Babcock has marked two major milestones on the Royal Navy’s Type 31 programme in a single day, cutting steel on HMS Bulldog while rolling HMS Active out of the build hall at Rosyth.
The steel cut ceremony formally begins construction of the fourth of five Inspiration-class frigates. At the same time, HMS Active, the second ship in class, emerged from the purpose-built assembly hall and will now prepare to enter the water for the first time.
The twin events highlight the production rhythm now established at Rosyth’s modern, modular “frigate factory”. With each hull, sequencing, integration and supply chain lessons are being absorbed into subsequent builds. Increased pre-outfitting of compartments and systems in manufacturing bays is intended to reduce time spent on integration inside the main hall, improving overall delivery efficiency.
David Lockwood, Chief Executive of Babcock, said: “Delivering the Steel Cut for HMS Bulldog and the Rollout of HMS Active on the same day is a powerful demonstration of the drive and delivery focus of our Type 31 programme as we build the next modern, future ready fleet for the Royal Navy. These milestones show the maturity of our facility, the success of the design and build process, and the skill and dedication of our Babcock team.”
He added: “We are not only building a new class of ship at Rosyth, we are also at the forefront of a national endeavour that is strengthening the UK’s shipbuilding industry, supporting sovereign and allied maritime capability, while creating an advanced industrial footprint and expertise that will support the future of global shipbuilding for generations to come.”
The Type 31 programme sustains around 2,500 jobs, with the majority of work taking place in Fife and supported by a broad network of UK and international suppliers, including small and medium-sized enterprises. The ships are based on Babcock’s Arrowhead 140 design, which has also been selected by Poland for its Miecznik programme and is in build in Indonesia under licence.
Defence Minister Luke Pollard said: “These milestones show Scottish shipbuilding at its best. From starting construction for HMS Bulldog to rolling out the impressive HMS Active, this programme is delivering world-class warships for the Royal Navy and real economic benefits for communities across Scotland and the wider UK.”
He added: “The frigates will serve our nation for decades to come, and the skills and infrastructure we’re building here will secure the future of Scottish shipbuilding for generations.”
Scotland’s Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes said: “Today’s ceremony is testament to the skill, dedication and innovation of the workforce at Babcock – and a powerful symbol of Scotland’s enduring contribution to security in an uncertain world.” She highlighted the importance of apprenticeships and skills retention, noting Scottish Government support for aerospace, defence, marine and space companies through enterprise funding.
Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Steve Moorhouse said: “These milestones reflect the momentum, ambition and national commitment behind the regeneration of our future frigate force.” He described the Type 31 as “a major step forward in modernising our fleet”, adding that their modular design and combat systems would allow upgrades throughout their service lives.
The five Type 31 frigates are intended to undertake roles including interception, intelligence gathering, defence engagement and humanitarian operations. HMS Venturer, the first of class, rolled out in 2025, while HMS Formidable, the third ship, entered assembly following her keel laying late last year.
As I said on NL unless #1 shows signs of starting trials having #2 in fitout isn’t going to help matters a great deal as we all know the fitout supervision and engineering/test/certification trades are the real pinch point.
Yup the panel line may well be highly automated and welding may be becoming more and more efficient by the day – which is to be genuinely celebrated buuuut the fitout and commissioning depends on skilled sets of hands.
Fair enough. If they have guys hanging around with nothing to do, they could take the RAF route of go-karting, city tours, adventure training, etc. but the costs would add up. The army way is more cost-effective: polishing brass, cleaning kit, tidying stores, painting fences, picking up fag butts, or doing extra PT. Just a thought 🤷🏻
Grass doesn’t paint itself green you know, and who ever heard of not cleaning your kit 🙂
aaah – my old infantry past time; chicken parade on a Saturday morning , picking up fag buts. .
Back in the day , an army marched on it’s nicotine intake.
Anyway D, hope you’re well.
I would not be too negative, we have frigates hitting the water at a pace not seen anywhere in the west for decades. Fitting out also requires less in the way of specialist facilities and ultimately we have a much larger set of workers from across Britain that can do it. The UK has built almost no ships for decades but ship fitting and repair is still a massive industry.
I think the bigger issue is likely to be the MoD and the sea trials acceptance process. The RN should be doing everything it can onshore and concurrently to skip past this.
However I get the distinct impression they are not.
“ Fitting out also requires less in the way of specialist facilities and ultimately we have a much larger set of workers from across Britain that can do it. The UK has built almost no ships for decades but ship fitting and repair is still a massive industry.”
I really wish that was true.
I’m not at all sure where the teams who can get naval DC and weapons system integrations working are.
You do realise that this is the Elizabeth Line fallacy that an electrician can wire up anything with a wiring diagram? They really can’t as most of them cannot read a complex circuit.
Then there are the testers and certifiers….
If (and it’s a big if) Navy Lookout’s reporting on this subject is accurate, Active will be the final Type 31 fitted with the 12-cell Sea Ceptor VLS. The other three, Formidable, Bulldog and Campeltown, will receive the Mk41 VLS during construction.
I guess with Babcocks ever improving productivity and the BAE shipyards for T26 . If building T26 and T31 ships was infinite for UK industry we could have at least 2 new frigate destroyers a year maybe 3 or 4 a year off this emerging conveyer belt, for domestic and export orders . A nice thought
A nice thought however we also need to guard against the prospect of falling off a cliff again in ten years time. HMG must mirror the French and Spanish and be prepared to subsidise foreign builds and manage RN numbers based on ensuring continuous orders. If ramp up is required (like now) we should be prepared to use foreign yards to build blocks maintaining a core of UK ship yards that can be sustained in any economic climate.
A surface fleet of 30 combatants is what we need to keep two yards going at a minimum.
That’s precisely the point Jim, the RN needs to be restored to 30 plus escorts.
I would suggest
12x T26
12x T31
9 x T45/ T83
Back that up with a number of reconfigurable Trimaran, 3000 ton lean manned ships and unmanned ‘loyal wingmen’ .
That makes for a balanced and flexible fleet.
That in turn means a fleet big enough to keep a drumbeat of ship building viable.
That would of course require a ‘minimum’ of 3.5% on defence now and ring fenced for decades to come.
Never mind the infrastructure and personnel requirments!
A surface fleet of about 30 frigates/destroyers is probably the sort of figure we should be aiming for anyway! OK, Wishful thinking.
Agreed, although there is zero chance of the RN getting 30 surface combatants again unless you include unmanned/lean-manned sloops and corvettes. 6 T45/T83, 8 T26, 5 T31 and an unknown number of T91/92’s seems as good as we can hope for by the mid/late 2030’s. Like France, Italy and Spain, we must become expert at filling gaps in domestic MOD orders with export sales. If that means occasionally selling an in-build RN ship at cost, so be it. The upside is that the MOD may become encouraged to place larger or more frequent warship orders – gaining much needed economies of scale whilst never having to pay for and accept them all.
Relevantly, I see that an announcement by Sweden on who has won its Luleå-class frigate program order is imminent. The bookies strong favourite seems to be the FDI based proposal from France’s Naval Group – a hot construction line with a promise to deliver the first ship within 3 years of order and all four by end-2030. The ALFA 4000 design by Navanti is next up, probably a very low price and and again a very aggressive delivery schedule. But the AH120 based proposal from Babcock/Saab shouldn’t be totally discounted as despite the year or more of design work that will be required before steel can be cut, the much higher level of Swedish content than the other two bids will surely be politically attractive.
If they are moving to one ship a year, that means two years from now we need to know what ship Babcock will start construction of. Working backwards, depending on what is built, we should be looking at contract signing early next year, which requires some solid decision making this year. I don’t think we are at the one ship a year mark because Active took a long time to build. Nevertheless, the RN need to decide what they want Rosyth to build next. If they can’t make up their minds (nothing new there) they really need to order another T31 and not risk moving to another boom and bust.
Why don’t we have an OPV design waiting in the wings in case they can’t decide?
I suspect the design ‘waiting in the wings’ will be 3 off ‘Absalon’ style T31 MRSS with stern ramp and/or side access for Mexflote: or possibly a well dock and 4 new CIC. That is to say T32 merges into MRSS.
Whenever I’ve seen the Absalon class suggested as the solution for MRSS, somebody pops up to say it doesn’t have enough troop carrying capacity. But it would be better than nothing, I say, which is what we’re in danger of ending up with.
I reckon a well dock version could easiy land ~80+ troops and light vehicles. If you paired the frigate up with a Bay then heavier vehicles and more troops. A T31 will support a Merlin; + a Bay has 2 landing spots I think. Not too shabby an amphibious expeditionary capability. It’s just that you might have to assemble 2 or 3 ships. A bonus is that when you are not doing amphibious landings ( most of the time) you can reduce the crew of the T31 and deploy it on other frigate duties and the Bay is free for humanitarian work. Plus, as Supportive says, Babcock need the work. They have the base design experience and its probably all we can afford. QED
Indeed HMG are running out of dithering space in the next orders for Rosyth.
SNP like to jump on the UK bandwagon when it suits! Other than that, it’s good news, if ship build capacity increases we can compete on the export market for a change.
‘… Scottish Government support for aerospace, defence, marine and space companies through enterprise funding…’ worthy words true, though the wider picture of Space in Scotland (uk generally indeed) hardly looks inspiring presently considering the painful loss of Orbex, despite having a nearly complete rocket and investments by the European Space Agency and even out of Germany. Sadly the UK Govt is not willing to invest in the manner of Germany, France, Spain and Italy to the common European launcher funding project. Would be nice to hear their reasoning, beyond the caveat that Orbex had not matched public investment with enough private investment despite just months ago the ESA seemed confident enough to include it in the final 5 to receive investment. More importantly in light of the above quote what does the Scottish Govt feel about its loss. Now all down to Skyora which ironically did not get similar European support. If Spain can succeed in launchers it seems rediculous to think Britain can’t. Perhaps another sign of the wider feeling of talk over action from UK Govt. Either way Europe needs launcher companies so is this another example of short sightedness and lack of industrial vision?
Is it me or is this process so much quicker than many other glacial projects, or is time flying so fast that I’m just thinking so! Let’s be pleased however we are getting some hulls in the water now it’s time to fit them out and get them crewed and armed properly! We may be relying on one or two of these to cover the gaps of the T26 deliveries to Norway! Albeit not as an effective ASW platform. I fear we just aren’t prepared (as a government) to go full blast in preparation for a probable conflict within the next 24 months. Methinks we have dropped the ball many years ago and there is limited time to find it and pick it up!
I think the only option for the MoD ( if they were forced onto a semi war footing) to increase the size of the escot force in the near term, would be to carry out yet more extremely expensive refits and updates of say 8 T23’s and run them on in service alongside the T26 and T31s as they join the fleet.
Obviously, while ordering a dozen or more additional escorts….
I don’t see any other option, apart from buying a frigate from abroad, as an emergency purchase.