At this year’s DSEI in London, BAE Systems presented concepts for two new classes of warship that together could change the way the Royal Navy fights at sea.
The designs, a Future Air Warfare Command Ship and a family of Deployed Sensor Effector Platforms (SEPs), are being framed as a response to crew shortages, tight budgets, and the need to put more missiles into the air more quickly. In short, they would provide mass.
It is important to note that these vessels aren’t being pitched as ‘Type 83’ by BAE Systems. Instead, these are concept demonstrators for future distributed air warfare. What is notable is that the scale and mission profile of the concepts match closely with what the Royal Navy may eventually seek in its next-generation air warfare destroyer project.
At their stand, infront of the models of the evssels, I spoke to Steve Hart & Gavin Rudgley from BAE Systems about the problem their offering solves.
What’s on offer
The command ship would host the primary radar, the command function, and the ability to control smaller, distributed ships. “The air warfare command ship would be the ship that carries the main sensor capability, so the main radar, and has the command function that can identify targets and make effectors work, so missiles and so on,” explained Gavin Rudgley.
It would also carry a heavy armament. The design allows for up to 128 missiles, with additional space and power margins for directed energy weapons, decoys, automatic cannons and deployable drones. Although I’m keen to avoid ‘Top Trumps’ and point out here that this would entirely depend on the customer and what they want to do, the option is there.
Crewing is a major shift compared with today’s destroyers. BAE says the command ship is being designed for much less than 100 personnel, enabled by automation and redesigned internal systems.
I was told that one of the key lessons from Type 26 was the cost and complexity driven by its very demanding anti-submarine warfare role. For the larger air warfare variant, many of those requirements would be stripped back.
BAE explained: “A lot of the complexity in the platform is driven by the underwater radiated noise requirements. You don’t necessarily need that in an air warfare ship. What you can do is then take a more focused look on survivability… reduce your shock requirements to only the habitable areas, reduce your accommodation. So your accommodation is only working for the people that crew the platform. It gives you an overall cost improvement on the platform.”
In short, the larger design builds on the Type 26 family, but with the acoustic quieting, sonar and shock hardening pared away, producing a more affordable and mission-focused air defence ship.
The Sensor Effector Platform
If the command ship is the brain, the Deployed Sensor Effector Platform is the muscle. The concept is a 100m trimaran. Why a trimaran? I was told, “It has good sea keeping, low resistance so it gets good speed on low power, and it has the space and the deck area in the right configuration,” BAE explained.
Each SEP would carry 32 vertical launch cells, its own radar and guns, with options to containerise a towed sonar array for anti-submarine work. “So you’ve got enough room for the silos, couple of guns, bridge updates down, flight deck, and then you’ve got the aft deck. So that’s when we started thinking, well, there’s maybe not just air warfare. You could actually use this deployed sensor effector platform [for] ASW as well as air warfare.”
What was notable was that the platform is highly modular. As BAE told me, “a towed array, it can get fitted, containerised at the aft end… The inclusion of a towed array doesn’t actually interfere in the design with the inclusion of the VLS.” In practice, the same approach could be used to plop down containers carrying uncrewed air, surface or subsurface systems, giving the ship flexibility to shift roles between air defence, anti-submarine warfare or force support without altering the core hull.
Crewing is minimal: “Ultra-lean crew, six to twelve, potentially fully autonomous,”. Accommodation, if fitted, would be to commercial standards and removable in wartime.
Build times and industrial capacity
Speed of delivery is central to the SEP concept. BAE expects the vessel to be achievable in around two years. Referring to the design onw hich the hull form is based, I was told “the design period before we cut steel was about 12 months, less than that, and it was not a complex ship. Aside from the military fit, the ship itself… two diesel generators, single motor, full electric propulsion. Not a complex ship,” BAE explained. “The design time for the ship and the build time for the ship, less than one year to design, less than two years for build.”
Because the hull is closer to a commercial vessel than a full warship, BAE suggests it could be built in other UK yards, not just Govan or Scotstoun, with the company itself focusing on systems integration. “It would be of a more merchant ship style of manufacture… so you get your accommodation on it, for example, you can do to commercial standards. And then when you go to a point of war, you remove the people, and then you don’t have to necessarily have the same level of hotel services and survivability you need to have in a warship.”
The command ship, by contrast, would rely heavily on the investments already made in Glasgow. “The investment in facilities in Govan and Scotstoun are really the enabler for us,” BAE said, pointing to the Janet Harvey Hall and digital upgrades already supporting Type 26 production. The expectation is that lessons from the second batch of Type 26s will bring down build times for the command ship as well.
BAE sees capacity as a mix of dedicated facilities and enterprise partners. “We work quite closely with enterprise models where we have bottlenecks and we have pinch points,” the team explained. That could see yards like Cammell Laird, Ferguson Marine or Harland & Wolff take on block or hull work, keeping BAE’s main lines focused on high-end assembly.
Working together as a system
The crucial element is integration. The command ship would control four to six SEPs, directing their sensors and missiles through a shared combat and communications architecture. “We’re looking at interpreting the platform management system, combat management system, integration system and the comms system such that an operator can sit at a console on the command ship and eventually have… control over all the ship systems, directional control, the sensors and the effectors of the deployed sensor-effector platform,” I was told.
That distributed layout is intended to solve a tactical problem: how to maintain a high rate of fire against saturation raids. “It’s not the number of missiles, it’s how fast you can fire them into the air at the same time. If you put all your missiles in one silo, that limits how many you can direct fire. If you have multiple silos on different platforms, the rate of fire goes up, and that’s quite critical to the air warfare capability.”
It also reduces vulnerability by avoiding the concentration of effectors in a single hull.
Spiral development
BAE repeatedly stressed that this is not a single “big bang” replacement for Type 45, but a path of incremental steps. “Incremental spiral development, progressive transition into the future air warfare capability… it’s about delivering additional mass,” I was told.
That could mean deploying SEPs alongside existing destroyers first: “That could be a deployed sensor-effector platform for a Type 45 before it becomes the same for a future air warfare command ship. So you’re progressively increasing the air warfare capability of the Navy in a controlled manner, rather than waiting for a big bang and changing platform.”
Solving the problem
At its heart, the problem is one of numbers. The Royal Navy needs more missiles and more sensors at sea, but the traditional answer, new classes of large, complex destroyers, takes too long, costs too much, and demands too many sailors. I was told, “What this does is it gives you an ability to put more missiles to sea quickly, to move them apart from where your most central command platform is, so you’re less reliant on a single unit, and it allows you to then increase your effective radius, to give a greater layer protection of the force.”
This is not about magazine depth, the point is rate of fire. Modern air raids, as seen in Ukraine and the Middle East, involve large numbers of simultaneous threats. BAE’s point is that dispersing silos across multiple hulls is the only way to increase salvo size. “It’s not just the number of missiles, it’s how fast you can fire them into the air at the same time”.
I cannot stress this enough, but in my view, this represents a fundamental shift from thinking about destroyers as single points of defence.
The concepts also tackle the Navy’s manpower problem head-on. With recruitment targets missed frequently, lean-crewed designs are a necessity. By targeting fewer than 100 crew for the command ship, and as few as six for the SEP, BAE is offering a path to grow firepower without demanding a parallel surge in personnel.
Perhaps most importantly, these designs are achievable. They build on proven Type 26 architecture, strip away unnecessary complexity for air defence, and exploit UK shipyard investments already underway. The SEPs, derived from the Triton trimaran, are deliberately simple hulls that could be built in commercial yards in two years.
The command ship would flow naturally from Govan’s modernised production line. In an era of constrained budgets and crew shortages, that makes the pairing of a command ship and SEPs arguably the most credible solution currently on the table for the Royal Navy’s future air warfare requirement.
Future Air Warfare Command Ship
- Length: ~150–160m (depending on variant)
- Missiles: up to 128 VLS cells
- Other weapons: lasers, decoys, automatic cannons, drones
- Crew: potentially fewer than 100
- Role: carries main radar and command function, controls SEPs
- Build: lessons from Type 26 would give it a much reduced build time
Deployed Sensor Effector Platform (SEP)
- Length: ~100m, beam ~20m
- Hull form: trimaran
- Missiles: 32 VLS cells
- Other fits: guns, radar, containerised towed array, uncrewed systems
- Crew: 6–12, potentially uncrewed
- Build time: two years
- Role: distributed missile/sensor carrier, controlled by command ship
Disclaimer: Figures for missile load, crew size and build time are illustrative, drawn from BAE Systems’ concept briefings at DSEI 2025. Final specifications will depend on customer requirements and programme choices.
This really looks like the future, what would be the cost of a sep i wonder?
gtheyd be more like a missile corvette/sloop. id hope the final design would allow f fast production in reasonable numbers.
So, BAE are gunning for what many had already predicted – not a >10,000 ton multirole cruiser, but a cheaper, light combatant more in the vein of the current Type 45. Mass can then be made up with unmanned systems.
This approach has the advantages of being cheaper, easier to crew, faster to produce, whilst offering equivalent capability. But it relies on the RN, MoD and perhaps most importantly the Treasury embracing the entire system. Much akin to the issues that plagued the Type 45 programme, this approach could be vulnerable to a steady whittling down of its scope due to economic pressures. I worry that this approach will not lead to distributed lethality, but rather a watered down RN vulnerable to budget cuts.
The primary problem with the T45 procurement were the massive cost overruns per ship – and understandably the Treasury wanted to cap costs to within the original overall project budget – Keeping on top of cost growth whatever is ordered is the key to maintaining the programme as planned.
I agree. Part of the process must be honesty and accountability from BAE and Babcock with regards to the costing of their proposals. Similarly, the MoD must ensure that contracts are signed and that the design is frozen as soon as it is suitable.
If looks right, it is right. This looks awful. Enough said.
I don’t mind it really, it has the same aesthetic as a lot of the 2000s-era GCS concepts with the fully enclosed bridge and flush deck.
We have to wait for the s…… To hit the fan as always .British history shows this and it’s a trend… Problem is in 1939 we still had lots of Ww1 cruisers and destroyers….. Now….. Well God help us….
That’s my view people on here will say AI will fix it all but that is bollocks.
We need ships and men making decisions at the right time.
I just don’t get it. The solution to lack of hills and crew is to build something that is in reality a mini destroyer which has never been proven by anyone to be autonomous.
The much simpler solution is combine the leaner crew of newer vessels, they magazines of the rest of the taskforce, and the deck space of the replenishment ships and MRSS. All enabled by cooperative capability.
Fine to have very small, attributable drones, to extend the sensor envelope beyond the horizon or decoy or shadow or jam the enemy. But any task group in a high threat environment is going to have multiple crewed hulls with several magazines and flat deck space.
CBG will need at least two destroyers, two ASW frigates, and ideally two GP frigates, plus decks of the store ship and oiler.
ASW taskforce will need AAW area cover, but have it’s own magazines and replenishment alongside. Just tag a type 31 or two on.
Amphib taskforce will need type 26, 45/83 and tag on a couple of type 31 for magazine depth and some containerised missiles on the MRSS or replenishment vessels.
When would a type 83 not be accompanying other navy vessels with magazines, radar, point defence, deck space? It is not the offensive vessel. What is it providing area air defence for?
Stunning.
Triton lives again.
Again !
No surprise. It had many useful features and was ahead of its time I believe?
Haven’t a clue about any of that but I do remember reading something that said It was rejected as a hull form option for future frigates after much testing and evaluation.
So I guess it was not that bad given the statement about It’s sea keeping in the article.
Funny thing was, it was It’s Sea Keeping that seemed to be the Issue way back then.
Of Course I’m totally wrong because I’m no “Ship Designer”.
Now the question is, will BAE use Triton itself for the prototype? That would become a remarkable career.
Ha, good thought.
I remember hearing that the T45 is so noisy the Russians can hear them without having to leave port. I wouldn’t fancy serving on a T45 with a torpedo in the water. Oh, I forgot. The T45 hasn’t got much of a sonar either, so you wouldn’t know it’s coming. Guess it aligns with government policy. Blissfully unaware and happy to save the cash.
The Type 45’s do have a basic Sonar set that to all intents and purposes is inactive. On the plus side, post PIP refits they may actually be a lot quieter than many would expect.
Faster, leaner and more powerful…. That was me in my 20s…
Please don’t give the MOD any more options! They can’t cope with what’s in front of them now. Every new idea will simply add five years to the in-service date of something (anything).
What utter nonsense
Time will tell.
So the SEP is a bigger version than the PLANs JARI-USV-A.
I sort of like the idea especially if the SEP can be used as a patrol vessel as well.. being able to have the shipping container means it could carry the autonomous mine warfare systems, sub surface drone etc. having a patrol fleet that can immediately transition to a high risk peer war environment would be very efficient.
I get the concept, basically a loyal wingman for ships, but I still don’t see how these optional crewed vessels will work in a war. They will have to be fairly large to be able to stay with the “mothership” in heavy seas. But, if you are considering removing all the crew when some fighting starts, then who will do the vessel’s fire fighting, battle damage repair etc. So now you’ve built a fairly large and expensive vessel, that has a 32 cell VLS farm, where each weapon is at least £1M a pop. And expecting to use it as an attritable asset, just doesn’t sit right with me.
There are a number of factors of the Future Air Warfare Command Ship, that I believe aren’t correct. The primary one is the radar mast, which is very much in keeping with the Hunter class. But instead of a hexagonal mast, looks to be a four sided mast, where each face has a set of fixed phased array panels fitted. The larger one could be either a L or S band frequency panel. Whilst the smaller could be S, C or X band.
The T45 operates two primary radar systems, the L-band S1850M passive electronically scanned array (PESA). Along with the Sampson S-band, which is an active electronically scanned array (AESA), that uses two panels mounted high on the mast, mechanically rotating, but fitted back to back. The S1850M is a long range volume search radar, whilst the Sampson can do volume search, but is mostly used for target identification and tracking. Meaning the S1850M is predominantly looking up from the horizon towards low earth orbit altitudes. Whilst Sampson is looking at the sea towards the horizon and then upwards. As an S-band radar has a much better chance of detecting a sea skimming missile against choppy seas, as well as tracking it heading towards the ship.
Radar that uses electronic beam forming to control the scanning in azimuth and elevation, generally have a +/-60 degrees field of view limit in azimuth and a +/-45 degrees field of view limit in elevation. The min and max are taken either side from the panel’s centre boresight. Which is why the T45’s S1850M is tilted back to probably 30 degrees. Giving it an elevation capability of around 75 degrees. Otherwise if it wasn’t tilted, most of the capability would be lost as the beam will be looking at the sea. Lower frequency radars are pretty rubbish at finding objects against the sea’s background, especially when the sea is choppy. Sampson is also tilted back, but it is expected to look for anything that pops over the horizon, but also be capable of tracking that threat heading towards the ship against a choppy sea. So compared to the S1850M, it will have a much closer to the ship minimum view angle.
If we said that the radar panels in the above image operated over the same frequencies as the S1850M and the Sampson. Where the larger panel was L-band and the smaller was S band, then there is a problem! The larger panel is almost upright, meaning its ability to look up is severely restricted. Whilst the smaller panel is tilted to what looks over 30 degrees. Meaning it will stop tracking objects after they’ve popped over the horizon, as the beam won’t be able to depress far enough.
The other issue is that something like a single Spear-3 type weapon, would have the capability of taking out both of ship’s primary radars. As a strike to the mast has a good chance of damaging both radars systems.
To me the ship is lacking in kinetic firepower. The 57mm and 40mm weapons it has are too close range, unless the DARPA MAD-FIRES does see the light of day! It needs the ability to engage at a further stand-off distance, especially when dealing with a swarm of suicide drones for example. My solution would be the 5″ Mk45. As the USN are currently developing anti-air rounds for the weapon, specifically to counter drones. There would be no development cost as the rounds would be MOTS. But if considering BAe’s guided hypervelocity projectile (HVP) that is undergoing trials again with the USN. It has the ability to intercept air targets at 30 nautical miles (56km). Which is further than what is being quoted for CAMM-ER, but at significantly less cost and will have a much greater magazine depth.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the 57mm is still a good weapon system, but it should not be the primary gun system, but the middle layer. Additionally I would prefer that the ship had two of them rather than one, located so they gave an all round field of fire. Leaving the pair of 40s for the leakers and other smaller targets.
But there’s one key thing I think the ship is missing or not mentioned, which is a much larger hangar! For the role that this ship will conduct, the hangar should be sized to accommodate one medium sized crewed helicopter and at least 3 uncrewed VTOL aircraft. Much like the deployed sensor effector platforms (DSEPs), these uncrewed aircraft fitted with radar, ESM and EO turrets, would be used for extending the ship’s radar and visual horizon. Giving the ship an organic AEW capability, which would allow the ship to engage targets beyond the ship’s radar horizon. This is especially important when the ship is operating either on its own or is providing escort duty to merchantmen and amphibious ships, when there’s no carrier around. If the platform is similar in size to Leonardo’s Proteus with a 8 to 10 hour duration, then the ship will need at least 3, where one is flying, one is ready to fly and can take over to let the other return to the ship once on station, whilst the third is a reserve or could be used for other types of tasking. Proteus in its prototype guise has the ability to lift about 1000kg in payload. It could quite easily carry a pair of Leonardo Osprey/Thales Searchmaster ASEA radars, mounted back to back, that are mechanically rotated. Giving a potential detection capability out to 200 miles (370km). It should also be able to power them, when Thales quotes Seamaster only requires 2.4kVA to operate.
I feel that the RN are searching for the golden bullet, rather than concentrating on getting the basics right. As in, get the T83 so it can fully operate on its own without the DSEPs. Then include the DSEPs as an added bonus.
RE radars, are you suggesting that the better way round would be to have the mast be concave, where the lower search radars have a greater angle than the higher ones? And possibly also a system like the earlier BAE T83s, where the search radars are distributed around the upper superstructure? As an extreme form, I once saw a fan-concept of a CEAFAR fit where the usual hexagonal mast was split up into two triangular masts opposed by 180 degrees (to combine into hexagonal coverage) and placed in each of the radar mast slots on AH140. Always thought that would be a neat way of doing T83.
To try to understand the thinking behind BAe ships would need to know the RN CONOPS, understand if defending large area, UK, against MRBMs such as the new Russian ~5,000 km Oreshnik Mach 10 plus with six MIRV warheads you would be looking something similar to the Japanese 16,000t plus ASEV destroyers to give it the necessary stability for its large SPY-7 radar, there is no so substitute for raw power for radar range as the fourth-order range law is applicable because the electromagnetic signal travels a round trip, with the power decaying as the square of the distance for both the outbound and return paths and you would be needing similar long range missiles as the SM-6 and SM-3.
Would have thoughtif the RN CONOPS is only for point defence of fleet from fast/hypersonic maneuvering missiles that could come in possibly at much lower altitude, with a radar horizon for a sea base radar to an attacking target missile at 40k feet the radar range is only roughly 50 miles and would require a faster new gen Aster 30B1NT type missile whose range perhaps be only 30 km against fast flying hypersonic missiles might be suitable?
The Sensor Effector Ship is very much in accord with the First Sea Lord’s speech, right the way down to the two year timescale, just missing the decoys the General spoke about. It’s almost as though 1SL knew in advance…. It will be interesting to see if it’s already deal-done behind the scenes while CDS was Navy, or if the new 1SL will have to try to get a fast spend on a new ship design past Knighton and Healey. Jenkins has a reputation as a shrewd government operator. Would he have announced getting one of these if it wasn’t already on the nod? Just one of course.
Whether BAES can deliver if they get the order is a different question, relying on commercial shipyards.
The vulnerable part of the system is going to be the comms link between vessels.
This is an interesting concept and one that could be using the T45’s until the Master Destroyer (?) comes to be built.
If I remember in 1945 the US Pacific fleet was beginning to look something like this with picket destroyers out in front. Also I think the Master Destroyer could be used as a Fast Transport with all that space and a very small crew carrying workshops and spares maybe other stuff.
Bread bin radar looks odd I must say.
“ The SEPs, derived from the Triton trimaran, are deliberately simple hulls that could be built in commercial yards in two years”
Given CSD says two years for the first in it is a fair assumption that Triton is the trials unit?
Otherwise BAE are saying three years – one design and two build…..
Listening to those with a lot of knowledge on these things I am heading towards having a bigger cheaper mother ship that we can have an elevated radar on. More elevation = greater distance of operation. Bigger the ship, more strike length silos mk57 instead of mk41.
Perhaps even a tethered radar
CEC is a must have
The ability to sustain its loyal missile ships with fuel and potentially containerised replenishment.
So we are looking at something like the proposed strike concept but without multiple helicopter a single chinook size deck and some RAS