In response to a parliamentary question from Lord West of Spithead, former First Sea Lord and Labour peer, the government has addressed the feasibility of expediting the Type 45 Power Improvement Project (PIP), which aims to upgrade the propulsion systems of the Royal Navy’s advanced destroyers.
Lord Coaker, Minister of State for Defence, explained in a written response on 20 January 2025 that progress on the PIP programme is closely tied to the operational commitments of the Royal Navy.
“Completing the Type 45 Power Improvement Project (PIP) work is dependent on the availability of ships to undertake the upgrade, balanced against the Royal Navy’s (RN) current and future operational commitments,” he stated.
The Minister highlighted that the programme has already been optimised to accelerate delivery wherever possible. “PIP conversions have been aligned to the routine Class Upkeep cycle, which has been optimised where feasible to accelerate delivery and increase availability,” he explained.
Previously, only one Type 45 destroyer could undergo PIP work at any given time at HM Naval Base Portsmouth, but the updated approach now allows for multiple ships to be upgraded in parallel.
This shift in maintenance strategy has reportedly improved availability across the fleet, ensuring that the Royal Navy can continue to meet its operational obligations while modernising its capabilities. Lord Coaker affirmed: “Class availability is now maximised to ensure that the RN has been able to fulfil all its operational commitments.”
The PIP programme aims to address the reliability issues that have affected the Type 45 fleet’s propulsion systems, enhancing their resilience and operational readiness.
The decision to reduce the RN destroyer fleet from 12 to 6 has proved itself to be very, very poor. Who gets to be held accountable to that? How do lessons learned get corrected? Seriously, I’m at a loss to rationalise how we got into this state.
All questions to Labour, who were in power at the time.
One by-product of losing T45 and 8 was to see T26 accelerated. That worked out well.
Hard to say as the decision was also made to go for the best radar and overall design possible. We had 12 T42’s and they were all absolutely shit when they entered into service much less when they left.
Getting the very highest spec radar in the world and having the worlds first direct electric propulsion on T45 caused issues and was not cheap but the vessel still has loads of upgrade potential and now we can look at ABM capability.
Really I beg to differ as a T42 also made the first SAM intercept of an ASM and the system worked and they where worked very hard undertaking General duties they could also hunt and kill Subs. So do those of us that served on them a favour and stick your head back in the sand where it belongs.
They had a paltry magazine capacity in comparison to a lot of other AAW vessels of the time for one thing
I believe RIM-8s made the first SAM kills in Vietnam.
When T42 entered service it was a pretty hopeless package.
It wasn’t until Exeter with its much improved radar and software fit that Sea Dart worked as specified.
It was a big deal fixing software in those days with tiny amounts of memory storage and paper tape.
Later it did work a lot better still BUT it never got the last two sets of incremental improvements as the decision was made to push fowards with the predecessor to SAMPSON which ate that budget and ultimately the sensible decision to replatform onto what became T45.
T42 was very limited in self defence and a bigger top weight margin was needed to fix that than T42 could ever offer.
T42 had no problem to deal with Tu-95 and Backfires which was what was made for, it was not designed as an anti missile system.
Really, says he dryly.
One of us knows what it was supposed to do and the other does not.
Sea Dart was supposed to do a large range of things some of which it never did and some of which it did rather well.
It was always very clear from the Labour lead 97 defence review that 10 were needed as well as 20 frigates… essentially Labour never bothered to follow the review and essentially spent the money on the war on terror, cutting 3 frigates and 4 destroyers….the RN then helped the situation along bay refusing to decide what frigate it needed for well over a decade…and by the time they did they had pissed away around 3-400 million of pointless development costs…and doomed the RN to having to bay probably close to 1000 million on lifexs that lasted 6-7 years what is worse is by the time they decided and agreed what was ordered…Cameron came in and forced another 5 year development cycle as well as scrapping a further 4 frigates from the force…to were we are now…sadly all those years ago the RN had a very simple option of asking for 10 AAW type 45s and a further 20 ASW and GP T45 types….but their pursuit of the perfect frigate..tied in with the war on terror as well as the 2010 financial crash and a political class that saw no reason for a navy….to kill the surface fleet.
Nobody is ever held accountable.
Im sure thats the motto typed at the top of the job contract when becoming a politician.
“The Minister highlighted that the programme has already been optimised to accelerate delivery wherever possible. “PIP conversions have been aligned to the routine Class Upkeep cycle, which has been optimised where feasible to accelerate delivery and increase availability,” he explained.”
So how does that affect Daring which hasn’t been off the wall for seven years?
I’d acknowledge that Daring was so stripped of parts that she was not a good base point for an early conversion as whole systems will need to be rebuilt from scratch due to lack of at-sea use.
What this all points to is a frightening shortage of naval engineering talent. One of the issues is that the ship/sub builders are paying well for talent so are hoovering it from elsewhere. Only solution is to train more bodies but that is very, very long term as they won’t have enough experience to be of any use for years and years!
BAE have built dedicated training and education facilities to attract and train workers. It’s already paying off but you are absolutely correct, the skills we need are not easy to develop and take many years.
I applaud BAE and Babcock for training people: I really do.
I respect people who really can do trades like welding and high pressure pipe fitting as they are non trivial to learn.
It is also about having a large group of people onsite who ‘know what they are doing’ and can therefore spot, identify and flag errors by subcontractors. That level of early snafu spotting saves a lot of rework time and therefore money.
Geof Hoon made the decision to fit the WR-21 to Type45
Doubtless our current government want to forget that
Also doubtless the decision to only build 6
And the cut to six ships was justified by the force-multiplier effect of CEC….. which was then cancelled.
And to accelerate the start of the T26 programme, which was then delayed.
T45 7 & 8 being cut was because of the program costs increases.
There was money to buy 7 and half of 8 – something like that. BAE weren’t interested in building a single T45 but would have built two.
Alan West wanted to fit Mk41 VLS with the leftover cash – he has said that publicly.
The political decision was made to accelerate GCS.
Osborne clawed the GCS money away from RN and the T23 age out disaster is history.
WR21 had many advantages.
Unfortunately jet people didn’t understand the difference between a closed cycle and open cycle GT.
Closed cycle GTs are wonderfully efficient but don’t like rapid changes in power output.
AAW destroyers are required to sprint and manoeuvre hard which requires rapid changes in power.
WR21 was too honed for efficiency and didn’t have the ramp margins required and so hit thermal runaway in certain operating conditions.
This would not have been such an issue if the 3rd DGU had ever been fitted but it wasn’t….to save money…..not that it did because RR charge by the hour [airliner style] for sustaining the GTs…..so running on the newly fitted DGs will be far cheaper.
I was unaware Geoff Hoon designed the T45, Did he pick the cushion covers as well or just select the gas turbine powering it?
The WR21 was sold as a UK tech wiz bang world leading cutting edge [add buzzwords] job sustainer with export potential.
Like all these things politicians make some of the big directional decisions. WR21 was more expensive and when the decision was offered up I don’t think anyone thought he would go WR21 but the jobs and tech argument swung it.
History records it was not a good decision.
However, in Hoon’s defence [you won’t often hear me do that] it wasn’t suggested that the WR21 had these kind of risks attached to it.
Doubtless.
HMS Doubtless, that was to be the seventh, no doubt.
This article wold have had more value if it had included a quick context summary of the status of the PIP programme…
HMS Dauntless: The first Type 45 to undergo the PIP, HMS Dauntless completed the process in 2022.
HMS Daring: HMS Daring’s PIP conversion was completed in December 2022, and it returned to operations in January 2023.
HMS Dragon: HMS Dragon’s PIP conversion is complete?
HMS Defender: HMS Defender’s PIP rectification and SeaCeptor installation is due for completion in Summer 2026
HMS Diamond: HMS Diamond is about to endter the Drydock vacated by Defender for PIP and CIP
HMS Duncan: HMS Duncan is yet to undergo the PIP process.
Is that still correct?
Daring is still in refit. Maybe returning this year, Dragon is back doing work up. Duncan will probably stay out of PIP till daring is back
That would logical.
I think our posts crossed over..
“ HMS Daring: HMS Daring’s PIP conversion was completed in December 2022, and it returned to operations in January 2023.”
Nope – never was correct unless ‘operations’ involve a Pompey harbour wall!
Daring hasn’t done anything for seven long years.
I think it’s half right and the PIP was done.
Darings PiP wasn’t completed then. Much later.
It was completed more recently. And when we say completed I don’t think she moved under her own power. She may have done basin trials.
Uncertain whether Diamond is to replace Defender or Dragon in drydock. Probably a minor matter in the great arc of history. 🤔😉
I look forward to the first test firing of Sea Ceptor from a T45.
I switch off when I see the name WEST.
For very good reasons.
I read this headline and thought Sea Viper upgrades and Sea Ceptor, but we are still working on accelerating PIP. Working on accelerating the next 5 years of work would have more effect.
Believe that your stated logical grouping of upgrades has already been scheduled, beginning w/ refit of HMS (Diamond? or Duncan?). RN has begun the laborious process of transforming from a peacetime to prewar status service.
Going off the Topic guys just seen Trump on BBC news Saying NATO have to pay 5% on Defence .Don’t make me laugh 🤗 🤗🤗. Poor Starmer 🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗🤗 love to see is face .