British Army Upgrading Its Battlefield SIGINT Capabilities

UK renews SIGINT push

Andrew Chuter, c4isrnet.com, October 22, 2014

New Capability: A British soldier stands on top of an armored vehicle in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan. The UK has revived a plan to provide signals intelligence capabilities to troops. (LEON NEAL/ / AFP via Getty Images)

Britain is reviving plans to update battlefield signals intelligence capabilities, the first of its kind since a Lockheed Martin contract to re-equip land forces was axed in 2009.

A few lines in the UK Defence Contracts Bulletin this month signaled that the Landseeker signals intelligence and jamming program, quietly shelved along with dozens of other programs during budget-cutting measures in 2010, is back on the radar.

“Funding has been allocated to conduct a Landseeker concept and assessment phase. The Defence Contracts Bulletin announcement was placed in order to notify industry of the project’s existence. The funding category and main gate [the development and production approval date] will be established as the study activities progress with the program’s exact requirements defined during the concept and assessment phase,” said a Defence Ministry spokesman.

The MoD will not talk about timelines or cost at this early stage of the program, but executives here said they expect main gate approval around 2017.

The program, they said, would likely be a Category B project — between £100 million and £250 million (US $160 million and $400 million) — but it could be higher depending on the scope of the Royal Signals Regiment requirement.

One industry executive here said details of exactly how the Landseeker program will go forward are hazy.

“Details of how the MoD is to engage with industry during the concept phase have yet to emerge,” the executive said.

“Given that Landseeker is at such an early stage, I’m not sure that anyone has any real vision of what the program will comprise of and this will remain the situation until the concept and assessment phase has been completed. The expectation, however, is that all elements of Landseeker will be competed regardless of the status of any incumbent,” the executive said.

Chemring, Thales UK, Selex ES and maybe Lockheed Martin, could be among the companies interested in the requirement.

The MoD also said it might consider small- and medium-size companies.

The Landseeker requirement emerged in the wake of the axed effort to update British Army and Royal Marine signals intelligence capabilities in the Soothsayer program, secured by Lockheed Martin in 2003.

Late and over budget, Soothsayer aimed to detect, locate and identify radio and radar signals, as well as provide communications electronic countermeasures. It was abandoned in mid-2009 to be rapidly replaced by Landseeker.

The National Audit Office — the government spending watchdog — reported in 2008 that Soothsayer costs were projected to rise to more than £200 million from the approved cost of £150 million.

Changes to vehicles earmarked to carry the electronic warfare systems were responsible along with technical issues and delays.

Lockheed Martin UK declined to comment on the reasons for the demise of the Soothsayer program.

The cancellation required the British to run on equipment such as the Odette vehicle-borne signals intelligence system and the Scarus man-portable electronic support measures equipment

The land forces electronics line-up was supplemented during the British campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan with a 2010 urgent operational requirement known as Project Seer, which resulted in the purchase of Chemring’s Resolve manpack electronic surveillance and electronic attack system.

The British Army website also refers to a second electronic warfare program known as Wrote, but little is known about that.

The website said Wrote and Seer are state-of-the-art manpack, static and vehicle-borne electronic warfare systems brought into service on current operations.

Resolve is being taken into the land forces core equipment program as Britain wraps up its combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Landseeker is the only one of three MoD Seeker programs aimed at upgrading electronic warfare capabilities for land, air and maritime forces not to get to the contract stage to date.

One of three US Rivet Joint RC-135 signals intelligence aircraft purchased for £670 million by the British under the AirSeeker program is already operating over Iraq as part of the Royal Air Force effort to combat Islamic State militants.

Local support company Babcock was awarded a contract in July to supply communications electronic support measures (CESM) equipment on Royal Navy Type 45 destroyers using US technology developed by Argon ST.The program, known as Shaman, meets the SeaSeeker requirement. Babcock already supports the CESM requirements of Type 23 frigates and elements of the nuclear submarine fleet.