Work on ships based on BAE’s Type 26 Frigate being built in Australia and Canada has been estimated to be worth around £6bn to the British economy.
During an Oral evidence session gathering information for the inquiry ‘Defence in Scotland: Military shipbuilding’, the following exchange was made.
Members of Parliament present: Pete Wishart (Chair); Andrew Bowie; Deidre Brock; Wendy Chamberlain; Sally-Ann Hart; John Lamont; Douglas Ross.
Witnesses: Ian Waddell, General Secretary, Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions; Kevin Craven, Chief Executive Officer, ADS Group; and Richard Powell OBE, Chairman of the Maritime Defence and Security Group Council, Society of Maritime Industries.
So here’s the section to note.
Deidre Brock: “You mentioned that you do not make as much money and there is not as much benefit financially to Scotland or to the UK as with those ships being built here. Can you give us an estimate of how much less money? Say these are being built in—”
Kevin Craven: “Richard may be better placed to answer that one.”
Deidre Brock: “Mr Powell, thank you.”
Richard Powell: “BAE did a study on this very subject and it has all the detail. My understanding is that it was in the order of £6 billion for the Type 26 programme that was added to the UK. You will need to get the detail from BAE, but that is a significant sum. That is a class of 32 ships around the world, which is a very significant number but that shows the potential and benefit.
The points have been made here about this creating a new environment. We spoke about collaboration on a national scale earlier but when you start to then move into international collaboration—because there is a lot of components of the ships that are similar, there are elements to it—you then come on to what the First Sea Lord talks about, interchangeability and a greater operational output. It is not just about building the ships. It is about what capability do you deliver. Then you move into a whole new realm of operational capability, which is important. It is a broader consideration that gives you that fighting edge. That comes back to Ian’s point about the first role of Government being security of the realm. It is all linked together, so it is much broader.”
Deidre Brock: “The ones that are being built in Australia are worth £6 billion currently.”
Richard Powell: “It is the overall benefit to the UK from the entire programme of 32 ships. It is in that order, yes.”
Deidre Brock: “If they were built here what would it be?”
Richard Powell: “You would have to go to BAE for that. However, they were never going to be built in the UK. That is not the way it was designed.”
Deidre Brock: “Yes, I understand. All right.”
Richard Powell: “A lot of countries do not have the capability to build their own ships, sophisticated ships. These are very sophisticated warships. These are the high end for navies who are going to use them. That is why a country wants to have an indigenous capability and why it has to build them in their own countries. It is that balance of transferring all the technical capabilities and sharing the best practice. Again, only 30% of the value is in the shipbuilding itself. It is the other 70% that we are really interested in and lots of common systems put in the supply chain for these ships as well.”
To what extent does the UK benefit from exporting military ships (or parts of them) and/or their design licences?
While, for example, the Type 26 Frigate-based vessels ordered by Australia and Canada will not be built on the Clyde it is important to remember that there is still a benefit not only in reduced unit costs in the longer term but there is also a benefit to companies around Scotland and the wider UK making components for these vessels. Export success is also important to the Ministry of Defence; competitive companies, winning export work, enable overheads to be spread, reducing the unit cost to the Department.
In short, I’m getting at the idea that a company only building eight components for the British Type 26 fleet could now be building up to thirty-two components for the British, Canadian and Australian fleets. Export orders benefit the supply chain here in Scotland immensely.
The exports have turned the Type 26 Frigate from an eight-ship class to, essentially, a thirty-two ship class [18].
While it is fair to say that there will be significant local supply chain involvement in Canada and Australia, it should be noted that the businesses based in Scotland will have the advantage of retaining intellectual property and the fully trained people, putting them in prime position to compete for the work, even overseas. In addition, the export of ships and their components is beneficial for the cost related to maintenance and supply lines when it comes to operating the finished vessels.
What I mean by that is that the increased number of units, be they ships or components of ships, in service with navies worldwide makes it far more economical for the company building the components to retain repair and refurbishment facilities for those components here in Scotland, sustaining jobs and sustaining the ability of naval forces to cost effectively repair or replace those components should the need arise.
It would be nice if the benefits accrued by British arms sales were added to the public perception and offset against defence spending – something like defence spending £x, profits from the industry £y, net cost for UK defence spending £z. A similar ‘account’ would be useful for people who complain about the cost of the Royal Family!
I think we would need a similar cost benefit account for the setting up, investigating and producing of such an overall balance account for the benefits/liabilities of the Royal Family given the depth and somewhat obscurity of so much of it. I doubt we would ever get through even the initial debate on who rightfully owns all the relevant assets, directly the obvious, the Royal Palaces but well beyond those to such matters as the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall and further still do we go as far as the assets of the Grosvenors and various other hangers on for that matter who were handed swathes of land, rights to exploit and tax the people by generations of Royalty all the way back to that usurper William the Bastard. Geez Deep Thought would have found it easier and quicker to the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.
To try and sort out rightful inheritance and tax may be a bit difficult – you would need to do the same for practically everybody and it still wouldn’t be fair! No, I would accept that the Royal Family has inherited possessions – and remind people that income due to the Crown is actually the result of a deal wherebye the Crown got a government income based on the profits of those possessions. So in effect the income is from their own estates. However, people still complain about the cost… so I would limit it to simply telling people ‘the Crown costs the country such and such a year, benefits of the Crown due to tourism, etc, is such and such’ – from what I’ve read over the years the country makes quite a big profit on that deal!
Yeah, property ownership around the Crown is a right spidersweb. Overall, we the public and the Royal Family both get a pretty decent deal from it, so I see no reason for upturning it.
Especially since it would open up a whole can of worms about who actually legitimately owns what (and I suspect a lot would actually end up staying/going to the Royal Family – and then we’d see immense amounts of anguish from some people).
Honestly, best to just leave it as it is.
If it isn’t broke don’t fix (meddle with) it.
The figure given to Parliament that B.A.E. Systems estimated as the benefit accruing to the U.K. are probabilistic. In fact it is likely as not an impossible effort to undertake. It could be more or less. Some of the most important factors in life have no way of being valued in economic terms but have well understood economic consequences, many social. The wider benefits can rarely be estimated and vice versa. Let us hope this ‘new dawn’ for British ship building gets the support it needs.
A devout Labour supporter said to me, she stood up in the war; I can not disagree.
Then he said, “the monarchy should end when she goes.” Can not disagree.
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We do have a relatively clear tax setup for Trusts iirc.
Grosvenor beneficiaries, for example, pay normal taxes (eg income tax) on money taken out of it.
The ongoing business of the trust pays normal taxes on everything else. Checking, that is currently approx. £100m a year.
Trusts are (were?) usually set up to avoid Inheritance Tax (which is 40% after the £350k or so tax free allowance), and the alternative they pay for that is a 6% tax on all their assets once every 10 years.
The links with details are:
https://www.grosvenor.com/about-us/how-we-work/tax-policy/our-ownership-and-payment-of-tax
https://www.grosvenor.com/about-us/how-we-work/tax-policy
I’m not exactly sure how you would quantify any of that or why you would ever want to bother. We as a country have wandered into a system whereby the top politician can effectively be sacked immediately should the House of Commons lose faith in the current PM.
A simple act of parliament could transfer assets from anyone to the state so in essence everything belongs to everyone. Let’s keep it where it is doing some good and bringing in some revenue and running the country smoothly in these difficult times.
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We need to export what our military orders. Good explanation of importance of economy of scale and huge benefits of in article. The 26 and the 31 are good steps in that direction. With 26 it isn’t by design but is benefit of building bigger than currently needed. This makes future upgrades cheaper but also allows export customers to tailor sensors and weapons to their own requirements. At least in the case of RCN it has. RAN is different and to be honest for me worrying.
To think RCN and RAN ships going to be better Armed then ours it is a ouch ,but well done to them yet for the UK still need to learn .Was it not the Royal navy in the Falklands 🤔
Let’s see.
Will they work better than the RN equivalent?
The RAN’s spec is overweight ATM so it will get trimmed – according to the Australian parliament anyway….
The RNs 3 x Mk41s, 48 CAMM and helo is not too bad for starters…lol
Even compared to the USN Constellation class which has 4 x Mk41s, 4×4 AShMs, 57mm main gun and helo they look a tad less. I wonder if they’re looking at any potential follow on second batch T26 ASW based model to the USN or have we totally missed the boat (sorry) on that one? The T31/T32 look like they have much potential in this area too.
No comparison, RN version significantly inferior.
RN version do not even have a proper radar for next decade.
I would find it hard to believe that the RNs T26 is an “inferior” product for what £1BN+ per vessel? Radar and CAMM can or will get upgrades. It should have a helo + uav(s) and a really decent ASW suite. Class of 8, not bad, originally 9 though. Hopefully the T32 will a useful ship and not too late and the fleet can get up to 24+ ships.
Canadian and Australian T26 have AAW and have proper AESA fixed radars.
The ideal configuration is to have a C band long range AESA and X band anti sea skimmer AESA . There are only 3 ships classes that have this at moment: Japanese Akizuki and Asahi destroyers and Italian PPA Full.
The RAN T26s could be having weight, space, lower max speed and less range issues. They’re sure trying to pack a lot into these ships, it’s almost a mini AB. Same with the RCN T26s. Hopefully these radar abilities will come with the T32/ T83s.
Depends how you look at it. A better radar would be nice but at the fleet level the UK has T45s (which are being upgraded). Also none of the other countries have nuke subs. You need to take a holistic fleet wide approach. T26 is just one part of the fleet puzzle and money is spread across a whole range of assets in different countries in different ways.
Have to agree with you there. As specialist ASW frigates I would have liked to see a smaller 57mm main armament and an increased VLS capability. The latter possibly including an AShM or ASROC type launcher. It surely wouldn’t be that difficult or costly to develop a Stingray with a boost motor?
That is correct, but UK has much more ambition than those countries. So it should invest to have a fit for propose fleet.
Not we are a global navy and have only 6 AAW capable ships…what a joke is that?
Oh, the Cons, the party of defence are building how many Astutes? How many will be at Sea?
Our Navy are woefully under platformed.
Disgusted of Cumbria.
Maybe, but those radar panels so high on the mast are apparently causing some sea-keeping issues- because the ship doesn’t have the same low-level weight as a T45 or Burke. There is a lesson here in not trying to make a ship do too much…
All of the vessels you mention feature their AESA panels lower down on the superstructure than the mast-mounted plan for the Hunters. It’s always a toss-up between height (and therfore range) and stability due to the weight of the array.
i roughly made a height comparison. In PPA the panels are at 8 level in RN Type 26 are at 11 or 12 level dificult to check in the drawing above. But while in PPA there are 8 AESA panels, 4 in C and 4 in X band with even anti ballistic capability in Type 26 there is only one rotating.
Fair enough, I’ve found it hard to find solid information about the height of the radar systems on T26 too- when I was tryign to work out if it would make for a good replacement to T45. I came roughly to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be able to get a mast high enouhg and maintain good seakeeping to make a dedicated top-of-the-line AAW platform. That’s not to discount your point about having some AAW capability though.
The radar on T26 is a bit of a puzzle- I’ve read that T31’s system is technically better? I’d imagine that it’d be one of the systems slated for upgrade earliest. I’m surprised it only has a single panel- I’d have thought they’d have at least gone the T45 route of putting two back-to-back.
Afternoon, Alex – and a hot one it is.
If our Government keep to the brief and equip our T26s with all the equipment promulgated, I’ll be very satisfied. Yet to uncross mental fingers, as always, though. ‘Should not’ be an issue in view of rapidly deteriorating political stability; perhaps too unstable even before we get these vessels commissioned. A slam dunk case of Fitted For And Additionally With, by any measure.
I’ve consistently supported the FFBNW mantra to date in an effort to get hulls in the water, with the obvious proviso that that ends when war drums start beating. And we’re beyond that now, with Zi lately endorsing Rasser’s unique take on sovereignty issues.
The mood music on upgrading the T45s shows MoD, RN plans are in accord, but those also may not schedule before T26 starts online. Let us hope that the T31s are quick to regrade to their original Iver Huitfelt specification, as I trust.
These three surface combattants between them, coupled with the Carriers, have the potential to rapidly uparm the RN.
While we ponder, this week alone China has launched its first cats & traps a/c, I gather, and Russia has laid down five warships!
Ideal configuration C and X bands? Both C and X bands overlap a bit. The perfect configuration is a high-mounted X and S-band with an L band to provide volume search. X band or for surface-search and S-band for missile homing near the horizon while L band can search the skies for ballistic missiles/ hypersonic glide vehicles.
They are adjacent not overlap. The C Band in PPA is said to be able to perform anti ballistic.
To be honest I suspect that the T83 will effectively be a batch 3 T26 upgraded with AESA and increased numbers of MK41 launchers.
I don’t think the Type 83 will be based on Type 26.
Type 26 seems to be too specialised for that and i think there will be enough time separation to develop a more modern design.
I hope so, but I think cheap as possible will be a guiding light and just going for an AAW batch 3 T26 would be cheaper and less Risky than a whole new 10T quite hull for both AAW and ASW work.
Agreed,too much to fit into the hull size and allow for future growth. I’m expecting something bigger than T45 in all dimensions.
I would suggest the jump to Camm ER, that one addition would give T26 local ‘plus’ area Air Defence, pushing the engagement circle out to 30 miles.
That and add Bofus 40mm mounts…
That is another, there are no ships of this size without AAW capability.
It would be a reality cheap method of adding bang for our buck … After all, T26 might find itself having to provide Air Defence for a future task group of T31 engaging in autonomous mine clearance in the Gulf/ Black Sea or who knows where…
48 Camm ER would push the Airborne threat back to a slightly more comfortable distance.
In fact, if you add the ( hopefully) 24 Camm of T31, plus their extremely capable gun systems, then there is precious little out there that would be capable of penetrating that unified AAW brick wall of missiles and shrapnel!
I really think that CAMM-ER are minimum necessary. Last Spike NLOS a 70kg missile so you can have many is already in last version with 50km range when launched from helicopters.
It just a couple years that Chinese and Iranians will have something similar.
Maybe a CAMM+ (but not the “full ER”) to fit into the current silos. Not sure if CAMM-ER do.
The new CAMM silos already look like a space-wasting solution; you could have nearly four times the number of silos in the same space (as the Canadian and Polish frigates show). If they also aren’t deep enough for CAMM-ER, the person who specced them is equally a waste of space.
I raised the same issue sometime ago in a discussion with SB (I think, sorry SB if my memory is playing tricks) and he pointed out the the current silos could easily be lengthened above deck, so depth is not a problem.
I am still of the view that a full switch to MK41 and its derivative cold launch version the ExLS makes most sense. The CAMM / ExLS commination has already been qualified as this article on the MBDA website shows. CAMM can be quad packed in to ExLS so it is possible to get x24 CAMM onto T31 with only 2x ExLS silos (3x tubes per silo set).
Cheers CR
As Jon below mentioned, if T26 and 31 silos arn’t already deep enough for the ER variant, then someone seriously needs their arse kicked…
It really isn’t rocket science!
25+ km range on the standard CAMM is area air defence: at 30 km (that’s a fairly conservative guess on what MBDA might be hiding about range) radius, CAMM defends an area of 2,800 sq km around the T26 or T31. That’s not a bad amount of area.
I don’t dispute that ER would be better, but let’s not pretend that CAMM is a point defence system…
I’m not pretending it is Joe, obviously range is classified, but it has been suggested that CAMM ER might be able to engage targets out as far as 50 plus miles by clever number crunching folks with white smocks, red, green and blue pens in the top pocket, slide rules and thick glasses….
(take notes johninmk, you might want to keep your rattly old Flankers back out of the way).
Sea Ceptors official range is about 15 miles, it’s probably closer to 30. I suspect they mean 15 miles is the no escape zone.
You are a goner, with zero chance of spoofing or out maneuvering the mach 3 death hurtling towards you.
So we are talking local air defence and point defence, with the missile capable of engaging very close threats in point defence mode.
CAMM ER opens the umbrella right out to 50 miles (possibly) giving border line, large area air defence.
Now if the designers and the MOD haven’t considered the possibility of adding ER at some point by not adding silos of the required dimensions, then someone needs a kick up the arse!
Sorry, was probably a little harsh- I’ve seen people dismiss it as such before.
You’re quite right, ER would be a great upgrade for any vessel not also packing Aster30.
My understanding is that CAMM is clear to quad pack into Mk41 via the EXLS module, so a T26 could actually carry an awful lot of them if it wanted to give some over from whatever the RN wants to put in those cells. I understand that MBDA worked very hard to make CAMM-ER’s external diameter the same as standard, so I don’t see why that also couldn’t be cleared for the same. So even if the CAMM mushroom farms can’t fit ER, you could still borrow 4 Mk41 cells for 16 CAMM-ER, and still be able to carry 20 FC/ASW or other things.
No problem whatsoever mate, Sea ceptor is a superb asset in its own right and you are of course quite right about Mk41.
I hope the necessary software is being integrated to allow all the inherent flexibility the Mk41 could potentially offer the RN.
We need to be able to re role and fill the Mk41 silos accordingly at very short notice for short notice tasking, that might mean additional CAMM or Sea to Surface or Anti ship etc…
A small number of ships means they have to be very flexible and capable assets.
25km range is not AAW.
CAMM is a 99kg missile with cold launch. So against a 99kg ASM launched from an air plane – so with launch speed and height advantage – and not needed to be as fast will always loose the range equation. The enemy helicopter/drones can be outside range launching missile after missile.
So, had to do a bit of reading on this one.
Yes, the engagement ranges would put the launching aircraft outside of the envelope of CAMM. But, lessons learned from the Falklands war, defines AShMs as legitimate targets in and of themselves for missile defence systems- the RN apparently doesn’t particularly trust chaff to do the job. It’s clearly stated as one of the primary target sets for CAMM. Exocet and other heavyweight AShMs will always launch outside of a SAM’s engagement envelope, so defining AAD as being able to target the enemy aircraft prior to launch is a nice to have, not full definition.
The famous shoot-down of the Iraqi Seersucker missile during the Gulf War by Sea Dart took place between 5-7 nm, within which area were the target USS Missouri, the launch platform HMS Gloucester, at least one mine warfare vessel, and another USN escort USS Jarrett. That’s one high value target, two escorts and some support ships all within CAMM’s engagement envelope.
By definition, point defence is capable of only defending the vessel itself, area defence can protect other vessels. The only other metric is how much area it can cover. I’ll agree that CAMM could probably be described as ‘local’ or medium, but if it had been deployed in that Gulf war incident it could have protected the entire surface action group.
@Joe16
The issue is that an Exocet is a 700kg weapon you can’t put that into a relatively cheap drone
If your limited AAW range makes possible to enemy start firing 100kg ASM that is a significant change on the number of vectors that can start firing missiles against you.
Interesting.
On US defence sites there are people complaining about how much has been stripped out of USN Constellation class compared to the Italian and French versions.
I have no idea of the true comparison.
Where? . Constellations are more powerful than Italian version which is in general terms more powerful than French version.
I’ve seen a few comments.
Italian ship is more powerful in guns and has hull sonar.
Should be faster too, i don’t see any other advantage.
They are tied in helicopter hangars at 2
Each Navy work different and defend their ships and countries differently. and the ships have a slight change. a big one is the deleted close in guns, where is was shown that in Royal Navy these shells would be ripping thru the hull of the fleet.
There are interestingly complaints from some parliamentarians in Australia that their version is under armed as compared to their current destroyers which are slightly smaller in tonnage if I remember correctly though dimensions vary a little. That said they set the missile specs which is different to ours and I’m sure it makes up for it in other aspects in particular it’s increased modular space that gives it much greater flexibility than current Oz vessels at a guess.
I think T26 is well armed and with a modest upgrade to quad packable VLS for Seaceptor VLS and perhaps a radar upgrade if the money is there and we have a ready made replacement for T45.
it is certainly a massive uptick for the RN even in its current format.
T31 needs a minimum of 24 VLS but thats for another day.
But the thing to bear in mind, especially with the RCN, is that these are the biggest budget items in their fleet.
The fighting fleet of the RCN consists of 4 SSK’s and the 12 Frigates.
No Destroyers, No Carriers, No SSN’s, No SSBNs, No Amphibious Assault Capability.
So when you contextualize it, would it really be surprising that Canada arms it’s Frigates better than the UK?
The Canadian Type 26 frigate program is in deep financial trouble.
Halifax shipyard warns warship schedule contingent on more federal funding | National Newswatch
Oh Canada ! I love Canada but they are the biggest drama queens on the planet. They’ll end up building them but not before they cancel them at least once.
Maybe, but they needed them five years ago. Getting them ten to fifteen years from now is of little value. The current government isn’t exactly pro-defense and it will be around at least until 2025. Look at the fiasco over the F-35s, and that contract still hasn’t been signed.
Yeah on all points.
It is almost like CAN/AUS are playing fantasy fleets with the armament levels on those ships – particularly AUS.
It’s depressingly routine for politicians, journos and people like me. It’s hard to grasp what makes a warship effective or ineffective so you focus on something you can understand. How many missiles and guns will it have ? Is there anything out there which has more ? I don’t think Canada will have an issue with their program. They simply can’t afford to mess it up and I think they know that. Australia is much more worrying. I think the RCN and especially the RAN need to come out publically and explain why they wanted the type 26 rather than something else.
It has to be ASW?
It has got to be based around T23’s reputation and Ultra Electronics.
Australians are concerned about Chinese SSN threat. Canadians have got to be concerned about Russian and Chineses SSNs longer term.
The T26 hull is, I am told, at another level: Compared to T23 or FREMM or even T45.
Your right and that’s what they have to try to explain to the politicians and journos. The Aussie and Canadian versions of me don’t matter we’re just background noise.
Canada have got to build them and quickly. They have exhausted all other options for replacement ships. If they don’t start building soon they will have no frigates left.
They could always scale back the changes to the Royal Navy specs. Hopefully that could keep costs under control.
It’s still a massive upgrade compatriot the current ships they have.
24 mk41 strike length cells
48 sea ceptor
5inch gun
Towed array
Medium radar(could be changed without massive cost increase)
Mission bay
Hanger/helicopter
No doubt a brilliant combat management system, ECM abilities etc etc.
I wondered why they don’t drop 3 and take a minimum of 3 type31/32. Should save a bit.
Join into type 83 program.
The same also goes for Australia. They seem to be pushing the design to its limits in some aspects and may need to scale back a bit. Only time will tell.
These a great ships and real improvement over the ships they replace.
Maybe they will end up buying T23 second hand to fill the holes
Would that impact logistics?
Do the posh one and the not-posh one share machinery, for example?
(Avoids confusing the MANY numbers)
Gotta love Irving. They knew they were going to be building these Frigates and they are letting the gov (taxpayer) know now of these problems.
Yep and this where FFBNW is a huge benefit. You create a base product that can be configured. There so many opportunities out there if we can stop thinking bespoke products. Look at the TB drone, it’s by no means cutting edge but it’s a viable product that’s attractive to many countries. UK industry could have built something like the TB2 15 years ago and could be dominating that market now.
Yep but you have to explain that not filling every nook and cranny on the ship with guns or missiles and leaving them for future upgrades makes sense.
There’s a term ‘role fit’ so the vehicle or hull us configure to conduct a certain role.
Fitted For But Never With is no benefit at all.
Yes if you thinking is old school and not looking at the wider global market for vehicles, hulls or airframes. With todays rapid progress not having configurable spaces would mean either massive refit or scrap and start again.
My thinking was more of a tongue in cheek remark aimed at the Treasury. 😉
If it is a big platform with the right starting fit abs spaces to develop as is T45, T26 and T31
I’m glad to see they are saying that only 30% of the contract benefits the ship building.
Some seemed under the impression that all the money is spent on the Clyde shipyard.
For the type 31 project of 1.25billion about 350-400m goes to the shipyard who pay for the materials, staff and build the 5 ships. The rest on the stuff in the ship from companies across the U.K. and beyond.
Yep but there will be a lot of local.suppliers some of who now benefit for the UKs investment in the T26 and T31.
How are the Canadians managing to estmate these as $4 billion each? That is £2.5bn.
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/report-canada-s-new-frigates-will-cost-4b-each-including-taxes
Isn’t that over double of the RN T26s? My god! And they want 15 of these. They may have to reduce numbers or go for a mixed fleet with a high spec T31. The Polish A140/T31s look well kitted out for the ship size. And we still haven’t heard any more or seen any pics on the next cab T32.
Hi Quentin,
Last I read about the T32 was that the RN is still playing fantasy ships, prior to starting the formal consept phase. The good news is that there is at least someone looking at this project, if I remember rightly a small team working part time started up last year.
I would expect the formal Concept Phase to start in the next 18 to 24 months. Any later and the National Ship Building Strategy gets a big hole kicked through it as there will likely be a gap in the production of ships at Rosyth.
Cheers CR
Maybe they could fill that gap with a couple of new-build, fully upgraded T45’s? Ok, just dreaming.
Hi Bob,
By that time the T45 will be getting long in the tooth. I would prefer to see a couple of extra T26 with an improved SAMPSON radar in place of the ARTISAN unit. That would allow BAE develop technology we will need if the T83 is to effectively fill the future AD role in a timely manner.
I would not try to turn T26 into the T83 as I do not think the T26 hull is big enough, as evidenced by the challenges the Canadians and Australians are facing adding in area AD capabilities to their T26’sand maintaining the ASW capability.
The Type 80 numerical series indicates a large general purpose ship, so I would expect something a bit larger than a T45 with a significant missile and directed energy weapon (if they ever get them working) payload, plus at least a couple of ASW helicopters or UAV’s.
The T32 will be a general purpose frigate (smaller than the T83) so I am guessing / hoping it will be a modified T31 design (to keep costs and timescales tight) with a greater focus on autonomous vehicles (air, surface and sub-surface) and hopefully more whoosh bangs…
Cheers CR
For context, that cost includes all GFE (radars, guns, comms, etc…) , training costs, spares, POL, new infrastructure (jetties, land-based-test facility, etc), and all operating costs for the first 5 years of service.
Tx.
That’s the projected lifetime cost of each ship. Although Iriving shipbuilding will find more excuses to get more money from the gov.
Yes, certainly those opposed to Scottish independence quote that figure often as an alleged example of what Scotland would lose. I wonder how much of the supply chain is in Scotland compared to rest of UK as that business looks like it would continue irrespective of where in the world the ships are built.
ITAR just might be an issue
It’s easy to romanticise the metal bashing part of ship building and when ships where less advanced it was a higher %. of the build. This article sheds light on where a lot of the larger part of the value is. And what is clear if we make a product that can be exported in any form its of huge benefit to the UK. Its quoted thar 65% of the money invested in a build is returned to the government but the far better scenario is when its export 65% of another countries mony goes to the government to benefit the UK.
We couldn’t build 32 here, we’re having extreme difficulty building 8 within a reasonable time frame. Perhaps some of that 6 billion could be invested in increasing our Type 26 order to 10 ships…
That money will likely pay for Batch 2.
This discussion illustrates how limited peoples’ understanding of the value chain is around wealth & job creation. Its quite disheartening for people to claim – “it doesn’t benefit the Clyde”; because not only is it staggeringly selfish and myopic it demonstrates a small mindedness that limits people and their career choices.
Yes, assembling steel and welding are important but so is the software, the electronics, the integration, the ergonomics and so forth. And arguably these are the real determinants of product’s success or otherwise.
The UK is still one of the words largest manufacturers and exporters but because they don’t see well known logos or shiny boxes they don’t understand the value this sector of the economy brings – financially and intellectually and just write it off.
Yep UK is the 9th largest manufacturing country in the world, 7 of those above us have bigger populations so arguably should be above us in the table and if you go by per capita were well up the table. The UK actually beats China, the number 1 manufacture, when you look at manufacturing per capita.
Another little know fact is wages in Manufacturing are 12% higher than the rest of the economy.
Good news although its not clear how much of that money will flow through to anyone other than shareholders. I would guess a sizeable amount, but would be interesting to know how much actually goes into wages/tax
After reading all the posts I am supprised by the bashing the T26 is getting. They are good (in concept) ASW platforms, with a good missile fit. The ARTISAN radar seems to be also getting some bashing yet this radar is if memory serves me right is based on SAMPSON receiver and signal processing technology. You could call it a SAMPSON lite.
Canada does have a problem a large country with a small population that needs to build a two ocean fleet. That is expensive, possibly the Canadians should go down the route of a mixed T26/T31 fleet say six T26s with 12 T31s(T31s with containerised towed array). That would give more ships at a lower cost. The other issue with the Aus and Can T26 variants is that they need to operate more like duel purpose warships with the Anti Air of a destroyer and the Anti sub of the frigate, they don’t have a carrier to keep the bad guys away. The RN has the F35b for long range, Aster 30s for medium range and the Sea Ceptor for close range. We can start interceptions 200 miles out the RAN/RCN needs the STANDARD 2 to keep the bad guys as far away as possible but that is still only about 90 miles, which is not much more than the ASTER 30. So the layered defence of a RN carrier group with two T45s and two T26s (2030) could be 24-36 F35Bs between 100-200 miles out, 96 ASTER 30s 20-80 miles out and 144 Sea Ceptors 3-20 miles out with guns for point defence. As I suspect the futre RN would never operate a T26 alone in times of conflict as they would operate with a T45, my beef is and will be with the T31, not because they are bad ships but I do think we need some containerised Towed Arrays to fit on the T31/T32s. That way they can operate either as long range patrol frigates or in the multi role escort frigate function leaving the T26s to be fleet frigates. A CAPTAS 4 Independent tow Compact would fit into a 40ft container giving the same type of sonar capability whilst reducing cost/ footprint and wieght with the flexibility to remove the system from one ship and put it into another.
As for the benifits to the UK well you can start with RR for engines and mission bay, Ultra for hull mounted sonar and electronics suites, for the RCN version Sea Ceptor and the list goes on.
Far too much common sense in that….need to be more negative…..and you forgot the 15” triple turrets…..
Dam I was hoping for the triple 18″ guns of the Yamato.
Military sales are a small part of a financial system which permits a country to spend money on defence, health, education right the way down to allowing it’s citizens to have a holdiday or two.
Countries are very protective about doing as much in-house as possible however sharing the burden amounst like minded countries gives us a greater bang for our buck and consequently is to be encouraged.
A class of 32 based on the T26 around the world…… Fifty years ago the RN alone had a class of 40 based on the Type 12, plus any number of exports, most built here. How are the mighty fallen……
More ships, means more IPR monies flowing in to the companies who designed the systems initially. As others have commented, the money is not in the fabrication and build, but in the R&D and knowledge base in designing the components and systems in the first place. However many you build, you still have the original design costs. These are the same if you build 1 or 100, so the more you build the less the design costs are per ship, resulting in a reduction in the overall cost per unit. Simple accounting:- Fixed costs versus variable costs !
Any chance of increasing our order? Unit price must have come down a little bit. Can we not squeeze out a 9th or 10th hull?
This is where we actually need to work in the added value to the U.K. in government supporting U.K. industries and knowledge. Around 50% of that 6 billion will end up back in the tax base, as will 50% of the 11.5 billion U.K. program. So for a tax base expense of 11.5 billion the U.K. tax base gets a return of 8.5 billion, so in-fact the real total cost to the British taxpayer for the 8 T26s therefore is probably closer to around 3.5 to 4 billion…what a bargain.
But the government does not look it its finance that way and is only interested in in year costs and not putting any actuarial science into assessing the total cost vs future tax base gain ( which would give you the actual cost).