UK engineering firm STS Defence has secured a contract from Rohde & Schwarz Australia to provide integrated main communications masts for the Royal Australian Navy’s Hunter class frigates.
The deal covers two masts for each of the first three frigates in the programme, with the first ship-set due for delivery in 2028. All masts will be built in the UK before being shipped to Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia for installation.
STS Defence is the design authority for the masts, a role awarded after completing scoping, risk reduction and detailed design work that led to Lloyd’s certification. The design draws on the masts fitted to the Royal Navy’s Type 26 frigates, which share the same Global Combat Ship pedigree as the Hunter class.
According to STS Defence, the masts will carry a variety of antennas to provide line-of-sight communications across multiple frequency bands, along with masthead navigation lights. Composite isolation screens will separate different frequency bands to reduce interference.
Mainstay Marine Solutions in Pembroke Dock, Wales, will manufacture and assemble the mast structures before shipment to Australia.
“This is a flagship programme for STS Defence which showcases our technology, design and integration capabilities,” said Ben Stancliffe, the company’s managing director. “We are immensely proud to be providing this mission critical system to one of the most advanced warships in the world.”
Rohde & Schwarz Australia managing director Gareth Evans said STS Defence’s expertise was essential to the project’s success. “Their expertise in the design and manufacture of high-quality communications masts will be essential in ensuring the success of this program,” he said.
The Hunter class frigates are being built by BAE Systems Australia under a £35 billion programme to deliver nine anti-submarine warfare vessels based on the UK’s Type 26 design.
fairly sure the Hunter class was reduced from 9 to 6 ships
Not surprised if they cost £4 Billion each !
I think the figures quoted in £ should be in AUS$. Still works out at nearly £2 billion each though, which seems a bit steep for a frigate.
A new rendering of the Hunter class was released recently – they’re not lookers to put it mildly
Ref to the new rendering?
A good win for STS Defence, though expect it might be only ~ 10% of the Rhode & Schwartz contract, R & S seem to have a very good reputation for their electronics.
With the selection of 11 Mogami (so called Tier 2) frigates for the RAN, the fear is that the Hunter Class may enter a cost/capability/delivery ‘death spiral’.
The decision by the RAN to procure a Tier 2 frigate has already seen the Hunter program cut from 9 to 6 hulls putting upward pressure on unit costs.
There is little doubt the Hunter Class is technically superior as an ASW platform and with the Aegis/Ceafar combination as an air warfare platform.
However in some quarters (media) there are already new questions being asked about the value of the Hunter Class given the superficial similarities with the Mogami class. The risk is that this could translate into political pressures for the Hunter program.
Both Hunter and Mogami have:
32 cell strike length VLS (ESSM, SM2, SM6, Tomahawk)
8 NSM
5 inch deck gun
Torpedoes
AESA radar
Hull mounted sonar
Provision for towed array sonar
Hangar for Seahawk Romeo with dipping sonar
But the Mogami has:
Half the crew at 90 (downside for damage control but upside for recruitment and crewing)
Greater range (10,000 nm vs 7,000 nm)
SeaRAM CWIS (Phalanx deleted from Hunter?)
Lower cost per hull and more rapid production rates
A production rate (in Japanese shipyards) of less than 3 years (first ship 2.5 years from keel laying to commissioning anticipated 18 months for later hulls) compares to a projected 4+ years for Hunter and 8 years for first of class HMS Glasgow with and a planned 5 years for the rest of the T26 program.
The Mitsubishi yard has already slotted the RAN ships into its JMSDF production schedule.
The $10 billion cost for first 3 hulls (includes an assumed at least $1 billion for upgrades to the Henderson yard in Western Australia) so cost estimate for Japanese build Mogami is around $3 billion compared to the Hunter at an average of $6.4 billion per hull.
Given the competition from the Mogami it is understandable that BAE have developed an ‘up-gunned ‘ version with additional VLS cells (96 cells total) and double NSM loadout (it has the tonnage to allow for the growth but could run into top weight issues and further design delays).
So hopefully the appeal of a simplistic equation of a ship with the ‘same capabilities’ with half the crewing costs, for half the production cost delivered in half the time doesn’t gain traction.
the 8 years for HMS Glasgow isn’t really relevant. as the time scale was UK treasury driven