HMS Illustrious Returning to Portsmouth, 2014. Flickr/Defence Images. Some rights reserved.One of the most contested areas in the international arms market is the propulsion contract, especially for naval warships. Two of the biggest companies in the field, historically American and British, are GE and Rolls-Royce. In March 2016, GE won a major contract to supply its LM-2500+G4 gas turbines to seven new multi-purpose vessels (known as the PPA vessels) for the Italian navy, themselves part of a large shipbuilding programme designed to upgrade a seriously ageing fleet.
Not perhaps the best news for Rolls-Royce, given that the PPAs are quite substantial ships – the size of frigates. But the company was more than compensated by the Italians' decision to award it the contract to supply the MT-30 engine for the navy's large new amphibious-warfare ship, a helicopter landing dock (known as an LHD). This is also a large vessel, coming in at 27,000 tons displacement – indeed under some loading conditions it could rate at over 30,000 tons, making it the Italian navy’s largest warship.
So far this all seems routine: one more example of a lucrative arms trade where a handful of big companies dominates the order book of the more wealthy armed states. That is certainly true, and all power to groups like Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) that have done so much to open up a thoroughly murky and often bribe-ridden process.
