BAE Systems To Upgrade Royal Navy’s Spearfish Heavyweight Torpedoes

The UK MOD has awarded a £270 million contract to BAE Systems to upgrade the Royal Navy’s Spearfish heavyweight torpedoes.

Earlier this year, BAE Systems was also awarded a £600 million contract to run Portsmouth Naval Base and a £70 million Type 45 destroyer support contract that combined sustains more than 2,000 jobs in the Portsmouth region, including skilled engineering roles.

Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, said: “This contract award is good news for the Royal Navy, the UK and the city of Portsmouth where around 100 engineering jobs will be created or sustained.

“Portsmouth continues to play a significant part in defence as illustrated by this contract award and has a bright future ahead of it thanks to recent investment such as the £600 milliion contract to run the naval base, sustaining thousands of jobs, and the upcoming £100 million of infrastructure work to prepare the city for the arrival of the Queen Elizabeth Class Carriers.”

The Spearfish Upgrade includes a new warhead, a change to the fuel system to improve safety, full digitisation of the weapon and a new fibre optic guidance link to improve performance.

Once the torpedo has been fired Spearfish homes in on its target using sonar and will be controlled by the submarine after launch via the new fibre optic link.