Defence firm Plasan has signed a contract with BAE Systems to provide armour for the second batch of five Type 26 Frigates being built in Glasgow for the Royal Navy.

Plasan is currently delivering composite armour for the first three of eight frigates as part of the earlier Batch 1 contract.

The new Batch 2 contract includes composite armour for five Type 26 frigates that will be placed in key locations.

According to a news release:

“The unique installation approach that was demonstrated as part of Batch 1 deliveries will allow simple and cost effective integration for the entire Type 26 fleet of eight. Plasan’s world leading armour technology, flexibility and innovation is well suited to the Type 26 approach and has helped to secure this important programme. 

The quality and production processes within Plasan underpin the confidence that has been shown in selecting Plasan’s solution also for the follow on orders.  Working together with Design Authority partners has strengthened the ethos of Plasan’s success.”

The new Type 26 Frigate designed and built by BAE Systems is the new class selected for the replacement of eight anti-submarine frigates of the Duke class currently in service with the Royal Navy. Type 26 will provide increased capability and flexibility through a design that includes a multi-role mission bay, large flight deck and hangar that can exploit a range of manned and unmanned systems. There will also be great scope for future development.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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153 COMMENTS

  1. Interesting development and I dare say someone will ask why Israel ? I’d like to know if we have any ballistic armour on other warships like the T45 or QE’s ?
    I know it was part of the Original Alpha spec carrier design but no idea if it was progressed to the final build.
    Anyone know ?

    • Weight and ballistic protection. Plasan is well known for addon armour. But details in a secretive stuff like armour are difficult to come.

    • I remember seeing that armour was on the original design for the aircraft carriers but was removed for cost reasons (as usual). Now they don’t have much armour at all. Sorry don’t have a source.

      • There were 4 main designs of aircraft carrier alpha being the one with all the bells and whistles and most costly.
        The navy lookout web site has some great info about the proposals.
        The carriers still have some armour just not as much would have been included with the most expensive alpha model.

        • Exactly.

          That version had Sampson as well.

          This is the kind of thing that can be added in maintenance periods anyway.

          Nothing is going to stop a modern 4-6” shell – there is too much kinetic energy. This is more to do with 20-30mm shells and splinter damage or making sure damage is localised and does not spread to critical compartments.

          • Ok – badly put I agree.

            The front end of a modern armour piercing naval shell is pretty sophisticated as are anti tank shells. We’ve seen that in Ukraine. We’ve seen how useless mass steel armour is on Russian tanks.

      • What would the armour weigh, and what impact would it have on the displacement of the ship versus the amount of usable space? The QEs barely fit into Portsmouth as it is.

        • It would radically shrink the ship. The structure has to be stronger to deal with the non-structural deadweight.

          Then next issue is that the main functional bit of an aircraft carrier is above the waterline so the metacentric weight / CoG would be messed up.

          • That’s what I assumed. It also occurs to me that if a CSG is having to rely on armour protection then something has already gone badly wrong.

          • Some armour is needed to prevent a recurrence of the Argentine attack on a T22 which severed the Sea Wolf loom with 20mm cannon fire.

            Some compartments also need armouring to prevent shrapnel damage to critical systems.

            Making the ship survivable and fightable is the name of the game. Not trying to produce a WWII heavy cruiser!

  2. Can the Israelis be trusted? It wasn’t that long ago when Menachaim Begin was supplying the Argentinians with weapons to destroy the task force during the Falklands. Is Israel a reliable ally now?

    • Same time that UK was supplying weapons to Arab states to destroy Israel?
      Or that Cheftain tank was started with Israel cooperation and they were booted out to not upset arms selling?

      • “Whataboutery” isn’t even relevent here, we shouldn’t be buying military hardware off countries that aren’t reliably allied to us. Is Israel buying anything off us that could at least give us leverage over them if they think about helping our enemies again or is this display of trust in their good intentions entirely one way?

        • So you bring stuff from 1980- 40 years ago – and that is not a bit whataboutery?

          Why you did not bring the Exactor(Spike) that Israel supplied to British Army in a special request at time of Afghanistan, that was already in XXI century?

          • They buy Martin Baker with aircraft seats for example.
            Note also the reality is not only what appear here or in the other news. Lots of small essential components do not appear in the news. Even intellectual property like an algorithm.

      • The Falklands war is the mid-way point between now and the Dieppe raid. The Falklands was actually quite some time ago.

        • Odd response since it seems forgotten that the UK ditched Israel back in the late 1960s as a partner in the Chieftain tank due to political pressures from Arab countries. From Israel POV, it was the UK that was the unreliable partner. Especially when the UK then turned around and sold Chieftain tanks to Israel’s enemies.

    • Maybe it’s Plasan North America Inc. or Plasan US Defence Composite Structures or Plasan Carbon Composites US Inc?

    • What do you think they are going to do, make bad armour? I would be far more concerned about the ELINT equipment they supply to us than composite ship armour. They won’t even be fitting it.

      • Indeed. NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware is likely responsible for the compromising of countless politicians. Lindsey Graham anyone???

        • Yep and sold to evil people and regimes the World over with little concern for who the end user is or how it’s used. Military equipment manufacturers are by their nature hardly reliable citizens but Israel is about as bad as it gets when money and influence is to be had, not to mention. Russia has been only second to the US as an influencer there. I would avoid them as far as possible though not at putting extra risk on our armed forces.

          The bigger question mind is what happened to our long promoted lead in creating composite armour? I hadn’t realised that as in so much else we have simply become a buyer not a supplier of things we once excelled in, or was it always a pr myth.

    • We’ve been using Plasan armour for some years. For example Scimitar Mk II uses Plasan ceramic armour and it hasn’t been an issue. We were looking to buy the US JLTV and Plasan designed the cab on that.

      If you mean the Israeli government, they can’t afford to cripple their military export industry.The Americans, who won’t even trust NATO member Turkey with F-35 deliveries, gives Israel unprecedented access to F-35 software. So they are definitely on the side of the West.

      As far as Argentina and the Falklands goes, Israel uses UK components in its equipment and the UK has successfully blocked Israeli arms sales to Argentina on those grounds. Not to forget the heart of the new Falkland Islands missile defence system is Israeli.

        • We recently chucked Elbit off a couple of big sensitive projects…

          Explanation was very brief but involved Sovereignty…

          • Yes one has to ask is their sensitivity in upsetting the Russians have anything to do with that change of mind, generated by difficulties when it comes to prospective transferring of stuff to Ukraine.

            It seems they are rather more casual about insulting and humiliating the US it’s ultimate protector than they are Russia which I would say is because their constituency and influence inside the US allows such latitude in ways Putin and co would never tolerate. However worth noting in light of that what their likely view of the rest of us is even if it’s a contrived smiling face while they are earning the dosh from us and a belly laugh thereafter.

          • I think there is some kind of Russian leaning representation in Israeli politics or something like that. I’ve not really looked into it.
            What matters to Israel is there survival and doing whatever it takes to achieve that.
            They do things I don’t really like with territory etc and they do have some crazies in the country but so do most places.
            They do make some nice kit and things like armour don’t really rely on a support package that can be cut off.
            Hopefully the world can move to a better place where we can all get along.

          • Well there is.

            In Soviet times Jews were only allowed to work in certain Soviet scientific institutes.

            When The Wall came down they exited to Isreal.

            There was/is a large, official, setup to enable Jews to leave Russia and come to Israel.

            So you get lots of people who are good at maths and sciences….where do they work?

          • Part of my family are Russian Jews that came to Britain before the Cold War. There is indeed a large Russian supporting caucus in Israeli politics as until this century they were quite unmolested there apart from a brief period between the mid 50’s and mid 60’s when they were useful political scapegoats (which led to many emigrating to the young Israel when it was desperate to attract immigrants). To make staying in the USSR more attractive the Soviet government set up an autonomous region within itself that mirrored Israel.
            The Russians in Israel tend to be more right wing and Orthodox than immigrants from the West which aligns them closer to the Knesset ruling parties electoral base. In addition several ex-pat communities in Israel continue to speak Russian and maintain family and cultural ties.

          • “ Part of my family are Russian Jews”

            Part of my family are Ukranian and Polish Jewish (take your pick as the borders have been quite ‘flexible’) so I have some real Iron Curtain insights too!

            There was a family Rabbi not that far back….

            I’m very pro Jewish but sceptical of Israeli politics.

      • The Sky Sabre control centre is Israeli an based on Iron Dome. However the radar is Swedish and the missiles are UK.

        I do not think buying Israeli armour is an issue. The UK should be prepared to buy what it needs from the world marketplace.

        • I suspect if Sky Sabre was ever proposed to be sent to Ukraine permission from Israel would be required and it’s a big question as to whether they would allow it, given their own refusal to supply air defence due in no small part to their own strong reliance on Russian good will and indeed influence, there is at least one former Israeli politician of Russian origin who is actively promoting the Russian message to the World.
          Indeed despite other systems being given to Ukraine I do note that there hasn’t been even a whisper about a Sky Sabre system moving across the Polish border. Now there are other good reasons for that I accept but the total silence upon it or even any prospect of it ever happening as yet seems a little curious to me considering Patriot and other systems were gaining varied commentary for months if only to be met by denials. It’s almost like a firm hand has been exercised on the subject of Sky Sabre but maybe that’s just me being cynical or that the general press have never heard of it. Any one else came across any debate on the matter to disprove my cynicism?

    • France, Ireland, Spain…all a bit dubious at the time. Also pretty much the whole of South America. Not Chile who stuck by us.

      • The Chileans are not stupid. They want the right of first refusal of purchase of a flotilla of second-hand, yet serviceable and effective, ASW frigates, in due course, for an attractive price…🤔😳

        • I hope you’re right. Always good to sell kit on. With a T22 and three T23’s already buying again may well make sense.😉

          • Almost a guaranteed slam dunk. If Chileans pass, there will be others in the queue. Many will want an ASW frigate; should also be a seller’s market for BAE (T-26) if HMG permits and encourages sales.

          • Thanks, Captain Obvious. Everyone understands the sales were under license.

            .BTW, presume you did not factor in discount for Batch II?

          • Maybe get 3 frigates for $2.5b or 5 for $4b. If a foreign navy wanted them. There could also be ways to make them cheaper. Drop the armour, MK 41 launchers, ECM suite reduction etc etc. When compared to other large high end ASW frigates on the market they are reasonably priced.

          • Apparently David Steeper didn’t.

            PS there’s no market for T26’s. I challenge you to name one country that would buy. BTW, the UK government would fall over in their rush to approve any such sale.

          • I’d just like to put on record that after careful reading of all your comments on this site in recent days I deeply respect and admire your personal charm and obvious intelligence. 😐😐

          • Really?!? Sorry your perspective is so limited. Envision at least ten plausible candidate navies potentially seeking acquisition of a world-class ASW frigate, half w/in NATO, dependent upon Russian and Chinese submarine force development.

    • Strictly business ! Revenue is king now. Alliances built on mutually shared values and friendships are obsolescent. Yes, we can all pay lip service to each other on state visits and summits in front of the media, but it all means nothing anymore. Look at how deftly the US & UK pulled the rug from under our supposed French allies after signing an agreement to supply the Aussies with their brilliant new diesel electric attack boats. Honestly, with friends like us, the world doesn’t really need enemies. I think the Isrealis should be more concerned about our integrity !

    • Hmmm… that is an excellent question, from the perspective of an outside observer. Shall we stipulate that diplomatic relations have been complicated ever since that unpleasant episode at the King David Hotel during the Palestine Mandate? Israel onside during the Suez crisis. Varying degrees of cooperation during multiple wars and conflicts since, partially due to economic (principally petroleum and/or arms sales) considerations. UK has many residual interests w/ multiple states in the region, which have varied relationships w/ Israel.
      (Usually envision some poor bugger at the Foreign Office dragging out a virtual scale to weigh the balance of options whenever the issue of Israel arises.) May be safest to state the old maxim that the enemy of my enemy is my (probable) friend. There is a wide variety of thugs to choose to oppose in the neighborhood. Alternatively, could approach the issue from the viewpoint of the ally (Israel) of my ally (US) is my (probable) ally. Political calculations can become somewhat complicated…🤔😳😱

      Johnathan,

      Did I strike the correct, properly nuanced, tone?

      • Israel more than on-side during the Suez operation – they were part of it. Secret agreement between UK, France and Israel for combined op on Egypt, 1956. All rather spoiled by President Eisenhower.
        No surprise that the Wilson government refused to commit British troops to the US operation in Vietnam a few years later.

    • Israel will always put their own self interests above all else. Perfect example is the war in Ukraine. They’ve done really nothing to aid Ukraine because they don’t want to upset Putin and make things harder for the IAF when they bomb Syria. They helped the Chicoms with their military for decades until America finally put a stop to that by threatening to withhold billions in military kit to them.

      • Ridiculous. Look in the mirror.
        If you had an war against Russia occupied France would you risk ballistic missiles and rockets near your door? You got V1 and V2 and it wasn’t nice, now think what would be that today…

        And no one helped Chinese more than USA.
        And i am not talking about the US Administration support to Mao and Communists in 50’s

  3. I’ve no issue as such buying from Israel.

    Just curious whether we have our own provider of such armour?

    From a nation that came up with Chobham Armour and in which DSTL has expertise to this day, thought there’d be a home product.

    • Permali, Daniele, although I’m not sure if they make large ballistic plates. They supply composite armour for the “A” word.😁

    • UK have not made any AFV for a long time. Wiki says last Challenger 2 produced 2002 so +20 years ago.
      I think you can expect most industry related to that went away at least top level ones.

      • I guess you are not counting Ajax! Because parent company is American or because vehicle is not in service?
        Trojan and Titan built after last CR2 was, but still early 2000s.
        A really shocking situation that we have not successfully built AFVs in 20 years, or even done major upgrades at the factory to exisiting fleets. The army is in a total mess with AFVs.

        • Obviously i am not counting Ajax. 😀
          You need an active industry doing stuff continuously otherwise engineers go elsewhere with their knowledge. Also being in tip of the spear and with casualities is what made them develop APS Trophy and Ironfist.
          If you are not operating you have at most theoretical improvements. I don’t believe that simulations are really honest. Who fires missiles to say 20 Challengers as a test for their strength and vulnerabilities?

          • Thanks Alex, as a former chartered engineer and REME officer, I certainly agree with you. It does not seem long ago that we had 5 British AFV manufacturers who all produced good kit quite quickly and at reasonable prices. They all truly manufactured and were not just assembly shops. They often developed good PV kit with their own funds.
            BAE swallowed them all up, which wasn’t necessarily a problem if only BAE had been given orders to factory upgrade our AFVs over the last 20 years and ultimately replace them.

    • Permali? Composites & Defence Technologies Inc (Manufacturing UK. Turkish, I think) I guess It’s hard to tell unless they mention what level of protection Plasan is providing.

    • I suppose sometimes you have to buy the best (assuming that is the issue) and hope that British companies will up their game. That said if the demand for armour is low in the UK at the moment it might be tricky for firms to justify the R&D maybe? .

        • Good point. It will be interesting to see the impact of ARIA over time. In theory it is an excellent method of investing public money.

        • That had slipped by me, interesting that the politicians feel they need to reinvent the wheel.

          Wilson created the Ministry of Technology in 1964. Heath closed it down in 1970 with the research and development roles being spread around other ministries and gradually being allowed to wither. The last big reduction being the sale of QinetiQ, my old firm…

          If history does go round I give it less than 10 years… Technology is another area where there needs to be a long term national strategy that goes beyond political party lines – no chance, sadly.

          Cheers CR

          PS Happy New Year everone..!

          • There may be a resurgence in R & D in all participating countries under the auspices of AUKUS. Both sponsored university research and private industry activity. Remember there are a number of areas listed in addition to SSN development, to wit: AI, Cyber, Hypersonics (and Counter), Quantum Computing, Underwater ISR, etc. Broad and meaningful areas, spanning activities from research through production, w/ both potential commercial and military applications.

            Read an article on topic from Stanford University Research Institute. Bottom line assessment was quite positive, given sufficient funding and time. (Unstated subtext–everyone will become wealthy from university commercial spin-offs, ala ‘Son of Silicon Valley.’. This time around however, the wealth will be distributed; Brits and Aussies will have meaningful participation as well. Presume there will be many who are prompted to update CVs and intensify networking w/ various university dons? 😉). Incidentally, evidently ChiComs are quite concerned by potential long-term implications of AUKUS sponsored R & D. That thought made my day. 😁

    • Some armour is better than no armour – these sort of ceramic tiles have a multiple hit capability problem, in that they cannot sustain successive impacts around the original hit without quickly losing much of their protective value.

      To minimise the effects of this the tiles are made as small as possible, but the matrix elements have a minimal practical thickness of about 25 mm. The end result is armour that is a compromise between weight and effectiveness.

      In the old days the RN had high-strength steel armour plate maybe 14inches thick, but our battlecruisers still blew up when under fire from German ships

      • Yeah remember HMS Invincible, Indefatigable and Queen Mary were victims of dodgy ammo handling practices and Hood was the victim of sheer bad luck

        • Admiral Beatty spread the blame more generally when he said 😁“There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today..”

          • I think the ammo handling procedures are better enforced these days. I have never been a fan of David Beatty or his tactical handling of the ships during the infamous Run to the South

        • Hood’s armour protection was based on that of the Tiger class battlecruisers, albeit with some modifications. She also never received the additional deck armour that would have been installed during her cancelled modernisation. The basic problem was that she was in essence a first world war battlecruiser, and as such was no match for a modern fast battleship some twenty years her junior.

        • If the ship is able to successfully engage incoming ASM, due to the close range and high speeds debris may well strike the ship. My guess is that the armour would protect the ops room, maybe the vertical launch missile silos or perhaps the deck around the gun

        • Modern torpedoes explode under the ship to try and break the back of it.

          Part of the design will be to resist that.

          Torpedoes penetration detection and blast deflection will be via the fuel and water tank arrangements.

      • The statement “some armour is better than no armour” is not always true. If armour is defeated all it tends to do is break up and disrupt the shell or round and that just allows more energy to be dumped into what you are trying to protect or just helps ensure all the energy is kept in the place you don’t want it.

        I admit my experience is around people and impacts of penetration, but one of the big factors on how much damage is done is the kinetic energy dump and you work that out using E=1/2 m (Vi2-Vr2) E is the amount of energy dumped m is mass, Vi the entry or impact velocity and Vr the residual velocity kinetic ( how fast the projectile is going when it leaves the other side). So that means a projectile that either tumbles, breaks up or is prevented from leaving is more devastating that one that goes straight through ( although that’s not the complete story as a high velocity projectile ( over 700ms) will cause cavitation damage in solid and fluid filled objects like bodies that can exceed the damage from pure kinetic dump. Just looking at the skull as a natural armoured cavity:

        1) High velocity rounds are essentially game over, that temporarily cavitation via a sonic wave form will do for you….this is especially the same if your taking tanks ships or people, there is a certain velocity of projectile that just has to much kinetic energy for that thing to survive.

        2) Dumdumb bullets and other expanding rounds, these are designed to dump their entire kinetic energy into something, if it hits armour like a skull it can use that to create even more damage by creating a great deal of fragments that cause further damage, it then creates a low pressure wave sucking in air and fragments of the armour ( skull) these all Bast out in a nasty exit wound. If these projectile types defeat your armour they cause more damage that if you did not have any armour.

        2) even a very low energy projectile can cause more damage if it’s only interrupted by armour or stopped from leaving an armoured compartment…so a .22 round

        If your armour is defeated you really want that projectile to be leaving your reasons you never want to be shot in the head with a .22 round at less than 300ms that does not have the energy to leave your skull will bounce around dumping all its energy into your tissues, but a 38 that has more kinetic energy and can leave your cranial cavity without oscillation, fragmentation or rotation will possibly dump less kinetic energy than the .22 round that could leave.

        basically if your armour is defeated it will generally cause a projectile to oscillate, tumble, fragment and or stop it leaving ( so reducing or stopping a projectile taking energy with it as it leaves, that Vr2 bit of the energy dump equation).

        just for the purposes of balance: I was using the skull and CGI gunshot wounds an analogy for armour that fails against an attack and causes more damage being there than if it was not there, but and in reality if you are ever shot in the head by whatever gun at whatever velocity and with whatever round the very small changes in outcome from how the bullet bounces around are a bit in the case of your brain irrelevant. part pulverised is no better than full pulverised and your probably entirely dead if you suffer a penetrating Craniocebral gunshot, as there is around a 93% mortally rate attached to Craniocerebral gunshot injuries ( 90% death rate before reaching definitive care and a 50% deathrate after reaching definitive care, with a recommendation that anyone after stabilisation with a low level of consciousness should not be aggressively treated due to no quality of life outcomes, although treating to maintain organs for transplant is valid).

    • Believe NP Aerospace make armour as well.

      We also came up with Super Bainite a few years ago that has seen some limited use. Not composite though, steel. Tata bought a licence.

  4. I personally don’t have any issues with sourcing anything which will improve the capability of our military, but it does highlight how years of a swords to ploughshares mentality amongst our political elite has degraded our ability to build our own kit. Now whilst I don my tin lid and await the now customary incoming  here’s a picture taken at the latter end of WW2 in the Pacific when HMS Sussex fitted with extra British made waist armour brushed off a kamikaze strike by a Japanese Mitsubishi Ki-51 “Sonia” which resulted in just a 5 inch dent
    https://i.postimg.cc/CKqBr8rX/Opera-Snapshot-2023-01-05-150358-www-reddit-com.png

  5. No issues from me, good kit, decent and experienced supplier with proven track record. But, like many others on here, I think it’s a bit of a sad state of affairs when we are having to buy pretty basic stuff such as armour/composites from an external source when we should be producing this sort of thing ourselves. But this isn’t my area of knowledge so to me, a layman, as long then as it’s good, and does it’s job, no issues from me. Cheers.

    • Hi Mate, Hercs and our rotary aircraft use composite armour. Some is Israeli and some is UK made. Much better than the ballistic 10mm steel plate that was used before. The composite stuff on the Chinook easily stops multiple hits from 7.62mm NATO rounds, even stopped a 14.7mm DShK round.

    • What this backs up was the documented evidence of how ineffective kamikaze attacks were against armoured warships vs unarmoured warships. The 8 kamikaze attacks that hit British armoured carriers only caused 20 deaths, where as a single attack on one U.S. carrier causes over 300 deaths. But the balance was the British armoured carrier had less effective air wings.

      • Armoured flight decks, unlike the U.S carriers. However as you say limited the number of aircraft that could be carried

  8. T23 has steel armour around the MTLS and air weapons mag. Thick steel plate and bloody heavy which if you ever had to open the doors over the tubes you would know. Other spaces on other ships have protection.
    A lot of it can be for RATTAM protection (Response to Attack Against Ammunition). You don’t want someone shore side in harbour putting a 7.62 or 50 cal bullet into ammunition or magazines that contain stuff that isn’t IM compliant.

  9. Off-topic, but very good news nonetheless”

    “Germany and the US have agreed to join France in sending armoured fighting vehicles to Ukraine – a move seen as a significant boost to its military’s capability on the battlefield.”

    LINK

    • Yes, welcome news: 50 Bradleys and 40 Marders; with lots more where they came from. Anything that goes bang is useful but I’m not sure how the AMX-10s would be used. Good gun but very light.

          • A bit better than that😂😂😂
            The french are replacing the AMX10 with the Jaguar wheeled vehicle with the 40mm CTA cannon.

          • Virtually no similarity. AMX-10RC is wheeled (6 wheeler), is very old (designed in 1970, fielded from 1981), is light-ish at 16 tonnes and has a dual role as a Tank Destroyer!! It sports a 105mm tank cannon.

          • Errrr no.

            Scimitar –
            role – armoured recce only
            weight – 8 tonnes
            propulsion – tracks
            armament – 30mm cannon

            AMX-10RC –
            role – armoured recce AND Tank Destroyer
            weight – 16 tonnes
            propulsion – wheeled
            armament – 105mm tank cannon.

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