When will the Type 32 Frigate enter service?

Type 83 is surefire?

FADS is a fairly critical aspect of the navy’s future force structure; the T45s retiring with no successor is about as unimaginable as the RAF dropping the capability to shoot down planes.

The form T83 takes is still being debated, but the fact that they’ve already termed it the T83 tells us the preferred option is a large, multirole cruiser-destroyer.

Jim, Russia is a first-world nuclear power and to believe Putin is not a threat would be to underestimate his ability to further destabilise Europe. Russia will fight to the bitter end and as long as the current government is in control no one can sleep easy. There is growing unease surrounding what may happen next, third-world power or otherwise. The US will not leave NATO as it has too much invested in Europe and the Dollar is king.

I agree, this leaving NATO talk is to rattle European members who are riding American coattails.

It’s often been said, why should a hard working American Mr X, be paying extra tax to defend Europe, when some European NATO countries spend sod all and splurge the cash instead on social spending?

Meanwhile, Mr X has to pay for health insurance for his family!

It’s a perfectly reasonable question and one that would certainly rile me if I was American.

NATO does require reform, so that a minimum of 2.5 GDP is spent on defence, not advisory, but compulsory.

This amount increases if the perceived threat levels to the alliance increase.

If you don’t like it and don’t to pay your club dues, leave the club and stand under your own umbrella……

If the EU nations alone spent 2.5% on defence their combined budgets would make the second most powerful military on the planet and one very close in budget to the US’s.

With Russia and China no longer a concern to them I fail to see why they would continue to take orders from the US.

Like your comments here on a muscled up Europe. I’m picturing a paired pair wrestling 🤼‍♂️ match between the four nuclear blocs. And the other nations with this capability, who they choose to align or non-align with. Back to my morning ☕.

This. And as I often point out the thing is the US doesn’t want a Europe that pays it’s way. It wants a European MIC and Military that plays second fiddle to its American counter parts and lacks strategic autonomy. If the US really wanted to maximize European Defence it would push for a united EU military which would free up enough funding to create a military second only to the US and China.

The “We are paying to defend Europe” thing is really internal popularism, trying to drum up votes unfortunately.

Agreed…..Orwells 1984 geopolitics.

that’s a good analogy Mate.👌

insightful commentary Dern.

I’d add that America also appreciates the weapons sales to Europe.

Laughably out of date perspective. The US today absolutely do want a Europe that pays its way, they couyldn’t care less about garissoning the continent. Hence the hesitancy on financing Ukraine. There’s a reason operation Reforger has not been practiced for a couple of decades. The US want Europe to own the Putin problem while they (and Japan and Australia) own China. If “the big one” drops then the USN will be 110% occupied in the Pacific, we have to learn to look after ourselves.
And the reason there’s no united European military is because in the centre of Europe there is a big country called Germany getting rich on Russian energy. The US has nothing to do with it

Most Americans haven’t a clue about foreign spending but even if they did, the US multinational companies would close down the government if Europe was left exposed by leaving NATO. US interests in Europe are huge and the Dollar is King and nothing gets in the way of making money. The fact that some alliance members take advantage of the US contribution means nothing in the bigger picture. Plus the fact, leaving NATO would sink the World’s money markets in days.

I hear this money is king argument applied by all sorts of people, typically those who want to assure all is well because the money people wouldn’t like change. I’ve heard it about the business leadership in China to assure me that there will be no invasion of Taiwan, and about the Russian oligarchs to assure there would be no war in Ukraine.

When it comes to business as usual, money talks, but war isn’t business as usual. A phased withdrawal from NATO, rather than a big declaration wouldn’t sink the markets. It would be phrased as a reemphasis on Asia Pacific, with fewer units based in Europe. A shift from East coast to West coast would follow. NATO is really a cohilition of the willing, and the level of response, even to an Article 5 request can be anything the responding country wishes.

You don’t need to leave NATO formally to leave it effectively. By the time any big announcement came, it would be the defacto reality already.

I agree with your rational assessment of a phased US withdrawal from NATO. However, Russia would need to pull out of Ukraine completely and sign a declaration with the UN that it no longer had designs on its national boundaries. Any announcement of US withdrawal before such a development had been achieved would be strategically worrisome and financially destabilising. Having lived in the States and worked for them for many years, I can assure you the Dollar is king. To think otherwise would be misguided and witnessing their fiscal control at first hand clarifies DIK perfectly.

For sure Russia is a first rate nuclear power but no matter what we spend on defence it won’t change the nuclear calculation. But it’s a third world industrial and military power.

In the late 30s, the UK also bolstered its fleet by lease lend destroyers from the US, a pattern that may be required in an emergency. Due to poor procurement strategy, the RN faces the current dilemma. Build rates for T26 should improve once the new facility for under-roof construction is commissioned. However, regarding the Ukraine crisis, we are talking ostensively short-term, the retention of as many T23s is a wise policy.

The US has as big if not a bigger surface fleet problem than we do so we won’t be getting any ships from them in any kind of lend lease unless you want some LCS.

Jim, the state of the US Navy in 1940 was far from perfect but they still handed over some of their war reserve destroyers. The main reason for their generosity was to ensure the Atlantic was still safe to navigate and at that time, it was down in large part to the RN. Even so, they still charged us a lease-lend rate.

Or the 9 Tico’s the US has in Reserve

They are completely knackered, worn out, they have been flogged to death.The absolute proof of that is Congress has been pretty well nixing the USN taking ships out of commission. But not these Tico’s (too old and too far gone).

So just like the Clemson’s that where given to us in the Destroyers for Bases deal.

And maybe double crewing of some T-45’s, to increase availability.

Yes, retaining the best of the T23 is the only way to increase fleet numbers quickly. Remove everything not needed for duties as Atlantic convoy ASW escort. Put the money in more Merlins.

I agree but who in Westminster has the what ever to get it done.

I agree that retaining aging Type 23 frigates in service would be one obvious means of enlarging our frigate numbers in the short term. The problem here is that certain items of vital equipment currently fitted to Type 23 frigates are panned to be transferred to building Type 26 frigates before they can be completed. Not necessarily a insurmountable problem perhaps, but a issue nevertheless. Also we are critically short of trained RN/RFA personal to crew any additional ships of course.

Another rapid means of increasing escort numbers in a emergency might be acquire existing ships from another nation – like the Greek Navy is currently planning to do with a number of decommissioned USN LCS variants. Yes they are not great ships by any means but this may be a ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ situation.

If increasing the fleets numerical strength is desirable then improving our existing and under construction ships is also important I think – purchasing some actual weapons to fire from the Mk41 VLS we plan to acquire and fitting sonar systems to the Type 31 for example would be good.

It would become too expensive to keep upgrading the Type 23 just to keep it in service, far better and cheaper to just build lots more type 31’s and adapt them to different roles such as AAW and ASW

Agreed if time and money was available, but it takes around 4 years per frigate to build from scratch. Whereas refitting a T23 could be done in 6 months in an emergency situation. However, lets be frank, if it kicks off at any time, within the next 5 years…we are screwed!

Agree with you. With the T23s windingdown and transition to T26 maybe a few extra T31s to bolster the numbers. Kind of needed right now though. Might as well max the Lifex’s of all the remaining T23s. Not sure if it’s worth donating 1-2 Ukraine for later on or selling others to anyone.

Don’t expect one ,all of above wast of time 😞

Kier not lasting long for a start.

Labour wanting to scale the navy to a costal defence force for number two.

That’s everything you said and it’s all ****

Evening Jim, a little touchy arn’t we?

I guess we will see, all sh×t you say, I admire your optimism that Labour will be any different, I think you will be horribly disappointed..

I think mark is full of **** 😀

I think you hope Mark is full of **** but are worried he might just be spot on 😂

It’s hard to think of any PM in the last 20 years or so who wasn’t “dangerously incompetent”. The Tories have trashed their reputation for being either the party of financial responsabilty, defence or law & order. Will labour be any better? I’m not holding my breath.
We need a bigger fleet so I hope T32 will be built to boost the fleet size & will be a rounded escort first of all.

Oh I’d say we have had a bit of a mixed bag since WW2 with a handful of decent ones. Excellent leaders are out there however they are unlikely to put themselves forward and be destroyed by unwanted media attention on things which bear no relation to a person’s ability to do the job.

Agree we need more kit plus we need to have a greater ability to deal with the new threats like drones etc. Hope the T32 will address some of these problems. I also think we need them quite quickly.

Sounds like it has no purpose at all, except burning diesel and sucking up sailors that could be used on useful assets.

The UK could establish a proper coast guard and move non-combatants into that org.

The OPVs do a great job and take up very few sailors. You’d barely crew 1 frigate by decommissioning all of them.

We had a proper coastguard it got amalgamated into customs and became borderforce

Agreed about the OPV things, absolute waste of time and money. For the size of them they easily SHOULD be armed with at least a 57mm gun,SSMs and a CWS.
The designers of warships (and navy) now seem to be obsessed with disaster relief capability,leave that to the OPVs and leave warships to being what they’re supposed to be for.

Not sure what you are saying.
Uparm the OPVs and stop them doing work that can be left to the OPVs?

OPVs even with more armament would never get assigned to any kind of conflict involving anti ship missiles etc.

Ideally, theoretically, yes. But war is messy & soon bursts the bubble of peacetime supposisions.

Anyone remember the HK patrol ships? Far smaller than River B2, but carried a 76mm canon…..

And then they’d cost 3x as much to build, have half the sea days and soak up a lot more in time and maintenance meaning the actual frigate fleet would have to take over in defence engagement roles….

It’s not a matter of being deliberately deployed, it’s the stark reality that even with the best/most naive intentions, in war OPVs will get caught out, outmatched, out gunned, vulnerable.
No enemy is going to pass up the opportunity of targeting any RN vessel in todays world & tech means nowhere is safe.

Yes but we have far bigger issues than upgunning the OPVs for a theoretical war.

The Red Sea shows that you don’t need to be deployed for war, war can come to you. There have previously been OPV’s from various navies operating in the Red Sea / Somalia coast area on anti-piracy patrols. Some, like from Chile, have an organic helicopter capacity & either 40mm or 76mm gun & have operated in that area. Where else in the world might Yemen type weapons turn up. Nearby Somalia? West coast of Africa? Southern Philippines? North coast of South America? If the SCS goes off, the entire Indian & Pacific Oceans will be no go areas for a current RB2. Note I did suggest more like an under armed corvette. A handful of radar based missiles & a small missile capable radar. Put the missiles in a container if you have to.

The 5” has already been used in the Red Sea in a AA role (by USN). Similar smart fuzes to that used in 76mm. There has been some suggestion of a “dart” round from Leonardo being developed. Other smart rounds are in development (eg Kingfisher). It can also throw a big shell out to 70km (Volcano). T31 also has 2 x 40mm guns. On IH frigates, these two positions have a 35mm & a 76mm. “A” position was always supposed to be a 127mm, but the Danes ran out of money & fitted a used 76mm instead. Building a sizeable frigate (T31 maxes out around 7,000t) just to fight drones & light water craft does not make much sense. RB2 refitted with 76mm & 35/40mm can do that. They were originally talking about only fitting T31 with 12 CAMM. At least that nonsense is now gone.

There are A140 designs (of which T31 is one), on Babcocks website where the mk41 area is repurposed & missiles are shifted to “B”. On IH, that is a stanflex module, so 12 ESSM module is an option. Using ExLS, 24 CAMM should be doable, perhaps more. If it’s more like Absalon class, they tend to run 36 ESSM in stanflex modules (no mk41).

Lucky we have nothing in the far east to cut then, all our far east bases, Bahrain, Brunei, Oman, Diego Garcia and Singapore are paid for by other countries.

That’s funny a quick Google and in 2020 government announced 23m for invest in port of Duqm Oman. My 2nd Google I found labour asked a question of the defence minister in 2015.

The only 2 bases where portion of costs are covered to so degree is Nepal and Brunei

So from information available I beg to differ.

You bet they did, Healey reigned in his rhetoric big time when it was realised actually anything east of Suez may actually matter.

I do fear we become more of a European Army if Labour party become next government. 😞🇪🇺

Im not sure I would guarantee a second term, there are things that could knock it off course…there are some really nasty risks out there at preset, which could lead to some nasty economic shocks…But I agree it’s likely that we will see a two term Labour government..not sure on three.

I think energy is going to be really big to be honest…fossil fuel supplies are going to be more and more at risk due to instability..and the fossil fuel market rife with inflation, supply insecurity and competition. if Labour can get the UK energy market right and make the UK either energy independence or a net exporter then they will be onto a winner….more and more it’s all about the energy…I’m also a firm believer that our oil reserves should be ring-fenced for industrial usage and not energy usage…burning a limited important resource is stupid even before we get to global warming. If we can fully exploit all our sea based energy ( off shore wind, wave and very significant tidal ) backed up by nuclear we can make our industries hyper competitive by cheap energy…( if the slave economies are still tied into ever increasingly expensive fossil fuel energy and we are not, we can finally compete with them..even with our increases Labour costs).

On energy it should be nuclear first its the most reliable and as the most power dense the easiest to.protect. irrespective of what the political clas say nuclear is the most secure from a economic abd military perspective. Then tidal as the second most predictable. But we need to let hydrogen and other technologies have a crack. There’s also some real.good things going on with fuel.burnings engines. Which shouldn’t be discounted especially as military need a power dense portable fuel. Basic physics are stacked against all other fuel sources.

If Labour make changes to the electoral system, even shocks will not impact the chances of a second term the whole point ov making change is to increase the number of voters who will vote for them otherwise why do it. With their super majority it’s an easy change. There’s unlikely to be enough resistance even if a few in their own party from those who don’t agree to stop it. So Labour’s second term is almost a certainty. Just like we’ve never seen a Liberal government since there demise the same is going to happen to the Tories. Current Labour will become the political right, so a reset to the left of the center ground and I foresee Green and others filling the left. Why do I say this because the trend is people want more government involvement in their lives, they now believe government should provide more for them and they like the lack.of accountability and responsibility. We’ll see this last for at least a 2 generations or untill all the accured wealth has been spent then either there will be further lurch to the left, kinda a country in denial or a big reset to completely free market due to economic collapse where people are forced to take back responsibility for their lives.

Yes it’s been getting better, shipbuilding is starting to look ok, 2 competitive escort builders with modern yards…HW development of modern a large military vessel yard in Belfast as well as investment in appledore for building modules of the larger ships…expansion of Barrow with decent capacity for submarines..expansion of the RR nuclear plant production…..it’s actually looking good on the military ship building capability…which I suspect we will need in the next 10 years….as a major conflict will shift up production requirements in the late 2020s and 2030s.

Understood. But priorities can change. If you can find a cheaper, creative way of achieving that objective but which enables you to strengthen your response to a strategic weakness then you would adjust your approach. I guess we will see what emerges from the concept work. What comes out of the work we are doing with the Dutch on MRSS could also be interesting. Not saying we will but supposing we decide to replace the LPDs and the Bays with half a dozen 120ft Enforcers and to arm them with 40mm guns and Sea Ceptor. As the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention 🙂

Damn, the navy is in a bad place if the next class of landing ships are only 120 feet long 🙃

Straw man. The rationale would be a ‘squadron’ of 2 or 3 = an Albion but you are not putting all your eggs in one target and the ships are more useful for LRG work; rather than sitting around waiting for another Falklands. Similar to the Black Swan idea that was floated a while back.

Oh, I thought that was a typo and you meant 120 metres, my mistake.
40 metres is just ridiculous, on that tonnage you’ll need 20 to match an Albion for payload and you still don’t have the stability for amphibious ops.
If you’d meant 120m I’d agree with you and say we should get 10 of them.

No, I did mean 120m, 9k tons. 90 crew and up to 250 RM is the smallest in the Damen range. They do larger models up to 180m….Albion sized 155 crew: and mid sized …direct equivalent to a Bay.

Yes, I would agree with that as long as the MOD make sure that all of them get built. One massive amphibious platform, without the number of escorts the USN have, is hugely vulnerable. A couple of smaller, more heavily armed ships are much more flexible and less likely to get destroyed.

Indeed it was my understanding that the increase in escort fleet size was due to the crews from the decommissioned mine warfare vessels being used..with the assumption that the mine warfare capability would be carted around in frigate mission bays….i imagine that any batch 2 T31 ( T32) would simply be a batch of T31 hulls with optimised mission bays, hanger and flight deck for autonomous systems….

Now we know why the Danish ships were so incredibly cheap to build 😀

If i could see a ‘like’ button that a comment i would have hit it for!

That’s a fair point, Standard missiles are really big. I agree that we made the right choice in choosing Aster and later CAMM, we just need to improve their range now.
“Aster 45” is a great idea, particularly for the land-based SAMP/T system. By their nature, ships can easily keep pace with whatever they are protecting, or remain in place as required. Land systems may have to protect multiple fixed and moving locations (command centre, ammo dump, airfield, logistics routes with moving convoys, frontline positions, attacking units, for example) from a position that keeps them safe without being able to fire on the move. It’s a harder task, and additional range would make that far easier.

aah – I see you point , my apologies.