First drone photos of HMS Glasgow in the water

the hull size and build are far larger than conventional sizes if frigate, traditionally a frigate is a ship between a corvette and a destroyer nimble,fast and configurable to many things,sheer size of the T26 when you are about to begin designs for a larger type of ship to replace the T45is just throwing money away to repeat what is already there.

size, tonnage and basic specs

Disagree. Do you want the escort fleet to suffer from the same issues that occurred with Astute? We need designers and engineers to design new ships. How long is the gestation of the Type-26? Twenty years plus? Do we think Naval Architecture and material science has not advanced in 20 years. All modern escorts are capital ships, the labels attached to them are the roles they perform. Frigates are ASW, Destroyers are AAW. To me something that is designed to do both effectively needs a different name. To me the Type-83 is going to be a cruiser and I will be very surprised if it is less than 10,000 tons, in fact it may exceed 12,000t.

Agree

I was told long ago that the reason for describing these enormous ships as ‘frigates’ was to fool ever skeptic civil servants and M.P.s into approving a budget.

Wouldn’t the budget look better if it were described as a Cruiser? Would appear to the less knowledgable that you are getting more bang for your bucks surely than giving the impression its smaller than it is.

That is not how these people’s minds work. I am being generous when I write ‘minds’ and ‘work’.

Sorry we only need to four cruisers as they are so much bigger and more powerful

why four?

As an illustration of how politicians minds work. The trick to getting more out of them is to make them think it’s their idea.Making things seem bigger and better is a sure fire way of making them think you can make do with less..

It’s been convention in RN for a long time that a Destroyer is an AAW warship and a Frigate is an ASW oriented one. Size doesn’t really come into it anymore. For example the Batch 3 Type 22’s were bigger than the Type 45 Destroyers. It will be interesting to see what Type 83’s are classed as. 20’s are Frigates. 40’s are Destroyers. 80’s are ??

Yes, David. My friend who served was making that point a long time ago when such as you describe were on the drawing board and cruiser had become a ‘problematic’ category at the Treasury. ‘Something perhaps little smaller would be cheaper, Mr Ffoukles-Ache …?’

😂😂

For centuries the Treasury has tried to limit the cost of RN warships by setting arbitrary tonnage limits – the CVA-01 aircraft carrier design of the early-1960’s being a good example. After the Treasury ruled that she couldn’t displace more than HMS Eagle, costs soared as the designers resorted to advanced solutions in an attempt meet the Admiralty’s requirements in the available tonnage. I believe that the much quoted saying “steel is cheap and air is free” dates to this period. But the Treasury is right in the sense that building a warship with lots of empty compartments and free space (aka margin) will inevitably lead to demands that these be filled with expensive equipment, weapons, electronics … and the increased crew then needed to maintain and operated these. The T31 is already an example of this.

Many thanks Richard for taking the time to write a very informed comment. I read an opinion piece on the Batch 1 Type 42’s following the Falklands War that ascribed some of their issues being down to their reduced size. Later Batch 3’s were I think larger?

I’m not sure how accurate the story actually is, but in the 1980’s it was accepted wisdom within the RN that the lengthened T42 Batch 3’s were actually just a reversion to the original design prior to the Treasury demanding a reduction in size.

Hard to argue that theT31 is an example of runaway cost growth when its being built on a fixed price contract.

i was on Blake the last cruiser of the RN it was taken out of service because it was exceptionally expensive to operate the crew size alone was as big as a couple of Leander’s Bloody good ship though,ooh, those wonderful days of steam,120° in the boiler room and two pairs of overalls per watch washed under the steam drain and dry in ten minutes

120 degrees! Great memories Andy. Many thanks for sharing and for your service. My informant served as an officer on a Country Class ‘destroyer, a class Jane’s described as as big as an old time cruiser.

May I be so bold as to challenge that?

T22 (5,400t) was similar to B2 T42 (5,000t)

T22 (5,400t) is/was a lot smaller than T45 (7,500t)

However HMS Bristol (7,000t) was larger than any of the contemporary destroyers or frigates and heavier than T26 and not far off T45.

Seem to recall the same sort of discussion with the original Counties when HMS Devonshire (1962) emerged at around 7000 full load displacement, especially as that was about the same as the Dido AA cruisers (also Cammell Laird)

There was a planned cruiser ( a10,000ton vessel) , the counties were an effective cutdown of these never built cruisers, which is why the ended up calling them destroyers.

That’s interesting. I recently bought the Norman Friedman book/British Cruisers which doubtless will cover said topic, will make good Xmas reading!

Indeed.

The Counties were very expensive due to ADAWS1 & 2 and Sea Slug. Essentially Gen 1 concept to trial product R&D costs. A lot of the insides of ADAWS1 looked suspiciously like the internals of a telephone exchange……

Although if we’re ever in the missile control room during a firing, which I was a number of times, describing the system as automated was stretching it a bit.

General experience was that you were very lucky to hit anything with Sea Slug unless it was flying in a nice straight line and not too fast!

Wire post wraps oh how i missed that..NOT!!!

“80’s are ??”

On current Tory party form, they are a ‘Pipe dream’.

no politics please.

I was about to write something sarcastic then reread my comment. Took me about 3 read throughs to understand what you were on about. My fault. Typo. Meant Type 42 not Type 45.

After I’d posted I did wonder if that wasn’t what had happened!

sall okay 👍

The last ship with an 80 type number was HMS Bristol – Type 82. She had a D pennant, but both AAW (Seadart) and ASW capability (Ikara and ASW mortar).

Yep not a happy precedent. Sad orphan of the 1966 defence review. Back when the only ‘cruisers’ allowed were the Invincibles.

There were the Tigers converted to Helicopter Cruisers, though.

When Tigers came in we still had old school Cruisers like Belfast in service. They were all gone before Invincible entered service.

Should have made clear my reply was more a combination of yours to Mark L above, David. Type 82 Bristol was around when converted Tiger and Blake were active, just.

odd, given the direction of the last few comments i did 22years including drafts to blake, Antrim, the converted ham class sweeper that became the echo in the inshore survey squadron odd fact every ship i served on was scrapped when I left it!

You mustn’t blame yourself, Andy. I cannot remember if it was Blake or Tiger? but watched one speed past Gib around early 70s, their last decade. At full chat heading towards the Pillars, it could still look impressive even with the flightdeck aft.
Lion was of course reserved at Pompey for a while if you wanted a more original look – and boat trip. Six inch & three inch but shame the waists were given over to Seacat in final guise, I thought at time.

The type 81s were frigates and the type 82s Destroyers the convention was a bit all over for the 8xs. I’m voting they be called frigoyers.

Bloody hell can’t believe I forgot the Tribals. You’re right 20’s are Frigates. 40’s are Destroyers and 80’s are Dunnos !

General purpose frigates, destroyers and sloops. The 30’s as a seperate type class appear to be new and fogging the waters somewhat.

Cheers CR

Yep and the waters are already foggy enough !

Don’t forget the type 41 leopard class frigates, so even the type 4xs has had both frigate and destroyers ( the
type 41 was designated as an AAW frigate so all the 40s have been AAW ships. In in the same way as all the 20s were frigates ( but not all ASW frigates).

what people forget is that in the late 40s and 50s the RN had three separate frigate roles:

ASW: which was covered by the type 12, type12m, Type14 type 15, type16. ( these were all repurpose war built fleet destroyers turned into fast sub hunters)
AAW: type 41s
air direction: type 61

they then moved to developing the idea of the more general purpose frigate Blending in the AAW/AIr directors and ASW Frigate functions into a single role which the type 81 and type 12I were the results with the type 21 and all later types being this general purpose type frigate…all the 20x ships have effectively followed this principle…we call them ASW frigates, but all RN frigates from the T22s to T26 are all essentially general purposes warships that are very good at ASW and are less good at AAW than an AAW destroyer.

the type 31 is going back to more in line with a type 41 in not having a ASW role which may be why the have stepped it away from the T2x but did not feel they could but it in the T4x numbers as these have been very much AAW destroyers.

Destroyers did not start getting numbered types until a lots later in with the type 82 ( it may have been given the 82 designation as the type 81 frigates had been the first General purpose escorts) But effectively from the county class onward Destroys become a blended Cruiser/destroyer as AAW function could not be fitted into the traditional destroyer sized hull and 6000t was the smallest hull you could fit sea slug and a medium gun armament in and a large gun Armament was still needed to counter the Sverdlov class light cruises. being a general purposes warship that was better at AAW but was not as high end at ASW than a frigates, As the T42 was very much closer to something like The T41 ( an AAW frigate) than a Destroyer/cruiser hybrid it may be why the abandoned the 8x after the Type82.

RN numbering of types does not make much sense if you just limit it to destroyers and frigates but if you concentrate on roles then it makes more sense:

type1x ASW ships later moving to GP ships. ( 1950s-1960)
Type 2x GP ships with high end ASW ( 1960s to present)
Type 3x knew Low end patrols ships/GP without ASW. (present)
type 4x ASW ships ( 1950s to present)
type 6x Air direction ships ( defunct type) (1950s)
type 8x General purpose ships greater focus AAW.( 1950-1960s now re used).

its interesting that a lot of navies no longer bother with destroyers and just have GP frigates Or AAW frigates or like the french and US call their larger surface combatants destroyers no mater the function and small combatants frigates…. only the RN really designates ASW ships and frigates and destroyers as AAW ships….but now with the type 31 it even messes that up as the 31 is more AAW focuses and has no organic ASW……..

Great analysis as always. 👍

😁, if nothing else, confuse the hell out of your enemies.

The meanings of these words change so frequently that the only common threads are that Frigates tend to be fast, Destroyers tend to be escort ships, and Cruisers tend have a more operational independence.

Ab but the original WW2 Frigates where slower than the destroyers of the same period.

Actually frigates tended to be slower and destroyers faster…if you look at most RN frigates from the 50s and 60s they would only do around 24-27 knots. Destroyers had become replacements for cruisers…..then frigates focuses on GP ships that were good at ASW and destroyers were GP ships focused on AAW. That’s just for the RN…Germany and many other navies don’t even have destroyers…France very much goes on size lager escorts are destroyers and small (3000 tons ish) vessels are frigates.

And I think 30’s should be classed as either Sloops-of-War, or Corvettes.

Size never really came into it. Early Cruisers where smaller than Type 23 frigates. Early destroyers came in at well under 500t, it’s just always been an upwards trend.

Type 80’s are destroyers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_82_destroyer

Historically yes. Classifications are a lot looser than generally realised. Best example is the first RN ironclad Warrior. When she was introduced she was by far the most powerfull ‘Battleship’ in the world but she was classed as a Frigate because she only had 1 gundeck. To be a ‘Line of Battle ship’ you had to have at least 2.

True, as I recall she also displaces more than HMS Glasgow… so… actually a Frigate in weight then? 😀

😂😂

True, but I read that their Lordships were also concerned about the effectiveness of iron as armour plating as it tended to shatter.

Fortunately the engineers knew this and used iron, oak, iron layers. The thicker outer iron layer provided the ‘harding’ to stop the shell punching through the hull, the oak layer provided toughness to stop the outer layer of iron shattering and the inner layer of iron prevented any splinters (oak or iron) from flying around the gun deck… Clever people engineers 😉

Cheers CR

But don’t forget the type 81s were second class frigates/sloops, so the 8xs are not really fixed.But then the type 41s were AAW frigates not destroyers. So all you can really say post war is that type 2xs have all been frigates, type 4xs were all AAW ships and the type 8x have varied from a second class frigate/sloop to cruiser sized ASW/AAW escort.

80’s are general purpose frigates, destroyers and sloops.

However, the T31 appears to have introduced a new type classification for general purpose frigates.!?

There have been two previous classes in the in the 80’s series. The T81 frigates (Tribal class) that were originally called sloops but were reclassified as firgates and of course HMS Bristol the only T82 destroyer. She was considered a general purpose because of the Ikara ASW weapon fitted forward.

When the T83 was first announced there was speculation it would be a large light cruiser sized with lots of VLS and large mission bay. Mainly because HMS Bristol was a large ship for her time, and also because the T31 general purpose ship is slightly smaller than a T26…

Cheers CR

It would be cheaper to build T32 and T83 as warships with a decent but limited mission bay and do full fat mission bay on RFA type ships.

Otherwise they become enormous and unaffordable to build.

Hi SB,

I would agree to a point. It comes down to choices. If you try to do everything on one hull you end with a very limited number of huge all singing and dancing ships as you say. Not a good idea if you are depentent on long SLOC’s (sea lines of communication).

So it all comes down to what you want the navy to do, how it can do it and what the conops are. There is then a whole load of complex trade off’s between capabilities and which ships get them and which ships don’t. It is a balance of risks, always has been, always will be not that that is a popular point to make.

So yeh different sized mission bays on different platforms depending on the trade off’s and risks you are willing to make. MCM in none contested waters could be RFA platforms as could protecting sea bed infrastructure (also in benign conditions). A big mission bay would also enhance the disaster relief capabilities of RFA’s.

The challenge comes when trying to decide what to do with the ‘fighting’ ships. I think there is a reasonable opportunity play with mission bay sizes when considering high end specialist ships vs GP (cheaper) ships. I’d put a pretty big (relative to the hull size) mission bay on a T31esque ship as that would give me the opportunity to put some serious capability onto it in times of need using the RN’s PODS concept.

If it was a specialist AAW or ASW ship I would go smaller as a proportion of hulls size and use the space to provide the best possible capability, including networking. That way a specialist ship could network to a GP ship with a suitably loaded mission bay to give some serious uplift in capability when needed. So if an ASW ship needed additional ASW capability then a GP ship could be loaded out with ASW autonomous vehicles for example, but if the ASW platform was operating in an area with a high air threat then the GP platform could turn up with UAV with sensors to look over the horizon and a couple of containers filled with Asters… Obviously, I am grossly simplifying.

So summarising – RFA, big mission bays, GP ships medium bays and specialist ships smaller bays…

Obviously lots of tunes and different capability mixes could be put together and it would be fun to dream them up, then there is the logistics of it all, but that would be a book or two.!?

Cheers CR

Steel is cheap it is the cost of what you put in them that takes up the major part of the budget.

Oh and T42’s had a very respectable ASW capability too. with the SAM system able to take out surface vessels if need be. The T45 can’t do a fraction on or below water the T42 could.

Sea Dart had a limited surface to surface mode. However, it depended on the kinetic energy and the residual fuel as the effectors. The range wasn’t fantastic as Dart’s directors were not high enough, as it was AAW, for it to have much horizon.

ASW, T42 was far from quiet. It did have a good, for its time, sonar. The problem is that modern subs are finitely quieter and acoustic tiles are infinitely better than they used to be.

The cost of first of type if it was AAW and ASW would be eye watering. The R&D would be scary if it got out of control and could trash RN budgets for a decade.

Yes, to adding decent sonar to T45 and T31 but don’t expect miracles against modern quiet subs. But it will be useful against 2nd and 3rd rate subs.

That might generate some interesting conversations in CIC, trying to envision it, “General quarters/Action stations, 1sr (or 2nd or 3rd rate) sub off the port bow!” Orders might range from proceed w/ attack at flank speed to abandon ship? 🤔 😳

I agree – however it is important to be realistic as to the limitations of passive hull mounted sonar.

I fear you are confusing the terms “general purpose” and “multi-purpose”. The RN does not.

“80’s are??” Destroyers! As we’ve already had the sole type 81 destroyer HMS Bristol in the 1970s.

Type 81 Tribal class Frigate.
Type 82 Bristol

Quite right, thanks David. That’s what I get for commenting in the not so early hours!

Read the thread it was Jonathan who reminded me of the Type 81’s. I’d forgotten them.

Pocket battleships!! 😀

Big pockets ! 😂😂

Well the Bristol was a type 82 Destroyer.

Destroyers. AAW has become so much more complex.

Like the through deck cruiser 😀

👍😄

I wouldn’t believe stories like that. Sounds like crew room banter.

Like through deck cruisers -> Invincibles?

Yes, that is a good example. But I don’t think anyone in government in charge of billion £ budgets is going to be fooled by that these days.. And the Sea Harrier came along long after the Invincible class design was fixed. They where designed to carry ASW helicopters only, hence the bad design of the aft lift position. But fortunately the Harrier could be squeezed on-board, and another fine British design came along with the ski ramp. British maritime aviation was saved once again.

It was different times when project management was about who you trusted over a long lunch.

Deals were done over a glass or ten in the club.

Same for Treasury deals. Loose rules.

And improvisation was the name of the game.

When you look back it was amazing what was achieved for the sums expended.

Although wether any of it would have fully worked when push came to shove was quite the question.

I think some of the tech back then was pretty questionable. Even the first Gulf War exposed how rubbish much of the kit was despite the overwhelming superiority of the allied forces.

I agree.

There was a lot of very old tech lingering. Some of which was really reheated WWII tech at its root.

Yeh, The Vulcan bombers had Lancaster bomb aiming tech throughout their careers. I kid you not..!

Kinda puts the Falkland Island raids into perspective…

Cheers CR

Indeed.

Provided absolute certainty that precision bombing wasn’t going to happen.

What I never understand was why, given laser kits were about in Corporate, Vulcan wasn’t radar guided by the T42 or T22 (which a good radar) into location and then dropped LGB’s onto sites lased by SF?

Using the Lancaster bomb aiming never made any sense to me at all.

I should also point out that the bombing run was guided by bombing radar but that was post war tech as well and the crews were pretty amazed when they could pick out Stanley habour and line up their flight path on the target – after that it was 1944…

Drew off the Argentinian Daggers at least.

Cheers CR

Sea Dart did OK if I recall by taking out Anti shipping missiles inflight, first to do so. As did Sea Skua missiles.

That was a pure hide the carrier from the treasury game as far as I understand it.

Yes, that is a good example. But I don’t think anyone in government in charge of billion £ budgets is going to be fooled by that these days.. And the Sea Harrier came along long after the Invincible class design was fixed. They where designed to carry ASW helicopters only, hence the bad design of the aft lift position. But fortunately the Harrier could be squeezed on-board, and another fine British design came along with the ski ramp. British maritime aviation was saved once again.

makes sense.i think we’re looking at the outline of the type 7.

There is a fine art to choosing a modest and unassuming name for projects to discourage officialdom from unwelcome meddling. If you excuse the Off Topic.

Back in the 1990s the decision to build a new ‘state of the art’ group of telescopes on a mountain top in Chile was delayed for two years because the Scientists chose the unfortunate name – The ‘Very Large Telescope (VLT)’ project. 

This was a bad mistake. Unsurprisingly, the bureaucrats rejected the submission commenting that a ‘Very Large’ telescope sounded unnecessarily extravagant and could the boffins please submit revised costings for a ‘Large Telescope’ and a ‘Medium Telescope’.

They eventually accepted that the telescope was designed to do a specific set of tasks – no more, no less – and that the name was totally irrelevant.

There are some nice photos on Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Telescope 

Many thanks Max for taking the time to respond. The perfect analogy I think.

nothing surprises me

Pffft it’s WAY bigger than a cruiser. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathon-class_cruiser

When the T22 B3 first sailed into Guzz some wag onboard rolled down a canvas sheet with a C painted on it that covered the F on the pennant number.
Shortly there after the CO was invited for coffee ((negative coffee) in Nos 1s, medals and sword to discuss this jolly jape.
The RN does not do Cruisers.

Come on, Nicholas is right. We have some of the most short-sighted governments in the world. For a nation that had 100 year plans in the Victorian era, we have fallen damn far.

I can hear a few non UK contributors to this site clearing their throats right now.

Maybe so, but if you had to balance books and look at the whole economy, and all the demands for more cash across the entire country. It is no easy task. Not easy at all. Politicians are an easy target for criticism, but my word I wouldn’t want to take it on.

There’s many places they can make cuts and save billions. Yes, my first target would be the woeful waste in the NHS. I know from my professional life of one contract that covered a cluster of hospitals and it wasted £380m a year. Extend that over the nation and it’s £30bn billions a year.

Rishi Sunak blew £14.3bn in pledges to Kenya, Pakistan & Ethiopia for ‘climate reparations’.

Then, you could apply the whole £11.7bn being spaffed on account of the channel people.

There, I have found at least £35bn a year towards our collective protection and building a better British defence industry.

Isn’t that better? I have already written to my MP with an expanded costing and demand they honour their commitment to our country.

I think that kind of plucking figures off the top of your head isn’t going to get you very far. And if the cash was available, I doubt it would go on defence. I do believe the government would genuinely like to increase defence spending. But politics as at play, and the chancellor has to plug the gaps. And the NHS and education is always going to trump new Frigates ect, unless there is a direct military threat to the UK mainland, as frustrating as that might be. That is the reality. And we are still spending a huge amount on defence. We have some fantastic equipment entering service in the coming years, it’s just not in the numbers we would all like. And a big chunk of Joe public won’t give a monkey’s toss how Frigates ect we have.

We can all say just save this and the problem solved, if it was so easy dont you think it would be done?

The second anyone touches the NHS regardless if its a good thing they are trying to do the opposition and press jump all over it and start making wild outlandish claims that they are trying to scrap it. Instead of criticising so easily maybes start to lay blame at the opposition too for preventing changes being made.

The migrant issue is much more complex than just saying thats a saving, saying that does not stop people coming. The beloved EU laws we are still signed up to prevent us doing naff all about it.

Can anyone apply for ‘climate reparations? Exactly which form would one use? 😉

‘Channel people?’ Residents of Channel Islands or immigrants/refugees from European mainland? 🤔😳

And you aren’t. Might that be because you didn’t stand for Parliament in the first place? Politicians volunteer/fight for the role.

Brain surgery sounds difficult too, and I wouldn’t want to have to do that, so I’m not a brain surgeon. However I trust that anyone who is knows what they are doing. If only I could have the same level of trust in MPs.

it wouldn’t be any different with the victor meldrew of British politics pulling the strings

The world is changing fast and despite global governments lagging behind many companies, individuals and NGO’s are making changes. I am of course talking about climate change and the accelerating green movement.

Oddly, the UK is doing better than most but our politicians still can’t make the final step and fully back a move into the green industrial revolution. It would be a huge opportunity if the government would only throw it weight behind it fully e.g. on shore wind instead of more North Sea gas, etc..

I also think we need to bail out of the race to the bottom when it comes to wages. The Royal Mail for example want to put their staff on zero hours contracts – hardly surprising they are on strike. There is much more to it of course but there must be a better way to become more competitive…

Moving to higher wages would have three big impacts. Reduce poverty, reduce universal credit and increase tax take. It should not be governments job to support wages in private businesses. If a business can’t pay a living wage it is not a going concern IMHO.

So yeh, much that could done to put our national finances on to a better footing but the Treasury does like to sharpen the axe.

Cheers CR

I have always thought the T32 would be at most a slightly evolved T31, perhaps with changes to the mission bay to reflect lessons learnt from the rapid development of autonomous vehicles. Nothing too major.

As you say the addition of VLS and sonar and you have a very capable second tier frigate.

Even if we only bought 3 more that would give the RN an escort fleet of 16 frigates and 6 destoyers by the middle of the 30’s. It would represent the first growth in fleet size since WW2. I’d take that as a starter for 10..!

Cheers CR
PS I was going to answer your post on a previous thread about T26 and SAMPSON. I was looking for a quote online that I read sometime ago but couldn’t find so by the time I came to writing a reply the thread had disappeared..? Now doubt we’ll chat about it again at sometime 😉

T32; what about an evolved R2….the BAE Leander which lost out to Arrowhead for T31?

I have just read an article on reuters that they have sources saying that by next week UK, Japan and Italy will be merging there future fighter programs. Would be interesting if its true. It also said Japan was aiming to have 5% gdp on defence by the end of the decade.

If they do go to 5% GDP they’ll rapidly become one of the most capable militaries on the planet and we’d definately benefit from hanging on to their coats tails.

As Spyinthe sky says Tempest is starting to look quite safe although I suspect Japan might end up leading the programme…

Cheers CR

They are currently at 1.2% and their budget deficit and debt load makes even Italy or the USA look good. 2% is their aspiration they won’t make it 5% would be impossible.

I saw that article in the Financial Times, are you sure it was on Reuters? I believe that the 5% is erroneous; no other sources have said this. Instead it may have been meant to say 5% of the national budget, which would be somewhere near 2% of GDP.

Here’s a link to the article, don’t know if it will be allowed thought.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/japan-britain-italy-announce-joint-fighter-project-early-next-week-sources-2022-12-02/

Sorry I read it wrong it was more speculation because of the current arms program that japan are doing. I am currently doing a 12 hour delivery shift so I just skimmed it.

It’s 2% in the other articles.

BAe future has been.in the US for quie some time. Its fairly irrelevant what’s signed with Japan. The Germans wanted to can there Eurofighter participation and the French have pulled out of projects with us several times. Australia just dumped the French in favour of the UK and US. History is littered with governments quiting on deals sign by their predecessors.

We’ve got stagnant GDP and inflatiron which means 2% will.not go very far. The next election will see the main parties promising 10s of billions more for the NHS and Green energy. I just can’t see major programmes surviving.

That’s not that I don’t want them to survive, i work with companies that will be directly impacted. And I agree its short sited but I have zero confidence in the political class in the UK. For decades they have failed to capitalise on the potential of our defence industry.

The Tempest contracts will be safe, the deal is about to be signed between UK, Japan, Italy and Sweden for the entire program. I know pre-contract notices will be issued soon after, for the area in which I work (software).

I expect the French thought that about their sub deal with Australia. Nothing new about governments pulling out of or wanting to change international deals there’s plenty of examples.

I hope it doesn’t happen but defence doesn’t look like the priority for either party.

bonking Boris should have kept his trap shut and not mentioned T32 in the first place, mind you, we’d have less to talk about. i don’t think it will even happen at all I’d be happy to see an order for more T31

Yes but then to a certain extent we need the ability to fail to be present to keep yards on their toes and always looking for export work. In addition Rosyth has a lot of refit work both military and civilian to keep it going and their is also block building. Appledore has been written off more time than I can count and it’s still going with block work.

Hopefully we get 5 more frigates built at Rosyth to keep the production line hot and there is still export potential like New Zealand. Beyond that there will be a lot of block work going for MRSS as well I’m sure.

Like T32, MRSS has no further funds allocated as I understand. Maybe there will be a reshuffle of FSS and Rosythe get some FSS work and H&W smaller yards get offshore work to compensate.

Keeping yards competive and wanting them to compete will depend who wins the next election.

Not yet but there will be at some point. The uk is not giving up on amphibious assault or MCM and current vessels won’t last forever. We still have orders for 7 more type 26 and 5 more T31 to hit the water so will be a while before yards are looking for work. FSSS just got ordered which was the only vital order and was years late.

Touche 😂😂

Sorry, timeline was meant for the T-26 not the B-21

Fingers crossed 🤞 Jim the 83s don’t go the way of the 82 type a class like the new 83s will complement the QE class on a Carrier task group just hope that no Toads Newts or Bats hold up the plans for the proposed Planning consent