Babcock wins contract with US defence contractor General Dynamics

Support services group Babcock International has been awarded a competitive contract from US defence contractor General Dynamics Electric Boat to manufacture tactile missile tube assemblies.

The contract is part of the common missile compartment (CMC) project for the UK Successor and US 'Ohio' Class replacement submarine programmes and the work is part of the second phase of the project.

Babcock said the contract, which is expects to begin towards the end of this year and complete in the early 2020s, places the firm as a critical supplier of missile tube assemblies.

The work will be carried out at Babcock's facilities at Rosyth and Bristol, sustaining around 150 positions created in the first phase. The contract for this batch of CMC components is expected to be worth around £80m.

Chief executive Archie Bethel said: “We are delighted to be continuing to support these internationally significant programmes with our highly specialised and experienced teams and look forward to working closely with our customer as this programme continues to develop further over the coming years.

"Supporting Electric Boat with the CMC project for the future submarines also underpins our wider involvement in the UK Successor programme where we have already secured the supply of other critical equipment and are also heavily involved in the design phase with a focus on the overall through life performance and operational cost of the future platforms."

The Common Missile Compartment project is a jointly-specified common element of both the UK’s Successor submarine and the panned replacement for the US ‘Ohio’ class Trident submarines.

The Successor is the replacement programme for the Royal Navy’s Trident missile Vanguard Class submarines which form the UK’s nuclear deterrent.

At 1412 BST, Babcock shares were down 0.6% to 985p.