Babcock and Saab to design ‘advanced corvette’

There are already plenty of corvette designs. Every shipbuilder in Europe has a simular class of ship in its portfolio. Even the European Union is in the middle of desigining (PESCO) a corvette. Sweden has plenty of designs to choose from. It is a waste of money desiging a new one.

I think there is the EPC program, working on the topic. Let say in case it fails, it could be a good alternative

There’s nuance here though, the RN used the term “Corvette” very differently in WW2 than it is today. Today a Corvette is a heavily armed, small, short ranged surface combatant (usually with a anti-surface emphasis in the form of a heavy ASM).
WW2 RN Corvettes where essentially Anti-Submarine specialist vessels. They where slow (because a) submarines where slow, and b) because if you make something fast it’s a lot harder to make it manueverable, which is important if you are sub hunting in ww2, and c) because it’s cheap), had a very light anti surface armament, but, for their size, a very heavy anti-submarine armament.
To put this in perspective, a Flower Class corvette, despite having only a single 4in gun, and displacing only 900t had a heavier Anti-Submarine armament than a 2,500t Tribal class destroyer. (Frigates where also anti-submarine specialists, but larger and more heavily armed than Corvettes).

So yes, the RN used “corvettes” in WW2, the Flowers and Castle classes to be exact, but they weren’t the same as modern corvettes.

RN 294 flower class corvettes, US navy even adopted 34, Canadian Navy 122, then there was the black swan sloop and upgraded black swan class sloop- 37 built, Castle class in essence an upgraded flower class 44 built, Hunt class 72 built as destroyer escorts, Grimsby class 13 built, Kingfisher class sloops 13 built, Bittern class 3 ships built, Egret class sloops 3 built, River class frigates 151 built. In short there were hundreds and hundreds of vessels successfully used in WW2 for deep Atlantic operations that by today’s standards would be at best corvette sized. So there is utility in having a large number of vessels that can cover at range an area of ocean for ASW and patrol duties as well as commerce escort roles. If a modern corvette could be designed with a very lean manning requirement and the ability to launch drones then we’d be onto a winner.
There is also a utility to such a fleet of smaller warships- they enable trainees and budding commanders to develop their command skills before graduating up to one of the larger frigates, destroyers or capital ships.

Age Trevor. Careful😀

Oh I have said that a few times on here, would love to see them dealing with Iranian intrusions. One can dream.

Hi FormerUSAF. That is exactly what an upgraded River B2 could become at a relatively modest price and would your brief as above perfectly.
Regards from Durban

Short ranged. OPVs tend to be less lethal but longer ranged – like US coastguard vessels. Corvette might be useful in the North Sea or channel if our enemy was France, Holland or Denmark, but otherwise we need longer ranged types for the Atlantic and Arctic ocaens and beyond.

I think in a world where we had spare money, and most of all, people, then yes, in littoral waters.

We are not in that world, and it takes money from T26 T31 types, and even more, Drones, which all three services are going to be investing heavily in.

If a Corvette is primarily an ASM carrier around the UK, then it is wasted, as what Russian ships will be sitting off the UK in war that are already not at the bottom. The Med and Gulf seem more suited.

Nice to have. Norway, Sweden, these types with enclosed waters are ideal homes for these ships to my mind. I also think they’re useful so people can look an say we have a bigger navy, but would it make it a better one?

The main costs of a modern fighting ship are in the fit out. The difference in price between a fully fitted out frigate and a fully fitted out corvette is less than you might think for the same capability. For example the cost of a 1900 tonne Sa’ar 6 exceeds the cost of a 6,000 ton Type 31, because while Israel has no pretentions of creating a blue water ship it still needs a full fit out for fighting.

Tiny corvettes (Visby, Buyan) might be fine in the Baltic or the Caspian but would have problems crossing the North Atlantic. The lack of flexibility for RN tasking is their downfall. Do we want a separate class of ship, too small to cross the North Atlantic, and effectively can’t be sent to where the war is, but has to wait for the war to come to them? They’d end up doing local maritime patrol and we have the cheaper B1 Rivers for that. And do we really want a warship too small to carry a helicopter? It would be a real gamble of getting the drone fit right.

The Royal Navy is a blue water navy. If it needs to fight we are better off with a ship that can go anywhere and fight anywhere, than a specialist brown-water fighter that would be okay in specific taskings.

Larger corvettes might well be viable. In fact I’m hard pressed to tell a 4,000 Pohjanmaa corvette from a small frigate like the Anzac, and the arguments against them are the same arguments against buying small frigates. For example, the “steel is cheap and air is free” argument. Why order a ship limited in endurance if you can have one that isn’t and can be refitted and retasked with room to grow?

You kind of answered your own question there. The UK isn’t interested in a ship that would be tied to a theatre by it’s range.

Lets do a case study:
The UK has ordered the Type 31 Frigate
It’s a nearly 6,000t ocean going ship with a range of about 9,000nmi and can spend over a month at sea before requiring a stop into Port. It carries a helicopter, a battery of Surface to Air Missiles, and FCAS/NSM for attacking other ships. It has a crew of about 100 people. And although we don’t know it’s exact cost, it came in between 3-400m£ including all the kit the government provided.

By comparison lets look at the Braunschweig Corvette, a comparable modern corvette. It’s a 2,000t littoral control ship, that has a maximum range of about 4,000nmi, it needs to resupply after 7 days at sea. They carry 4 ASMs and a RAM CIWS to defend themselves, and a crew of about 60. They came in at about 350million£.

Now for the Deutsche Marine this makes sense, they don’t really have overseas commitments, or a global outlook. They are extremely unlikely to have to provide an escort to their Carrier Strike Group or Amphibious Assault Group (they have neither), but they have a strong interest in guarding the security of that, relatively calm, enclosed, Baltic Sea, and, too a lesser extend, the North Sea.
They also have Rivers that connect to the black sea, and the corvettes have a shallow enough draft that they could, conceivably, sail along those rivers.

For the Royal Navy however, that doesn’t make sense. A corvette like the Braunschweig would set the RN back pretty much the same amount as a Light Frigate, crewing might be lighter, but it would never be able to escort any of the RN’s capital ships effectively. “No big deal it can just focus on the North Sea.” You might say. Well, no. Because ultimately it restricts flexibility. The Germans are unlikely to ever go “We need to surge a fighting force to the south atlantic, but 8 of our 19 escorts can’t sail there.” If they need to surge, sending any number of their 11 Frigates is already that.

For the RN however, having to say “We’re going to let our Allies handle the North Sea for the next year because we need a battle group in the Falklands” is a scenario that, maybe won’t happen tomorrow, but definitely is in their remit.

17 is only temporary, 6xT45,8xT26 and 5xT31 equals 19.

We used to have the guard ships, plus a South Atlantic patrol escort and subs going past on occasion and all this not that long ago. When did we abandon South Atlantic patrol? Sometime in the last decade, I think?

Visby would be no better! There’s an RAF base on the Falklands. Let the Typhoons handle it. Or the Sky Sabre missile system.

They are trying to repair their scrap heap carrier.

I’d encourage them to waste money fixing the Kilo too.

Hopefully that will tie up a shipyard and money for a few years diverting it away from where it can do any harm.

Then when they have close to fixed Ukraine can hit it again – ground hog day.

The concept of a submarine slightly damaged by a missile strike does not sound very logical, though, since hull integrity is vital.
Russia says it destroyed the USVs that were also reported to be part of the attack. Presume their target would more likely be the sub and landing craft some reports indicate to have been moored in the harbour.
Either way, a thoroughly professional operation.