Norway has selected BAE Systems’ Type 26 design as the basis for its future frigate programme, a decision that will shape the Royal Norwegian Navy for decades to come.
The choice reflects both Oslo’s urgent need to restore lost capability and its determination to secure a modern anti-submarine warfare platform that can operate seamlessly with NATO allies.
The programme aims to replace the Fridtjof Nansen-class frigates, a fleet that has been diminished since the loss of HNoMS Helge Ingstad in 2018. With only four ships left in service, Norway has faced challenges meeting its commitments in the High North and across the North Atlantic.
These waters remain strategically vital as Russian submarines operate out of the Kola Peninsula into the Norwegian and Barents Seas, creating persistent pressure on NATO’s northern flank. The new frigates are expected to become the backbone of Norway’s ability to monitor, deter and if necessary counter undersea activity in one of the most contested maritime regions in the world.
The Type 26 has been designed from the keel up as a world-class anti-submarine warfare vessel. Its acoustic quieting, advanced sensors, and mission flexibility make it particularly suited to the environment in which Norway operates. With a displacement of around 6000 tonnes, it offers a balance of endurance, stealth, and growth potential. The ship’s large mission bay and adaptable design also ensure that it can integrate emerging technologies such as uncrewed systems and directed energy weapons in future.
Norway’s decision adds to the growing international adoption of the Type 26. The Royal Navy is building eight ships on the Clyde, while the Royal Australian Navy has committed to nine under the Hunter-class programme. Canada is building fifteen under the Canadian Surface Combatant project. Norway’s participation now creates a transatlantic community of operators centred on the same platform, a level of commonality that is rare in modern naval procurement.
The benefits of this shared approach are clear. Common training, logistics, and sustainment systems can drive down costs across the user base. More importantly, the ships will be able to operate together in NATO task groups with an unprecedented degree of interoperability. In an alliance context where undersea threats remain a defining challenge, a multinational fleet of advanced frigates designed for anti-submarine warfare represents a significant enhancement to collective defence.
For Norway, the choice also carries industrial implications. BAE Systems has already established a complex supply chain across the UK, Australia, and Canada, but Oslo is expected to secure meaningful involvement for Norwegian industry in both the build process and long-term support.
Opportunities will likely emerge in areas such as combat systems, sensors, and electronic warfare equipment. Domestic participation has been a political priority for the Norwegian government, which views industrial access as central to national security
Will this impact the Royal Navy receiving their ordered ships ?
They’ll probably take one of the current ships in build and divert it. That said, there is some slack to speed up the build process as currently, the government is purposefully slowing down the build process to ensure continuous work into the 2030s. With new orders now confirmed for those Glasgow facilities, the UK government could opt to speed up the builds slightly.
Measures to speed up the Build times have already been implemented – the Janet Harvey Build Hall,the outsourcing of Hull Block Fabrication to other Yards to name two.As others have stated on here before the Bottleneck will be the fitting out times at Scotstoun.
But the Norwegians may well do some fitout themselves….
Anyway a positive problem to have doing productive work at commercial pace for a change!
Guess it also depends on just how much industrial involvement goes to Norway. Maybe Type 26 assembled on the Clyde (or even, le gasp, at Rosyth, with some components build in Norway, and then towed across for fit out in a Norwegian port.
It might depend on how much they want to deviate from the base T26 design, the Australian and Canadian derivatives have a fair few changes on them. That being said, Norway is prioritising ASW like we have and they will prefer to have European systems where possible, so it will probably be closer to T26. They will also want these in service sooner than later, so getting a design with most of the kinks worked out in service quickly will take priority over spending time reworking things, along with the risks that brings.
The Norwegian requirement demanded identical fits to the ships of the partner nation. So, CAMM and Artisan as standard.
Brilliant news! Thank you Norway🙏 .
Fantastic news. Is it 5 hulls?
5-6 IINM. They currently operate four ships (after one sunk following a collision), but the government press release says ‘at least five’, and I’ve seen six thrown around as a possibility.
Congrats all round
5-6 extra ships will do wonders for reducing the unit cost of each ship being procured for both the UK and Norway. If the Type 83 is going to reuse systems from the Type 26 as well, we could see some major efficiencies being made across British ship-building.
Will they use the CAMM? It seems likely, and the designs being presented at trade shows by BAE as being Norwegian-focused retain both Artisan and CAMM, whilst adding plenty of NSMs. So, that’s potentially another win for the UK in terms of adding another large customer for its surface-to-air missile family.
This should be the second-largest family of frigates being deployed in the West, behind the FREMM and its derivatives.
There’s also the advantage of having an extra 5-6 ships to provide incentive and funding for future upgrades to the class, which are far more appealing when not being made to a small class.
Surely, now we must build an extra facility to build more T26s, so it doesn’t impact our own RN plans
Yes and don’t forget T83.
Great news, but not forgetting the Type 26s order is just part of a wider strategic partnership that Norway wanted to build with the competition winner.
Hopefully we can build a missile cooperative agreement with them, generally speaking their strengths are our weaknesses there and vice versa.
And if so we can draw Norway away from their present US bias. We all need to do that after all. Becoming urgent generally as Trump is now threatening chip bans if Europe brings in an online services tax which of course as time passes is vital if tax raising powers aren’t totally compromised as more and more business goes online which is substantially dominated by US companies who will otherwise be earning mostly tax free profits to pay into and sustain the US economy and tax cuts to the rich while the rest of us decline into poverty. It’s unsustainable but sadly Europe, as the German Chancellor admitted has been remiss in not encouraging home grown competition here. Implications everywhere including defence of course.
A chip ban? Chips come from Taiwan, the silicon substrate comes from Japan, the lithography machines come from the Netherlands.
What does he hope to ban us from?
Huzzah
The T26 community grows.
I was going to say I bet the Americans wish they had chosen the T26 for their future frigate program, but there would have been the same alterations applied to it to double the cost…CMS, radar, missiles and so on.
The Norwegians know what they are doing. Minimum changes if at all lowers the cost for everyone and delivers a product unsullied by extra redesign and add-on’s.
AA
Given the Canadian River class did all of that, I wonder if the USN didn’t actually miss a trick by lifting the canadian design.
Australia is building six Hunter Class Frigates, not nine.
It was 9 reduced to 6….after a huge amount of gold plate was applied…
Great news, I wonder if they will go with a different radar to Artisan? 🤔
Unlikely, Norway want as much commonality as possible with the partner design. They’ll be basal Type 26 frigates with more NSM.
Excellent news! I just hope we order at least a couple more ourselves and give the shipyard the commercial confidence to work at pace rather than the deliberately slow pace of construction we’ve seen so far.
Brilliant news amidst the general gloom. I presume this will keep BAE busy for years, especially if UK adds to its order.
The question then is who will build MRSS or T32. An adaptation of the T31 would suggest Rosyth is best placed if a frigate hybrid is chosen.