Working together to achieve more

Delivering major programmes alongside navy partners, SMEs and primes

For over a century we have worked alongside the Royal Navy, to help them achieve their ambitions. From developing the latest ground-breaking innovations in Autonomy or Artificial Intelligence alongside small and medium enterprises (SMEs); to partnering with big primes to deliver the T31 Programme or the Aircraft Carrier Alliance. We work with agility to solve our customer’s challenges and find the best solutions to meet their requirements.

We are unique in our ability to span today’s major systems, tomorrow’s technology and everything in between. Our breadth of capability offering makes us an attractive partner for SMEs and primes, which is aided by our unmatched position of trust and enduring relationship with the Royal Navy.

Examples of our major programmes include:

 

Equipping Royal Navy submarines with advanced sonars

Thales has been awarded a £330 million contract to equip the Royal Navy Continuous at Sea Deterrent (CASD) submarines (Dreadnought) with the latest Sonar 2076 system and Combat System Mast. Sonar 2076 is the world’s most advanced sonar suite and is currently in service with the Navy’s Trafalgar and Astute Class submarines. The Combat System Mast combines world-class visuals, electronic warfare and communications.

Providing mission systems to the Royal Navy

Thales is working on the Type 31 programme as part of Babcock’s Team 31, providing the Royal Navy with the most advanced mission systems to protect UK maritime interests on a global stage.
 

Developing world firsts in Maritime Mine Counter Measures

France and the United Kingdom share a vision in which Maritime Mine Counter Measures (MMCM) capability is delivered by unmanned systems operating remotely from a command centre deployed either on board ship or ashore. In 2015 the British and French Navies selected Thales to deliver MMCM. This uniquely complex programme brings major innovations in the service of the safety of the seas, seafarers and citizens.

Supplying new command and control systems with project ORCA

The Oceanographic Reconnaissance Combat Architecture (ORCA) programme’s primary goal is to address the obsolescence of a combat management system in service in the Navy’s six Hunt and seven Sandown Class mine countermeasures vessels. Thales is deploying a new generation of command and control systems across the entire fleet of Royal Navy Minehunters under ORCA is known as M-cube. M-Cube enables the Royal Navy to continue delivering on its front-line commitments with a modern, capable and open mine hunting 
 

Design and construction of the UK’s new aircraft carriers

HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales have been successfully delivered to the customer. At its time, the programme was the largest engineering project in the UK, involving construction at six shipyards nationwide and hundreds of companies in the supply chain, spanning every region of the Devolved Nations and England.

Due to the sheer scale of the project, the programme was delivered through a unique partnering relationship between Thales, BAE Systems, Babcock and the UK Ministry of Defence, in an enterprise known as the Aircraft Carrier Alliance.

HMS Queen Elizabeth embarked on her first carrier strike group deployment in 2021. Hear stories from our people celebrating the deployment.