HMS Duncan, a Royal Navy Type 45 Destroyer, has been operating as the sole escort for the US Amphibious Ready Group in the Eastern Mediterranean, providing critical air defence and security, according to a press release from the Royal Navy.
Deployed at the end of May, Duncan joined the US task forces, including the USS Wasp’s Amphibious Ready Group, after intensive training and a brief stop in Cyprus.
The Portsmouth-based warship, equipped with Type 45’s powerful radars and Sea Viper mission system, safeguarded the US group on its regional stability mission.
Duncan’s duties included replenishment at sea with the USNS Patuxent, operating US Seahawk helicopters from her deck, and hosting high-ranking US military officers.
“I am proud of what my ship’s company have achieved in such an extremely short period,” said Commander Dan Lee, quoted in the news release. “As a team they rose to the challenge and with FOST support achieved the extremely high standards required to ensure we are ready for anything asked of us.”
The destroyer demonstrated its capabilities during an air defence exercise, successfully fending off attacks from Harrier jets launched from USS Wasp. The deployment highlights the Royal Navy’s ongoing commitment to regional security and collaboration with allied forces.
Duncan’s recent activities also included extensive training exercises, visits to Gibraltar and Souda Bay, and a port visit to Limassol, Cyprus.
It also demonstrates its not only the RN that is struggling with escort numbers and crew recruitment and retention.
Yep. The US would never take this decision lightly, as traditionally it has never trusted its allies for defensive capability.
If memory serves, the only things providing air defence for the USS Missouri in the Gulf War when she came under attack from an Iraqi Silkworm missile were an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate and the T42 HMS Gloucester. The frigate actually made things worse and the T42 shot down the missile.
T45s have provided air defence for Nimitz class numerous times. NATO warships from many countries work with the US Navy.They do trust allies and interoperability is key to success. That’s how NATO works.
Never alone, the US always has its own escorts there also. They let their allies be involved but they don’t rely on them for defence.
…or it could be an evolution to practise allied interoperability.
It could well be.
Only two things wrong with the T45
1) They didn’t build enough spare capacity in the power generation.
2) They didn’t build enough of them.
At least theyre fixing the first, and fairly quickly, 3 PIPs will be done this year, Defender will have PIP and Camm by 2026 and Diamond and Duncan presumably sometime after that
Should never have needed to be done in the first place.
Did they ever announce whose fault it was ?
Perils of dreaming up a novel propulsion system.
I hear the issue was with a US supplied intercooler on the GT. The novel propulsion? Meaning the Integrated Electric Propulsion? Don’t think that had a problem.
Said to be a fault with the US made intercooler.
that is most definitely someone who knows what is happening in the dockyard at the moment !!!!
And …
Only one VLS cell (considering it’s an AAW platform),
No ASW capability (T45s don’t deploy with a Merlin),
No ASuW capability (now that harpoon is gone),
and the power problem has been known since design (due to HMG meddling with the supply contracts to save money).
Other than that, good ships really.
AsuW will at least be solved by NSM, wdym by one VLS cells do you mean type as in can only take Aster missiles?
Hey, soz. I meant T45 only has one VLS silo fitted forward with 48 cells. That’s half the fire power of an AB. A second silo fitted elsewhere would improve both capacity and battle damage resilience.
Would need a bigger ship for that, along with budgetary issues of the time I still think 48 is OK, it is all dedicated to AAW warfare after all.
But inevitably they’ll aim higher with the next ones
Yeah they put a gym where the second silo should be.
Again its what’s in them that counts for AAW.
T45 48 tubes with ASTER that is an active homer, not requiring target illumination, who’s PK% is in the very high 90s and only for AAW.
AB 90 or 96 tubes not all are AAW. Majority allocated to SM2 with semi active homing/IR backup, a far lower Pk% and so needs salvo shots 2 per target, and tracker to illuminate the target.
AB has Tomahawk, SM6/SM3 if ABM capable maybe some quad ESSM and ASROC. Tubes allocated to SM2 isn’t 96 its down to say 60 and you need to fire 2 at a target…
The upcoming sea captor fit (another active homer and with anti surface capability) will mean another high Pk% system being fitted.
Doesn’t an Arleigh Burke typically fire two missiles at an incoming target, whereas a Type 45 only needs to fire a single Aster 30 at the same target?
Because that would negate the difference, on the whole.
ABs have to fire 2 missiles per target. T45’s don’t.
Never said they were perfect and I have strong opinions against major assets not have ASW warfare capability. An enemy is not going to play to the ships strengths when trying to take it out. The vSL issue has only really come to light since they were launched.
Land attach is a fleet wide issue as is anti ship. Both due to forced bill conceived designs
I think the idea is these won’t get deployed alone in a war and will be part of a strike group around a carrier. Combo of the f35b, t23 and t45 cover all options. As there are so few of them this is realistically going to have to be how they deploy. We only really have enough escorts for one capital ship anyway.
If you have a small navy its stupid to have dedicated platforms and not all rounders but when the t45 was designed the navy was much much bigger
Should a Fleet AD asset have to do ASW as well? Thought that was what frigates did.
They don’t always operate as part of a fleet. I would think it would be wise for her to defend herself in all situation.
Big difference between looking after herself an actively hunting which an ASW platform does.
Thanks. But surely T45s can do limited ASW – Wildcat or Merlin armed with Sting Ray torps.
They have Wildcat.
They can do surface strike and VECTAC (using torpedo’s) from external sources which is what you do in a TG.
Its not the number of VLS tubes that counts its what you have in them and the Pk% of the contents.
not nearly enough VLS cells- and the wrong type.
Number we can debate, wrong type. I suggest you write to the admiralty as you seem to know more than they do.
They have loads of spare capacity in the generation of power.
The issue was the recuperator system undergoing a catastrophic degradation in performance instead of a graceful degradation.
Once the mods to the machinery control system were done along with mods to the recuperator core the crews had a lot more confidence in operating the machinery as it was designed using the GT Alternators.
The new DGs add resilience to the system as the old DGs did not have enough capacity to operate the whole ship load if the GTs went down.
I worked with a T45 in the Gulf in summer and during its time out here it did not have a single TLF or PLF because these mods had been done.
Yes we should have had the extra 2 but there where massive cost implications to budgets for doing that. We could have had 5 and a full stores and support package or 6 with minimal stores and support…we went rightly for 6 and chinned off the BAe CLS contract as soon as possible.
the Royal Navy rocks!
Can we please have more ships like HMS Duncan
You only need a T45.