Royal Navy general-purpose frigates will play a central role in the UK’s emerging Atlantic Bastion concept for defending the North Atlantic, according to a written parliamentary answer from Defence Minister Al Carns.
Responding to questions from Labour MP Luke Akehurst, Carns said the ships will continue to provide maritime presence and security tasks while integrating with new autonomous systems. “Within the Atlantic Bastion concept, Royal Navy general-purpose frigates will continue to play an important role in providing maritime presence, patrol, escort and reassurance tasks,” Carns said.
He added that the vessels will also act as adaptable platforms capable of working alongside emerging uncrewed technologies. “[They will] also act as flexible platforms able to integrate with uncrewed systems,” he said.
Carns noted that the scale and pace of capability upgrades associated with the concept have not yet been finalised. “The exact pace and scale of capability enhancements delivered through Atlantic Bastion will be determined through the Defence Investment Plan.”
In response to a separate question from Akehurst on international cooperation, Carns confirmed that the UK has already discussed the concept with several key North Atlantic allies. “The Secretary of State for Defence and First Sea Lord have engaged with counterparts and senior officials from Canada, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands on the Atlantic Bastion concept,” he said.
These discussions have taken place through bilateral contacts and multilateral forums, including NATO defence ministerial meetings and working groups focused on the North Atlantic.
“The UK will continue to work closely with these Allies to ensure the North Atlantic remains secure and resilient.”
That doesn’t read wuite right? Shouldn’t it be “ASW Frigates”, ie the T23/T26s that will be whats primariy used in the Atlantic Bastion? And “General Purpose frigates”, ie the T31s that will be primarily used for “maritime presence, patrol, escort and reassurance tasks” which sounds very like “non-Atlantic-Bastion” and likely for operations in other regions? If there were a few more T31s ordered maybe they could then be spread more widely.
*quite
At least 5 more frigates are needed.
When will all this happen, umm 2031 like every thing else?
Yep that’s probably when they defence investment plan comes out.
Hopefully t31s will have been given some ASW capabilities by then as they currently are slated to be the new Bacchante class and therefore floating coffins as we’ve just seen off the coast of Sri Lanka
I think that is where drones will make the future different..l essentially your capability will be in the drone companions.. the frigate becomes essentially your mother hen and brain. The sword and shield will be the drones… stick your sensors on a couple of drone platforms as well as your kinetic effectors and you frigate essentially is your brains and stores to keep them all running.. your frigate needs to do is hide well, while the drones hunt kill and take the hits. A 21c frigate will not be one ship it will be a small fleet of vessels,
some good points. I’d be concerned that unless the mother hen is sufficiently equipped for defensive and offensive action then she becomes a centre of gravity. The host frigate needs to be a formidable asset and not a sitting duck – especially in the anti-submarine role?
To be honest.. I think air defence is the big one.. ASW work has always been about distributed sensor and kinetic platforms.. you don’t send your frigate to kill an SSN unless you want a dead frigate… what does ASW need..
1) good long range passive sensor capability.. so you know an SSN is in the area.. but that does not need to be on the frigate.. it’s just traditionally you had to have the tail on the frigate.. but why not stick it on a a drone ship it does not reduce the effectiveness of this capability.. infact it makes it more effective as you can have two one can drift and Listen as the other jogs into position ( one of the weaknesses of any ASW frigates listening is when it needs to quickly change position.. it’s why you can’t do ASW and AAW at the same time)
2) fix and track that ability to fix that contact… for this you want multiple sensors and you may need to use active sensors.. you need to move quickly and be closer to the SSN.. if the frigate tried to do this it’s essentially going to kill itself. Which is why small ship flights are core to ASW.
3) kinetic… launching the weapon.. you want to get it there quickly as soon as you have the fix and track part of the kill chain.. again your not sending your frigate.. small ship flights ( drone) are fast and risk free ways of delivering.. or you can use an ASW missile.. but these are all limited 20km range.. and your being attacked yourself if an SSN is within 20km.. so any frigate based ASW kinetic weapon is essentially the ASW version of a CIWS.
Essentially the Drones are the ASW defence of the frigate.. and you could probably make them a more effective defence than a single ASW frigate on its tod would ever have with its own towed array and single small ship flight… those 2 1000-2000 ton companions to a T31 would each have a towed array.. to allow constant loiter.. the T31 and both drones would have small ship flights ( so a medium rotor and 3-4 smaller ASW rotor drones).. that’s well beyond what any single ASW frigate could sustain.
What I would give the T31 it is a hull sonar, as well as some ASW weapons in its future MK41 silos.. just incase it gets ambushed by an electric boat or sub surface drones in enclosed seas…
What I do think is everyone is clicked onto the fact airborne drones now mean attrition air warfare is a thing again.. but they have forgotten that our sub surface kinetic effector are even more geared to very small numbers of high end targets than our AAW systems were ( we expected 10s of missiles.. but we only expect 1-2 submarines).. in a world of attrition sub surface drones we are going to need lots of sub surface effectors for low end sub surface attacks.. ( it would not surprise me if ASW rockets don’t make a comeback on frigates or drones)
Probably worth adding the context of the question
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what role general-purpose frigates within the Royal Navy will have following the development of the Atlantic Bastion concept.”
The full response was
“Within the Atlantic Bastion concept, Royal Navy general‑purpose frigates will continue to play an important role in providing maritime presence, patrol, escort and reassurance tasks, while also acting as flexible platforms able to integrate with uncrewed systems. The exact pace and scale of capability enhancements delivered through Atlantic Bastion will be determined through the Defence Investment Plan.
The Secretary of State for Defence and First Sea Lord have engaged with counterparts and senior officials from Canada, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands on the Atlantic Bastion concept through a range of bilateral and multilateral forums, including NATO Defence Ministerial meetings and North Atlantic-focused working groups. The UK will continue to work closely with these Allies to ensure the North Atlantic remains secure and resilient.”
The question was by a Labour MP.. which means it’s a friendly question, so the government wanted the role of the the GP frigate highlighted as valid in the Atlantic bastion concept.
So what I take from it…
1) Presence, clearly they have started to recognise that you cannot just fill up the Atlantic with a load of autonomous platforms without Presence..and presence means a frigate with a crew, a small ship flight, a commanding officer who can make decisions on the spot etc.
2) escort.. there would need to be some form of escort capability in Atlantic bastion again that needs a crewed platform…
3) reassurance.. I suspect this means they acknowledge that human beings will not psychologically see autonomous platforms in the same way as a crewed major surface combatant .. and I think you can flip this coin because the other side of reassurance is deterrence.. and I suspect they really mean deterrent when they say reassurance.
So I think from the the MOD many just be acknowledging that a physical presence major surface combatant.. that is not an ASW combatant may be a requirement component of a group of ASW drones..
Could it be that autonomous drones are actually the end of the need for high end ASW and AAW platforms in large numbers.. and the future is a cheap as chips large GP mother hen frigate… to guard and control the Drones that do the AAW and ASW…
It would be interesting because in the future maybe that frigates role is sculpted not so much on the systems it has but on the drones it’s paired up with, the drone control centre you pop in its mission bay and the specific expertise you add to the crew.. yes you would still want a few specific specialists as the centre piece of your CBG or amphibious group AAW screen or ASW screen.. but the bulk of your crewed escorts and surface groups become mother hens..
More and more you can see a world in which a T31 type escort becomes the normal..
1) heavy gun armament to manage all the huge numbers of airborne drones
2) a big mission bay to take whatever drone command and control you need as well as take some small drones for littoral work.
3) a small crew that you add specialists to depending on the drone ships it’s paired with.
4) specialist capabilities held within the drones that accompany it.
Clever monkeys would be looking at these drone companions to be large enough to have a flight deck for a medium rotor, bridge and some crew accommodation so you can have an optional 5-10 crew.. allowing traditional patrol and monitoring functions as well as easy repair and foreign port visits, that would mean mother hen T31 in normal times can just be in the region and not actually holding its hand within the radar horizon at all times.
The final interesting point is the purposeful mention of allies even through that was not in the question.. this was information added to the response for the purpose of adding it into the formal response ( this is always done with purpose ) or more importantly allies not mentioned. As a NATO activity around securing the Atlantic traditionally you would expect such a comment to include all NATO allies.. but no only specific Nations Canada, Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands.. not France and the US.. that is more than interesting as it tells of geostrategic split within NATO even on concept developments as something as fundamentally important as security of the Atlantic.. this is following a theme we are seeing in NATO the U.S. going off verbally attacking NATO nations, going off on its own to attack who the hell it wants across the globe and Europe not following.. France throwing essentially its entire navy into the eastern med and western Indian Ocean to really flex its muscles in that region without any regard for the fact it will not have any operational ships in the Atlantic or high north region, Italy very clearly telling everyone that will listen its a meditation navy..
So that little message there tells me Canada, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands and the UK are starting to feel that the high north may be their ball to sort out and others may not play well.. the US has clearly said it’s doing what the hell it wants and screw everyone, France has shown its main priority will alway be the med, Africa and the Middle East. Italy is staying home, Spain is simply not playing and who knows with Germany.. but I think their intergenerational European land war trauma has been triggered a bit.. so they may just do a turtle by building a big army and airforce, very much the same with Poland… so I don’t think we are getting much deep Co-operation from anyone apart from Canada the Dutch and Vikings when it comes to securing our seas.
Best analysis I’ve seen on here for a long time!
Chapeau.
Which makes more sense of the Mk41 comment wrt USN the other day.
Senior USN will be worried that not bottling up The Bear would be a major mistake so I’m pretty sure that USN will be helping out in any way they can to see RN regenerate.
Yep I agree, the USN have a lot of MK41 silos as their number of platforms reduces.. if you can flog them to an ally even MAGA dogma politics will allow the USN to do that.
May also be the units ordered for the Cancellation Class frigates….
Full strike length won’t fit into the coast guard cutters as the hull isn’t big enough.
I doubt wonder why MoD are being so coy about this…..what is fitted to T31 will be obvious from the first time they are noted alongside.
I saw it slightly differently, but your reading may well be correct. I read it as: despite Atlantic Bastion, there will still be a role for presence frigates and motherships. In other words: elsewhere.
Hi Jon, for me it was the “ Within the Atlantic Bastion concept, Royal Navy general‑purpose frigates will continue to play an important role in providing maritime presence, patrol, escort and reassurance tasks“ essential the “Within” shows its very much part of the concept of the bastion and not external to it.
I think we may see a profound change in focus to the RN as a profoundly Atlantic and high north navy.. with its east of suez presence being SSNs and 2 yearly CBG.. we will need to see how the Middle East shakes out.. the RN can no longer be everywhere and now all the key oceans are becoming equally deadly and geostrategically risky.. I’m not sure we are in a world you can play low level presence anymore, unless it’s in your own or a close allies EEZ.
I think the low level presence mission i.e B2 River class only makes sense in the Falklands, South Pacific and UK territorial waters. Everything else needs air and missile defence which means a T31 or better.
I just wonder whether the RN is treating AB as their over-arching strategy for the next two decades, and so, every piece must fit within that strategy, whether they intend to field those pieces in the North Atlantic or not.
Yes it would be cogent with how the RN essentially operated in the 70s and 80s.. everything had its core purpose as part of fighting the Soviet Union in the north and Atlantic.. but with an eye to wider global deployment options so it was still there.
In the end if your going to take the fight into the high north you need a carrier battle group and an amphibious group with high end AAW ASW and SSNs.. but that same capability means you can turn up in a peer war anywhere on the planet..
For the wider Atlantic bastion you need a lot of escorts and ASW presence vessels.. but at the same time these can be used for supporting keeping any shipping lane anywhere open if needed.
Yeah, this is what I gathered. Atlantic Bastion is a static system at its core, and so deployments beyond the North Atlantic will require conventional frigates to cover, be they air defence or anti-submarine focussed.
Great post and reading here mate.
Interesting article. Expectation management for the DIP. I interpret the response to mean that going forward, T31 will be the ‘workhorse’ of the RN. Arrowhead 140 is a generous sized hull. It looks like the vision of ‘GP’ is to exploit T31 for multiple roles; patrol frigate, escort, Bastion drone co-ordinator. The weapons fit, crew and mission bay configuration will be selected per the deployment. The only ‘fixtures’ will be the guns and Mk41s. The roles might even stretch to mini MRSS if we decide we don’t want an Ellida or big ‘strike’ LPD.
A follow on order for Babcock looks very likely – at least 3 – specification tba.
While drones are vital for MCM they are limited in their ASW capabilities. The purpose of an ASW platform is primarily to tow a large sonar and provide sufficient compute and power to make it functional.
Anything powerful enough to do that will be large and expensive and if it’s large and expensive and operating thousands of miles away in hostile conditions then it needs to be manned. If it’s also armed then you basically built a frigate.
T26 is expensive though. The UK needs a new tier of frigate between T26 (which is more like a destroyer) and a T31. Something like the T32 designed to operate more drones than a T31 but have less guns and less missiles. It should have the same noise reduction capability as the Polish version of arrowhead 140 and the ability to operate CAPTAS 2 sonar. The perfect vessel for operating in the North Sea and Atlantic as part of NATO maritime groups.
The royal navy operating three frigates at the same time (T23,T22,T21) was pretty standard until recently.
Atlantic Bastion should focus on large arrays of cheap sea gliders as well as fixed sea bed sensors. Any drones should probably be operated as part of a task group with some form of mother ship (T32).
Type 32 should be funded in the DIP even if it’s at the expense of the MRSS.