Contracts exchanged on new British warships

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RF
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Contracts exchanged on new British warships

Post by RF »

Contracts to build two new large aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy were exchanged yesterday, 3 July 2008.

HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will be the largest and most powerful warships ever constructed in the UK. Their construction and assembly at shipyards in Portsmouth, Barrow-in-Furness, Govan (Glasgow) and Rosyth will create or sustain some 10,000 jobs in and around these shipyard facilities, particulary significant as the Scottish shipyards are located in areas of high unemployment.

The 65,000 ton carriers (roughly the same tonnage as Yamato) will carry a crew of around 1,500 and up to 40 aircraft, and enter service in 2014 and 2016 respectively. The contracts for the project, currently worth £4,000 million, have been awarded to a group of companies known as the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, with much of the work to be carried out by BVT Surface Fleet, a newly formed consortium of BAE Systems (perhaps better known as British Aerospace) and VT Group (formerly known as Vosper Thorneycroft).

I hope that the new HMS Prince of Wales will have a better career than the namesake that members of this forum will be well familiar with.