XV Patrick Blackett X01

[Pelican]

Royal Navy takes delivery of new experimental vessel XV PATRICK BLACKETT X01

The XV Patrick Blackett arrived in Portsmouth today. She has been bought for use by the NavyX programme as a platform for trials and experimentation with new technologies. Here we look at this vessel in detail.

Accelerated procurement
The research, development and experimentation work of the RN’s Develop Directorate has now been streamlined under the NavyX brand with a single multi-disciplinary team aiming to introduce novel and innovative capabilities to the fleet. Run by a Colonel Royal Marines, who works directly to the RN’s Director Develop, Rear Admiral James Parkin, NavyX philosophy is to work collaboratively, differently, and at pace.

From start to finish the experimental vessel procurement has been completed in less than a year for a total cost of just £7m. The project was launched in August 2021 and a tender was issued in December specifying a vessel that must already have been built, although not having had a previous owner. It would displace a maximum of 500 tonnes, be less than 48m in length and capable of 20 knots. A large working deck at the stern with space for at least two TEU containers was also needed. The requirement for an existing vessel meant there were very limited suppliers able to meet this specification and a Damen Fast Crew Supplier (FCS) Vessel was obviously the likely solution.

In January 2022 a Damen-built FCS 4008 was down-selected and the contract was signed the following month. Ownership was transferred to the RN in March and work to adapt the vessel at Damen’s covered shipyard facility located at Gorinchem in the Netherlands was started in April.

XV Patrick Blackett has been procured as a dedicated trials platform that will avoid the need to place excess demands on the busy operational fleet. She has core crew of 5 RN personnel but has sleeping accommodation for up to 12. She is certified to carry a further 12 technicians and engineers when day running on trials work. Her first commanding officer will be Cdr Samuel Nightingale, a warfare specialist on assignment to NavyX.

The XV is named after Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (1897-1974) a renowned experimental physicist awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1948 and president of the Royal Society (1965). He joined the RN in 1910 and saw active service in the First World War, serving on the cruiser HMS Carnarvon during the Battle of the Falklands (1914) and later on the battleship HMS Barham at the Battle of Jutland (1916). During The Second World War he worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment developing technology that helped defeat the U-boats. He later became Director of Naval Operational Research and argued correctly from analysis of data that resources devoted to area bombing of Germany were not proportional to its effectiveness. Until now, Blackett was widely honoured by academia as one of the greatest British scientists of the 20th century but his importance to naval history was rather overlooked. The XV now fully recognises his contribution and is a fitting name for a vessel to be used for cutting-edge naval research.
The XV is intended to have a distinctive appearance, she is not painted pussers grey, but matt back, carrying a large NavyX logo, and the pennant number X01 highlighted in gloss. She will not be a commissioned vessel but will serve under the Blue Ensign, being an unarmed, government-owned vessel simplifies her operation and the way she could be employed.

A large QR code will be painted on each side of the superstructure to give smartphone users a link to a website of NavyX’s choice. An excellent way to promote public engagement and provide a timely explanation of the work being undertaken. She will attend both RN and NATO exercises around the UK and abroad and is a flexible platform that will provide a broad range of experimentation options for NavyX and wider industry.

The platform
The Damen FCS 4800 series are primarily designed to transport up to 90 personnel and cargo to and from offshore oil and gas installations. The unique axe-bow hull design developed by Damen enables the vessel to slice through the waves with reduced resistance. Less forward buoyancy and a long, tapered hull help the vessel pierce waves more than ride over them, reducing slamming and pitching motions. This allows higher speeds, has a lower impact on the hull, provides a smoother ride for passengers and has better fuel economy. Around 150 axe-bow vessels are in service around the world, mostly in support of offshore industry but several navies and coastguards operate OPV or maritime security variants. This hull form is not suited to wider warship applications due to the narrow focsle and the need to keep weight aft.

The main modification to meet the XV specification was to convert the seating area for 90 passengers into spaces for use by the trials team including a briefing room, office and workshop. Minor changes were also made to communications and bridge equipment to meet RN requirements. The large wooden working deck aft has a capacity of up to 100 tonnes, securing points for two TEU containers together with electrical power and cooling water supplies. The knuckle-boom crane can be used to embark stores up to around 4 tonnes or deploy small craft over the side.

XV Patrick Blackett is officially capable of up to 20 knots although probably can achieve significantly faster speeds. She has a substantial range of 3,300 nm at 20 knots and is driven by 4 diesel engines driving 4 fixed-pitch propellers through 4 individual gearboxes. Two 99.0 kW generators provide electrical power to the ship and a 120kw hydraulically-driven bow thruster allows her to berth and unberth unaided. She is equipped with 9,000 sensors which can transmit data ashore to support predictive maintenance, real-time analytics and remote engineering support.

The vessel is air-conditioned and fitted with modern accommodation for 12 people in four 2-berth cabins and one 4-berth cabin. She is 41.2m meters in length, has a beam of 8.75m, draws 3.05m and has a gross registered tonnage (internal volume) of 270 tonnes. The XV itself is not currently capable of autonomous or remote operation but has fully digital control systems that would allow this capability to be added in future, should the RN want to begin experiments with large-platform maritime autonomy.

Tasking
The XV has been delivered from the Netherlands by a crew provided by her builders. There will be a hiatus of a few months while the ship is formally accepted (including safety certification, acceptance onto the Defence Shipping Register etc) and her ship’s company undergo a period of training, learning how to operate a vessel unique to the RN. Once set to work, the Patrick Blackett will be host to a variety of experiments with novel technologies and concepts. Navy X already has a series of projects in development that will potentially include the deployment of Maritime Autonomous Systems (MAS) – uncrewed underwater, surface and airborne vehicles (UUV, USV and UAVs). She will also trial new sensors and AI decision-making software and be a platform for further development of modularity and the Navy PODS concept.

The requirement for an existing vessel meant there were very limited suppliers able to meet this specification and in the end only the Dutch shipyard Damen tendered a bid into the competition. Although not comparable with a complex weapon or major warship procurement, this accelerator project is a good example of setting sensible goals and getting things done. This needs to be followed up with a focus on ensuring that the results of trials carried out on board XV Patrick Blackett are developed into viable capabilities that are quickly placed in the hands of the operators on the frontline.

Source Navy Lookout

[Pelican]

New experimental ship for the Royal Navy arrives in UK

The XV Patrick Blackett will be used as a trial ship, experimenting with new technologies including drones.
Last month I reported that the new ‘Special Purpose Vessel’ would arrive in Portsmouth to be prepared for her role as a trials platform. That has now happened.
As I reported previously, the vessel was procured through a £9m contract and will support trials for “autonomy development”.

Continues with further details at - https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/new-exp ... i5KPQPs9QE

[Pelican]

Royal Navy

We’re proud to announce our new entry to the Royal Navy: XV Patrick Blackett!
She is an experimental vessel and will enable us to test new kit and technology pushing us even more to the forefront of warfare.
Short video at - https://twitter.com/RoyalNavy/status/15 ... 3083173888

[Pelican]

New testbed ship to enhance experimentation in Royal Navy

The Royal Navy today unveiled a unique testbed ship to support trials of the latest tech and autonomous systems.
The 42m, 270-tonne vessel arrived in Portsmouth this week and is named after former Royal Navy sailor and Nobel Prize winner Patrick Blackett.

It will be used by the navy’s experimentation and innovation experts NavyX who have been driving innovation across the service and testing new technology, kit and concepts, passing them quickly to the frontline.

And procuring the Damen 4008 Fast Crew Supply ship has been an example of this with the boat purchased, adapted for Royal Navy use and delivered within 12 months.

Thanks to the addition of the XV – Experimental Vessel – Patrick Blackett, NavyX will be able to carry out more trials at sea to enhance the Fleet’s operations and ensure the UK stays at the leading edge of naval warfare.

XV Patrick Blackett will enable NavyX to experiment without the need to place demand on other navy ships, many of which are deployed permanently away from UK waters. She will also offer the chance to work closer with industry and academia partners.

Damen Shipyards, in the Netherlands, won the contract for the test ship which can reach speeds of 20 knots and has been modified to support NavyX operations.

Continues, includes photos of her entry into Portsmouth, at - https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-l ... royal-navy

[Pelican]

XV Patrick Blackett formally named & blue ensign raised.

RoyalMarines band always immaculate and impressive:
https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/ ... 9495314432

Appropriately a robot dog will initiate the smashing of the champagne bottle:
https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/ ... 1758938112

Champagne at the ready ahead of formal naming ceremony for XV Patrick Blackett about to begin in Portsmouth shortly:
https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/ ... 1564836864

Can exclusively reveal the robot dog did the business but the champage bottle did not break.
Worked fine in rehearsal but todays issues quite in keeping with "fast to fail" iterative development philosophy of RN NavyX
https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/ ... 1006909441

[The best laid of dogs and men etc.]

[Pelican]

Robot Dog

Evidence that the first experiment was a success!

https://twitter.com/RNNavyX/status/1553035783984005121

[Pelican]

Photo essay: onboard the XV Patrick Blackett


The Royal Navy’s new experimental trials vessel was formally named at a ceremony in Portsmouth on 29th July. In a follow-up to our previous article, we went onboard for a closer look and spoke with her Commanding Officer and head of NavyX.

Despite being a modest size trials platform, the RN put on quite a show for the naming ceremony – attended by the First Lord and various dignitaries including the granddaughter of Patrick Blackett who officially named the vessel. The RN is keen to show off the XV and its potential to industry, academia, SMEs, inventors and partner navies who may be invited to participate in future development work onboard.

In keeping with the theme of innovation, a Boston Dynamics Spot robot ‘dog’ was used to pull the rope to release the champagne bottle against to bow. The robot performed as expected but unfortunately, the bottle failed to break when it struck the bow… The procedure had worked fine in rehearsal but this kind of teething problem is perhaps in keeping with fast to fail iterative experimental development philosophy of NavyX.

See - https://www.navylookout.com/photo-essay ... -blackett/

Examples attached - Twin cabin with the top bunk folded up when only occupied by one person. Mess area looking forward. There are other cabins, heads and showers off the passageway on the right.

[greendragon]

HMS Patrick Blackett experimental ship has been incorporated to the HM ship fleet and it is mentioned here and there but certainly less is known about Professor P. Blackett (PB) , later the Nobel Prize Winner.
He influenced a lot a Air and Naval warfare significantly increasing effectiveness of the both services assets in war against uboats.
He refused to design any new weapons but with his ability to calculate and statistic was able together with his group of outstanding band of scholars who included one more future Nobel Prize winner and many fellows of the Royal Society. What is interesting they were in their twentieth and thirties - PB himself was 45 then.
Among many improvements to the Coastal Command aircraft lethality was his quick analysis of a/c missions to sightings of uboats which showed the sightings as to flight hours were four times fewer than supposed to be.
He recognized that black paintings of the coastal bombers were sighted fast by the uboats and enabled them to dive before they were seen from air.
After some practical testing the painting was changed to matte white which decreased distance of being sighted by 20% and in the same time it allowed the aircraft to sight surfaced aircraft on 30% more occasion.
Without going to too many details he also changed fuse settings for the D/Cs as well as the the stick spacing.
An observation was made that most of the uboat sightings were made by the a/c which by pure coincidence were patrolling more than 20Nm from convoy which actually were uboats concentration areas. As the result the distance a/c atacked 40% more uboats than those employed in the close convoy escort.
For convoys it meant that it reduced day ship sinkings as well as halved losses in night battles against uboats.

There were a lot of recommendations by PB to HM navy and it would require pages of writing here so in short let me pass some of them in short:
-he found effectiveness of use Costal Command squadrons assets (menpower and aircraft) not satisfactionary and showed that little change in organization would increase number of patrols;
- optimum size of convoys should be about 60 merchants instead of 30-40 , for figures said loss in small ones were 2.5% and in big ones 1.1%;
- he provided the optimum number CC patrols to saturate enough the Biscay in planned Musketeer campaign against uboats. It was actually never executed fully by the CC/RN planners because of the shortage of LR a/c but being close to scientics figures made life of the uboats there short and denied to enter their ops areas;
And more initiatives which quite often were not followed fully (also because of conservative thinking of some of the HM planners), but anyway that was another element of the Atlantic war very often unnoticed .

Professor Blacket had followers in among USN where statistics and analysis of figures were quickly implemented in practical use.
I have also found that author C. Blair in some way has followed the Professor tracks and in his work Hitlers Uboat War provides excellent statistic which quite often are in opposition to the so common opinion about uboat threat that " uboats almost won war".

Very impressive scientist indeed!

gd

[emason]

Hello GD,
Thank you for reminding me about Professor Patrick Blackett. It also reminded me about a short post I made on the old WNSF following the Convoy ONS5 thread. It repeats much of which you have already written, but I thought it relevant to re-post it here.

Coastal Command Operational Research Section
In the battle for ONS5, aircraft were responsible for two of the U-boats sunk and at least one damaged. We now tend to think of this as being completely normal for the time. Indeed, this was a high success rate compared with two years previously when very few U-boats were sighted or attacked or sunk or damaged. It was for this reason that, in 1941, Coastal Command (C.C.) set up an Operational Research Section (O.R.S.) to analyse their operations with the purpose of making better use of the weapons they already had.

O.R.S. was headed by Professor Patrick Blackett whose staff were scientists, physicists and mathematicians and included two future Nobel Prize winners and five future fellows of the Royal Society. Their methods were mathematical analysis. They began by scrutinising every aspect of C.C’s operations, questioning even the obvious.

Aircraft
O.R.S. analysis showed that four times fewer U-boats were being sighted at sea that should have been, and of those that were, only one percent were sunk. There had to be an explanation.

There was. C.C’s aircraft, having come from the RAF were painted black for their night operations over land, which stood out against a North Atlantic day sky. So they were often seen by the U-boat before the aircraft saw them, giving them time to dive before being sighted. They were then painted white and the number of sightings rose by thirty percent.

Depth Charges
The prevailing assumption at C.C and the Admiralty was that when a U-boat spotted an aircraft it would dive to 100ft. so the depth charges (D/Cs) dropped were set to detonate at 100ft. O.R.S. calculations showed that a shallower 25ft. setting would be more effective. With this new setting, the average number of U-boats sunk increased by two and a half times. When attacking a U-boat, the aircraft dropped a "stick" of D/Cs about 60ft. ahead to allow for the forward travel of the U-boat while the D/Cs were sinking to their detonating depth. O.R.S. advised pilots to aim directly at the conning tower and kills increased by 50%. A "stick" was a number, usually four, of D/Cs dropped in series. The stick spacing (the distance between each D/C) was usually 36ft. O.R.S. suggested increasing this to 100ft. and the number of sinkings rose again.

Tactics
O.R.S. showed that it was a better tactic to force a U-boat shadowing a convoy to submerge, so disrupting the pack’s operation while it was being organised, than to wait until an attack had started before intervening. They also found that aircraft were patrolling too close to the convoys, as U-boats usually assembled over 20 miles away from the convoy. This simple change halved the number of ships sunk and increased the number of U-boats attacked by forty percent.

Organisation
Shortage of aircraft was always a problem, so O.R.S. analysed ground operations such as repair and maintenance to make maximum use of crewmen and aircraft. Their recommendations doubled the flying time of each aircraft, effectively doubling the number of aircraft. This method was eventually adopted by the RAF and Naval Air Division.

Bay of Biscay
When aircraft started to patrol the Bay of Biscay in daylight, the U-boats submerged and surfaced only at night to recharge their batteries. O.R.S. suggested some form of illumination so that they could be attacked then as well. And so the Leigh Light was born. It was so successful that U-boats were ordered to surface by day so that the attacking aircraft could be seen before the U-boat was attacked. Operations in the Bay of Biscay were not producing the expected results. Aircrew blamed the weapons, but O.R.S. insisted their recommended 250lb. D/C was adequate. Citing three squadrons who had excellent results, they recommended better training and bombing practice for the failing squadrons. 　

In 1942, Professor Blackett left O.R.S. to become the Chief Advisor to the Admiralty Operational Research where his work included improving convoy survival. By analysing convoy statistics, he proved that larger convoys had a much higher survival rate than small convoys, as the number of ships sunk were the same in both. By doubling the size of a convoy, only 50% more escort ships would be needed, and only half the number of convoys would be at sea at any given time, making it harder for the U-boats to find them. 　

With all these improvements, by 1943, aircraft with their high success rate, became the U-boat’s most feared adversary.
　

[greendragon]

Exactly the same things we wrote and also shows that broken continuity of providing so much valuable historical facts as members of the former WNF were giving to internet space has been a severe blow.
I have been always astonished how much interesting historical fact were brought to surface by the members in former WNF.
Very bad indeed .
The Forum we are here today ihas just started gaining information fat on its bones.

As for Professor and his team of scientists team this is sort of forgotten war for many history writers (or sometimes "rewriters") stick to couple of main facts which contributed in winning the Atlantic war : asdic, radar, aircraft and HF/DF.
That was much more organizational and scientific effort which were successfully implemented which gave the upper hand over the uboats.
That was complex activity and as it is often said "chain of factors" that made the German uboat forces back broken in may 1943.
And last but not least, very simple factor - numerous superiority of the Allies - which allowed them to make uboat killer groups like famous CPT Walker's and USN hunter killer TFs based on CVEs.

gd