The Ministry of Defence has recently disclosed the number of days each Royal Navy frigate and destroyer spent at sea in 2022.
The details, brought to light during a parliamentary Q&A, vary considerably between ships, with several vessels clocking up over 100 days at sea.
The data was presented by James Heappey, Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, in response to a question raised by John Healey, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence.
Among the six Type 45 Destroyers listed, Diamond and Defender were notably active, with 114 and 106 days at sea, respectively. On the other hand, Daring and Dragon were less active, recording zero and 18 days respectively.
The Ministry of Defence also provided details of the twelve Type 23 Frigates’ sea deployments. Montrose spent the most days at sea with 212 days, closely followed by Northumberland with 191 days. Conversely, Iron Duke, St Albans, and Sutherland all had zero recorded days at sea.
“The normal operating cycle of every ship involves them entering different readiness levels depending on their programmes, periods of refit, and Departmental planning requirements,” Heappey explained in his response.
“In addition, these figures represent days at sea, and it should be noted that, while deployed away from the UK, ships will spend both days at sea and alongside in ports around the world.”
Furthermore, Heappey pointed out that the figures might vary from those provided in previous Parliamentary Questions or Freedom of Information responses due to an update to fleet scheduling software in 2022 that improved accuracy.
| Rank | Name of Ship | Type | Number of Days at Sea |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Montrose | Frigate | 212 |
| 2 | Northumberland | Frigate | 191 |
| 3 | Portland | Frigate | 152 |
| 4 | Richmond | Frigate | 145 |
| 5 | Lancaster | Frigate | 165 |
| 6 | Kent | Frigate | 127 |
| 7 | Diamond | Destroyer | 114 |
| 8 | Defender | Destroyer | 106 |
| 9 | Westminster | Frigate | 90 |
| 10 | Dauntless | Destroyer | 63 |
| 11 | Duncan | Destroyer | 62 |
| 12 | Somerset | Frigate | 52 |
| 13 | Argyll | Frigate | 21 |
| 14 | Dragon | Destroyer | 18 |
| 15 | Daring | Destroyer | 0 |
| 16 | Iron Duke | Frigate | 0 |
| 17 | St Albans | Frigate | 0 |
| 18 | Sutherland | Frigate | 0 |
Can’t see HMS Westminster going back to sea again ,I suspect the MOD have already made there minds up because of her refit cost and age.😞 Has anybody got news on HMS Daring she’s not been to sea for year’s. ?
She has just completed PiP and is, I vaguely recall, having other updates alongside.
So, should be rejoining the active fleet quite soon.
I was always, more than surprised, that she was left on the wall for so long. Although, I suspect, that there was a very good reason for that and that she was being used as a donor.
Cheers 👍
Type 23’s really are the workhorses!
I would be interested to know how these figures compare with other navies. In isolation they are pretty meaningless. Also how the figures compare to previous years.
What I would like to know is how much manpower is available to put a crew on all these ships?
Quite well TBH.
Although most navies would regard this as secret information.
To be getting ca 200 seagoing days out of a T23 is frankly amazing.
I would say that 90-110 seagoing days average is about real world.
It all goes back to design life and how fast you chew it up.
However, nothing lasts long at 200 days/year intensity of use.
The real question is how many are available for immediate use if the need arrived. It’s rare in a war situation that you have years or even months to prepare for it. That would include available parts/crew/ammo etc to get the ships into the fight in short term.
Think falkands where we sent everything we had afloat with new Zealand etc helping covering the gaps.
Governments /mod hiding behind national security is always stupid as all it does is encourge the mess that Russia got in with it’s gear. Any realistic enemy will have a decent spy network and will know stock levels etc, so it’s only the general public that doesn’t.
Our availability is currently very poor due to the massive program of fixing the surface flighty fleet up to standard.
PiP hadn’t helped.
Running a small group of T23 flat out till they fall apart hasn’t helped.
Leaving ships to grow grass out of their decks hasn’t helped.
Hopefully the message has sunk in that leaving ships on the wall I maintained costs a lot of money in the long run.
The immediate need should it arise would certainly call up on any/all able to serve on the vessels.
The active number is one thing the other number who recently left the service etc is another.
The question though is how many are available. If they are in deep maintance (delayed or otherwise) or mothballed, it’s highly unlikely they can be made available quickly as the technical workforce isn’t there to rush the process and training up people takes time. Especially the case if they have been stripped to replace parts for other vessels, the replacement parts will take time to build.
I wonder what the comparable figures are for crew members?
These figures would make more sense if alongside them there was an indication of the known reasons for the numbers eg. Refit, PIP, Gulf patrol etc.& the current status. Dauntless, Iron Duke etc. are probably going to be heavily used going forward whilst others will take their places alongside. The reasons & an indication showing if things are likely to get better or worse are quite interesting ….
So for the D class just less than a year between the six, an average of sixty days or twenty percent of the year. Six top rate ships alongside for the equivalent of 1800 days, just short of five years. Wow. The main question though is are they ready and are crews available for them to put to sea go if hostilities broke out.
PIP has propably been the issue but that seems to be making good progress. There must be quite a large proportion of days when they could have been operational but were not needed. Are these figures showing us the true picture?
This is the problem with only having 12 frigates and 6 destroyers on the order of battle. At least a third will be in refit/ reserve at any one time and therefore not available for tasking. Hence why the RN needs to get back up to 26 surface combatants and 12 SSN’s pretty damn quickly. The fastest way to do this is to go all in with existing proven designs- so another batch of Type 31s (especially now fitted with mk41 vls) and further type 26 frigate orders- putting the number back up to 12 or 13. The type 26 has come down in price courtesy of Australia and Canada selecting the type and therefore at circa £750 million each they are worth investing in.
The RN needs to get match fit for the late 2020s/ early 2030s in anticipation of a likely need to confront the evil axis of Russia and China, especially China with its expansionistic aims and intention of just wholesale claiming territories as its own.
Our allies in the Indo-pacific need us to be ready to stand up for the rule based international order.
I suspect we are going to be forced into pushing forward rapidly with PIP, Type 23 refits etc. with a view increasing the hulls as the T31 & T26 start becoming available. Decommisioning T23 is a luxury we probably can’t afford. Reserve seems fine to me as long as they are ready to go at short notice.
Agree the type 23s that aren’t scavenged for parts or government supplied equipment for type 31s should definitely be held in reserve. Other nations have a reserve fleet.
Whilst I agree wholeheartedly regarding the numbers of escorts we should have and in light of what you said viz-a-viz China – which again, I totally agree with you – the RN can only spend what it’s allocated by HMG.
Given how the global security picture has decayed – and continues to do so – this government has done nothing to prepare the country’s Armed Forces in terms of resources, for what’s coming in the next 5-10yrs. China is going to kickoff a punch-up with Taiwan in the next few years (most analysts agree by 2025 or so) and make no mistake, we WILL be dragged into it. Frankly, we’re not ready.
I read recently that one of Sunak’s aids said that when it comes to defence, he (Sunak) wants nothing to do with it and that he has no interest in defence matters. Unfortunately, if Labour get in, I can’t see them opening the national wallet either.
So, we are where we are…..
Is Northumberland dual crewed?
These figures need better context. Only 2/3 of ships are held in the forward fleet. The remaining 1/3 are held in reserve. So what we really want to know is what availability occurred in the forward fleet, ie. was the forward fleet maintained as effective. Figures for the whole fleet are misleading, since ships in reserve are expected to have zero days at sea.
Just a question on the Type 45s. Does anyone know if any are included in the 3 ships that are to receive the NSM fit this year? HMS Sutherland is the only one that I am aware that has been confirmed.
Once the Type 45s get NSM and the 24 Sea Ceptor cells, they will be formidable assets!
My take is that the remaining 21+ year old T23 frigates are being exerted to the limit to meet immediate urgent operational tasks. But some are now becoming so worn out that another refit would be crazily expensive – Montrose being a good example, perhaps Westminster as well? The 2005 sale at a bargain price (£135m) of three still young T23s to Chile looks more of a very expensive mistake every year that passes. Those ships are desperately needed now by the RN, even if they had been laid up years.
Yep, one of many utterly needless Labour cuts that are ignored all too often here.
Yes big mistake T23s going over to Chile
Days at sea without taking Operational Capability or notice for sea into account means squat.
OC is king.
Fleet HQ knows the material state (down to individual systems) and crew state ( gapping and training) of every ship.
It knows what each ship can do and allocates tasking accordingly. You can for instance do 100days at sea but have really pish poor OC and if push comes to shove would be limited in what tasking you could do.
You can do 100 days alongside with great OC and be sat there at 48 hrs notice to sail.
Which is better?
Burning up running hours on kit, adding days to the crews leave total but achieving nothing of any import and just wizzing around the crinkly stuff achieving photo ops only.
Or sat alongside, Doing maintenance that doesnt take the kit below 48hrs notice, crew taking leave to get their leave total down but still able to return onboard within 24hrs, crew doing training to maintain currency at shoreside facilities (Fire fighting and Damage Control, Ops Room Sims, OOW Sims) Not burning the kits running hours because you are on shore supply.
I said this already in a shorter form on the Twitter Hellsite.
Nobody complains that the ARMY is not trundling around the UKs or anyone else’s fields and roads 24/7 in tanks , AFVs and trucks for no apparent reason other than “because they can!” Nobody questions the RAF for not having every Aircraft in the air whether its needs to be or not just because they can.