Royal Navy calls for industry views on modular outfitting

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has opened up a request for information from companies on the ongoing feasibility of a new commercial framework to support the concept development (including testing and evaluation), manufacture, delivery, management, through life maintenance and support of joint deployable modular capabilities.

Modular capabilities have been mooted by the Royal Navy in the past in things like NavyPODS (Navy Persistent Operational Deployment System). In 2021, Second Sea Lord Vice Admiral Nick Hine unveiled the NavyPODS concept, stating: “We have always sought modularity as the nirvana of capability flexibility but have never been able to afford it.”

The current early engagement call stops significantly short of being a tendering process, but shows the MoD is again looking at the long-term feasibility of the NavyPODS idea.

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The original aim of the NavyPODS programme was to develop a range of platform-agnostic deployable mission modules based on a standard container. Each module would contain either a system payload or a payload suite which would deliver or facilitate a specific mission capability. That kind of flexibility and modularity would open up the NavyPODS to use on a wide range of vessels, including the latest Type 26 and Type 31 frigates, as well as amphibious vessels, offshore patrol vessels and others as they come online.

When they were first envisaged back in 2021, the idea was that NavyPODS would all share common protocols and an open architecture under Project NELSON, the Royal Navy’s current and ongoing digital transformation programme.

That would allow each NavyPODS to be adaptable to the needs of any given mission or theatre in a hurry. In 2021, when the Royal Navy was actively looking for proposals from industry, it stressed the need that NavyPODS should be “Sustainable, available, adaptable, interchangeable and connectable”.

The current call for industry views on the longer-term viability of a NavyPODS framework will run until 11 November 2024.