Conference to Address Future of Naval Warships

Naval officers and industry experts will gather in Portsmouth, U.K., Jan. 30-31 for the IQPC Surface Warships 2014 conference to share ideas and concepts for designing, building, manning and maintaining naval combatants today and into the future.

The opening keynote address will be delivered by U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Thomas Rowden, the director for surface warfare on the chief of naval operations staff.

Speakers from the Royal Navy will discuss the U.K.’s new Type 26 frigate program from the government acquisition industry design and construction, and operations point of view. Of emphasis will be the U.K. approach to open architecture in the Type 26 and other ship programs. Other presentations will share the Danish and Swedish perspectives to designing and constructing new ship programs and the ability to upgrade and modernize platforms to address emerging missions and keep pace with threats, from an operational perspective of addressing unique requirement.

Presentations will cover a full spectrum from dealing with noncombat roles such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, to high-end capabilities required to defend against ballistic missiles.

Other presentations will summarize significant new combatant programs for such navies as Spain and Italy; operational and procurement perspectives from the Philippines and Pakistan; research and development activities from the Netherlands; industry solutions for combat systems and propulsion; and programmatic discussions for Europe and NATO.

The event will take place at “Action Stations” in Portsmouth, and is being chaired by Capt. Edward Lundquist, U.S. Navy (Ret.), a principal science writer with MCR Federal LLC in Arlington, Virginia.

“Surface combatants are the backbone of all modern navies, so it is essential that these increasingly multi-role platforms are implemented to support all future deployments, no matter how diverse,” said Mark Eastwood, IQPC conference producer for Surface Warships 2014. “With so many naval participants from all corners of the world—from New Zealand, Peru, Australia and Colombia—I’m looking forward to hearing about the range of challenges and solutions to the issues that these experts are facing today and moving into tomorrow.”

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