BAE Systems Wins £285M Contract to Support New Era of Royal Navy Combat Management Systems

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

BAE Systems has been awarded a £285m contract by the Ministry of Defence to support the Royal Navy’s Shared Infrastructure, Combat Management Systems (CMS) and warship networks.

RECODE is an eight-year programme ensuring the Navy’s fleet is armed and ready for evolving military challenges. It is tailored to meet the Royal Navy’s future operational needs and will deliver a modernisation programme at pace to enable the agile deployment of capabilities.

The contract award builds on 13 years of collaboration with the Royal Navy in which the BAE Systems’ CMS is used across a wide range of naval assets.

The core elements of RECODE include:

• Maintaining high levels of safety, security and availability of combat systems across 20 Royal Navy ships. Architectural and capability changes delivered directly to the fleet to keep pace with the operational tempo.
• Delivering BAE Systems’ CMS on the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, Type 45 destroyers and Type 26 frigates. The whole RECODE enterprise will adopt the engineering principles of DevSecOps1, with security integrated at every phase of the software development and operational lifecycle. This agile methodology will deliver the best CMS capability in the shortest amount of time.
• A new collaborative working philosophy with DE&S Maritime Combat Systems and Navy Command which will mean closer working, joint decision-making and increased communication and collaboration between both parties.

RECODE will support more than 200 highly-skilled jobs at BAE Systems’ Naval Ships business across the Company’s sites in Filton, Dorchester, New Malden, Frimley and Portsmouth. It will also create additional investment in UK SME and high-tech suppliers across the UK.

Steve Carter, Naval Ships Combat Systems Director, BAE Systems, said: “RECODE represents a huge stride forward in our partnership with the Royal Navy and will help to realise warfare capability of the future. The global threat picture, advances in commercial technology and the immense volume of data available to crews means we need to become even more ambitious and far-reaching in our services and support. We are excited and privileged to secure this programme that will sit at the heart of the Navy’s ambition to be a protean force.”

Commodore Phil Game, Interim Director of Sense, Decide and Communicate, DE&S, said: "This is an essential programme that will sustain current combat management systems on board in-service Royal Navy vessels, to enhance their capability and make them fit for the future. This new programme will ensure that at their core, the systems are evergreen, robust and flexible.

“Through our close collaborative work with industry colleagues, this contract will also help to upskill the programme's workforce and sustain UK jobs. The improvements made will be instrumental in making the UK Royal Navy more agile and more capable in our rapidly changing global Defence environment."

Captain Kevin Miller, Combat Systems Design Authority and Surface Ships Combat Systems Group Team Leader, Royal Navy, said: “We have a long and successful history with Naval Ships Combat Systems and RECODE represents an important next phase of our collaboration. Today’s challenging landscape means we must adapt and evolve at pace. Agility is at the heart of the programme in three ways – equipment to maintain our capability, process so we can adapt that capability at the pace of relevance and a mindset to ensure we deliver. Those are the key facets that will enable the military advantage our crews are relying on.”

​​​​​​