The first crew members have joined HMS Glasgow as the Type 26 Frigate takes shape on the Clyde.

Seven crew members have joined HMS Glasgow to begin turning the currently lifeless hull into one of the world’s most advanced submarine hunting warships.

HMS Glasgow  is currently on the hard-standing at the BAE yard in Govan outside the build hall having work done to her hull and superstructure.

Commander Phil Burgess, the warship’s marine engineer officer and senior naval officer, said:

“The ship’s company is the life-blood of a warship. With Royal Navy personnel joining HMS Glasgow for the first time, we have reached a key milestone that will enable the engineering, administrative and organisational foundations to be established. These are necessary for a modern-day warship to function efficiently and effectively, and by starting now we can best support the build and transition into service of HMS Glasgow.”

Scott Lorimer, a project manager on the BAE Systems commissioning team, was quoted as saying:

“I’m the sole project management resource within the commissioning team. I’m responsible for ensuring that we deliver our scope to costs, schedule and quality. At the moment we are writing all of the test forms which essentially will be used to make sure that all the systems on board work the way that we designed them to and that is from ship-required systems like fuel all the way to the toilets and the hot and cold fresh water taps.

Our team is responsible for essentially making the ship come to life. We are in the preparation stage where we are writing these test forms, as of quarter four next year it will really start to ramp up for us because that is when we will actually start working on the ship and getting the systems working. Although we are responsible for proving that all the systems work, we are also responsible for bringing the Navy along on that journey with us, so we have to make sure that they know how to operate the systems properly and give the any training that they need, and help them with their processes.”

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said:

“The Type 26 Frigate is a cutting-edge warship, combining the expertise of the British shipbuilding industry with the excellence of the Royal Navy. These ships will be a force to be reckoned with, there to protect our powerful new carriers and helping keep British interests safe across the world.”

Eight Type 26 Frigates are to be built in total with three in the first batch, the contract for the second batch will likely be negotiated in the coming months.

The second ship in the class, HMS Cardiff, is currently progressing well.

Second Type 26 Frigate HMS Cardiff taking shape in Glasgow

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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54 COMMENTS

  3. Hi folks hope all is well.
    Good news and I gather the build is on time, my only issue is why can’t we build these ships faster with a few more
    simultaneously? No doubt the issue is with yard space and the number of skilled professionals.
    Do you experts have any idea of the weapons that will be used on these ships?
    Cheers,
    George

    • We could build them faster. The main issue is the fact that the MoD has effectively slowed down the build rate in an effort to ‘save’ money. There’s also the argument that they’re dragging it out to help guarantee work for the shipyard for a longer period of time, in part to offset the drop in T26 orders from 13 to 8 and the subsequent ordering of 5 T31 hulls from Rosyth. However, the MoD’s artificial delays have meant that the workforce and scalability of the yard have had to be managed accordingly. Space isn’t necessarily an issue for a slow build, however, I do lament the decision not to build the ‘frigate factory’ on the Clyde. Such a facility would have offered a modern production capability and significant improvements over what’s already there, with the majority of shipbuilding consolidated on one site.

      For all their faults, BAE could build them a lot faster than they are. To their credit, they are building three frigates at the moment and Glasgow’s projected in-service date has been brought forward, which is good news.

      As for weapons:

      1 x 5″ Gun
      2 x Phalanx
      2 x 30mm Cannon
      Assorted GPMG, Minigun and .50 cal mounts
      48 x Sea Ceptor
      24 x MK41 cells (space for future cruise/anti-ship missile)

      Helicopters are interesting, as there’s space for a few, depending on mission bay fit. You could have:

      1 x Merlin with 4 x anti-submarine torpedos
      OR
      2 x Merlin each with 4 x anti-submarine torpedos

      OR
      1 x Wildcat with 20 x Martlet OR 10 x Martlet and 2 x anti-ship missiles OR 4 x anti-ship missiles OR 2 x torpedos

      OR

      3 x Wildcat with the above armament.

      I should imagine we’ll only ever see one helicopter embarked, but they have the flexibility to operate a few airframes if need be.

      • Greetings Lusty. Out of interest do you know if there is a plan to retro fit the type 45s with the 5 inch gun? I understand they will undergo refit with Sea Ceptor. I was wondering if that might present the ideal opportunity?

        • Greetings! Not that I’m aware of. The gun has presented numerous debates over the years (alongside the missile fit), but the MoD hasn’t yet moved actioned anything.

          It’s an interesting point, as in my opinion, we’re rather foolishly moving into a situation where we’re going to have a few different guns (5″, 4.5″, 2.2″, 1.6″, 1.2″, 0.79″). We should be trying to move back to a unified system for ease of maintenance, training, buying ordinance and storing spares. Ironically, we had a unified system until the frigates brought three new calibres into circulation! I’d ideally drop 4.5″ for either 5″ or 2.2″ (57mm) going forward, as they’re likely to be the most common ‘main’ guns in service.

          The calibres of guns projected to be in service by the end of the decade poses two options for Type 45: 5″ for NGS and other tasks, or 2.2″ for increased CIWS capabilities. Either system could be moved to Type 83 or whatever successor comes along in the future as the type is replaced.

          I guess one consideration for the upgrade will be Type 23. With them soldiering on until the last Type 26 is built, the 4.5″ will remain in service on them for a lot longer yet. In that regard, it makes sense to continue to use them on Type 45. However, they’ll rapidly start to leave service as Type 26/31 comes online. It might make sense to replace them then, but as the replacement for Type 45 will hopefully tie into the end of the Type 26 build, the argument might be a case of “why bother?”, when we can save the expense of retrofitting and removal for fitting Type 83 with them.

          If that’s the case, there would be a period of time where only six ships operate 4.5″. That might be justifiable as a short-term measure, particularly as Type 31 (five ships) will operate two unique guns. I strongly suspect that Type 32 was put forward as a means of increasing the equipment pool and I should imagine that the plans for Type 32 will build on this armament (for commonality). I also wouldn’t be surprised if the QEC and Rivers also receive 1.2″/40mm mounts in the future.

          I think a 2.2″/57mm would look a little lost on the front of a 45 and there’s clearly an ambition to continue to use larger calibre guns on high-end escorts. However, I bet the MoD/HMG currently sees Type 45 as a bit of a money pit; they’ll likely argue that the missile upgrade and propulsion improvements (among others) are enough. Plus, fitting a new gun would only delay their time away from operations, right when we’re crying out for escorts.

          Tl;dr – would be nice, but I haven’t heard of anything!

          • Thanks for the detailed post Lusty . You make some very good points on standardising gun armament – l can only agree. I think your observation is spot on re the MOD’s view on the Type 45 costs.

          • Don’t apologise. The principal reason iI’m in this site is to learn from those who know, so thank you.

          • There was a 155 mm version of the venerable Mk8 proposed by BAe. Unfortunate like many proposed and tested upgrades it died a death when the practicalities of fitting it and loading it below decks came to light.

          • Thanks. Yes, I had read about the 155mm. Is the BAE 5” just made in the US? Will or can any of it be built in the UK?

          • US made and supplied. Its only BAe because they bought the original maker and subsumed them Into the BAE portfolio.

          • So that must mean once the 4.5” goes OOS the UK will lose it sovereign naval gun manufacturing capability unless it can make under license. It’s a shame isn’t it? If the 4.5” was (also) made as a 5” it could have had an even longer life.

          • Hi Lusty, I’d like to see them try to get additional CAMM on the T45s. Try a horseshoe configuration with 2-4 x silos down both sides of the Asters for a 32-48 fit out. Do you’ll reckon it will fit? I don’t think the CAMM silos are deck penetrating and not as heavy as the MK41 Vls. I won’t ask about the AShMs this time…

          • You would lose access up the port and stbd waist onto the fcsl for the gun and for part of ship. There are also various compartments built into the port and stbd silo on one deck and access to those would also be lost. It would involve re running/resiting vent and fan compartments , part of ship storage lockers etc which would be a major issue.

          • Thanks for the reply GB. I guess I was asking for too much. 24 is better than none. I still won’t ask about the AShMs…lol.

          • With ceptor fitted they will have a quick reaction M3 ASM for use out to the horizon which is more than they have now.

          • See GB’s reply. 😛

            You’d be better off fitting MK41 where the Sea Ceptors are going. Then you could quad-pack Sea Ceptor in each launcher. This would mean that the space currently allocated for 24 could house 64 missiles.

            The existing cells could be modified to quad-pack them as well. If you used all of them (including the proposed new cells) for quad-packing and excluded helicopters, one Type 45 could carry 256 missiles! Of course, this would be without Aster, but it shows what’s possible with existing and planned configurations.

            It will likely never happen, and such a modification would probably only make sense if it was utilised for all ‘high-end’ escorts (45, 26, 83). However, it would be a better and more achievable option than the major hassle of side silos, though I applaud the thought. 😉

          • Hi Lusty, can CAMM be quad packed straight into a MK41? I thought I read somewhere that the CAMM silos are not strictly vertical due to safety concerns if the missile cold launch fails? The ExLS 3×4 silo pairs are set apart from each other more than the MK41.
            Okay, I will mention it…I hope they utilise the “ex-Harpoon space” for some new AShM/LAM capability. The T45s can’t just strictly be for AAW purposes especially if on solitary patrols.

          • That’s true. Each mushroom in the ‘mushroom farm’ is slightly offset from the vertical. This is to gently encourage the missile to fall into the sea rather than onto the ship should it fail. Not only do you have the possible risk of creating a new hole, but you also run the risk of damaging a piece of equipment or injuring (or worse) members of the crew.

            I’m pretty sure it can go straight into MK41 as a quad pack, with the required mods and associated jiggery-pokery. The fact that they’re not offset means that you lose the luxury of the dedicated launches, meaning that you’d probably have to rely on lateral thrusters in the event of the main motor failing. It would probably happen all too quickly to alter the ship’s course, although the ejection height and speed might offset the possibility of it falling onto the ship.

            I won’t overly comment on that – take much of the safety aspect as me thinking off the top of my head. I haven’t been involved in VLS trials sadly, so I don’t think I should comment further.

          • Best price for 2 x Mk41 cells (8 tubes a cell) where Ceptor is going to go would be around 16mil-24mil dollars before you even fitted anything into the tubes. Multiply by the number of ships and add a fudge factor for integration costs structural alterations, services and support changes internally and you are going to be looking at 30 mil a ship

            Cost for Mk41 are pretty accurate and based on the CRS report for costs the USN would pay to up the number of MK41 tubes on a Connie Frigate from 32 to 48.

            180 mil Dollars for all 6 ships before you even stick anything in them that goes woosh…

          • I know, GB. 😉

            I was just saying. I would rather that option be explored rather than faffing around (no offence to anyone) adding launchers down the side.

          • Just to add a little to that, I wonder if Chile would be interested in any of the RNs newer 4.5” mounts? And if any of the T23s will ever sold off with or without these mounts.

          • Possibly. If HMG can recoup some costs by selling off equipment, you can be damn sure they’ll proceed with the sale! For Chile, I guess it would depend on the projected OSD for their own Type 23 hulls and their replacements. 4.5″ seems to be dying a death, so I do wonder where they’ll end up. Maybe someone might enjoy a shed of them? 😉

            As for selling the hulls, who knows. The Type 23’s are pretty wankered so to speak, though the refits will keep them going. They have been run hard over the years and I’d be suprised if anyone took them on. Either they’ll be sold off with the mounts or sent to the scrapper with or without the mounts!

        • Yup, some of them came in fairly quickly. Back then some were in build and commissioned right at the tail end of the Cold War. We needed replacements for the OAP Leanders and Type 21s, hence the speed. We also had two yards building them, which is a luxury we can only dream of now!

          If only we had the political will to speed up T26. If I had my way, we’d speed up the process and maybe add an extra hull or two. When that’s done, I’d focus on bringing in a new destroyer to serve alongside and eventually replace T45. this would effectively mean two destroyer types in service at once, with future orders replacing Type 45 when required (bolstering the destroyer fleet).

          At this rate, we’re going to see 10 (?) Type 31/32 completed in potentially the same timeframe as eight Type 26.

    • I would imagine that this is down to keeping a small workforce in long term employment. No longer do we have busy shipyards around the country knocking out a large variety of vessels. We do actually need more hulls, but this will just string out the build time. We just don’t have enough people in the business, and there is never enough money.

      Same everywhere these days. I’m sure that we all have roadworks and traffic projects in our areas. One near me involved just 800 metres of dual carriageway upon which, a new junction was added. It was a simple job, but ended up taking nearly two years. Hardly anyone working on it, so we had holdups for the whole period. 30 years ago there would have been a full time team that could have done the work in 3 months tops.

      It’s sad to see how everything needs an age to see progress. Even glaciers are moving more quickly these days, but that is another story.

  4. George. I share your frustration on the build times.

    As to weapons fitted, no doubt this will lead to any amount of “ffbn” comments.

    I dislike making negative posts, but I suspect it will commission with the bare minimum 5” gun/sea Ceptor/ciws and 30mm gun armament as per the various renderings online, but hopefully include the interim AShM?

    What would I LIKE it to have, well…..

    AA

    • It will be commissioned with a Mk41 VLS launcher installed. How do I know that? The contact to buy the first three Mk41 launchers was listed on the US FMS website.

      I think the coffee smell of Chinese and Russian activities has permeated to No10 hence the uparming of T45. There is an announced program to acquire weapons for the VLS.

      Things are far from perfect but there are the visible bones of a plan and progress is visible. At least with Mk41 VLS there is a system that the biggest defence spender is heavily invested in munitions for.

      • If the excrement hits the propeller, I hope and pray that the new Glasgow fares better than her predecessor Type 42 Glasgow the ship with the hole SB

          • Aye ,straight through, but it Fd up steering hope fully Ceptor will even take out whatever is being dropped or launched SB

  5. For the UK to compete with foriegn ship yards and to dive down the construction costs we have to be building these vessels in 5 years or less/ vessel (as they do in Europe and the US) but as the MoD will not put together a joined up build programme with the T31’s T32’s, RFA requirements and the T45 replacement or even extending the T26 programme to 9 (3 per batch). We could have confirmed orders for UK shipping alone for the next 20 to 30 years and if we are seen as a leading competitor in the ship building industry then the UK could use the RN’s orders as a spring board to help launch the UKs shipbuilding credentials keeping the yards open and the personnel involved with those yards in fulltime work for the forgeable future.
    Instead what do we get, short sighted ideas of losing manpower if the orders run dry!!

        • In my experience most of the civil service has very little grasp of any detailed facts and just believe the most convincing person at the meeting or revert to stereotypical arguments.

          • No it’s a capped price contract with an average price of £250million per unit.

            lets be honest that caps going to be fairy land when we are talking a contract over the next 7-10 years. Wage and material and energy costs are going through the roof and will not stop anytime soon.

    • Fair argument I think. Like so much in British Industry in the past to present its chicken and egg, not enough commitment to production to bring costs down and encourage investment (or use it wisely from Govt) and not enough actual investment (especially in a longer term strategy) to become efficient enough to win orders in a competitive atmosphere. You just have a long drawn out spiralling decline (or at best rump business) whereby the plan becomes set on retaining minimum required skills to maintain a baseline National capability (if we are even that committed) and (in the past particularly) propping up companies to maintain employment rather than investing the money to produce good quality products that will sell and at some stage make the business self sustainable (or at least close) whereby that employment becomes sustainable or can even grow over time. Otherwise we just sell it off to a foreign company with rather more innovative and long term (or a more enlightened Govt) planning or who just love the thought or acquiring technology on the cheap and expect UK Govt investment to maintain their business in the UK.

      • If the UK is to move forward with its ship building industry and as an island race it is my belief we must if we are going to survive as a nation (ship building should be one of our cornerstone industries) the government needs to be held accountable and be seen to lead from the front with a joined up approach to the RNs/RFAs ship building/maintenance programmes, Yes this is indeed a tall order given our political elites track record but there has to be a fundamental shake up of our leadership from the top down including the Civil Service which at the moment is not fit for purpose.

  7. Everything has to be understood in the context of never enough money (gov borrowing in Sept over £22b). But the Type 26 programme also suffered from unnecessary delay in agreeing a specification and price. So we got 5 opvs that the RN weren’t keen on just to keep the yards ticking over and get something in return for BAEs guaranteed payments. Looking at the price eventually agreed for the first 3, it is hard to believe that negotiations couldn’t have been finalised in an afternoon.
    If we ever again need large amounts of new equipment in a hurry.land,sea or air, what’s left of UK industry wouldn’t be able to deliver it.
    Concern has been expressed in the US about the fragility of their supply chains and the hollowing out of shipbuilding capacity. Since neither UK nor USA is likely to see a rebirth of commercial shipbulding, the best that can be hoped for is a clear long term build plan. We seem to be edging towards that.

    • You can only negotiate effectively when there is a full understanding (spec/cost) and contract mechanism.

      Until that point you may as well play card or use a roulette wheel to determine prices/values.

      • Also the chance of understanding costs over a long period of time is pretty impossible, no one can actual predict things like wage inflation p, power costs, raw material costs etc for 7 years time.

        • Those things are usually included in the contract mechanisms.

          But it is the advantage of a sprint build like T31 that there are less variables/unknowns.

      • Indeed. What I was referring to is not so much the slow build schedule as the long drawn out process of agreeing a design. The proramme to replace T23 started in 1998, went through various iterations -C1,C2,C3-future surface combatant and finally the global combat ship. By 2010. a decision seemed to have been reached on a down specced version of the global combat ship, Four tears later,the design had been upspecced and increased in size. Lots of rumours mentioned arguments about price.The result- a ship costing £1.2b (for the first three), a price that forced the reduction from 13 to 8 with 5 cheap GP frigates to maintain headline numbers.
        However good the T26 may prove to be, the time taken to finalise a design is astonishing – 30 years from start of programme to first in service.

    • Hi Peter. The RN didn’t want the OPV’s but they have turned out to be really useful assets! When the Mod asked for public comment on defence about a decade or so back one of my suggestions was to build more OPV’s to free up frigates and destroyers from lower end tasks. They listened😂 and I didn’t even get a few bob for my efforts. Even a gong or knighthood would have been nice!!
      The Glasgow has suddenly taken shape-no longer looks like bits of a huge jigsaw puzzle strewn across a factory floor😉

    • SNO , senior naval officer will be in charge. During builds and some long refits most operators dont turn up until the end as they get farmed out to other operational ships to stay current on systems.
      The early joiners for a build are the engineers. Marine engineers and especially the Chippy as he owns the hull when she commissions.

  9. OK, it looks like the Type 26 even before the first one enters waters have a major problem, ARTISAN. I have just been reading on the RN site about the ARTISAN radar replacement on HMS Montrose. The site went on to explain what ARTISAN is and some of its specs, 120 mile range, track 900 potential targets and more interesting up to a speed of Mach 3. SO if for example you have an incoming Perseus at Mach 5 can ARTISAN see it. Brahmos at the moment does Mach 3 so ARTISAN it is at the edge of its ability, can you see the problem.

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