Britain is to build a fleet of hybrid warships designed to command uncrewed systems across the air, surface and subsurface, ordering at least six new Common Combat Vessels to replace the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers and the planned Type 83, the Ministry of Defence said.
The Common Combat Vessel is described as the Royal Navy’s first hybrid warship, acting as a control hub that coordinates drones in all three domains to deliver air defence, with the first ships expected from the early 2030s.
They will form the crewed core of a far larger mixed force. Once in service, the department said, the vessels will operate alongside eight Type 26 and five Type 31 frigates and a new family of uncrewed platforms: the Type 91 missile platform, the Type 92 underwater sensing platform, the Type 93 extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicle and the Type 94 sensor platform, an arrangement it called a once in a generation investment in maritime capability. Funding in the Defence Investment Plan allows the National Armaments Director Group to begin the design work that underpins the change.
Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis cast the new class as built for a harder operating environment, saying the vessels would give sailors “hybrid ships that are designed and built for the increasing threats we face.” The ships would be “British-built, supporting jobs across the nation,” he added, with programmes funded through the plan expected to sustain tens of thousands of jobs. The department said the shift away from concentrating capability in a few large, expensive hulls would extend the Navy’s “reach, resilience and firepower without a proportional increase in crew or cost.”
The programme is also intended to anchor three new Atlantic efforts, named Atlantic Bastion, Atlantic Shield and Atlantic Strike, which the Ministry of Defence said are designed to counter Russian activity in the North Atlantic and High North, protect undersea infrastructure and strengthen NATO deterrence. Ministers pointed to export potential in the adaptable design, noting that the Type 26 frigate has already been selected by Australia, Canada and Norway.
The Type 83 had long been identified as the successor to the six Type 45 air defence destroyers, which are due to leave service by the end of 2038, but it never advanced beyond an early concept within the Future Air Dominance System. Defence minister Luke Pollard told Parliament earlier this year that around £1 million had been spent on platform-specific design over three financial years, part of roughly £6.9 million of wider work, and that the concept had been inherited in an underdeveloped state. The existing destroyers have been troubled by propulsion faults traced to a design flaw in their gas turbines, with one ship, HMS Daring, having not put to sea for more than 3,000 days.
Industry has been circling the requirement for some time. At DSEI 2025, UK Defence Journal reported, BAE Systems set out a system-of-systems vision built around a large Air Warfare Command Ship carrying sensors, missile batteries, guns and directed-energy weapons, paired with smaller, adaptable combatants.
One concept, based on the Triton trimaran demonstrator, was shown as a lean-crewed sensor and effector platform with full autonomy under study, while design lead Gavin Rudgley said reduced crewing would come through “automation, autonomy and the embodiment of artificial intelligence.” Geoff Searle said the firm was modernising its combat management system under the Re-Code contract to build the “foundation of the sovereign core” capability, and BAE representatives confirmed that evolving the future ship from the Type 26 frigate was one option under review, with one official calling the proven design “an obvious thing to build on.”
A rival approach has come from Babcock, which previously pitched its Type 31 frigate for the role. Under a concept it calls ARMOR Force, the company would turn the Type 31 into a controlling node for a fleet of large autonomous surface vessels built by the United States shipbuilder HII, dispersing anti-submarine, air defence and strike capability across wide stretches of ocean using swappable containerised payloads handled at its Rosyth yard.
Babcock described the proposal as the industrial answer to the First Sea Lord’s call for a hybrid navy and a direct enabler of the same Atlantic Bastion, Atlantic Shield and Atlantic Strike programmes, with chief executive Sir Nick Hine describing ARMOR Force as “our response to the First Sea Lord’s call for a re-imagined Hybrid Navy.”
To me this looks like a win big or lose big strategy by RN & HMG I’m just not decided on which.
To me this looks like a win big or lose big strategy by RN & HMG I’m just not decided on which.
The British have always been great naval innovators, and this must be the right decision. The concept of a fleet of loitering surface vessels with extended tours of duty without the impediment of hundreds of personnel means smaller and lighter ships.
The concept is fine, the reality is that large ships need regular, ongoing maintenance and for that you need people. The only way this works is a little bit like Nelson’s navy where the officers’ valuables were put in small boats that were towed behind the ship and there was a gentleman’s agreement not to fire on them. In this case I suspect the maintenance crew will have to live aboard and there will need to be a helicopter evacuation when they are expecting to go into combat.
Will these warships be able to protect from all the various types of stealth, ballistic and hypersonic threats? If not this will be a disaster.
I’m hoping this is the culmination of a lengthy process of design and not a desperate play by our outgoing PM. I guess only time will tell, but on paper it’s a common sense approach to addressing the challenges of scaling up the fleet without increasing costs.
Don’t forget this is the supposed plan that caused two ministers to resign,doesn’t bode well does it?
A hybrid navy made of crewed and uncrewed vessels is a meaningful use of the word hybrid, whatever you think of the concept. A hybrid warship would have to be a mix of at least two other concepts: both electric and diesel powered, perhaps. In this case it means nothing. The word hybrid has become meaningless marketing slop.
The main worry for me is where is the large air defence radar going to go, especially when T45’s are retired? Unless there’s some technological way around it?
Madness to rely on just this given the defence situation for the UK.
Six of anything ‘aint going to work. Realistic availability, given Astute/T45 issues will be 2 ships at best – or more likely ZEREO availability.
What about air defence of the UK against long-range cruise missile, or exo-atmosphere ballistic and manoeuvring re-entry missiles? Let alone at-sea defence of the carriers and overseas assets?
Madness.
Surely to maintain or increase the detection capabilities of a T45 the CCV’s will need be a large hull to support a tall mast and whatever equipment is needed for controlling an armada of underwater & surfaced ships along with its air wing. Not sure the T26 or T31 could do this. T45 batch 2 maybe or something that resembles a T83 might be needed to put this vision into practice.
It will also need to be heavily defended as they will make very juicy targets – and not just by uncrewed escorts as I can well imagine electronic warfare interrupting or cutting communication between the mothership and drones; it should have its own defensive suit.
If the UK government really wants to save money while keeping up our military commitments to Nato I would have thought that if we just keep building T26’s and T31’s.There is plenty of room in both hull types for future developments, we then keep down the development costs the logistical support costs and we keep 2 of the UK’s best ship building yards at full capacity. Once we have got the number of vessels for the RN up to a sustainable level (18/20 vessels) then we can put the older hulls up for sale their by keeping production going and incorporating the latest tech in the new hulls so the RN keeps an up to date relivent surface fleet. By keeping a steady flow the Frigate production in Scotland this would allow some of the smaller yards in England to produce the small hull for the Drones that will be needed, and allowing Belfast to produce the RFA’s and Amphibious vessels.
I think for anything other than ballistic air threats this is clearly the best solution, a squadron of drones surrounding a mother ship offering extra sensors ,magazine depth and and out defensive layer of 40mm cannons to stop air or sea drones.
I’m just not sure how it stacks up on ballistic threats. For that you’re going to need a big radar, probably. That being said neither the MoD, RN, BAE or Babcock are daft and there will be a solution that they probably already have.
A T45 Sampson radar plate is quite small and it uses the last generation of radar technology and its plates are not pointed up yet it can track and engage ballistic targets in a near space environment so I’m sure this is no an unsolvable issue.
This sounds like the dream project of a Joe 90 type in MOD that will eventually be cancelled due to cost over-runs and then we will be left with nothing.