Images show progress on HMS Glasgow, the first of eight Type 26 frigates being built on the Clyde, as the vessel is fitted out.

Here are the photos.

HMS Glasgow entered the water for the first time at the end of last year, the frigate was moved onto a barge at the Govan shipyard before being moved downriver to Glenmallan on Loch Long.

There, the barge was submerged, allowing HMS Glasgow to float off and be towed back to the city towards the BAE Scotstoun facility, where she is being fitted out. You can read more about this here.

First drone photos of HMS Glasgow in the water

In other Type 26 news, the aft section of HMS Cardiff is now poking out of the build hall at BAE in Govan, Glasgow.

New frigate coming together at BAE shipyard in Glasgow

The Type 26 represents the future backbone of the Royal Navy and eight of the class are planned, starting with HMS Glasgow. The eight ships will replace the eight dedicated anti-submarine Type 23 frigates which will reach the end of their active lives by the mid 2030s.

In addition to the Clyde built Type 26, five Rosyth built Type 31 general purpose frigates are intended to replace the general-purpose Type 23s currently in service and also coming towards the end of their long careers.

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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89 COMMENTS

  1. Bah, these bloody budget cuts. Can’t even afford an enclosed bridge these days. We’re going to be a right laughing stock, turning up at dockyards with a tent yoinked from a wedding reception as a bridge.

    Everyone thinks we need 120,000 VLS tubes on a River… this is the real issue right here!

    🙃

      • Ah yes, Flower class on North Atlantic convoy duty, Jack Hawkins etc.

        Joking apart, not sure everybody then liked enclosed bridge from a situational awareness point of view.

        • My Dad was on the Atlantic and Arctic runs on HMS Stork and HMS Starling right through the war. Seventeen U Boats between them. He thought The Cruel Sea was pretty good but a bit soft!

    • It’s ok lusty as the plan is to issue every person on the bridge with an unused COVID visor, there is currently 12 million on stock 😇!

      • well I hope they don’t plan for them to actually work…they will all be from the pandemic stocks that got left to rot in a government warehouse for years.. true story at the beginning of the pandemic my system ran out of visors after the pallet loads delivered from government stocks….all turned out to self destruct the moment you tried to put them on…it turns out not rotating the stock for a decade and just putting a new use by sticker over the old use by 2015 sticker did not actually make them usable….

        • Ah our problems of not realising they had a peel off visor protector, for about 2 weeks, where everyone walked about with degraded vision pales info insignificance in regard to your “self destruct” issues! Pretty much like the absolute incorrect and not fit for purpose kit me and my lads deployed with to both Iraq and more importantly Iraq, supplied by our lovely and economically inept previous Labour Government Sigh….Governments, shit aren’t they eh?

          • Indeed sometime you do wonder….if you cannot even provide basic equipment and do basic stuff like rota the PPE out of the pandemic store to be used by the NHS and other services before it expires and replace with new stuff…it’s not like it was rocket science ans would not have cost the tax payer any more ( as while it was all rotting in government wherehouses the NHS was constantly buying and using loads as part of everyday operations….but clearly the cabinet office ( being responsible managing the stocks) would never just hand over stuff to a different department ( Doh) who could have used it all before it went out of date…

            What is even sadder about all the pandemic stocks…was that fact they got the army to work their arses off to help deliver all the out of date not fit for purpose PPE….and organised it so deliveries to each system were just in time..so we had no reserves or anything and staff had to do without….I ended up being one of the people manning an all night help desks just so we could ring around every health and social care facility to find things like a box of masks here or a box or gloves there as the hospitals ran out……because there was nothing reliable coming from the so called Pandemic stocks…we even had nursing homes cutting up black bin liners to make some form of heath Robinson PPE…there a lot of health and social care staff who have never forgiven around the PPE issue, getting sent into a covid ward with PPE that expired 8 year’s previous…..and I know a lot of healthcare professions who caught Covid because of it… in a mates hospital about 4 of them died from Covid caught in the hospital setting due to really inappropriate PPE early on. They even actually changes the rules to down grade the PPE needed…Pre covid….a disease like covid you would be expected to barrier nurse using FFP 3…..it got down graded to FFP 1 ( which is essentially a piece of paper designed to stop you dribbling into a wound or getting blood spatter in your mouth…but not in anyway protection against a very infectious respiratory disease).

          • Hancock was fast-tracking company start-ups with no PPE experience as NHS suppliers who made fortunes out of it. Hancock and Harding’s useless Test and Trace system blew about £35 billion in 18 months.

            Think what defence could have achieved with the £35 billion. Never mind you can watch Hancock on reality TV now as he starts his new career as a media personality

          • Indeed, the sad thing is we were meant to have pandemic stocks of PPE to give space to ensure we had time to ramp up supply in a sustained way…but this shambles

            1) allowed the pandemic stocks to rot so they had no time
            2) Then panicked and instead of getting the proven PPE companies ramp up supply ( as there was now no time),just gave money on spec to anyone with connections…to see what they could do….

            this lead to a situation of warehouses full of rotten out of date PPE to warehouses full of substandard PPE that cannot be used.

            As for the track and trace app, that again was a panic situation due to not having the public health resources to track and manage outbreaks.

            It was a mixture of Cameron’s government cutting things it thought it could get away with that on one would notice or miss…and the Johnson government’s utter inability to organise a piss up in a bar while at the same time needing to control everything and jump around like a bunny rabbit.

          • Rather interesting study out that demonstrates what any reasonable person who had ever worked in a lab would have suspected!

            “ “Our study found no evidence that mandatory masking of staff impacts the rate of hospital SARS-CoV-2 infection with the omicron variant,” said lead author Dr Ben Patterson, from St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London.

            “That doesn’t mean masks are worthless against omicron, but their real-world benefit in isolation appears to be, at best, modest in a healthcare setting.”

            Dr Aodhan Breathnach from St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, London. Added: “Many hospitals have retained masking at significant financial and environment cost and despite the substantial barrier to communication.”

          • Hi supportive, that is one of the reasons people are very pissed off with the DOH and why all the research shows just how much health care staff were sold down the rioter….. water resistant surgical masks ( FFP1) are only designed to reduce the large particles being sent into the atmosphere or large particles ending up in your mouth…so to put it crudely they stop you dripping onto a sterile field or into a wound and also protect you from blood splatter..that it that was there sole purpose and always has been. The do not protect you from catching a respiratory virus with an R0 of between 2-5 never will never have. They have marginal gains when you are taking population based control..as they work a bit in areas with a very low viral load ( even if it’s 1% effective from a population management of a pandemic disease that’s win that could prevent 10s thousand of infections in a short time).

            The issue is PPE for a respiratory virus that has an R0 of covid as will as a case mortality of around 1% and a greater chance of long term harm….these diseases always require Healthcare workers to us FFP3 masks ( always have right up until covid) …that is the correct PPE when looking after someone with such a disease and proving close intimate care… nursing someone with covid in an enclosed space with an FFP3 mask means your only effective protection is your own immune system…when covid was a novel disease giving someone an FFP1 mask and asking them to work in an area proving intimate care was literally throwing them under a bus. Effectively if you were working in front line care providing intimate care in say ED or with and ambulance crew…the PPE provided should have been FFP3 all the pre pandemic regs and evidence supported that…..what the government did was change the regs so only people in ITU using suction and etc would have FFP3 protection.

            This is really nasty when you combine the reaserch that shows FFP 1 masks are pointless in areas with a high viral load ( hospitals with covid patients, backs of ambulances with a covid patient, ED cubicles with a covid patient in it). The add in the fact the amount of virus you are exposed to also has an impact on how I’ll you become, it was a nasty combo.

            Now if you go back to the 2009 flu pandemic the DOH under that Labour government had in the first instance that it was know it would be a pandemic had every front line health care professional fit tested and ready to access and use FFP3 PPE if needed…..This Present DOH had not even bothered to keep up the skills needed to fit test people so we struggles to find fit test for just ITU ( FFP masked need to be fit tested)….they failed utterly to prepare to the point they could not proved the correct PPE and just changes the rules in the first few weeks of the pandemic to suit ( with no publication of research).

            what was even more insane was organisations like housing associations were fit testing staff and proving them with FFP3 PPE just incase they had to have close contact with a resident..so a worker in a housing association building had access to just in case PPE at the correct level on the off chance a resident became ill or had and accident and needed to worker to get close to them…and nurses in ED who spent their who working day with their faces next to sick people got an FFP1 mask….it’s not actually forgivable….although as a concept and system I fully support the NHS…that’s just one example of how it treats people (staff and patients)..it is a system morally constructed using the Utilitarian model ( the greatest good for the great number) and can sometimes be pretty brutal to individuals (staff and patients).

          • That is probably an issue with SERCO or CRAPITA or which lot were ‘running’ the warehouse.

            I’d be surprised if the warehouse contract didn’t specify stock rotation and even if it didn’t it is a basic warehouse function to do that.

          • The key problem was they were purchased by a department that had no use for them, beyond the pandemic ( the cabinets office)….and as far as I’m aware no one set up a process where by they cabinet office could then give the PPE to the NHS as part of a stock rotation…so the stuff stayed on the shelves rotting while the NHS was always buying and using new stock, typical case of government department silo working in action.

        • Actually re-lifing is a fairly standard practice across a lot of industries, you re-inspect and test and if it passes it gets an new use by. Problem isn’t the re-lifing it’s someone didn’t actually do a proper inspection and test. There’s also questions weather the PPE was stored correctly or enough representative sampling was done. Not sure where that responsibility lies.

          Here’s a great example, 20 years ago US military did a study and found many drugs were still usable well beyond the dates used by manufacturers. There several publish studies that so several well stored drugs last well beyond dates proposed by manufacturers.

          Link

          However, I’m not advocating the general public take prescription drugs outside their expiration dates.

          • Hi expat, there is a big difference between doing a large longitudinal study around drugs and deciding that it was ok to suddenly suppling PPE that was out of date 5 years previously. Especially since it was done very quickly…you’re talking as soon as the pandemic hit they announced it was OK to use out of date PPE. They should not even have been holding stocks 5 years out of date..the NHS Simply disposes of such items to reduce the risk of them being used and causing harm…so the fact they were even in the warehouses showed rank incompetent at best or at worst a purposeful action to save money. There were certainly no robust longitudinal studies undertaken….other wise someone like me ( who is well averse in pandemic response and risk management) would have seen the evidence.

            The truth is there is very little trust left in the NHS with either the NHSE central team or the DOH…centralised command and control has gone through the roof ( with daily reporting required by every system on almost everything…at significant cost in staff time) at the same time as less and less rational instructions have come down the line.

          • Yes just highlighting that relifing is valid if done correctly. However I very much doubt those in charge of this fiasco are rotated with changes of government. These are long term Whitehall lifers who are making these monumental cockups. A basic stock system or ERP would flag stock to distribute based on FIFO stock management principles where oldest stock is picked first. Why these organisations don’t have these systems is beyond me a points to typical ‘big’ public sector failure. I work with hundreds of large private sector companies and this simply doesn’t happen or at least never on this scale because the systems prevent it and no private sector company would want to take the hit to write if out dated stock on this scale so FIFO practices would be in place. The same systems create warehouse tasks to dump outdated stock or do relifing exercises, they would also recommend sample sizes against lot batch and record the results of relifing tests against the lot batch.

            Look to me if these organisations are still using manual processing probably to justify their jobs.

          • The NHS works a lot like the old Soviet Union and always has sadly.
            The Guardian
            17 Sept 2013
            Abandoned NHS IT system has cost £10 billion so far

          • It’s a good comparison, a ‘vast’ beurocracy, blown out of all recognition, NHS waste is counted in the billions annually.

            I don’t know what the answer is, but surely the current system is just broken…

            Unfortunately, it resists change and no government present or future have the balls to do anything about it, but throw more more money and blindly hope that fixes it….

            There will come a day when it’s percentage of GDP becomes utterly unsustainable from a financial perspective and it will still need more and more cash injected as it lurches from one winter crisis to the next….

            What happens then I wonder, I’m guessing about 5 years from now….

            We’ve discussed it many times before, someone out there must have the answer….

          • There’s no incentive or encouragement to improve anything, anytime or anywhere. All decisions are not taken on the grounds of what is best for the customers but what is best for the producers and first and foremost politicians. Wages (though not as bad these days) morale and productivity are all low and always have been. I find anyone who lived through communism in the USSR and eastern europe immediately gets the NHS.

  2. Great to see the progress!

    Just a thought. Isn’t Phalanx 1B getting a bit long-in-the-tooth as an effective CIWS these days? Wouldn’t it make more sense to add the 40mm bofors slated for the Type 31s to all escort ships – T26, T45, T31 and T32 (fingers crossed these aren’t axed!)? More reach, more stopping power.

    Cost delta can’t be that much more than Phalanx.

    • The downside of using the Bofors 40mm as a CIWS is it is not a CIWS as such – it relies on the Ships Radar and EO Sensors for its firing solutions whereas the Phalanx is a fully autonomous system which can work independantly from the Ships Sensors.An upgrade from 20mm would be ideal but many Navies still have enough faith in it as it is.

      • Thank you Paul – and you make a great point.

        My late uncle served over 30yrs in the RN and was the CPO on HMS Southampton in charge of the weapons – including the Phalanx – in the early-to-mid-nineties. He was NOT a fan of Phalanx and had no faith in the system. His exact comment to me on one occasion was ‘when you have a missile the size of a bus hurtling toward you, this pee-shooter (pointing at Phalanx) isn’t going to do shit’.

        • That single decker bus would be the SSN 19 Shipwreck. However, damage a wing or control fin, put some rounds down the intake and it’s going to splash.
          CIWS doesn’t blow stuff up it damages it enough to make it miss
          34 yrs in the RN ending up somehow as a WE Warrant!

          • You know that, I know that but everyone else on here seems to think that only CIWS firing 76mm shells is a solution……

            Never mind the other layers that we have discussed so often in the past…….

            But never mind.

        • The biggest Phalanx problem is the 20mm round ballistics. It is really a system for just 1 interception against a multi missile attack and at 1km from the ship it would not be uncommon from parts of a missile to still travel towards it.

      • The thing is, if there was the will and the money. You could easily turn the Bofors 40mm into a fully autonomous system. By adding it’s own thermal EO cameras and a small Ku-band AESA radar. Whereby it could then search for and track multiple threats independently of the ship’s other sensors. Simples! Just the power and cooling to sort out, jobs a good un.

        • The Italian Navy are ditching they fast 40s, in favour of the 76 Strales + the guided DART round. The reason is that the DART has an effective range of 8000m, compared to the 40’s 3000m. It is also expected to expend less ammunition in achieving a kill. Though, the DART rounds are considerable more expensive than a standard proximity or time delayed fused shell.

      • I agree.

        Which is why there might well be 20mm and 40mm on T31.

        There is sufficient pool of fully modernised Phalanx to do that.

    • What i would do with the Type 26 is retain Phalanx but place them either side of the Hangar instead of the DS30mm Guns,then put the Bofors 40mm amidships where Phalanx will be going.

      • You’re reminding me to ask (rant) on what’s happening with the carriers? Will we ever see a 40mm/Phalanx mix on those? Haven’t even mentioned CAMM… Lol 😁

        • Given the QE class has been in service for more than a couple of years now with absolutely no hint of adding 30mm cannons or 40mm Bofors for that matter, then I’m thinking short of all out war, they will never be fitted.

          As for CAMM? Forget about it – never going to happen, which is a mistake if you ask me. We are the only carrier operating nation that doesn’t employee at least some form of PDMS. Even the French have Aster 15 on their one carrier and fair play to them for doing so!

      • You then have issues with sabot and pusher disks going over the flight deck.
        A trial on an LPD was done to see what damage a Goalkeeper firing over a flight deck would do.
        Wooden range targets where set up and ally plates to represent aircraft skins.
        It wasn’t pretty. Penetrations of the wooden targets and ally plates from sabot and pusher disks. In real life, lost aircraft and dead wafus.

        Would you really want to endanger your main ASW asset, the helo by holing it and possibly causing a fire?

    • I’m a real fan of fitting 40mm to our ships in general. They would seem to provide great utility for AAA, anti-drone, anti-surface and generally making a mess of anything that gets too close. Really good range as well. Could even employ twin barrel versions for greater presence. Definitely fit them to the carriers.

    • There’s zero evidence that Phalanx is any better or worse than the Bofors gun as a CIWS..

      Most of the commentary revolves around 40mm being twice 20mm so it’s obvious innit mate.

          • So you think this hasn’t been tested?

            Or the weapons selections haven’t been based on these results?

            What do you think goes on, on the various NATO ranges?

          • Well Mr Grinch / Ron, you obviously haven’t read the detailed assessment of the 40mm system that’s openly available via open public access forums.

            It’s got superior range and effect over Phalanx, that’s absolutely clear to see.

            Phalanx is very much a last ditch system

            The 40 mm mounts will simply mallet anything that gets within their firing envelope, it will give the T31 an absolutely ferocious bite.

            I really don’t know why you have to be so confrontational with your posts, smile it’s a lovely day Ron or Grinch, or is it Ron Grinch perhaps….

        • No closed loop tracking on a Bofor for bringing the rounds onto the target which Phalanx does do. It tracks the target , tracks the bullets and reduces the distance between them to zero ensuring a hit.

          For a Bofor, even with programmable ammo its shoot, look, adjust, shoot.

  3. Not much difference externally as far as I can see, I assume a majority of the work here is internal fit-out. Wondering do the MK 41 launch systems get fitted here or at Devonport?

      • Absolutely, T32 should be a simple refinement of T31, keeping the costs down and the drum beat of production going.

        KISS ……. Keep it simple stupid!

        I’m sure someone in the MOD will insist on T32 having tracks on its keel so it can come ashore and support the Royal Marines, perhaps a Trident silo or two…..

        Thus ensuring they can waste 2 billion and cancel it 10 years later….

  7. “first of eight new Type 26 Frigates being built by @BAES_Maritime, continues at pace”
    Seriously? More like at snail’s pace, first steel was cut in 2017.

  8. Just read on Janes that the Netherlands is also considering TLAMs for its destroyers and subs. Got me wondering if the UK will top up its stock and maybe order some for the T26s?
    Seems like there’s enough stock on hand and or the US is creating a new production run? The FC/ASW seems a way off still.

    • Who knows. The mk41 launchers can hold lots of stuff.
      My concern seems more recently is how many missiles are needed for air, surface targets. With drones etc unmanned boats is 32-48 enough?

      • The 48 CAMM will be complemented by the 30mm RWS, SEA decoys, EW/ECM and maybe Dragonfire later on. That’s quite a bit.

        • Hoping for a greater level of CAMM on the T45s too to complement the Asters. Even Dragonfire if they can squeeze that on somewhere.

          • Hi Nigel, I had a squizz, it took me back to a while ago especially on the carrier armaments. Lots of wonderful commentary from everyone. Wonder if they’ll ever do a Dragonfire Laser-Phalanx hybrid? I’d like to see a Sea/Starstreak ER on the same Raytheon RAM mount and put those on the Carriers, RFAs, Albions. Hope the UK tech gets some wins. Nothing against the US, but the rest, UK, Europe etc, also deserve some success.

          • They had a very good post on the Bofors 40mm Mk 4 gun that will equip the Type 31 frigates, but I agree, we need some UK tech onboard as you quite rightly point out.

            LINK

          • “The NS100 provides 4D surveillance capabilities (Azimuth, Elevation, Range & full Doppler) up to 280 km. In addition, the engagement tracking capability enables the firing of short to medium-range missiles while providing mid-course updates to the missile system.”

            LINK

          • Dragonfire will be used against slow targets like drones and boats. It simply wont be powerful enough to kill missiles at range. It will stop you pishing away a 150K GBP missile on a 1000 GBP drone though

          • Give it time, the ability for the system to handle and generate greater pulse power is coming. The greatest technological issue with the focusing has I believe been worked out. So the higher pulse power is the next stage.

      • Hey I could be wrong but I really don’t think a modern day version of the Battle of Midway where all manner of ordinance from all directions is expended and it ends up being last man standing, is at all likely. More interested in sufficient high end focused capability. I think a discussion on whether these vessels meet that criteria is more fruitful than simple numbers.

        • That is maybe not likely but 50 odd drones with explosives flying at a ship at the same time as some surface drone ships is very possible.
          We already have Iran and there pals hitting ships with flying drones.
          So the ships need to be able to deal with a bunch of flying drones, with cruise missiles incoming and some surface drones coming in fast all at the same time. Then be able to do it again at the next wave.
          As we see in recent conflicts the rules are changing fast.
          If someone wants to take out a warship they will try everything.

          • It’s always good to be prepared for what might be coming our way in the future, not least the YJ-12 & YJ-21!

            LINK

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