The Royal Navy’s escort fleet, comprising Type 23 frigates and Type 45 destroyers, remains a credible and essential component of the UK’s defence strategy, according to a recent statement from the Ministry of Defence (MOD).
Responding to a parliamentary question on 22nd November, Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard highlighted the fleet’s operational effectiveness and its critical role in supporting Carrier Strike operations.
Pollard stated, “The Royal Navy’s escort fleet, comprising Type 23 Frigates and Type 45 Destroyers, is a credible force calibrated to meet individual and multinational Defence outputs effectively.”
These ships are designed to counter complex threats, providing robust defence for the fleet.
The escort fleet’s importance was underscored by its contribution to Carrier Strike Group 21 and will again be demonstrated during Carrier Strike Group 25, which is set to deploy to the Indo-Pacific in 2025.
Pollard spoke on the fleet’s ability to protect and enhance the UK’s Carrier Strike capability, adding, “These vessels remain poised to defend the Fleet against complex threats and are central to the UK’s Carrier Strike Capability.”
Looking ahead, Pollard pointed to the forthcoming introduction of the Type 26 and Type 31 frigates, which are expected to replace aging vessels in the escort fleet. He said, “The introduction of Type 26 and 31 Frigates in the coming years demonstrates the Royal Navy’s commitment to the modernisation of our escort fleet.”
The Type 26 frigates, designed for advanced anti-submarine warfare, and the Type 31 general-purpose frigates, intended to provide flexible and cost-effective support, represent a significant investment in the future of the Royal Navy.
More political leaking of the SDR.
What escort force with 14 hulls? Only 8 of them available?
Bla bla bla. You have scrapped the amphibious capability, this is the reality.
Yep. Our ‘amphibious’ capability is now Argus and Lyme Bay raiding the Maldives.
The mouse that roared. These guys truly are men/women of straw. I mean who believes this stuff, do they truly believe it themselves? Sounds like a Don’t Panic meme for public consumption with the only question being is it of the Dads Army variety or the Hitchikers Guide variety.
More useless politician blather.
A few more T31s anyone? Batch 2/T32? Batch 1/T83??
I think we need to focus on getting T31 and T26 into service. MCMV is a higher priority than T32. My money is the SDR goes for a batch of 3 Kongsberg Vanguards.
Yes true. With the Vanguards at only 3, shouldn’t that be at least 6 as they might be useful in complementing or replacing the B2 Rivers. Anyway, 3 for starters.
Yes, I think I read somewhere that the RN wanted a batch of 3 MCMV mother ships. If they go with the Vanguard I would see it as an obvious R1 replacement so there’s your 6. Resurrect the Home Fleet.
Getting tired of these “the army is ready to fight tonight”, “we are fulfilling all our tasks” and “we have plenty of escorts” nonsense. Not sure who they think they are kidding, the army wouldn’t last a week in any conflict, the airforce likewise and the navy would be decimated if a couple of ships were hit by missiles. I still don’t get why the government can’t immediately fix the RFA strike, they don’t want much. There is no sense of urgency or competence anywhere.
Agree. Terrible. We are all just praying for some sense of a plan to come out of SDSR….I’m not holding my breath though as the Tories have wrecked the armed forces and now Labour are making seemingly knee jerk reactions cutting whole capabilities without replacement.
The RFA should employ as many train drivers as they can to get the thing sorted. The Govt would cave in inside days.
I think the best service is RAF, they would last certainly more than week as long as the airfields are not targetable by long range missiles. The Navy would be hard pressed against drones and missiles, i guess it is okayish for middle of Atlantic Ocean and can have a 1-2 SSN causing havock. The army is in dire straits i don’t think it will even last 1 week.
Alex, have you served in the RAF? If you have 30 aircraft, usually, 10 will be available. To fly those 10 hard, you will need 2-3 pilots. Typhoon has been employed non-stop for the last 10-15 years – they are starting to ‘break’. We don’t have enough aircraft, pilots, weapons or spares to sustain high tempo war fighting for more than a few days. With the help of the USAF in the UK, we might last a week.
Against whom?
The RuAF is in a terrible state.
Their ancient turbo props and bombers have the RCS of a block of flats and have the EM output of the Crystal Palace Transmitter.
They would have zero chance of getting near in a conflict with combined USAF and RAF but they would also be in Article 4 territory and would have upset the neighbourhood.
If only 30 % [it is higher than that] of the planes are flyable then you have at least 3 pilots per frame. The main problem is the spare bins are kept very empty of even the cheap parts on JIT. The first thing to do is to fill those bins of often used cheap bits so planes are not needlessly off the line.
The lack of progress on the RFA strike must surely mean that the resolution is linked to the SDR.
What a joke.
If you said to me 20 years ago that the RN would have…at best 8 frigates, 6 destroyers, 2 capable carriers but limited due to funding and small airing, virtually no MCM vessels left. Scrapping our amphibious landing ships without replacement, forward repair capability gone (RFA Diligence) just one underway replenishment ship that needs massive investment meanwhile our FSS ships are kinda going to be built….sometimes.
I would have shook my head in disbelief….and yet this is exactly where we are. SDSR is going to have to be massively impressive to reverse the rot and try to put back on some form of military muscle.
It’s a shocking situation whereby all three services are now reaching joke levels for a major economy and supposedly major NATO power.
I agree.
The trouble is that running an MoD that is structured around a 3% defence spend means actual deployable capital is very thin.
In real terms going from present levels of spending to 2.75% would close to double our effective spending because the fixed overhead is so massive.
To be honest there really needs to be as much of a speed up as possible on the T26 and T31, the RN needs the first in class to be ready for trials ASAP and to expedite those trials.
No way you will sped up T31 as they are flat out not hitting any milestones.
No point is speeding up T26 as that created a pre T83 gap. Unless the Norwegian order comes through.
The next problem is crewing 13 nice shiny new frigates.
Essential yes, credible no.
A worry when the T31 is talked in the same league as the T26. T31s are modern day T21s (at least with more growth potential), but still a missile or torpedo sponge when they enter service.
Why the MoD didn’t balk back at the Labour and say, no these units are critical to national defence, go borrow off the NHS, shows that MoD is a key part of the problem with UK defence and not just he government, regardless who is in (though Labour have a good track record of performing well below the level necessary).
Suppose that depends on how you define “credible”…
This graph is quite telling – half way down the page “Health and defence spending as shares of GDP, between 1955-56 and 2022-23”.
I blame the UK public, if the public wanted a stronger armed forces then the government of the day would have to respond appropriately. As the public don’t give a toss the government can get away with stripping the forces bare. Until one day…
Ahem
[url]https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/what-does-government-spend-money[/url]
5 minutes to get past an anti-spam filter!
Nonsense. And with increased risk from Russia what’s left of the Royal Navy will be needed more and more in local waters. Unless there is an uplift in orders for the new frigates then I’m afraid there is little point in keeping our carriers – as much as it saddens me to say that. Maybe the USA will purchase them along with the F35’s?
The global Britain vision set out in the Integrated Review was never deliverable without a big uplift in the defence budget. No party is committing to 2.5% of GDP on a definite timescale and any more than that is wholly unlikely. The result is that our forces will remain at most broadly at current levels. And even that depends on solving the manpower shortage. With T45 PIP concluded, and delivery of new frigates, escort availability should be much improved, though not until early 2030s. By then, army equipment programmes should have reached FOC and more F 35s acquired.
But even then, we won’t have the force size to allow any significant presence in the Indo Pacific. We will have enough, just, to operate effectively in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and retain a presence in the Gulf. Of these the first is most important( allies can take the lead in the Med) as Russia continues to be a threat. So it does seem likely that more of the fleet will be operating closer to home. The assets that will retain a global role will be the SSN fleet, especially if numbers increase as part of AUKUS.
To be fair he conservatives had said 2.5% by 2030 in the election.
I think the dial has now moved to 2.75% TBH.
Usual political waffle Mr Pollard.
Everyone knows they’re capable vessels.
The UK Government has demonstrated, over many decades, that it is incapable of being trusted to protect this island nation, talk is cheap. There are only two outcomes to our current defence posture; Pending War in Europe, we carry on as before, do nothing to bolster our armed Forces and suffer losses quickly in any action. Or, we face up to the fact that we’ve been reaping the post-Cold War dividend for at least a decade longer than we should have and start to heavily invest in a robust defence.
Just a reminder the the defence review that first envisaged what became the QE class carriers envisaged that the RN would have 32 escorts…..
The U.K.’s current defence posture can be summed up by the expression ‘fingers crossed’.
So, speaking as someone who is hospital waiting over a week for an angiogram I can confidently say that NHS resources are screwed up. We have increased the number of doctors but they have to share hardware. Complete clusterfcuk. No idea on basic work centre scheduling and queue management. Meanwhile in defence we have the opposite problem. Laying up perfectly good ships for lack of manpower.
Its not rocket science except that it obviously is to whoever is responsible.
Too late war is almost upon us and the T26 /T31 ships are nowhere near commission.
Sad to think that the nation that has more experience of the importance of sea power and naval strategy is throwing the country’s future into doubt. We do not have enough of a fleet to ensure sea lanes are kept open for food supply let alone project power. What I don’t understand is why politicians and the MoD lie about our capability. They are putting our country at risk. Apart that is from giving it to Blackrock