civil servants and politicians, looking back at the performance of the state during World War I, concluded that there was a need for greater co-ordination between the three Services that made up the armed forces of the United Kingdom — the British Army, the Royal Navy, and the Royal Air Force. The formation of a united ministry of defence was rejected by Prime Minister David Lloyd George's coalition government in 1921; but the Chiefs of Staff Committee was formed in 1923, for the purposes of inter-Service co-ordination. As rearmament became a concern during the 1930s, Stanley Baldwin created the position of Minister for Coordination of Defence. Lord Chatfield held the post until the fall of Neville Chamberlain's government in 1940; his success was limited by his lack of control over the existing Service departments and his limited political influence.

Winston Churchill, on forming his government in 1940, created the office of Minister of Defence to exercise ministerial control over the Chiefs of Staff Committee and to co-ordinate defence matters. The post was held by the Prime Minister of the day until Clement Attlee's government introduced the Ministry of Defence Act of 1946. The new ministry was headed by a Minister of Defence who possessed a seat in the Cabinet. The three existing service Ministers — the Secretary of State for War, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Secretary of State for Air — remained in direct operational control of their respective services, but ceased to attend Cabinet.

From 1946 to 1964 five Departments of State did the work of the modern Ministry of Defence (MOD): the Admiralty, the War Office, the Air Ministry, the Ministry of Aviation, and an earlier form of the Ministry of Defence (MOD). These departments merged in 1964; the defence functions of the Ministry of Aviation Supply merged into the Ministry of Defence in 1971.

Astute was ordered from GEC's Marconi Marine (now BAE Systems Submarine Solutions) on 17 March 1997. She was laid down at BAE's submarine facility in Barrow-in-Furness on 31 January 2001, 100 years to the day after the keel was laid down for the Royal Navy's first submarine Holland 1. Astute was launched on 8 June 2007 by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall. The launch attracted more than 10,000 spectators. Astute left Barrow on 15 November 2009 and on 20 November 2009, arrived at her home port of HMNB Clyde at Faslane.

On 16 February 2010 Astute left Faslane for sea trials and dived for the first time on 18 February and was commissioned on 27 August 2010, when she was given her HMS prefix, in a ceremony watched over by her patron HRH The Duchess of Cornwall.

In late 2011 will spend 5 months at the US Navy's Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center in the Bahamas and will be handed over to the Royal Navy for operational service in late 2012.

Astute Submarine

The Astute-class is the latest class of nuclear-powered fleet submarines (SSN) in service with the Royal Navy. The class sets a new standard for the Royal Navy in terms of weapons load, communication facilities and stealth. The boats are being constructed by BAE Systems Submarine Solutions at Barrow-in-Furness.
Seven boats will be constructed. The first of class, Astute, was launched in 2007 and commissioned in 2010, and the second, Ambush, was launched on 6 January 2011, and successfully completed its initial dive test on 30 September 2011

Astute Submarine: Design

Astute-class boats are powered by a Rolls-Royce PWR2 (Core H) reactor and fitted with a pump-jet propulsor. The PWR2 reactor was developed for the Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines. As a result Astute-class boats are about 30 per cent larger than previous British attack submarines, which were powered by smaller diameter reactors.

Like all Royal Navy submarines, the bridge fin of the Astute-class boats is specially reinforced to allow surfacing through ice caps. They can fire Tomahawk cruise missiles from their launch tubes, including the new "tactical Tomahawk" currently under development. More than 39,000 acoustic tiles mask the vessel's sonar signature, giving the Astute class a better stealth quality than any other submarine previously operated by the Royal Navy. The vessel is equipped with the advanced Sonar 2076, which is an integrated passive/active search and attack sonar suite with bow, intercept, flank and towed arrays.

The Astute Combat Management System is an evolved version of the Submarine Command System used on other classes of submarine. The system receives data from the boat's sensors and displays real time imagery on all command consoles. The submarines also have DESO 25 high-precision echosounders, two CM010 non-hull-penetrating optronic masts which carry thermal imaging and low-light TV and colour CCD TV sensors.

The Astute-class submarines can be fitted with a dry deck shelter which allows special forces (e.g. SBS and SAS) to deploy whilst the submarine is submerged.

Astute is the first Royal Navy submarine class to have a bunk for each member of the ship's company, ending the practice of 'hot bunking', whereby two sailors on opposite watches shared the same bunk. However in other respects studies found the Astute human factors design inferior to earlier submarines, such as having less mess-deck space than the Valiant-class submarine built 45 years earlier

Astute Submarine: Construction and Delays

BAE Systems issued a profit warning on 11 December 2002 as a result of the cost overruns and delays it was experiencing with the Astute class and also the Nimrod MRA4 maritime reconnaissance/attack aircraft. The delay was caused primarily by the problems of using 3D CAD; Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said in 2006 that "due to the complexity of the programme, the benefits that CAD was envisaged to provide were more difficult to realise than either Ministry of Defence (MOD) or the contractor had assumed." Other issues were the insufficient capabilities within GEC-Marconi which became evident after contract-award and poor programme management. BAE and the Ministry of Defence (MOD) reached an agreement in February 2003 whereby they would invest £250 million and £430 million respectively to address the programme's difficulties.

A major element of this was the enlisting of advice and expertise from General Dynamics Electric Boat. The MoD also signed a design and production drawing work contract through the U.S. Navy which ran from 2004 to 2007.

Work on the second and third submarines, Ambush and Artful, proceeded well with major milestones such as the closure of Ambush's reactor compartment, demonstrating significant schedule advance compared with Astute. BAE Systems and the Ministry of Defence (MOD) have made efforts to reduce costs and achieved significant cost-cutting and productivity gains. A £580 million cost increase was agreed in 2007 due to maturing of the design requiring more materials, inflationary costs, and "some programme throughput assumptions at the Barrow site not being borne out."

First-of-class HMS Astute was launched by Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall on 8 June 2007.
As of March 2008 the programme was 48% (or £1.2 billion) over-budget and 47 months late. Further delays due to a range of technical and programme issues brought the programme to a position of 57 months late and 53% (or £1.35 billion) over-budget by November 2009, with a forecast cost of £3.9 billion for the first three Astute boats