I had spent an hour on the phone while I was in a car wash in Muscat talking to my appointer. He wanted me to be the next marine engineer staff officer for frigates at Fleet HQ principally because of my ‘gravitas’. However, the Chief Staff Officer (Engineer) did not want me, so I ended up at Abbeywood. It turned out much for the better for all of us.
At Abbeywood I was the Requirements Manager of the Minewarfare, Patrol and Hydrographic (MPH) platform integrated project team on behalf of Director Equipment Capability Above Water Effects (DEC AWE) and had ample freedom to manoeuvre. My ideal job. At Fleet HQ I would have been an automaton monitored constantly by senior officers sitting at their desks behind me. I visited it a couple of times. It was like one of those factories that you see in the black and white films during WW II where human computers punched numbers into electronic computers.
MPH was responsible for the design and maintenance of 68 vessels, including HMS Victory, the Flagship of the Second Sea Lord. Likewise, Hunt and Sandown minehunters - highly sophisticated platforms with advanced requirements and equipment. The most demanding in the Royal Navy apart maybe from the nuclear ballistic and patrol submarines. The minehunters were designed to protect them though. The Hunt class were the most expensive vessels per metre to maintain. Inshore and offshore patrol vessels. The latter that each operated 320 days a year.
I found the appointment so stimulating. It was special and mind boggling. It made you want to come into work. The senior managers were fascinating, loyal, hugely intelligent and inspiring. I learned so much from each of them, including humility. Finally, I had met my match across the board. Funny, sensitive, hardworking and approachable. It is easy to criticise defence procurement but all that these guys needed was a clear sense of direction and consistent leadership. It was one of my favourite shore appointments.
When I first arrived at Abbeywood I was assigned the desk of my predecessor. At the edge of the team on a separate floorplate and next to the aisle where everyone walked past. A few months later I was sitting next to my Team Leader. Our desks were two metres apart. We both had desks next to the window. He went on for a well-deserved promotion. Perhaps most importantly I was close to his personal assistant so often knew what was coming up before he did.
Looking back, I would never want to go to Fleet HQ instead. MPH gave me professional freedom that I had never experienced before or since. It gave me a wonderful insight into new technologies and wonderful people that were willing to share their encyclopaedic knowledge while giving me the opportunities to share my real-world naval experiences with the MOD and defence industry.
In a way it’s a great shame that I then went to the Mid Life Update programme in Saudi Arabia where the exact opposite was true. Perhaps, though, being older and wiser now meant I didn’t care so much about angry young project managers who thought that they knew it all. I could read them a mile away and was not scared of closed-door sessions. Indeed, I relished them.
A mainstream officer might regard this appointment as being side-lined. However, if I had been the requirements manager of say the carriers or frigates projects, I would have been involved in just one strand of the CADMID cycle and a small cog in a very big machine. CADMID is an acronym for Concept, Assessment, Demonstration, Manufacture, In Service and Disposal. At MPH and the Boats Auxiliaries and Sea Survival platform integrated project teams I was heavily involved in projects throughout the CADMID life cycle. It was the most fascinating phase of my engineering career. It needed a broad minded and capable engineer. I learned so much about science, engineering, project management and people. I was instead a big cog in a small machine and benefited so much from it, just as I hope that I contributed to it equally.
The MPH team leader was replaced by a naval engineer captain. He had been my appointer when I graduated from the RN Engineering College and, over a coffee, he advised me to move to another appointment. He didn’t say why but reading between the lines it was obvious that I would not be promoted in this appointment. I preferred to stay where I could make a difference for the better and to work with people that I admired and liked.
Briefing senior officers in the MOD on behalf of my Captain. He never told me what to say, he just assumed that I knew my business and let me get on with it. In fact, he deliberately delegated briefings to me so I had to lead his team of senior civil servants in annual financial planning rounds on his behalf and weekly operational briefs to MOD. That’s when my team work with senior civil servants came into play.
I delegated questions to each of them so they all felt part of the team. I fielded the operational questions while they fielded questions about finance and their areas of specialised technology. I remember meeting a senior officer from MOD the next day at Farnborough who had been on our video conference call about PR 08 (Planning Round 2008 to 2018). He shook my hand and said it was the slickest presentation that they had seen in London. He had led a minehunter through the mine fields in Iraq’s waters. The bravest man that I have met. Like me, he sometimes slept at his desk.
My subsequent captain at the MOD Saudi Armed Forces Project would never learn about this, nor the managers and directors in BAE Systems because they assumed I was just a clanky and therefore a numpty. More fool them as I was calling in quality standards that they never knew or understood but which cost them millions. A platform engineer from the Shipbuilder complained to me that repairs to their self-inflicted damages would cost a lot of money. I replied that engineering is not free.
The Requirements Manager at Frigates IPT was yet again a self-interested politician rather than a proper naval engineer. There was a direct threat made that I would have to report to him as he was a commander and that a new surface combatants integrated platform team would suck in MPH. Luckily I escaped before that happened. He had little idea what he was talking about but thought he was important. I’ve met so many like him. He was like the idiotic naval commander in the Falkland Islands who made it difficult to get hold of a Tornado to prove the upgrades to our radar. Just because he could.
The most crucial project at the time for our integrated team was HMS Clyde. It had the personal attention of the Commander in Chief. Understandably there was high level concern about the intentions of Argentina if our patrol vessel was inoperable. HMS Clyde was a modified River Class offshore patrol vessel. It sounds a bit boring. Far from it.
First, it was a vessel leased from Vosper Thorneycroft for 5 years, the same shipbuilder of the Al Jawf class minehunters in Jubail and the Sandowns in the RN. The lease required 280 days availability each year, 8000 miles from the UK. It was built to replace the 2 Castle class patrol vessels operating around the Falkland Islands, at no extra cost, as signed off by the Minister for Defence Procurement. Treasury rules meant that it could not be leased for more than seven years. It was also built to civilian specifications and to keep down the costs it utilised a coastal maritime surveillance radar designed in Denmark. The four most important words, “at no extra cost’. Many senior officers did not appreciate or understand this.
The Castle class patrol vessels were approaching 50 years old. They were on Type B support which meant spares had to be ordered when needed; they were not readily available on the shelf.
In order to make it seaworthy the radar needed a stabilised platform which was designed and built by a sub-sub contractor. It was never meant to be a military grade radar but it did need to operate in the harsh conditions around the Falklands so an India band radar was chosen. A professor at Dstl (Defence, science, technology laboratories) at Portsdown explained to me that this allowed it to see high speed military aircraft in rainy conditions because of polarisation but this limited its range. Unfortunately it was not yet proven technology which meant the ship was behind schedule by about 6 months. This had a significant impact on the Castle class patrol vessels: one in the Falklands and one in the UK, and the naval personnel operating both of them.
The stabilised platform in the Danish trial’s warship had a defect. It took two weeks to even begin diagnosing the problem because of contractual liabilities. In a meeting at Portsmouth I said to VT’s senior project director, “Open the box of the servo amplifier. Inside, you will find an electronic component that has burned out. You will know because it has a white powder deposited around it. Replace that printed circuit board and we can crack on with the sea trials”. The sub-sub-sub contractor opened the box, replaced the circuit board that had the burned out white powder and we cracked on with the sea trials. I was doing the electronic engineering diagnosis 900 miles away, for free. The root cause, as I suspected, was overloading in heavy weather so the amplifier was upgraded a couple of weeks later.
It was something that I had learned from HMS Chatham. The Starboard Spey gas turbine main engine would not start. The Marine Engineer Officer was in the Ship’s Control Centre with the Controls technician and the Charge Chief technician. Remember that they were now semi-skilled technicians, not artificers. They were pouring over the FIDA - Fault Identification Diagnostic Aid. As the Deputy Marine Engineer Officer I didn’t want to tread on the toes of anyone so I put on my hearing protection and proceeded to inspect the machinery spaces for the next 4 hours.
Four hours later they were still pouring over FIDA. I walked behind the bank of Hawker Siddeley controls in the Ship’s Control Centre and opened a metal door to one of the electronic cabinets. I scanned the electronic circuit boards, pulled out one and asked the Controls technician if this might be the defective component. Five minutes later the gas turbine started.
This reminds me of an incident in HMS Glamorgan. The Senior Engineer, the warrant officer and the maintainer of the G6 gas turbines were in the Gas Turbine Control Room trying to diagnose why one of the gas turbines would not start. As a junior rating, a leading artificer, I looked at the system diagrams from over their shoulders and politely suggested that they should change the Schraeder valve on the control system. They changed the valve; the gas turbine engine started.
The first line customer, DEC AWE, demanded a ‘deterministic three-point estimate’. I was the customer’s representative based at Abbeywood working on the customer’s behalf. The Platform Integrated Project Team comprised over 60 civil servants. I was the only uniformed officer. There was a warrant officer, but he was buried in a corner planning pre-upkeep material assessments. It taught me a lot about working with civilians. Most, if not all, were well intentioned and very professional. In general, I liked them. Two attended my wedding with Sa. They just needed a bit of guidance and a gentle steer to the military priorities and requirements. The Commercial Officer noted that my predecessor was a fluffy Labrador whereas she described me as a Rottweiler. Fair enough, but I delivered. And we still got to laugh together.
The Team leader, who at that time was a civilian, wanted to form a joint management team. I had known him a decade earlier when I was at Foxhill in Bath. He was a naval architect. Hugely clever and likable but rather disorganised. He had over 3,000 unread email messages at the time. I interceded and said that ‘management’ was the last thing we needed. Instead I advocated a joint ‘leadership’ team with the Shipbuilder.
VT brought in its best and most hardened project leader, who was close to retirement. I undertook an audit of its records. The first time anyone had done so for this project and it was a bit of shock for the Shipbuilder. The Platform Integrated Project Team relocated its shrewd and brilliant project leader at the point of delivery instead of at Abbeywood. One of the most switched on civil servants that I have known.
Lo and behold, we not only deployed HMS Clyde to the Falklands with the approval of Fleet HQ, having achieved initial operating capability, but later achieved a first for the MOD. VT’s project leader was surprised that a naval engineer officer could be so helpful when I advised him how we could de-conflict sea trials from the first of class flying trials, the latter of which took hundreds of hours to complete with contracted support of a specialist trials aircraft and analysis of flying limitations.
I said the MOD would accommodate pragmatic flexibility, which was somewhat of a surprise to him, but nonetheless we had to make genuine progress and still hit the overall programme target of deployment to relieve the Falkland Islands patrol vessel. After all, I was the one who briefed the MOD and knew the views of the senior officers.
We were birds of a feather. Both imposing high standards but a bit wary of each other. Both originating from the workshop floor. Both prepared to be disliked by higher management for the greater good. Both able to talk, listen and to understand each other.
The Commanding Officer called for an urgent meeting to discuss the operational limitations with the Shipbuilder. In an arrogant, angry and petulant way he thrust a letter across the conference table to me and demanded if I had seen it. Working for the MOD meant that I wore a suit and tie when not at Abbeywood. Naturally people treated me as a civilian, which was telling.
It had been signed by the Chief Staff Officer (Operations). One could sense that he expected that I had not seen the letter because it was addressed to very senior officers such as CinCFleet. You could see the venom in his eyes. It covered three aspects: the surveillance radar, external communications and the aviation fuelling system. I haven’t explained the latter two because they are a bit techy and boring. The external communications problem was a bit interesting though because it involved ‘experts’.
I scanned the letter and glanced up to him. I looked at him squarely in the eyes.
“Yes”. “I wrote it”.
Fleet HQ had been on summer leave so I had written it at Abbeywood on Fleet’s behalf and sent it to the Chief Staff Officer’s secretary, on my initiative. I didn’t even show the letter to my team leader in advance although I would have sent him a copy and briefed his PA. He was always brilliant and just let me get on with my job as I saw fit. Although I was at the MOD I was still a naval engineer officer at the end of the day and it was my interest to look after the Royal Navy, first and foremost.
Never have I seen someone so deflated with the wind taken out of his sails so quickly. He was far too cocky for my liking. Yet someone else who underestimated me. There is a long list. That I had written the letter was a devastating blow to him. Not a word was changed from that which I had drafted. The Chief Staff Officer was content; the Commanding Officer could only sulk. He was just another in a long line of warfare officers who wanted gold plated projects for free.
Back to the experts. Experts who could not think about a problem 8,000 miles away. There were three companies involved. My experience in Saudi Arabia screamed at me that you needed only one. I joined a meeting with experts from the MOD and Fleet HQ. I was not invited; I invited myself. Our in-service project manager in the team, responsible for support when the ship reached the Falkland Islands, had given me the heads up a few days before which gave me time to read about the problems. It should be no surprise that he was later the best man at my wedding with Sa.
They were going down the inevitable path of 2 sub-contractors; too frightened to make a decision. One for the secure software communications and the other for the hardware equipment. Fleet wanted to use the secure equipment used in other naval ships primarily because there was no physical ‘air gap’ with a software system and were anxious about the infinitesimal probability of a security breach. The hardware developer, Rhode & Schwarz, had also developed a software counterpart but it required deep analysis and specific approval by GCHQ. Pinning down the specialist consultant was next to impossible because he was usually out of office while visiting manufacturers and developers. I had left a message for him with his secretary to please contact me urgently, which he did. I think that speaking to her made the difference. He was highly confident that the software system would work to the satisfaction of GCHQ.
At the meeting I noted, “When there is a defect 8,000 miles away one company will blame the other. It will take three months just to deploy a technician from either company. Meanwhile that ship with national strategic importance will have a major capability shortfall.” The room went quiet as people turned to me and thought, “Who on earth is he?”
I didn’t need to know how the communications system worked although I got the technical gist of the electronic software security problems from a classified report from the specialist at GCHQ. In reality I just needed experience of commercial defence contracts and practical naval engineering. Within three months of deployment the external communications system was fully secure and finally operational to the complete satisfaction of GCHQ. Another notable first for the MOD. It had never happened before in the RAF or Army or Royal Navy. Flexible thinking with appropriate risk analysis yielded an unexpected and much welcome result.
Fifteen years before, the MOD adopted the SMART procurement or acquisition strategy. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound. HMS Clyde was the first maritime platform to achieve Final Operating Capability since SMART procurement. Plaudits were promised by the MOD; none was given.
I suspect the MOD was a little bit embarrassed for three reasons. It was a few months behind schedule. It was delivered by a team essentially comprising civilians. I’m a naval man through and through but there are many capable civilians out there if you give them the guidance and encouragement to perform. I’d argue that the most successful professional engineering relationships that I have had were with senior civil servants in the MOD. They don’t get you promoted though.
Finally, senior officers at the MOD were frustrated that the surveillance radar was not designed to a military specification. I know this because the Commodore at the MOD had told me many months before that he really wanted the Type 997 radar. It would not surprise me if that alone would cost more than the lease of the vessel.
HMS Clyde was made possible by innovative thinking and risk. Bear in mind that much of this story has been about taking risks: mainly technical although many personal. As I mentioned, the radar was novel technology. The scientist at the radar developer, Terma, unearthed several flaws with the algorithms, designed by a French company, which were corrected and the software updated while HMS Clyde was on passage to the Falklands. A desk officer at Fleet HQ wanted to send a chief radar operator to assess it. I said no.
A chief radar operator would expect the standards of a military radar. Instead I sent one of the ship’s radar operators to Denmark to assess in the simulator whether its capabilities met the requirements of the contract and Systems Requirements Document and, ultimately, his needs as an operator.
He was a leading hand so it was highly risky for everyone else but given the responsibility he did his job professionally and stated that the modified radar software was good enough for the contract and for him. I think that was one of the most profound jobs that I have ever undertaken. Delegating a huge contractual task to someone that you’ve never met to someone so junior, without any pressure whatsoever. I expressly stated that no one was to accompany him, nor to brief him. Let him alone decide.
My faith in leading hands goes back to the time I lived in 3P mess in HMS Norfolk, 20 years earlier. Generally, they are sharp cookies with high standards. They are also pragmatic. In another word, realistic.