It was in the area of the sonar fit where Conley had most contention with the Trident project. It was evident to him that several key aspects of the submarine’s sonar suite had been under-specified, resulting in a number of operational deficiencies which would either be costly or difficult to rectify. He firmly believed that the sonar system — which was unique to the Trident class — was not fit for purpose; in Conley’s judgement, it would be unable to provide comprehensive protection against third-generation Russian submarines, the quiet and capable Victor IIIs and Akulas, which would be the SSBNs’ main threat. Incomprehensibly — and almost egregiously, one might think — no expert operator input had been sought during the design stage of the sonar system. Furthermore, it was evident to Conley that weak and inexperienced project management was handling this vitally important part of the submarines’ defences.
These views put Conley on a collision course with the hierarchy of the Trident project who saw him as awkward, unduly demanding and — from their perspective — of questionable judgement. However, none of them had knowledge or experience of operating submarine sonar in the contemporary threat environment. Conley afterwards recalled, ‘It was like a Formula One racing driver trying to explain his car deficiencies to a bunch of people who have never been in a car in their life.’ Perhaps seduced by the infallibility of the group, several members of the project team complained to Commodore Taylor that Conley was being unreasonable. With little or no support from either the Naval Staff or the specialists on the staff of Flag Office Submarines, Conley’s voice was, for an inordinately long time, a lonely one.
In the autumn of 1992 Conley embarked on Vanguard for contractor’s sea trials. He was immediately struck by the novelty of the submarine control room being situated two decks below the conning tower, as opposed to being directly below it. With the primary means of visual surveillance through remote periscope camera images which were then displayed on the submarine’s state-of-the-art command system in the control room, this did not matter. Indeed, it was very conducive to an efficient and effective control-room layout. The 14,000-ton SSBN was much bigger than the SSNs to which Conley was accustomed, where most command positions, including the bridge, were a few feet away from each other. Accordingly, he assessed that operating on the surface would be more complex and difficult to manage. In short, he did not envy the challenges the commanding officers would confront when the boat was on the surface in dense shipping or poor visibility conditions.
A year later, during post-commissioning trials Conley authorised the acceptance of HM Submarine Vanguard into service on behalf of the project and the final stage payment of £80m to VSEL was endorsed (she had cost about £850m to build). Overall, the first-of-class trials were successful and in late 1994 Vanguard deployed on patrol for the first time. She had been delivered to time and cost, albeit the latter being helped by a favourable US dollar/sterling exchange rate. Conley had to concede that it was a remarkable achievement which — despite all his misgivings — reflected well upon the Ministry of Defence and British industry.
Predictably, however, soon after the submarine started sea trials, many of the sonar problems of which Conley had warned made themselves manifest. The Trident project senior management at last woke up to Conley’s anxieties and began to investigate these emerging deficiencies, most of which would take both time and significant resources to fix. Although totally vindicated, Conley deeply regretted that, owing to lack of expert operator input at the outset of the design process and inept project management, the British taxpayer would be confronted with a substantial bill to fix the problems. But he was also aware that few in Foxhill were commercially minded, beyond meeting their own budget targets, and this too was part of the problem.
In 2011 the decision was made to extend the life of the four Trident boats from their designed twenty-five years to the thirty-year mark. As Conley had predicted, because of the poor equipment access and confined machinery spaces, the class has proved very expensive to operate. Furthermore, serious and underlying engineering problems, exacerbated by the accessibility constraints, have resulted in periods of very limited operational availability, putting the burden of extended patrol lengths on the sometimes single available SSBN in order to maintain continuous national deterrence. In 2007 the procurement and support organisations merged to form the Defence Equipment and Support Organisation (DESO), a major aim being to ensure that when warships and equipment are procured, there is equal consideration given to both initial production and through-life support costs. This reorganisation was, of course, very much overdue.
Conley’s surface ship acceptance responsibilities proved much less challenging and contentious. His first ward was the 500-ton Sandown-class minehunter HMS Bridport, a real contrast to the complexity and scale of Vanguard. The class was being built in the small Vosper Thornycroft yard on the River Itchen in Southampton, an excellent, modern facility which specialised in constructing smaller warships. Highly manoeuvrable, fibreglass in construction and of a very low magnetic signature, Bridport and her sister vessels had the potential to be excellent minehunters but initially their variable depth mine-detection sonar had significant technical problems. These defects were preventing two of this class — completed by Vosper Thornycroft under the aegis of the BAE Systems Al Yamani contract — being accepted from the shipbuilder by Saudi Arabia. They had been alongside in the shipyard for a prolonged period, all ready to go except for the sonar deficiencies. Although in due course, when its technical glitches were sorted out, the minehunting sonar proved a world-beater, the acceptance delay did not augur well for further Saudi Arabian warship orders.
Vosper closed their Southampton shipyard in 2004, transferring their shipbuilding facilities to Portsmouth and, in the process, losing some of their highly skilled technicians. The site has since been developed into a housing and retail complex and, at the time of writing, the Portsmouth shipbuilding yard is scheduled for closure.
In addition to the Bridport, Conley was involved in the acceptance of two new, multi-role 30,000-ton Royal Fleet Auxiliaries (RFAs), Fort Victoria and Fort George. The former had been built at Harland & Wolff in Belfast but, owing to a number of factors, the yard had not had the manpower to complete it and this was initially undertaken by Cammell Laird before being passed on to Portsmouth Naval Dockyard. Meanwhile, Swan Hunter on the Tyne was struggling to complete Fort George and make a profit, owing to the contractual obligation for the yard to fund several significant structural modifications. Conley observed that the yard was under-capitalised. Furthermore, the amount of remedial work being undertaken in compartments of the ships under construction already deemed completed was at an unacceptably high level. This all compounded the shipyard’s woes as, at the same time, the production costs of the three Type 23 frigates also under construction in the yard escalated, putting a further squeeze upon Swan Hunter’s solvency. Indeed, sufficient anxiety was caused to move the MoD to make contingency plans; if necessary, the three frigates would be shifted elsewhere for completion if the yard went into receivership, which did indeed occur in 1993. In the event, these plans were not executed, but all was tragically symptomatic of British shipbuilding sliding into terminal decline.