Royal Navy Type 45 Destroyer HMS Daring is set to return to the fleet later this year following a prolonged period out of service for over 3300 days.
In response to written questions from Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said the Type 45 destroyer, which entered Extended Readiness in October 2017, is nearing completion of major upgrades.
“HMS DARING entered Extended Readiness in October 2017 and will return to the Fleet later this year following completion of material upgrades including the Power Improvement Project,” he said.
The Power Improvement Project (PIP) is designed to address well-documented propulsion issues affecting the Type 45 class, improving resilience and reliability in high-temperature environments.
Daring was laid down in 2003, launched in 2006, and commissioned in 2009. From keel-laying to commissioning, the process took 2,307 days. In contrast, the destroyer has now been out of service for more than 3,300 days, exceeding the entire time it took to build and bring her into the fleet.
The ship was withdrawn in April 2017 to begin the Power Improvement Project (PIP) and a major refit. The PIP was introduced across the Type 45 class to address known limitations with the ships’ power and propulsion systems. The original WR-21 gas turbines, which included an intercooler unit, had caused reliability issues in warm climates.
The upgrade package replaced the two original diesel generators with three larger and more reliable units. For Daring, this engineering programme was combined with a broader refit carried out at the Cammell Laird shipyard, which concluded in late 2022. After returning to Portsmouth in early 2023, Daring entered the regeneration phase. Then-Defence Minister James Cartlidge confirmed in May 2023 that PIP work had been completed, alongside that of HMS Dauntless. Dauntless has since returned to active service, while Daring has remained alongside, undergoing further work. According to defence sources, HMS Daring has now begun crewing ahead of trials.
Perspective
The 3,000-day milestone places HMS Daring’s regeneration period in context when set against her earlier career. From commissioning in 2009 until withdrawal in 2017, she spent eight years in operational service. Since then, she has spent more than eight years out of service. If she returns to sea trials in early 2026, the balance between those two phases will be almost even.
The length of this period is not the result of a single factor. The Power Improvement Project required deep modifications to the ship’s machinery spaces, and this was combined with a major refit at Cammell Laird. After Daring’s return to Portsmouth in 2023, the focus shifted to regeneration: systems testing, certification, and assembling and training a crew for a ship that had been inactive for years. Each of these stages has contributed to the overall timeline.
Across the class, the PIP has been designed to deliver long-term reliability, ensuring that all six destroyers remain capable of fulfilling their role as advanced air defence platforms into the future. Parliamentary statements have noted that no technical issues have been reported with the ships that have already completed the conversion.
Some rare good RN news.
Now how about fitting NSM ‘at pace’….
‘At pace’ appears to mean ‘at the pace of a glacier’….
Perhaps Daring could be the first of class to fit Dragonfire if it’s still on schedule.
It will be whichever is emerging from refit in that window.
The thing I don’t get about the NSM fit is I’d have thought that the planners would have wanted that tidied away before the SeaCeptor or DragonFire upgrades….
The fitting NSM seems to have gone very quite lately
If RN is laying up Bays etc to meet in-year budgets what do you expect for add-ons like war fighting capabilities?
One of the reasons that sending RN ships into Hormuz isn’t going to happen is the lack of on board answers to incoming fires that are out of range of the 4.5″ gun.
Really it is a bit of a joke to not have any land attack or AShM capability on most of the fleet. I get that Sea Ceptor does have as surface to surface capability but even so a medium weight missile is an absolute necessity.
Not quite true though. Don’t the T45s carry Wildcat + Sea Venom, a combination that outranges most ship borne AShM missiles?
Sea Venom has a 30kg warhead and a range of 20km
NSM has a 120kg warhead with a 200km range…..so a bit of a different level.
Sea Vemon also depends on have the cab up which it cannot be 24/7. RN will say ‘risk assessed’ but problems occur when least expected.The advantage of a missile in a tube is that you one button press away from authorising a launch.
If there’s enough room between the Aster silo and the bridge could they then look at 4×4 NSM fit out or additional CAMM, maybe a 2×8 or another 4×6 CAMM and just the 2×4 NSM? Considering they’ve missed the opportunity to put 2 mk41s behind the gun make the most of all the space thats there.
The old Harpoon rack location is where NSM goes. It was supposed to be 2 x 4.
You can’t put the rack directly in line as the efflux would fire into the missile opposite which is why they are offset.
However, you can double stack them but that depends on the rack and deck loading being up to the extra dead weight and dynamic loadings.
I’d be much happier to see 8 NSM on T45 as that would give a crazy pause for though – even if, in visual range, the 4.5” gun provides answers.
Good point, depends how it is funded, but as you say if it is out of the operations budget there is a (big) issue
They don’t know the meaning of at pace.
Not sure if I’ve missed something somewhere, but why isn’t she coming out of this stupidly long overhaul fully equipped with NSM and CAMM?? Would it not have made sense to do all this at once so she doesn’t get dragged back in for god knows how long a bit further down the line
Probably because we are desperately short of ships. An available ‘baseline’ T45 with PIP is very welcome.
Paul while I agree it’s much needed, she’s been sitting there for how many years. Could the work not have been done then? NSM was announced back in 2022, and the camm upgrade was roughly announced the same time I think. It’s just a lot of wasted time then and in the future.
A glacier stuck in traffic more like!
So in service until 2050 and who needs T83?
DIP should be published soon with… ahem… revised timelines, but, Rachel from Accounts should be well pleased that they have these ”barely run in motors, geezer, with low mileage and low wear and tear…”
Add in the Norgie buy of T26 which elongates the defence spend and she must be rubbing her hands in glee.
Meanwhile, bloke from procurement gets brought back into Main Bldg and any fall out from Ajax is nothing to do with him.
This is not the Civil Service this is Braid and MPs and MPs of all colours.
Exactly, I suggest it should be good to 2055.
Let’s get rid of the vanity Carriers.
Focus on Frigates, Corvettes and subs please. North Atlantic is our priority as a poor nation not grand standing around the world.
BAES will be asking for an infill order of OPVs to maintain a workforce who are proficient in araldite and other adhesives substances, aka glue for the sniffing of, and also rubbing their hands at the thought of knocking off more OPVs that are of, ahem, limited value, other than the value of the bill to the British taxpayer.
Even if one T26 rolls out every year from now there still 11 T26’s on order so the yard only has slots coming available in 2036(ish)
Even if you ordered T83 right now they’d have to generate a new build environment with staff to build in parallel or one of the other yards does the final hull assembly.
Things us only BAES has done the really complex warships ships and there is zero experience of fitting out T45/26 level ships in Belfast. Rosyth have T31 and QEC level experience.
Yes but the carriers are fundamentally going to screw the Russian navy in the high north as they have no answer.. the RN and European navies can act under organic navy air cover and the Russian navies cannot.. this simple fact means they will have a massive uphill battle.. without air a frigate is limited to a 20 mile radius of sea control.
Where is 2050 mentioned?
Aren’t they due to retire “gracefully” by 2038.
T23s and T42s were THRASHED all around the world, let alone the North Atlantic – please re-read the 3300 days tied up alongside part of the article and reflect on how much time she has been thrashed.
Being alongside actually ages the hull in certain ways worse than having the ship running.
True but if it’s well maintained it should not be a problem.. you cannot really do much about the dynamic stress of a hard life.
Although hull plate loss is hull plate loss no matter what.
Hull plate loss can be accelerated by lack of use. It allows bacterial colonies to sit in the weld pits and munch away. It is why it is so important that welds don’t have defects in them.
They are but you know they won’t.
… 2050 ???
I wondered how this long standing problem was going to be laid at labours door. Yet it’s labour who are increasing budgets and building new ships
That’s really not true . No extra ships or any ships that were not in the pipeline already have been ordered by liebour.
Because it’s actually irrelevant at present.. all our shipbuilding is working at max capacity.. so any orders over the last year would be irrelevant.. if on the other hand they don’t order any T31 or T32 within the next year then it will impact on possible future ship numbers.
The big issue I have is the loss of bulwark, that was foolish as bulwark was just about ready to be returned to active service and would have covered for 6-7 years.
May god forgive you for lying!!! Labour are not building any new ships. They were ordered by the Tories. Contracts signed by them. I’ve got no love for any of these corrupt parties, I just don’t like giving credit to someone who doesn’t deserve it! Not that the Tories deserve to applauded for what they did to the military. And I’m still waiting like everyone else to see where this budgets increase is and what it’s meant to be getting the armed forces
Only thing major Labour has order kit wise is 23 Helicopters, no new ships nothing else, and this is were the problem lies. Its not their fault the state of Army/Navy I agree but they not seem to be a rush to do any thing, Had a defence Review last year done nothing much since, that is the issue.
Lots of talk of the threat from Russia, and need to re arm but nothing more than talk and projects, its time see where all this projects are leading and order kit. Seems 2031 is the majic year every thing will be ok by but that date is creeping up and it looks for now as if not a lot is being done apart from meeting, wish lists and things under assesment.
Its true Labour can not fix 30 years of neglect over night and i do see the green shoots of things on the right path more so with the Army, now its time to get down to ordering kit and stocking up on ammo before time out runs us and we do find our selves at war and not ready for it.
Honestly, “Rachel from accounts”, considering almost every single one of the navy and armed forces issues have come from consecutive conservative governments and this is the first to actually talk about increasing defence spending I’d give them atleast some credit, damn right they need to speed things up and do more but come on
Nail Head. Talk about increasing…
”Come on” Where shall we go?
The Albions might have served as great mine warfare motherships – or just retained their intended function – please ask the other Allied navies about their plans to retire our capability.
The hydrographic survey ships could have stepped in to the task of off-shore patrol and interdiction of Russian grey fleet ships.
Our helicopter order is ludicrous.
Autonomous systems – bit blah blah at the moment when we need real, proven capability.
Ajax – let’s take the Braid in overall control of procurement and parachute him into a safe job in Main Bldg when he should have been offered the Mess Webley.
Should I continue – Labour could be great but they are so off message that they continue to fail when actually they should be presenting as a great panacea for this Country.
I think the PIP fiasco shows something deeply wrong with the RN procurement process
Surely building a couple of hulls and having them fully tested before the rest of the fleet is brought online is a better idea and then the next couple of ships are improved on that and then the next couple are built with further improvements. It might even lead to more hulls being built
Welcome to the general consensus.
The House of Commons Defence Committee identified that the land-based testing for the WR-21 was inadequate, that the test rigs didn’t replicate the high-power density or the extreme temperature swings of the Persian Gulf, and they didn’t run the engines long enough to see the long-term degradation of the intercooler units.
The MoD chose the WR-21 over the proven GE LM2500 (used by almost every other navy) to support British industry and chase fuel efficiency, knowingly accepting a higher technical risk.
The fiasco of the Type 45’s propulsion system is fundamentally a story of de-risking on paper vs reality. At the heart of this failure was the 2000 closure of the National Gas Turbine Establishment (NGTE) – Pyestock, arguably the most powerful and sophisticated gas turbine research facility in the Western world – a move that effectively dismantled the Royal Navy’s technical safety net just as it was introducing its most complex engine ever … the Rolls-Royce WR-21. Pyestock was the UK’s premier facility for breaking engines before they reached the fleet. For decades, it enforced the “Naval Marine Wing” (NMW) trials a brutal regime of 3,000 to 10,000 hours of continuous operation in simulated “salt-aerosol” and high-humidity environments. This independent testing was designed to find thermal fatigue and metallurgical flaws that short-term contractor trials might miss.
When the MoD closed Pyestock to save operational costs and transition to QinetiQ, they essentially traded physical certainty for digital optimism. The WR-21, a complex cycle engine featuring an intercooler and a recuperator, was a radical departure from the simple, proven turbines of the past. It relied on recycling exhaust heat to achieve a 30% fuel saving. However, this complexity created massive ‘thermal shock’ risks.
Because Pyestock’s ‘hot cells’ were no longer available for independent, long-duration MoD trials, the WR-21 was qualified with only approximately 500 hours of physical testing. The MoD relied on Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to model how the engine would behave in 35°C water. The simulation suggested the engine would gracefully degrade in heat; the reality was that the Northrop Grumman intercooler suffered a design flaw that caused the engine to perform a catastrophic software “trip” when seawater temperatures exceeded 30°C.
Without a Ship-Specific Shore Test Facility, which was also cut to save an estimated £80 million, the first time the WR-21 ‘talked’ to the ship’s massive electrical load was on the lead ship, HMS Daring. The result was the infamous total blackout syndrome. Had Pyestock remained open, these intercooler failures and the recuperator leaks (which had been flagged in early 1990s trials but were never fully resolved) would have been sorted on a test bed in Hampshire, rather than leaving a £1 billion destroyer dead in the water in a combat zone.
The MoD provided the flawed advice, the MoD cut the testing budget, and now, the MoD now has to pay for its initial penny pinching by cutting holes in the hulls to fix it … £160 million. Crazy.
This is fascinating! Thank you for sharing
“extended readiness” What a wonderful phrase that is. Eight years of doing nothing. So now we have five years to fit NSM, perhaps another five for Dragonfire? Or maybe the other way round. Exciting stuff!
I wondered how this long standing problem was going to be laid at labours door. Yet it’s labour who are increasing budgets and building new ships
I hardly think they can take credit for ships already ordered and being built🙄Just take a look at how many ships are scheduled to be laid up/sold by this Govt.
Ships reach the end of their lifetime, you think the current government can put a pause on time and the aging process?? It’s only a problem because of decisions made nearly 20 years ago that delayed the next generation of ships, the result being the navy running ships on way beyond the life they were designed for. It ain’t hard to join the dots…
They are ordering more within the budget they were left . The big cuts were in the last 16years
No one has laid it at Labour’s door – unless you remember Jeff Hoon from the noughties who was the complete numpty who came up with the Uber idea of replacing proven power generation with new fangled tech that failed in spectacular fashion leaving modern warships stranded.
So, yes Labour are culpable for the failures of their predecessors, or would you care to disagree?
Cutting the order to 6 from 12 should see previous Defence Secs and PMs lined up and shot, if only to encourage the follower-ons and save on pensions payouts for the useless Tw@ts.
Is Labour culpability? Hmmmm. Who made the navy and airforce fight for money and subsequently caused the cancellation of both CVA01 and TSR2? Who had a peace dividend the the Berlin
Soz, browser operator error lol. Continued…
..when the Berlin Wall came down, a moment when the world became a very dangerous place? Who had two aircraft carriers made in their local yard and forgot to make sure we had planes to put on them? Hmmmm. The Tory’s are no better I agree, but they mostly just perpetuated the situation and pointed the finger.
Great destroyer and really good ‘resurrection’ news for Easter. With the fleet being so small every ship counts. Let’s hope this is a turning point – a Royal Navy ‘trans lunar injection burn’ 🙂 Next step Glasgow and Venturer.
The navy operate a 2/3rds forward, 1/3rd reverse policy. So if Daring is moving to forward then another ship must be going to reserve. More ships won’t be coming available. There are only six. I think the current problem is the navy is having trouble keeping the forward ships available. The planners didn’t factor in the need to fix and upgrade whilst maintaining the forward numbers. SSN is similar. Too much sunny day planning going on.
*’reserve’. Spelling!
Will this even have the mushroom farm fitted? or will she spend a few months at sea then back alongside for months?
It would have been quicker to build a new T45 than refit / repair HMS Daring. Scandalous waste of valuable resources having a ship out of service for so long. Can’t understand why the RN ship / sub repairs take so long.