The Royal Navy’s escort fleet, comprising Type 23 frigates and Type 45 destroyers, remains a credible and essential component of the UK’s defence strategy, according to a recent statement from the Ministry of Defence (MOD).
Responding to a parliamentary question on 22nd November, Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard highlighted the fleet’s operational effectiveness and its critical role in supporting Carrier Strike operations.
Pollard stated, “The Royal Navy’s escort fleet, comprising Type 23 Frigates and Type 45 Destroyers, is a credible force calibrated to meet individual and multinational Defence outputs effectively.”
These ships are designed to counter complex threats, providing robust defence for the fleet.
The escort fleet’s importance was underscored by its contribution to Carrier Strike Group 21 and will again be demonstrated during Carrier Strike Group 25, which is set to deploy to the Indo-Pacific in 2025.
Pollard spoke on the fleet’s ability to protect and enhance the UK’s Carrier Strike capability, adding, “These vessels remain poised to defend the Fleet against complex threats and are central to the UK’s Carrier Strike Capability.”
Looking ahead, Pollard pointed to the forthcoming introduction of the Type 26 and Type 31 frigates, which are expected to replace aging vessels in the escort fleet. He said, “The introduction of Type 26 and 31 Frigates in the coming years demonstrates the Royal Navy’s commitment to the modernisation of our escort fleet.”
The Type 26 frigates, designed for advanced anti-submarine warfare, and the Type 31 general-purpose frigates, intended to provide flexible and cost-effective support, represent a significant investment in the future of the Royal Navy.
More political leaking of the SDR.
What escort force with 14 hulls? Only 8 of them available?
Bla bla bla. You have scrapped the amphibious capability, this is the reality.
Yep. Our ‘amphibious’ capability is now Argus and Lyme Bay raiding the Maldives.
The mouse that roared. These guys truly are men/women of straw. I mean who believes this stuff, do they truly believe it themselves? Sounds like a Don’t Panic meme for public consumption with the only question being is it of the Dads Army variety or the Hitchikers Guide variety.
The late, great Peter Sellers and a really good film, too based on Leonard Wibberley’s novel The Mouse That Roared and if I remember rightly there was a sequel as well, The Mouse on the moon.
More useless politician blather.
A few more T31s anyone? Batch 2/T32? Batch 1/T83??
I think we need to focus on getting T31 and T26 into service. MCMV is a higher priority than T32. My money is the SDR goes for a batch of 3 Kongsberg Vanguards.
Yes true. With the Vanguards at only 3, shouldn’t that be at least 6 as they might be useful in complementing or replacing the B2 Rivers. Anyway, 3 for starters.
Yes, I think I read somewhere that the RN wanted a batch of 3 MCMV mother ships. If they go with the Vanguard I would see it as an obvious R1 replacement so there’s your 6. Resurrect the Home Fleet.
Getting tired of these “the army is ready to fight tonight”, “we are fulfilling all our tasks” and “we have plenty of escorts” nonsense. Not sure who they think they are kidding, the army wouldn’t last a week in any conflict, the airforce likewise and the navy would be decimated if a couple of ships were hit by missiles. I still don’t get why the government can’t immediately fix the RFA strike, they don’t want much. There is no sense of urgency or competence anywhere.
Agree. Terrible. We are all just praying for some sense of a plan to come out of SDSR….I’m not holding my breath though as the Tories have wrecked the armed forces and now Labour are making seemingly knee jerk reactions cutting whole capabilities without replacement.
The RFA should employ as many train drivers as they can to get the thing sorted. The Govt would cave in inside days.
I think the best service is RAF, they would last certainly more than week as long as the airfields are not targetable by long range missiles. The Navy would be hard pressed against drones and missiles, i guess it is okayish for middle of Atlantic Ocean and can have a 1-2 SSN causing havock. The army is in dire straits i don’t think it will even last 1 week.
Alex, have you served in the RAF? If you have 30 aircraft, usually, 10 will be available. To fly those 10 hard, you will need 2-3 pilots. Typhoon has been employed non-stop for the last 10-15 years – they are starting to ‘break’. We don’t have enough aircraft, pilots, weapons or spares to sustain high tempo war fighting for more than a few days. With the help of the USAF in the UK, we might last a week.
Against whom? The RuAF is in a terrible state. Their ancient turbo props and bombers have the RCS of a block of flats and have the EM output of the Crystal Palace Transmitter. They would have zero chance of getting near in a conflict with combined USAF and RAF but they would also be in Article 4 territory and would have upset the neighbourhood. If only 30 % [it is higher than that] of the planes are flyable then you have at least 3 pilots per frame. The main problem is the spare bins are kept very empty of even… Read more »
JIT in a conflict seems to require understanding of the source and their resilience as the Pandemic showed that the global supply chain is fragile, for example no cars because no chips. I would hope that criteria is built into the JIT supply system…
The lack of progress on the RFA strike must surely mean that the resolution is linked to the SDR.
The British Army would last more than a week in any conflict, against anyone!
What a joke. If you said to me 20 years ago that the RN would have…at best 8 frigates, 6 destroyers, 2 capable carriers but limited due to funding and small airing, virtually no MCM vessels left. Scrapping our amphibious landing ships without replacement, forward repair capability gone (RFA Diligence) just one underway replenishment ship that needs massive investment meanwhile our FSS ships are kinda going to be built….sometimes. I would have shook my head in disbelief….and yet this is exactly where we are. SDSR is going to have to be massively impressive to reverse the rot and try to… Read more »
I agree.
The trouble is that running an MoD that is structured around a 3% defence spend means actual deployable capital is very thin.
In real terms going from present levels of spending to 2.75% would close to double our effective spending because the fixed overhead is so massive.
SDR will be the end of Britain as the main european country of NATO, in real terms expect only cuts added to the already announced.
Exactly – Healy said as much this week, that more cuts will be coming.
Weren’t UK forces known as “The Borrowers” in Afghan as their kit was not sufficient…
To be honest there really needs to be as much of a speed up as possible on the T26 and T31, the RN needs the first in class to be ready for trials ASAP and to expedite those trials.
No way you will sped up T31 as they are flat out not hitting any milestones.
No point is speeding up T26 as that created a pre T83 gap. Unless the Norwegian order comes through.
The next problem is crewing 13 nice shiny new frigates.
Unfortunately the rate the T23s are going unless they can speed up a bit the RN really will almost run out of escorts later in the decade. Let’s have a look at were they are at Lancasters lifex was was finished 2019, so she is 5 years in..when she comes home from the gulf in 2025 I suspect she will be done as the oldest ship left at 35. Richmond lifex was finished 2020 so if it goes the same way as her sisters she will be in a done by 2026 Iron Duke lifex was finished 2023 so probably… Read more »
If masse is needed quickly but i’m not sure if this is a possible option for the UK but I think the RAN here is buying 7-11 light frigates/asw corvettes off the shelf and I believe as is and built overseas.
Why can’t they simply build 3 more T31s, or order 3 more Vanguard type vessels for 6 instead of 3 or even an additional T26 just to bulk out the fleet rather than drag on with the bold vessels? Sub the work out if the main yards are full. Find a way.
*old …
The odd thing is why the RAN didn’t go with AH140 as the basis for their light frigate.
It’s certainly easier to adapt to their systems than T26 was and helps with that whole AUKUS thingy.
Cause Labour won’t spend more on escorts and certainly not from overseas. Plus we can’t get any T31 any faster
Essential yes, credible no.
A worry when the T31 is talked in the same league as the T26. T31s are modern day T21s (at least with more growth potential), but still a missile or torpedo sponge when they enter service.
Why the MoD didn’t balk back at the Labour and say, no these units are critical to national defence, go borrow off the NHS, shows that MoD is a key part of the problem with UK defence and not just he government, regardless who is in (though Labour have a good track record of performing well below the level necessary).
Suppose that depends on how you define “credible”…
This graph is quite telling – half way down the page “Health and defence spending as shares of GDP, between 1955-56 and 2022-23”.
I blame the UK public, if the public wanted a stronger armed forces then the government of the day would have to respond appropriately. As the public don’t give a toss the government can get away with stripping the forces bare. Until one day…
The Peace Dividend delusion has allowed politicians to safeguard their electoral prospects by shifting Defence spending to social provision and even war in Europe hasn’t enabled them to pivot back to Defence.
The senior UK military opinion that they are in a pre war phase and conscription will be required was a nudge to pay now or pay much more later.
Rememberance Sunday is a recent reminder that the price of freedom is high. Shameful how little is done for Ukraine to win against the terrorist state…
Ahem
[url]https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/what-does-government-spend-money[/url]
5 minutes to get past an anti-spam filter!
Nonsense. And with increased risk from Russia what’s left of the Royal Navy will be needed more and more in local waters. Unless there is an uplift in orders for the new frigates then I’m afraid there is little point in keeping our carriers – as much as it saddens me to say that. Maybe the USA will purchase them along with the F35’s?
The global Britain vision set out in the Integrated Review was never deliverable without a big uplift in the defence budget. No party is committing to 2.5% of GDP on a definite timescale and any more than that is wholly unlikely. The result is that our forces will remain at most broadly at current levels. And even that depends on solving the manpower shortage. With T45 PIP concluded, and delivery of new frigates, escort availability should be much improved, though not until early 2030s. By then, army equipment programmes should have reached FOC and more F 35s acquired. But even… Read more »
To be fair he conservatives had said 2.5% by 2030 in the election.
I think the dial has now moved to 2.75% TBH.
Curious, has anyone in the UK political realm officially endorsed the expenditure of more than 2.5% of GDP for defence, other than Liz Truss? Could easily envision her political fate being discussed as a cautionary tale in the cloakrooms of Parliament whenever the topic of increasing defence expenditures is broached. Reasonably certain that most sentient beings comprehend the requirement for increased defence expenditures, however, in a democracy , it does require someone w/ moral fortitude/courage to actually lead on unpopular but necessary issues. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a Churchillian PM available for service. Virtually the same issue exists… Read more »
Easy when they rightly expected to lose power shortly. One of the UKs problems with the 2/2.5/3% argument is that we spend a larger proportion of our defence budget than either the USA or France. AUKUS will only increase this. Whilst this doesn’t heavily affect manpower costs it does limit the funding for non nuclear equipment . So Italy, spending only@ 50% of the UK, has been able to build a balanced fleet of fairly modern ships and sustain larger ground. forces. Running costs of the SSBN fleet were always part of the core defence budget. The build costs were,… Read more »
…larger proportion …on nuclear…
Usual political waffle Mr Pollard.
Everyone knows they’re capable vessels.
The UK Government has demonstrated, over many decades, that it is incapable of being trusted to protect this island nation, talk is cheap. There are only two outcomes to our current defence posture; Pending War in Europe, we carry on as before, do nothing to bolster our armed Forces and suffer losses quickly in any action. Or, we face up to the fact that we’ve been reaping the post-Cold War dividend for at least a decade longer than we should have and start to heavily invest in a robust defence.
Just a reminder the the defence review that first envisaged what became the QE class carriers envisaged that the RN would have 32 escorts…..
The U.K.’s current defence posture can be summed up by the expression ‘fingers crossed’.
So, speaking as someone who is hospital waiting over a week for an angiogram I can confidently say that NHS resources are screwed up. We have increased the number of doctors but they have to share hardware. Complete clusterfcuk. No idea on basic work centre scheduling and queue management. Meanwhile in defence we have the opposite problem. Laying up perfectly good ships for lack of manpower.
Its not rocket science except that it obviously is to whoever is responsible.
Too late war is almost upon us and the T26 /T31 ships are nowhere near commission.
Sad to think that the nation that has more experience of the importance of sea power and naval strategy is throwing the country’s future into doubt. We do not have enough of a fleet to ensure sea lanes are kept open for food supply let alone project power. What I don’t understand is why politicians and the MoD lie about our capability. They are putting our country at risk. Apart that is from giving it to Blackrock
So any chance of the RN getting to 24 escorts as was stated under Boris (8 x Type 26; 6 x Type 45; 5 x Type 31; 5 x Type 32), restoring the UK to being the premier naval power in Europe?
I think it’s becoming more evident the Type 32 will never see the light of day; I’ve read more about the Type 83 that’s been made official, than the Type 32.
The upcoming SDR makes me feel really uneasy as it’s clear it’s nothing more than a ’lipstick-on-a-pig’ cost cutting review!!
I am optimistic; not 24 escorts; but what we might realistically see before 2030 ish is something like 6xT45, 8xT26,5xT31, 5xKongsberg Vanguard MCMV. 5xRiver 2. Plus the Astutes, carriers, 3xMRSS , 3xFSS , 4x Tides: a strong Home waters fleet and global reach.
I’d like to add three more of something to your list, T31s or Vanguard light frigates for more home/regional/north patrols. And a fleet of 4 diesel subs able to patrol/check on subs sea infrastructure.
I’m also tempted by the SSK idea so as to better release SSN to Indo Pacific. Also agree more frigates desirable. But trying to stay realistic and out of fantasy fleet territory.
Hi Paul,
I hear what you are saying but we desperately need more escorts – 19 simply isn’t going to be enough. Of that, maybe 8-9 would be deployable at any one time, allowing for refits, maintenance, crew training, etc.,.
Much is hanging on the SDR but we all know there will be no new money for defence and it will be do more with less. I didn’t trust Sunak on defence and I sure as hell don’t trust Starmer!
Not disagreeing but am trying to stay with reality. We can’t build frigates faster than we are doing and we have to crew ships. But what we can do is order something like the Vanguard customised for the RN – not fully military spec or cost, we need what it does, can be delivered quickly by commercial foreign yards, strengthens the home fleet, might release a frigate from fleet ready escort duties. Another thing that could be done quickly and fairly cheaply is the much discussed upgrade to some River 2. It wouldn’t make them a full fat frigate but… Read more »
They could hardly say it was ‘not credible’, or ‘not essential’, could they?
The RN frigate fleet is in trouble, no question, the T23s are not materially going to keep ticking until all the T26 and T31s are commissioned Let’s have a look at were they are at Lancasters lifex was was finished 2019, so she is 5 years in..when she comes home from the gulf in 2025 I suspect she will be done as the oldest ship left at 35. Richmond lifex was finished 2020 so if it goes the same way as her sisters she will be in a done by 2026 Iron Duke lifex was finished 2023 so probably ok… Read more »
hopefully the type 26 programme and type 31 programme can be accelerated- all things are possible- just chuck money at the problem- like we did during covid. we need additional batch of 2-4 more type 26s added to the programme and another batch of type 31s added- so the sweetener to the shipyard workers should be- get these first 13 vessels built asap and then follow on orders will continue for many years until the type 32 programme and type 83 programme naturally follow. I’d be keen for the RN to purchase some of the USN littoral warfare ships- i… Read more »
Need manning numbers up ASAP for both the RN and RFA. Will look forward to seeing how this will be addressed in the upcoming SDR.
“…I’d be keen for the RN to purchase some of the USN littoral warfare ships-…”
Are you joking? Unless the LCS we buy, are rebuilt as all in steel, I would not recommend!
I think think you will be surprised how disastrously UK will be after this lot departs. Note that conservatives have been negative just not that step.
“…we need additional batch of 2-4 more type 26s added to the programme and another batch of type 31s added…”
These additional T26’s, wouldn’t be completed until late 2030s, and most likely delay the planned T83 AAW. And again, why order more T31’s, before receiving even One tried and tested? In contrast, T45 has been tried and tested, and the RN now knows what was wrong with T45, and is now rectifying the flaws.
Upgrading the B2 Rivers looks increasingly necessary as the only.short term stopgap – even if the RN dles choose to commission vanguards they would take 3-4 years minimum to start to come in to service at the same time that B1 rivers reach end of life. So no real terms increase in numbers until 2030. So add medium gun (pref 57mm) and scope other enhancements for B2 rivers on spiral development pathway. Could include 3d radar (spare artisan sets from t23 and lpds) automated EW systems, 30mm cannon, containerised sea ceptor (canabalised from t23) and lmm/ starsteak (point defence variant)… Read more »
They’re not going to order more T45
This is the problem, essentially the new frigates were all ordered about 5-10 years too late and the T23s have and will continue to fall apart before the replacements can build and commissioned. Also the fleet should never have been allowed to drop below around 30 major surface combatants, but the damage is done and cannot be repaired for well over a decade. But I think there needs to be an acceptable the damage is done and a plan to ameliorate it. as well as a good look at how government operates to prevent it from occurring again so easily.… Read more »
CSG should ideally need to have UK commitment of2 x T-45, 2 x T-26 and 1 xT-31 (lots of CAMM quad packed to act as Point defence for QE/PoW) plus 1 Tide and 1 FSS, possibly 1 or 2 escorts from partner Nations whether that be NATO or poss AUS/Japan etc if in Far East.