President Trump has ordered the Pentagon to open American warship construction to foreign shipbuilders under a model that would allow the first two ships of a class to be built abroad, provided the builder establishes or buys a shipyard in the United States and builds everything after that on American soil, according to a presidential memorandum issued on 13 August.
The memorandum also directs the Secretary of War to produce a plan to strip the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and the Advanced Weapons Elevators out of the aircraft carrier CVN-81 and replace them with steam catapults and hydraulic elevators, reverting to the arrangement used on the previous generation of carriers.
Addressed to the Secretary of War, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget and the National Security Adviser, the document states that the Navy “has experienced a series of shipbuilding setbacks stemming from overly complex designs and iterative design change procedures, which have resulted in cost growth, delays, and cancellations.” It says a lack of capacity and competition among shipbuilders has produced large backlogs across six major programmes and a commercial sector that is not globally competitive.
The Finland Model
The mechanism for bringing in foreign builders is described in the memorandum as the Finland Model, taking as its template a memorandum of understanding signed with Finland in October 2025 covering medium icebreaker construction. It can be applied to up to three ship classes.
Under the conditions set out, a foreign supplier must simultaneously build a new American shipyard or take ownership or a majority equity position in an existing one, and build all ships after the first two in the United States. It must hire and train an American workforce, license the proprietary shipbuilding techniques and technologies used at the parent yard to the American yards, and source an American supply chain for construction and maintenance.
Building warships in foreign yards is generally prohibited under United States law. The memorandum delegates to the Secretary of War the authority to make the national security determination that a contract qualifies for a waiver and to notify Congress of each determination, with no contract permitted until 30 days after Congress receives it.
A new frigate competition
Within 90 days the Secretary of War is to submit a plan for what the memorandum calls “a new competitive acquisition approach for surface combatants with sufficient inherent capabilities to perform anti-submarine warfare, surface warfare, and convoy escort duties”, explicitly allowing proposals based on the international procurement model.
That description covers the ground occupied by the British Type 26 and Type 31, both of which are already exported. BAE Systems has sold the Type 26 design to Australia, Canada and Norway, the last in a £10 billion deal signed in 2025, while Babcock’s Arrowhead 140, the parent design for the Type 31, has been selected by Poland and Indonesia. Both are mature designs in production, which is what the memorandum says it wants.
The insistence on design stability runs through the document. It states that the Navy “shall not impose iterative design changes upon the original mature parent designs” within the programmes concerned, and that no changes may be made without the approval of the Secretary of War in consultation with the Navy Secretary, OMB and the National Security Adviser.
The target of that instruction is not named, but the Constellation-class frigate offers the obvious precedent. Derived from the Italian FREMM design and intended as a low-risk buy of a proven ship, it accumulated so many American modifications that commonality with the parent design fell away, and the programme ran years late amid heavy criticism from the Government Accountability Office.
Yards and repair capacity
Within 120 days the department is to submit a plan to increase nuclear submarine and carrier readiness, including the establishment of a fifth public Navy yard. The United States currently operates four, at Portsmouth in Maine, Norfolk, Puget Sound and Pearl Harbor.
The plan is to address drydock capacity for the planned growth of the attack submarine fleet over the next two decades, with locations proximate to the Pacific Fleet including the continental United States, Alaska, Hawaii and American territories, and site options covering up to three new drydocks sized for every current and projected class of submarine. Public-private partnerships are named as a possible financing route.
A separate plan, due within 90 days, covers a Component Repair Center to receive new parts and refurbish old ones for the submarine repair industrial base, holding at least one ship set of spare equipment for the Los Angeles, Virginia, Seawolf, Ohio and Columbia classes.
Naval Sea Systems Command is also to be reviewed within 120 days, with recommendations for personnel, organisational and structural reform. The stated objectives include introducing results-based accountability for NAVSEA leadership measured by speed of delivery, reducing bureaucracy, eliminating competing priorities within the command, and preventing it from imposing redesigns on mature parent designs.
The memorandum builds on an executive order signed in April 2025 titled Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance. It notes that implementation is subject to the availability of appropriations, and creates no enforceable right or benefit.
We don’t really have the capacity for this do we?
You could argue Babcock do. Build two T31 for the US in Scotland and take over a yard in the US to build more on licence.
Aren’t we due to order a load of drone boats for our own navy and get them into service ASAP? I can’t see us being a contender. We could expand capacity I suppose but then why wouldn’t the US do that themselves?
The idea with the drone boats is we can spread them out across smaller yards, allowing us to expand capacity without touching the big Babcock, Harland, and BAE yards.
Capacity is definitely a concern, but the model kind of helps us in that way. All we need to do is find space for a couple of hulls, and the US in theory provides the rest of the capacity.
Not many small yards left and to be honest the Drone plan is not the way to go as they will need substantial support services that are not in place or will be for some time if ever this costing as much if not more than manned hulls. Far better to build up armed OPV’s to give real presence and able to take on the expected roles and get them manned by mixed full time and reserve crews like we once did with the old River Class MCMV’s. We won the Battle of the Atlantic with cheap mass produced corvettes that delivered when it was needed at a price we could afford.
I mean, we could see companies like Sunseeker, Fairline, Cockwell’s throwing their hats into the ring of smaller than OPVs but large USVs thanks to their Superyacht expertise.
Hell, they might be subcontracted by the bigger defence firms for their workforce and yard space to ramp up delivery without investing in a brand new shipyard.
I doubt we’ll see recreational yards chipping in. We have plenty of small commercial yards, Cowes alone has two yards building aluminium ferries and Crew Transfer Vessels for the offshore industry.
They don’t get in the news because they function very happily without public money; Diverse Marine builds 4-5 CTVs plus smaller vessels each year, with a 6 month order to delivery lag.
Perhaps we can show the Americans how to build a proper frigate
What? Really, really slowly??
Hmmm not really slower than they are at the moment…. Certainly unless you want a poorly armed naval cutter at its core.
The pace was dictated by government procurement and BAe trying to retain skilled labour.
If the U.K. shipbuilding can depend on a steady drum beat of orders. I think it will surprise you how much faster they can build them.
However there is always the strong possibility another government takes over and leads the ship and the in builder high and dry with no orders . Eg the last Conservative government or the Labour one before that. Bae thought they were going to be busy building ten t45, then along came Gordon and dropped it to it to eight , then the dynamic t**ta of Cameron/ Osborne dropped it to six and hoofed all work on the T26 into the long grass.
Your numbers and dates are a little off. Original plan for T45 was 12 ships, then 8, then finally 6 – which was all done under Blair and Brown.
Blair/brown went from 13 to 8. Cameron Osborne dropped it to 6
Rubbish – Brown cut down to 6.
I have already posted a correction !!
In that case, apologies from me.
Cameron didn’t cancel any Type-45s. Blair cut it from 12 to 8 in the early 2000’s (Likely to pay for his jaunt in the Sandbox) and further cut by Brown in 2008, 8 to 6.. Citing finances.
I stand corrected
The slashing of the T45 occurred under Blair/ brown
However my main point stand. The main cause of slow warship production is down to government f**king about , so that the shipbuilders can’t plan ahead . A future steady and reliable drum beat would fix that. However they are back to their old tricks . Any news on the remaining T26 build slot after they have built the Norwegian ships?
eventually.
That suggests we can accelerate from really, really, really slowly?
Seriously, given the glacial pace of UK warship construction, and that our own tiny fleet needs rebuilding, it seems bizarre that we could be in a situation where we see skilled people leaving for the US when we desperately need them in UK shipyards.
Daft idea while we’re scrapping the harrel to have the small navy we have… treason..!
Get ours built first
The frigate proposal is the most interesting to me. It means the USN already has cold feet over the current FF(X) program. The 50 or more ship program is for modified cutters with less inherent capability than the USCG ships they were based on. With no VLS, no ASW, no AAW, and pretty much everything added on in containers and drones, the ships rely on a new form of plug-in integration. A lot of the RN’s CCV/ hybrid capability follows the same philosophy.
So not only might this open the door for BEA to sell something like the Canadian River class (their T26 variant) into the USN, it might even lead to the restoration of the Type 83. BAE must be pretty happy.
The Type 26 is not yet a proven design and therefore would not meet this US requirement.
The requirement for the design to be ‘proven’ was from Constellation, not the above. It only says that the overseas designs have to be ‘mature’, which the T26 certainly is.
@TorpedoJ
The “proven” aspect still holds, it’s written into the Presidents Memorandum.
“… The Department of War shall restore both capacity and competition to the maritime industrial base as it expands our naval force structure. It will use proven, reliable, and affordable technologies and ship designs, as well as award contracts that enable purchases from foreign suppliers in the near term while simultaneously.”
Thanks, hadn’t seen that. Hopefully we can still make some use of it but it’s less likely in this case.
I reckon the Type-26 has a stronger case than others, as it’s to Royal Navy DC and Protection standards, then it’s already done engineering via subclasses to have 32x MK41 VLS cells up front, then using AN/SPY-7 and AEGIS all together. Not to mention, it’s a design used by allies like Australia, Canada, Norway and the UK. So the potential for interoperability is quite high.
If the Yanks want more weapons onboard, then they can ask BAE Systems to expand on their Firepower Upgrade proposal which eschewed out the MCM bay for another 64x MK41 VLS cells and 4x Quad NSM launchers on the roof, whilst retaining the port/starboard RHIB launches and the Merlin sized Hangar, any US Seahawk variant and some UAVs could fit in the hangar together.
Jon,
Concur, DoD/USN is conducting a flanking maneuver to acquire the most capable and compatible ASW offering available (River Class). Planners realize USN must be capable of engaging and defeating PLAN submarine threat in the I-P w/in the foreseeable future. BAES has amassed a favorable track record w/ DoD/USN, a significant acquisition consideration.
Fearless prediction: Ford Class catapult design will revert to baseline ooa 21 Jan 29.
River Class looks almost a shoe-in especially if room could be found for a few more Mk41. The basic T26 choice of 48 CAMM does look a better AAW balance than the RIM launcher. HMS Glasgow should enter contractor trials later this year. I’m sure the USN could finesse the tick in the ‘proven’ box.
If we see US Navy participants aboard Type-26 trials, then you’ve got an answer what they see.
We don’t have enough shipyards for our own needs, if we are building anything for the USN it should be submarines components. If they want foreign ships then South Korea and Japan are the obvious candidates however using a foreign yard won’t solves Americas problems. The USN will still keep fiddling with mature designs and constantly changing requirements and Congress and the MIC will still go out of its way to cancel programs mid procurement to fund job creation programs.
I don’t think that BAE would base their offer on the UK Type 26. They’d use the Canadian design – already a full Aegis – to derisk the conversion of a foreign design. They would leverage their existing North American supply routes, and would expand in the 100 acre Jacksonville site, where they are arguably in a better potion to build than Babcock were when they took on the Type 31. They might forego the chance to build in the UK altogether, and could strike a deal to accelerate production in Halifax for the first two hulls.
I might be wrong, but I think Canadian production might count as US domestic production under current arrangements. Just not as far as hull building and complete ships go.
I’d be shocked if the Canadian government would be happy to defer any of it’s 15 frigates to prioritise 2 ships for MAGA.
I wouldn’t be surprised, first of all it’s a window to cut a couple of hulls eventually. Plus the question is whether the Canadian Navy has the manpower and operational capacity to accommodate 15 ships in the time it takes to build them.
1) Canada operates 12 Halifaxes with a crew of 250 each. 3,000 crew. 15 Rivers with a crew of 150 each is 2,250. Yes it can crew them.
2) Someone hasn’t been paying attention to US-Canadian relations in the last few years.
From what I can find only 3 are in extended maintenance/refit which a pretty good by the standards of western navies. Even so I wouldn’t be surprised if the Canadian government’s desire to spend less on defence overcomes it’s dislike of the United States
“dislike.”
It’s not dislike, it’s the US government talking about annexation and trade wars.
LOOOL “Dislike” is funny. It’s far far far more than that in feeling and in action.
Are you American?
They seem to be expanding their defence plans presently, new frigates, new submarines, new high end radar, expanded reserve forces and observer status on GCAP and a prospective order for new jets, just the obvious ones coming to mind the threat from the south is real, let alone increased threats in the high north now that new shipping lanes are opening up and their cooperation with Europe and thus its mutual defence, increasingly important. I doubt that decisions taken when the outlook was far more benign are likely to be substantially affective in the negative now, at most certain priorities adjusted. But those Rivers are looking vital to protecting their increasing coastline and new increasingly vital trade routes in the Atlantic, Pacific and most recently signed the west coast transit corridor to every single west coast South American Nation. Its sea route trade is becoming many times more vital than it was even 2 years ago.
Aren’t Canada massively slowing their build programme to artificially save annual costs? US orders would make their ships cheaper ignoring the massive political issues.
Babcock are I think the only UK yard or IP that could benefit from this, BAE are sitting on a pile of T26 orders out to 2035.
You can’t ignore the political issues however.
I don’t see Babcock taking advantage of it, they’d have to buy a US shipyard. More likely BAe would either just go for a straight US build. Tbf, by the time the US does any competitions and awards a order it’ll probably be like 2030 anyway and there are some weird things BAe could conceivably do.
I don’t know Babcock’s financial situation but a few years ago they were offering to build yards for whoever wanted AH140 under Arrowyard. With US government prices they would surely be able to buy up a frigate sized site if not one already shipbuilding?
T26 isn’t really a convoy escort or readily adapted to one, I think Rheinmetall’s AAW frigate is probably close to what the USN have in mind so if Babcock could mature an Americanised AH140 with SPY-6 v2 that would be on the right lines too.
T26 isn’t the only design BAe has. Off to top of my head they still have Leander up their sleeve.
Adaptable Strike Frigate has replaced Leander and is a more complete concept, which isn’t saying much. It’s a good concept but are the USN going as all-in on offboard systems as we are?
Even if they aren’t, BAe can easily pitch Leander with onboard systems, they have a well practiced design wing.
They haven’t been getting much practice recently. We’ve had the very basic FAWCS concept, the even more basic Littoral mothership and ASF before that. The last warship they actually designed to its conclusion was T26.
I once did work experience at a university where BAE had asked them to conduct power consumption modelling for ASF, which tells you how shallow the concept was. Better to do an upgraded ASF with a second hangar rather than the container lane and mk56 rather than the CAMM silos. If the stern ramp can take Boeing Orca then that would make a pretty good cheap escort if BAE can build them.
Given that T26 design work really only ended recently with the Canadian and Australian versions that’s not that long ago. Also “designed to completion” well yeah… you don’t design to completion unless you get orders.
The point is it’s a design beauro with experience (even if you ignore Canada and Australia T26 design was relatively recent by Warship construction firm standards) and it has some decent designs on file that. They certainly have more options than just pitching T26.
I think that no ship fully optimised for ASW will be directly suited for convoy duties as well. It will be too expensive for a start. The Americans will have to decide on their priorities. A light destroyer than can do a bit of ASW, or an ASW frigate that can do a bit of everything else.
Building ships for the US would allow them to slow the build of Canadian ships whilst keeping the yards employed.
The T26 or River class derivative was previously rejected by the US as being too expensive and too high end with not enough VLS. BAE would not be able to deliver one before then mid 2030’s.
If the US wants foreign warships it needs to be looking at the Mogami from Japan or the KDX III from South Korea but this is all a pipe dream none of it will happen just like Constellation class.
It will be hard for the US to get away from their fixation with VLS numbers. There’s really no point in them going for the Hunter missile conversion, sacrificing the mission bay for higher VLS numbers. It’s neither one thing nor the other.
@Jim
“The T26 or River class derivative was previously rejected by the US as being too expensive and too high end with not enough VLS”
Totally not true. Stop making up stuff.
Pretty sure it was excluded because the US requirment stated “in service” designs only, which T-26 wasn’t.
Correct.
Actually, it wasn’t even pitched. The Constellation however were rejected for too high a cost – firepower ratio. So there is some substance in the point.
Can’t pitch a design that doesn’t meet the requirements so yeah.
Also Constellation wasn’t rejected because cost-firepower ratio, or FF(X) wouldn’t be a thing, since that ratio is terrible for them. It was spiraling development costs caused by continous USN alterations to the base FREMM design.
There is zero substance to the point that the T26 or River designs were rejected. That’s just pure bullshit.
Indeed, there were calls in Congress for it to be considered but the maturity issue excluded it. There has also been calls via at least one report, for Japan and/or South Korea to build them frigates to fill in the capability gaps rapidly expanding with China, but calls in Congress and it actually happening is a pretty wide gulf.
If they are talking about anti submarine capability and it is perhaps their greatest weakness then the River class already with US systems would be the obvious candidate if price could be accommodated though Asian designs more generally exploit a lot of US systems too so might well be better on cost grounds. If things were normal, then operationally close ties to Canadian frigates would, as with UK/Norway be the obvious choice but unless there is a sudden turn around in relations (which to be fair Trump needs with the mid terms approaching and northern US States suffering while Canada is adding jobs as the US loses them) it seems unlikely. Maybe it could be a mechanism to cover up his failing economic threats against his neighbour, if only he has a sane moment to consider it.
I’m pretty sure Lockheed Canada was the primary mover on the Canadian T26.
There’s a combination of factors, I reckon the Type-26 has a stronger case than others, as it’s to Royal Navy DC and Protection standards, it’s already done engineering via subclasses to have 32x MK41 VLS cells up front, then using AN/SPY-7 and AEGIS all together. Not to mention, it’s a design used by allies like Australia, Canada, Norway and the UK. So the potential for interoperability is quite high.
If the Yanks want more weapons onboard, then they can ask BAE Systems to expand on their Firepower Upgrade proposal which eschewed out the MCM bay for another 64x MK41 VLS cells and 4x Quad NSM launchers on the roof, whilst retaining the port/starboard RHIB launches and the Merlin sized Hangar, any US Seahawk variant and some UAVs could fit in the hangar together.
UK brokers a deal….an opportunity to take the heat out of the US-CA and US-UK tariff wars and play happy families?
It sounds like the US is trying to get the rest of the world to rebuild its industrial capability, with a two ship tip….
I do not see them getting many takers.perhaps China will put in an offer…
I think the US would do detter to just order ships from other countries.
Eh, both BAe and Fincantieri already own shipyards in the US. Both would happily spend American dollars in both their European and Stateside yards.
Thanks – did not know that. What would they build for the US.
Fincantieri was going to build the Constellations, of course that’s gone by the by. BAe mostly does repair and outfitting work for the US, but they have a rather massive catalog of designs. What would they build though is kind of dependent on what the US wants? Obviously a lot of money is on Frigates; I can see BAe pitching either Leander or a T26 variant for sure if that happens. Fincantieri probably out on Frigates but might throw the PPA design into a new competition?
They could get Legend frigate work…. There is the problem with a UK design that they would want to Americanise it with AEGIS or some such like tgey did with the Italian frigate abd we all saw what happened to that. They would do well to buy T26 or T31. T26 in particular would gove NATO comonality.
I doubt it. FF(X) is a HII proprietary design, and HII has plenty of US shipyards for the work, and unlikely to want to give hulls to a competitor.
As opposed to The UK where we tipped Spain an entire company.
“Don’t make iterative design changes in designs that have already occured… except steam cats. The paedo in chief likes those so we now have to completely redesign a ship already under construction to make him happy.”
Don’t forget also looking at moving the island cause “WW2 carriers looked better”… forget how much deck space would be changed.
I’d expect Fincantieri and possibly Austal to be too tainted for the frigate requirement following Constellations and LCS. Hanwha could well be the chief rival for BAE. They invested a lot in their Philly site, are looking to buy out Austal US and are already pitching hybrid builds to the USN. They are ahead of BAE in my opinion. They are putting in more cash and are moving at a speed that BAE doesn’t seem to be able to match. Only the design might trip them up if the USN wants something more heavyweight.
Hanwha Simply don’t have a large long range ASW in its design stable ( as far as I’m aware) I believe all they have are essentially sub 5000 ton patrol frigates.
BAE has a design which is as close to USN survivability standards as they will find is 7000 tons, and in reality the River class would be oven ready for the USN.
KDDX?
The reason FREMM blew up as a design is it needed many hundreds of tonnes of extra steel designed into it to make it a blue water warship able to take hits. It’s not, it’s a littoral ship for low intensity warfare.
As an RN engineer sent to look one over when we were Loki g at light frigate designs said — “nice looking ships, but I wouldn’t want to go to war in one”
Both T31 and T26 are proper warships with similar(ish) DC requirements to US designs.
How exactly is a 6-7 thousand ton ship a “littoral ship”? And if its meant for “low intesity warfare”, what the hell is the 31 meant for? OPV duties?
It’s a littoral ship because Just Me thinks anything that isn’t his Daddy Trumps Maga land or Putins Russia is terrible.
They don’t have the level of redundancy and a few other things that RN insist on.
And yet 6 nations think it’s a good enough ship to buy, with well north of 20 hulls in the water. It’s hardly a crappy littoral ship for low intensity warfare.
That is true but DC standards got extra focus from the Black Sea fleet?
Export success is less about capability and more about prestige and cost, in most cases.
To be clear, I’m sure the FREMM is a solid ship. If I recall, the only major criticism it’s had has been lack of magazine depth. However, export orders to smaller regional powers often boil down to “what is the most impressive thing we can get in budget?” The goal is usually intimidation of neighbouring rivals, as opposed to the most militarily capable asset.
Cost is always a factor, but your fooling yourself if Greece, Italy, France, Egypt and Portugal don’t care about capability.
i’ve heard stories from RN people about the front deck of an Italian FREMM buckling after a day of gunnery exercises
2nd hand info of course and may well have been fixed
There ya go, FREMM has neither the excess structural strength to operate 24/7/365 in any seas globally, nor get hit by big exploding things
https: //www .navalnews . com/naval-news/2025/01/operational-projection-campaign-in-the-indo-pacific-area-for-marceglia-fremm-frigate/
Seems to be operating just fine globally.
I think you are confusing good enough with Gold Standard.
There is a reason that IH had to be substantially upgraded to make T31. Arguably starting with IH was a waste of time and a clean sheet design would have been better from the off.
There is a reason that everyone, who is anyone, is impressed with and ordering T26. OK AUS have turned it into something it was never meant to be….
I’m not. I’m arguing against the idiotic assertion that FREMM are littoral opv’s that “Just me” is pushing.
They are just warship lite compared to T26: that is my PoV.
Cool, nobody is debating that besides you.
Horsehoop. FREMM would quickly break if deployed in the North Atlantic over winter.
Its home turf is the Medditeranean – where it unsurprisingly sells well.
It’s built to Corvette, light Frigate standards
https ://news .usni. org/2026/02/23/french-carrier-strike-group-heading-to-north-atlantic-baltic
Maybe tell the French as they deploy their FREMMs to the North Atlantic in winter fairly regularly dumbass.
Yes, our T31’s ARE for OPV duties, they are 141 replacements of B2 OPVs
B2s are replacements for B1s, the T31 is the 1-4-1 replacement of the GP T23s genius.
No it’s not – T31’s will replace the forward deployed B2 OPVs .
There is NO replacement for the B1’s in the equipment plan, zip, zilch, nada.
Thank you. I couldn’t have asked for better proof that you don’t know what you are talking about.
13 Type 23 Frigates where to be replaced by 8 ASW Type 26’s and 5 GP Type 26’s back in 2012. This was then altered to 8 ASW Type 26’s and 5 GP Type 31’s in 2014 as the Type 26 hull was deemed unnecessary for a GP vessel and costs could be saved (while as bonus giving work to Babcock).
Batch 2 OPV was ordered due to the delays in the Type 26 program between the completion of the Carriers and the laying down of the first Type 26 to keep BAe in business. As they entered service the B1 Rivers where retired; Clyde was sold to Bahrain, Severn was decommissioned in 2017, Tyne was decommissioned in 2018 and Mersey was due to be decommissioned in 2019. All three where due to be replaced by the River B2’s, but where temporarily returned to service in 2018. They are now being retired as planned and their duties are being taken over by the B2’s.
I’m really sorry you don’t know recent RN history or what is replacing what, maybe your paymasters need to invest in your education a bit more?
It would be unwise and perhaps unlikely that work would come here from the present administration. Much as the orange one likes the UK in general, he won’t get anything personally out of a deal with us in the way that he might from a deal with other less scrupulous countries. Plus, any deal made will last only as long as it takes for him to change his mind. And of course, half way through construction he will order that they should now be built with paddle wheels.
Better to stay out of the chaos and ethical mess that may be around this at least for a year or two…
British shipbuilding capacity is negligible on a world wide scale and already having trouble delivering anything for the RN of RFA.
This is much more likely targeting South Korea or Japan both of which have successful and efficient warship buildong programs. (Despite much smaller defence budgets)
Japan and ROK aren’t supporting a submarine based nuclear deterrent via their defence budget. They also don’t have fleet carriers and SSN. It’s not surprising they spend less.
Well Japan has 2 small carriers, capable of carrying the 8 F35s that QE and PoW do, South Korea is also slowly building one that will likely fly Korean aircraft or drones. Both do operate very advanced conventional submarines.
QE and POW have full airwings of 36 F35s not 8.
I read it somewhere with the latest exercise in the Arctic (Neptune Strike?) She was only carrying 8 jets but I can’t find the source now.
It does look like there was only one squadron embarked -809 NAS. Whereas in November on exercise it was reported that they had the largest number of jets they’d ever had on board with 809 NAS and 617 Squadron which was 24 jets. So 8-12 seems reasonable if only 809 was on board. The UK took delivery of 48 F35Bs, one crashed, 4 are based in the US which leaves 43 available in various states of maintenance etc. Either way you can see it’s impossible for both carriers to have their full air wings of 36 jets (not withstanding the fit that the RAF would have.) As far as I’m aware the DIP only mentions buying 12 more F35As too so this is unlikely to change any time soon. Buying the F35B and not fitting the carriers for CATOBAR was hugely short sighted. (That said worth mentioning that many US carriers can’t operate the F35 either)
What they carry on a given exercise is not the same thing as what a full airwing is. A QE’s full airwing is 36 F35’s. That’s what they are designed for. (And the DIP mentions 12 F35A and 12 F35Bs). But QE’s also sometimes have USMC F35’s aboard so total UK numbers are a bit irrelevant. (Also the point of having two carriers is that you can have a full airwing of 36 on one, while the other is in maintenance).
Kaga and Izumo at max load out carry 8-12 F25s depending on the Helicopter wing, but have never sailed with more than two on board. So if you are going by the UK deciding to deploy only 8 F35s for a given op, then Japan is only capable of 2, see how nonsensical that is? At the end of the day, Kaga is not a fleet carrier, it’s a light carrier with a very limited maximum airwing, while the Queen Elizabeths are full on fleet carriers.
Also no, buying F35B and going STOVL was the right choice because at minimum we’d have lost one carrier going to CATOBAR, and we’d be utterly reliant on the US for Carrier Qualification for our pilots.
Well we’re still fully reliant on the US for carrier quals, plus the F35B is the most expensive and requires the most maintenance per flight hour
Having the carriers CATOBAR would have enabled us to use all of the US Navy’s inventory (COD aircraft, AWACs) we may have lost a carrier but I doubt it it’s the only program that was contracted to make it impossible to loose. Not to mention as it’s unlikely that there will ever be another STOVL aircraft we’ve essentially limited our carriers to the life of the F35 whereas if you look at the Nimitz class they’ve carried everything from F4s to F35s the ship has stayed the same.
We aren’t. Carrier pilot qualification is much easier to maintain for STOVL and the FAA/RAF maintain it on their own, while the French need to use US decks to maintain BAR landings. F35B is more expensive than C per flight hour, but doesn’t require renting US Navy carrier deck space to keep pilots qualified.
And you can doubt away, but the plan to pay for the CATOBAR conversion was literally to sell off the 2nd Carrier. Good thing you have clairvoyance, in the meantime the UK has operated STOVL aircraft off it’s carriers since the 1970s, funnily enough, since the F4.
Of course we haven’t limited the life of the carriers to that of the F-35B. While a CATOBAR conversion is possible (Project Ark Royal as was) and can be viewed as the gold standard upgrade, a cheaper shift to STOBAR would be far simpler. I have no doubt that any twin-engine 6th gen successor (eg FA/XX) will have the power to ramp-launch to operate STOBAR.
CATOBAR has never been built on a Gas Turbine powered ship. GTs are sensitive creatures and there is no guarantee that an EMALS developed for the Ford Class, would work on our 60,000t carriers. It would be massive technical risk / single point of failure and the USN are not going to dumb down their cats to please us.
The training burden would be higher – you lose ability to surge numbers as was done in the Falklands
Sortie generation rates would be lower.
Ability to operate in bad sea states is lower.
It was a sensible decision to go for a 90% solution that can actually be delivered.
Small point Dern, It’s 12 F-35A and 15 F-35B on order.
The 15 Bs will take the B total to 62, which will I reckon give 30 frontline. They will be able to deploy 36 on a carrier including spare aircraft for maintenance and their air and ground crews. My rough reckoning anyway.
Fair, just builds on my point that it’s not just 12 F35As. Also worth remembering that the A’s are supposedly just training fleet, so that does in theory open up more B’s for frontline roles.
Bull, they were supposed to carry 48 x F-35B simultaneously.
Getting 36 on just one is a maximum effort that requires stripping the OCU.
If I wanted shit opinions I’d talk to the contents of my toilet post dump. Come back when you have a clue.
I don’t think so JM. The 48 aircraft.was just the total number HMG aimed to have in service by 2024, not the max size of the carrier air wing.
With RAF air fleets, only half the aircraft will be operational frontline. The rest are in routine maintenance, OEU, OCU etc. So it is likely that 30 are frontline and could be deployed on the carrier if needed and that figure could be increased to 36 by adding in 6, with their air and ground crews to cover maintenance, without needing to rob the OCU.
This could be a poisoned Trump-gold chalice we need to dislocate from the US not get bound up in any way that adversely affects the UK’s production and that of its northern European partners.
Perhaps Vlad might want to put a package together with Trump’s born again best buddy Kim!
in fairneness, if we don’t have enough work for a yard take American money to keep British jobs doesn’t seem that bad.
And pigs might fly 🙄
Dear George, Taking into account how a certain individual reacts to the press espeicialy if it changes his words or puts him in a bad light I’m surprised at how this article has been edited, added to and words omitted when compared to the original document. The article completely change the context of his instruction and not in a good way.
I’ve actualy read the Memorandum and by inserting the words “striping out” before “and replacing” and then omitting “construction” implies he is wanting to remove and replace from an existing Carrier.
What he actually asked for is a plan to replace the EMAL and AWL in CVN81 Dorris Miller within 60 days as she is due to be laid down this year and the costs and resourcing issues for doing so.
Danger Will Robinson !
Very easy to mislead and miss direct …
Few people like trump but to blame him for EMALS Maybe stretching it..There are obviously issues with the system…
As for trumps Battle ship ..Again the Vessel is not Remotely the size of a battle ship ..! A Heavy Cruiser is about right…! Point out that USN has operated Nuclear Cruisers in the past successfully….!
Given the steam systems are no longer in production, how long do you think it would take to rebuild the capacity, let alone the costs for the redesign of the carriers and all the delays that it would create (or has everyone forgotten the Constellation already?)
As for the Trump class, its not happening, Congress hasn’t even funded it for the next budget, let alone the state of the US yards and the restrictions a nuclear ship would have in construction.
And it’s not like you just replace an EMALS cat with a steam one. You basically need a shipwide plumbing system to direct steam from the reactor to the deck. It’s not a minor design change.
So you think in 60 days the Navy can come up with a fully specced plan and costings to install steam generation systems, pipe runs, an even the cats themselves (which are no longer in production in the first place)?
A new Carrier maybe for the USN built by BAE 🤗
Our Carriers have been very successful when they been able to stay out of dry dock..!!!!!
They’d need 6 CVVs to make it worthwhile. They’d have to cost at most half as much as a CVN (including extra oiler capacity), have at least half the sortie rate, two catapults, and have 33% availability as opposed to 25% for a CVN. Also permission to forward base two in Europe in the same way they put a CVN in Yokosuka. And while that would be exactly when the USN needs, they’ll still never take them. CVVs are seen as a threat to CVNs and the memory of Admiral Rickover. So they are stuck with a less flexible fleet and a bottleneck at Norfolk News that is slowly tightening.
It’s a shame the T26 and T31 aren’t more heavily armed. The yanks would love them. Us brits have a habit of under arming our ships. It doesn’t make them attractive for export.
T26 isn’t exactly lightly armed. And compared to FF(X) even T31 is bristling with armaments.
With 32 Mk41 and 8 NSM that isn’t popgun stuff.
T31 can be very heavily unarmed.
More flag waving key side diplomats than Warships.!
The Falklands should have warned us about underarmed warships …lesson not learned..
No one in the Treasury served in the Falklands. They don’t care.
It is more to do with the RN’s budget and how it allocates it. If it only has £250-£400m to spend on a T31, it is going to be a lightly armed El Cheapo sans any real ASW defence. You gets what you pays for..
Geo Osborne set the price for the Type 31s, not the Navy.
Given the capacity we have to build our own ships, this would have to be a IP design transfer – and the US would have to build them.
However given that Canada use one of these designs (not a US Ally as far as Trump is concerned) and the fact that once the US gets a good design, they radically change it to become a non-starter, I think it’s a NO to our designs.
Sounds interesting but, after the initial hype, nope :
1) No one trusts the Yellow-Striped Orange, or the Secretary of Clowning. Contracts mean nothing, minds change daily in this administration.
2) The crappy Frigate they want maybe, maybe, but I feel as there is NOWHERE to build the new Trump-BBs (I wont call them Defiant as its an insult to Starfleet), then this is actually about someone buying/refurb or building a new yard that will take a 50k ton ship.
3) The Trump-BBs built aboard would require the reactors going abroad along with a host of other stuff that is highly classified.
4) Its not actually a good deal, financially to open a yard in the US, just like that, hmmm, screams of masking sub 7nm chips in Arizona overnight.
Stay away, far away.
Yet BAe and RR both run very successful, efficient and profitable businesses in the US, BAe is mainly for the Army and Navy maintenance but RR bought Alison when it was struggling and turned it around.
Someone over there really needs to take a long hard look at the US Corporate way of running its MIC and ask why it can’t deliver but Foreign owned or run companies do quite nicely.
I’m not disputing the principle, its the current administration and its bat shit crazy ideas & ideals that I wouldn’t want to get involved with
Didn’t they eventually get the Constellation to about what they wanted in a frigate – after much pain and cost – and then cancelled it? What about re-booting that idea? After all, they are still building the first two.
How abut you do some research on the Constellations before making erroneous remarks.
OK, as of reading the article on their cancellation on TWZ, yes, there are two that will be built so my remarks are correct.
They did seem to cancel the class after much pain and cost, so my remark is correct there, too.
The first part was a question – did they get the Constellation to about what they wanted in a frigate? Remember, they added much to the design increasing it’s weight. Brought internals (here, I’m remembering what I read without a source) to US Navy survivability spec and (again, I’m remembering) increased the armament/made the armament US spec.
So, again, what about re-booting the Constellation? It would save an enormous amount of pain and time that putting a new design up for tender and then going through the selecting process that they have already done twice (once, Constellation, twice, the coast guard cutter).
(Personal preference is they adopt the Canadian River T26 design.) Any corrections welcome.
Google sums up the reasons for their cancellation pretty well: severe design instability, a three-year schedule delay, and ballooning costs.
They’re not coming back.
Hmm – Interesting.
BAE Systems and Fincantieri already own shipyards in the US.
The older Burkes are going need replacing. If BAE really want to go for it then there is the Canadian variant, already decked out with US systems
Politics maybe tricky however given the state of US-Canuck war, er sorry “relations”
Pointless waste of time. Trump wants them converted back to steam. Not sure we have those skills left 🙂
Does anyone have a figure on the probablility of the USN not completely fvcking this up?
One further question is that paying bribes is criminal here, is it not? So how will Chump be brought on board?
So the profit would be eaten by the cost of setting up a shipyard. In the USA. Worse we will be arming our enemy, the USA will be part of the russian empire by the end of the next 2 years
“ British shipyards could build warships for America”
Be nice to hear
“ British shipyards could build more warships for Britain”
Comment of the week 👍👍👍
I would love the Canuck 26 to be delivered to the US and called the Commonwealth frigate but, built in the US?
That is never going yo happen for the simple reason that even existing shipyards can not recruit and retain employees – visit the USNI Youtube for more information. Simples.
Commonwealth has a different meaning in the US.