Sweden has selected France’s Naval Group to supply four frigates for its Luleå class programme, passing over a competing British bid from Babcock in partnership with Saab, the UK Defence Journal understands.
The decision was announced at a press conference in Stockholm by Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Defence Minister Pål Jonson, alongside Supreme Commander Michael Claesson. Jonson cited rapid delivery, technical maturity, cost-sharing with France and Greece, and the inclusion of a proven air defence system as the reasons for selecting the French offer.
The four ships will be based on Naval Group’s Frégate de Défense et d’Intervention design, already in service with the French Navy and on order for Greece. Displacing around 4,000 tonnes, the vessels are designed for air defence and anti-submarine warfare. The first fully equipped frigate is planned for delivery in 2030, with the remaining three following by 2035. The four ships will be named HSwMS Luleå, Norrköping, Trelleborg, and Halmstad.
The Swedish government intends to equip the frigates with systems from domestic industry, including Saab’s RBS15 anti-ship missile, Torpedo 47, G1X radar, and Trackfire weapon stations, alongside a 57mm gun and 40mm cannon from BAE Systems Bofors.
The vessels will also carry the Aster 30 air defence system, capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, and the CAMM-ER medium-range air defence missile currently being fitted to Sweden’s Visby-class corvettes.
The loss represents a significant blow for Babcock, which had been bidding with Saab on the Arrowhead 120, a design derived from the Arrowhead 140 pedigree that underpins the UK’s own Type 31 frigate programme.
The Arrowhead 120 proposal envisaged steel hulls built at Babcock’s Rosyth yard with composite superstructures constructed by Saab Kockums in Karlskrona, before final integration and outfitting in Sweden. Had it succeeded, the programme would have created a degree of surface combatant interoperability between Sweden, the UK, Poland, and potentially Denmark, all of which are either procuring or considering Arrowhead-family vessels.
Not a massive surprise I’m afraid.
Would have been much move even if #1 T31 had been in trials.
Whilst, I’m told, the T31 general hull build quality is very good that doesn’t make a fully functional debugged warship.
The mess RN Is in won’t have helped either.
It is a shame, but you can’t argue with the form of that French hull- I would want one…
Denmark is still on the cards, and I’m led to believe a surer thing, but I guess nothing is ever certain.
I can’t see Denmark or New Zealand going our way as both are looking at South Kore and Japan now suggesting price is the main determining factor. The good news is this is likely to force the governments hand to order more frigates for the RN. Babcock shuttering up production just before the next election is not a headline they are going to want.
Selling modern frigates with out government subsidy was always a pipe dream, British tax payers are never going to stand for subsidising foreign warships like France does, Norway was a one off.
It won’t force the government to do anything, they’ve already lost the election
Hi mate I agree , with all the madness going on with the UK government at the moment and our recent bad defence decisions in lack of will and interest and unwilling to fund Equipment for our own Armed forces you can’t blame them for looking the other way .However Sure these will be fine vessels.
That’s unfortunate- and without wanting to be too sore a loser I’d be interested to know how much of a ‘discount’ the French government were able to provide to sweeten the deal. That said, by all account the French design is good, and it’s certainly good looking.
Most interesting to me, though, is that Sweden are already fitting CAMM-ER onto their Visby corvettes and will be fitting them to these new frigates too alongside Aster30. I’m not entirely clear on the performance characteristics of -ER compared to normal CAMM, but seems like they’re overlapping the envelopes with Aster30 a lot more.
Maybe it’s just to achieve commonality with the Visby, but maybe they’re looking at a High/low mix (assuming that Aster30 is a lot more expensive than CAMM-ER and higher in performance- not sure how accurate that assumption is) out to longer ranges- so they can select which missile they use based upon target without having to let it get too close. I’m struggling to see another reason for it, and it’s certainly something we should be considering for T45. If it’s already been navalised, too, we should definitely be getting CAMM-ER for all of our frigates also.
5 Billion Euros total price i read somewhere, don’t know how much of a discount it is.. maybe useful to compare it to the other bidders
Mushroom farm may not take CAMM ER
Fair enough. Can’t argue with the logic when FDI is already in the water and a proven platform. Squarely rest the blame on the MoD for not ordering T31 soon enough
In other news – reports are that FCAS is now officially dead
Program was dead on day one. Germany made a bad call siding with France, France made a bad call kicking the UK out over spite. The UK is the only country in the world that can run these programs. No other country has ever run a successful international joint fighter aircraft production other than the UK.
Unfortunately the UK is now stuck with Japan who’s time line and requirements may well be the programs undoing. Trying to get this done by 2035 is probably too hard. The UK really could have done with waiting five more years and building more Typhoons in the interim. The cost of GCAP has become ruinously high for development and the program is starting to appear to be too focused on manned aircraft due to Japans insistence.
don’t recall the UK ever being in the Franco German FCAS…i don’t think anyone kicked the UK out of spite, more like the UK left the EU..
Babcock shares a good chunk of the blame. They’ve had two major write downs now for in type 31. The second most recently due to how wrong the first and second hulls are. That’s not the MoDs fault.
Their first time building and assembling a warship themselves
I don’t believe the designs were wrong at the time. They were changed when the MoD asked them “ok can you also make it do this” mid-build, which as usual leads to extra costs, production headaches and slipping timelines as seen in countless other programmes when they do the same thing.
I’m not sure I’d describe 1 frigate delivered in October 25 and currently still undergoing sea trials & work up to have IOC later this year , as « proven « .
Here here lets hope there ground forces fair better. Lol see charles has a meeting go well archives mad Charlie lol love fin like love fist only its a girl lol coined already hum b le beats kins