New Royal Navy Warfare Training Centre at Devenport

Plymouth, United Kingdom. – A new benchmark training programme for all Royal Navy warfare operators has moved one step closer with the laying of foundations of a new facility at HM Naval Base Devonport in Plymouth. The new facility, built and managed by BAE Systems as part of the new Maritime Composite Training System (MCTS), will house the Royal Navy’s new shore-based Warfare Operator Training for the majority of all current in-service frigates, destroyers, and major surface platforms, as well as the new Type 45 destroyers.

The MCTS programme, valued at approximately £100 million, will provide the Royal Navy with a more flexible approach to training. By using generic classroom-based skills instruction for early training requirements, the programme ensures that downselection to a specific platform type can be deferred to the latest possible point. This ensures that the bulk of the training programme can be delivered to sailors at their home port, reducing downtime for specialist operators and cutting travel and subsistence costs.

Commodore Simon Lister, Commanding Officer HM Naval Base Devonport said: “This innovative training system means that instead of sending our ships’ Operations Room teams from Devonport to the Maritime Warfare School in Portsmouth, we will be able to give them state of the art training in their home port, thereby delivering cutting edge training with cost and time efficiencies.

“MCTS should eventually be expanded to integrate with submarine training systems as well as ships alongside and at sea, and we are all looking forward to this exciting programme”.

Guy Griffiths, managing director of BAE Systems Integrated System Technologies (Insyte) said: “This new training facility will provide an environment which replicates the combat systems used across most of the UK Royal Navy’s warships, including aircraft carriers, and will help maximise combat effectiveness across the fleet. By providing a sophisticated system to reproduce combat situations and systems, the training programme should help the men and women who manage the battle command centres to be better prepared for combat and emergencies.”

MCTS is a programme procured by Defence Equipment and Support’s Maritime Training Systems IPT for which BAE Systems Integrated System Technologies (Insyte) leads a team with partners from Aerosystems International, EDS, Flagship Training, MDA and Serco. MCTS facilities will be situated at both the Maritime Warfare School at HMS Collingwood and the Devonport Waterfront.

The facility at Devonport will be completed in March 2008 when integration of the training systems will then commence in readiness for provision of training in early 2009.