Despite speculation that steel cutting for the first Type 31 Frigate has slipped due to COVID19, it has been confirmed that the steel will be cut this year as planned.

Kevan Jones, MP for North Durham, asked:

“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to Answer 5 March 2020 to Question 21163, with regards to the Type 31 Frigate contract, whether his Department still plans to cut steel this year.”

Jeremy Quin, Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, replied:

“Yes, on current plans the steel will be cut for the first of the Type 31 Frigates in 2021.”

Last year, we learned that that work was being undertaken to mitigate any potential impact from COVID-19 on the Type 31 programme.

Douglas Chapman, the Shadow SNP Spokesperson for Small Business, Enterprise and Innovation, asked via a Parliamentary written question:

“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on the timescale of the Type 31e frigate project.”

Jeremy Quin, Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, responded:

“The Department is working with Babcock and its suppliers to de-risk and mitigate any potential for impact to the Type 31 programme due to COVID-19. Most of the current key outputs for the programme are focused on design, infrastructure development and supply chain mobilisation, and work continues within the Government’s safe working requirements.”

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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83 COMMENTS

      • Great news.

        the timescales and costs are contracted and they have a state of the art panel line.

        i think our minds are being focused by Russian and Sino antics. After 25 years of excessive cuts and stretching delivery schedules we are now in a sprint to keep up and get back to where we should be.

        For once the priorities are driven by the defensive posture required and not just by a desire to spend oceans of money on priorities and chop everything else including Defence.

        i’m also sure that increased Defence spending is spurred on by CanadIan and Australian fleet increases as well as having to look like a reliable partner to US coupling to the desire for a Trade Agreement. I would respectfully suggest that the most likely time we will see the T32 / MBT / F35B buys will be when Jo Biden visits London.

        there is a real sense of get on and do stuff. As post ‘82 we gained confidence in our nation getting stuff done, post COVID vaccine we have discovered that it is sometimes cheaper to wisely spend money.

        • “It is Sometimes cheaper to wisely spend money,” never a truer word spoken, in most things prevention is better than cure. That is true in defence as anywhere else. The problem is convincing everyone when you have prevented the issue to then keep spending. The nuclear deterrent is a classic example, we can be pretty sure spending that money prevented the Soviets from invading Europe and triggering WW3, which would have cost a lot more……but how do you really prove that to the bean counter when challenged about the further value of the programme.

          • I think we can be pretty sure it won’t have an impact on Russia invading Europe. For starters France and Germany has access to nukes and secondly America has a whole load them of. Additionally it’s not clear if Russia could win a land war in Europe, their military strength isn’t what it used to be and you don’t start a war that you aren’t sure you will win. Finally we don’t have enough nukes to wipe out Russia but they sure do have enough to wipe out the UK and so Russia knows we would never use them. I’m not saying it’s wasted money but the statement itself is likely incorrect.

          • Hi steve

            i was not talking about Russia, instead I was talking about the Soviet Union which is a different geopolitical beast to modern russia.

            The Soviet Union from 1945 to around the middle of the 1980s had the conventional forces to eat Europe alive. It was also their recorded strategic goal to do so if they could.

            The only thing that gave them pause was the west’s nuclear forces.

            To really understand the importance of the U.K. component to this you need to get into the politics of nuclear weapons and potential outcomes.

            Now in all this you have to remember MAD and effectively if Russia and the US began an exchange of nuclear weapons it would destroy every major nation on the planet. Also at the time France was having a bit of a love hate with nato and was not really part of the west’s nuclear deterrent ( they were ambiguous and not fully committed). German has never been a nuclear power and is not included in the geopolitical nuclear balance at all so these two nations had in reality cashed out due their differing geopolitical stances to nuclear weapons and NATO.

            so why was the U.K.deterrent so important in preventing the Soviet invasion of Europe. The simple truth was it did not add anything to the American arsenal which was more that adequate for MAD, so that’s not it. In truth the U.K. nuclear deterrent was always designed as a hair trigger and kept both the Soviet and US geopolitical stances honest.

            Remember it’s only MAD that was preventing a soviet invasion therefore the U.K. had to ensure this was an inevitable outcome of a Russian invasion of Europe to Prevent said invasion. What happens if the Soviet leadership starts to think that maybe the US would not destroy itself for the sake of Europe if this had ever taken hold they would have invaded. The U.K. deterrent prevented that, all sides knew the UK was that third man who would trigger MAD by launching its own response. so there was no chance of Russia invading Europe without a nuclear response and MAD being triggered.

            As for saying Presently the we don’t have the nuclear arsenal to wipe out Russia, it sort of depends what you mean….no we would no have the capacity to kill every Russian, but I think you would find that we have the capacity to end any nation state on the planet as a cohesive entity if there was an immediate existential threat that triggered a response. Also the point of our deterrent is that no other nation knows if we would use it or not and what level of attack would trigger a response. As for Russian not having the capability to invade Europe as a whole any more, your right, but it could invade parts of it and then attempt to use nuclear weapon threats as a way to prevent a response. That is again more likely without a U.K. deterrent ( do you think trump would have risked a nuclear war for a minor NATO Allie in Eastern Europe ? Putin may have played that bet all the way without Any Europe Nuclear powers).

          • Morning Jonathan. A well written and comprehensive piece(MAD-Mutual Admiration Department) 🙂
            There are in my opinion two essential truths in this debate. Firstly, the world is stuck with Nukes. There is no conceivable route through which we can achieve worldwide Nuclear Disarmament. Secondly, it is almost inevitable that at some point, these weapons will be deployed given the fact that they are spreading and in the hands of some unpredictable individuals. The critical factor when that happens is-can such a conflict be contained? So either the world will be chastened and that might give us some breathing space going forward, or the world will be destroyed.

          • Hi Geoff, I’m with you on Pandora’s box being well and truly opened on nuclear weapons. Until the planet is able to work as a unit there will be factions and if ‘the other lot’ have it then….

          • That’s it Andy. The CND are/were noble in their cause but basically wasting their time. What a piece of work is man..NOT!

          • I agree with everything you state other than the conclusion. It was the US and it’s ability to level Russia completely and potentially before Russia could respond that prevented and thoughts of war. I’m sure ours helped but if they were removed I am pretty sure the outcome would have been exactly the same.

            Really the only question is if the US would have taken us as seriously and if the US would have ended up managing us effectively as a colony like they do with most of the ‘dependent’ countrie, but we have no idea how US polictics would have changed.

          • Only part I disagree with is that I believe it is doubtful that the Strategic level weapons that gave you MAD would immediately come into play. This would probably only have happened at some time after NATO had used its small tactical weapons to break the Warsaw Pact formations as they streamed into Germany and Theatre level weapons had been used against targets in the Europe and Warsaw pact countries.

            The MAD use of the strategic City Killer weapons or counterstrike/counter force weapons was always a threat but there where a couple of steps to be taken first to get to that stage. Most of the wargaming had the use of small tactical weapons quickly leading to the use of theatre level weapons first.

            With that in mind the UK System could be seen as a theatre type weapon whose use would have Strategic outcomes if it was used. It was comparable in use to the Soviet SS20 system Very powerful and capable of killing cities but not necessarily leading to the 2 superpowers immediately needing to throw Minutemen and SS18s at each other.

            As you say the UK was the unknown player between the Superpowers helping to keep them in check. The UK could kill Soviet and Warsaw Pact cities if it needed to (whilst also getting killed itself). It added uncertainty into the Soviet thinking. Could the loss of say Kiev to a UK strike justify a strike on a US Base at say Rammstein that would result in many US Civilian deaths and as such risk escalation to a MAD exchange between the Superpowers?

            So yes by not giving the UK a reason to use its independent tactical and Strategic Theatre level weapons NATO did deter the Warsaw pact from invading Europe .

            Oh I miss the cold war…life was so much easier when you had to just 2 colours on a map, Red and Blue!

          • And the imminent threat of nuclear Armageddon just seemed a safer place than the modern geopolitical map ( you knew that it would take a real cock up to cause WW3, now we just have lots of areas of instability all waiting for a small misstep to blow up in our faces).

            Give me communists over gangsters and religious nutters.

          • Don’t forget during the Cold War, we also had a staged response of both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons. We had both Polaris followed by Trident ICBMs, but also the free fall parachute retarded WE177 A, B and C bombs. In RAF use, this weapon was going to be used against vehicle harbour areas, fuel and ammo dumps etc behind enemy lines but also against mechanized brigades/divisions attempting to push through ours. It was one of the reasons why the Tornado did so much low level flying training, as it was seen to be the only way to have a chance of getting through their air defences to deliver the weapon. The crews pretty much knew if they had this type of mission, their chances of returning home were slim.

            Although we dismantled these bombs in 1998, I’m pretty sure AWE could produce a suitable warhead based on Tridents, for something like Storm Shadow if required!

          • A good read that Jonathan, I hadn’t considered the UK as third or separate player, I’ve always assumed it was just a seat at the big table and wanting to be a big boy. Its an interesting dynamic.

          • I assume the need isn’t necessarily to wipe them out. I assume its to make the potential price (consequences) of action too high relative to any prize sought…..enough to deter.

            Always worth considering if there are more efficient means of deterence.

        • Are you suggesting that if the UK could promise to keep up F-35B buys, and maybe other purchases too, in return for a trade deal? I wonder if that is possible?
          Ho well and good outcome if so!

          • It is all part of the big blender that is international relations.

            Joe needs something to take to the audience back home. USA did trade deal because our reliable UK partner is stepping up to the plate and taking pressure off US forces by spending £XYZ on new military kit. Probably dressed up with some fluff about sharing QEC technology as the Ford program is unaffordable. Before someone says it the America class isn’t nuclear.

            We need a US or TTIP trade deal pretty urgently.

  2. Truth is the RN need these ships like yesterday so come on Babcock, put a metaphorical bomb under it and churn them out. Even with the very limited weapons fit they will be useful platforms and, who knows, we maybe able to bolt on a fairly formidable weapons capability later and even get a second batch of five.

    If Babcock can produce these ships on time and on budget they will have a very marketable warship with proven production and costing to sell around the world. Maybe ongoing development of the design will mean we are able to flog on the first batch quickly and replace them with more advanced platforms. It is also a chance for Babcock to put BAEs T26 production time scale into perspective and capture credibility at the MOD from them.

    • It’s not Babcock’s decision on how fast they’re built. They could probably build a ship a year or so if HMG stumped up the cash to do so. Same applies with the Type 26s and Astutes; slow build rate is entirely down to MoD.

      • Babcock are committed to building the T31 pretty fast. Most people question wether the build speed can be achieved! It is T26 that is achingly slow at Treasury behest.

        We have been over this on here and SVRN and the consensus was that it was better to build #1 and get it into trials than rush all of them into build such that spiral upgrades were ignored and lessons learned could not be incorporated.

        #1 is always a prototype…..

  3. I just hope that space is left for possibly 24 Mk41s and a further 24 Sea Ceptors maybe even the space and power supply for a container Towed Array. I am not saying buy them now, but just the space to drop a contaier in plug it up and go. Apart from that crack on and get these much needed ships to the fleet.

    • Yep, that would be nice. I think that the Bofors 57mm and 2 Bofors 40mm naval guns and 24 (fingers crossed) Sea Ceptor launchers are formidable defences for the types of environments these ships are likely to be tasked to operate in. Realistically I’d be happy to see 2 twin Harpoon (?) launch containers and a couple of the RN 30mm Mk2 guns with Marlet launchers attached positioned on either side of the ship. If they do this then these ships would be well enough armed for the dangers they could face.

      • I don’t think the 30mm / Martlet combo will see the light of day sadly. There is an article on Navy Lookout about the 30mm in RN service that suggests that the RN wasn’t that impressed. No indication given as to the reason, but the silence is deafening, suggesting they are quietly letting it go. Sadly.

        I wondered why and came up to two reasons; 1) the gunners cabin is removed to allow the missile tubes to be fitted, so on mount control is lost; 2) the missiles are currently laser guided so perhaps compromising the gun’s ability to switch targets quickly?

        I was not happy with either of these so perhaps someone else on here could suggest a better reason for the RN’s cool response to the idea? Of course, they may be hoping / expecting something better to come along soon?

        Cheers CR

        • I think programmable ammunition and an airburst option are being developed for the 30mm by Northrop. As I understand it that would mean the gun gives better force protection and as a bonus would give the River 2 OPVs some AA capability. If there is a choice on where to spend the money I would go for the programmable ammo.

        • That’s a pity. I was looking forward to seeing the 30mm/Martlet system
          deployed on just about everything not classified as a high end warships. May have been good for deployment on RFA vessels, or even River 2 OPVs as a fairly cheap, less sophisticated defence system against all kinds of potential threats. I’m dissapointed.

          • Hi Jason,

            Yes I’m dissappointed as well as it seemed like a simple and effective idea. Certainly something for developing navies to consider I would have thought.

            Cheers CR

        • Could they not make standalone mounts? Similar to Mistral Tetral (think that’s the quad mount), I would say it might be too much work but it’s a relatively cheap layer of light ASuW capability surely.

    • Looks likely they will get 24 Sea Ceptors and there will probably be 5 interim AShM sets going spare in the early 2030’s to bolt on.

      Not exactly anyone’s idea of a fantasy fleet load-out, but no doubt adequate for the sort of roles they will be expected to undertake.

      • That’s good news. As you say not ideal but enough to handle what’s expected. Maybe even enough to get themselves out of something unexpected.
        Some disagree but I think these ships are gonna turn out to be a good addition to the fleet. I for one would be happy to see more ordered.

      • I would agree Challenger. 24 Camm gives a robust AA capability. I would like to see at least a matching of T23’s 32 outload, but I’ll settle for 24 as a minimum service entry spec.

        I would like to see Sea Ceptor ER fully developed and brought into fleet wide service, it would give a very useful expansion of the air defence umbrella across the fleet, as we will ‘at best’ only have four T45’s in service at any one time.

        As for containerised anti submarine warfare systems, forget it, the T31 will generate far too much machinery noise for this to be effective.

        Perhaps, if future anti sub tech goes into off board remote systems, then maybe so.

        We live in a time of rapid technology advancement, so having the bays in the back (and the overall design displacement) is a great way of incorporating future equipment, in a cost effective manner, that hasn’t even been thought of yet.

        A good example of this is the future incorporation of direct energy weapons, a technology that will mature over the next decade.

        Thank god they went with the Arrowhead base design and not the much smaller BAE systems design!

        Let’s hope T32 is in effect batch 2 T31, taking the escort fleet to 24, coupled with future co deployed autonomous systems, the RN
        ‘might’ just have a rather bright future……

      • It does look likely at all. A lot of internet commentators saying they should upgrade the numbers of CAMM means absolutely nothing.

    • It would be nice to see an image of the T31 instead of the sales brochure image for foreign customers. The above image shows a decently armed ship. If compared to the T31 we are supposed to be getting there’s going to be lots of empty and unused spaces. I am still hopeful that the Navy will increase the SeaCeptor count from the paltry 12 to at least double that. But we will have to wait and see?

        • Yup, but it is still a low res render.

          It is a tiny bit surprising that a few more firm details are not known given firm contracts are signed.

          Unless there is a big reveal of what the eventual full weapons fit will be: post build.

          Thinking back to T42, T23 and even County and there were beautiful info graphics produced.

          • What details do you not know? They have all been stated even though a lot of folks are in denial about them (see this thread).

          • I’m sure you will disagree but it is pretty well known that there are costed plans to up-arm T31 after build so that the build price remains low and fixed.

            Treasury don’t like upgrade spirals and prefer fixed numbers.

            Exactly which of the multiplicity of options under consideration come to fruition remains to be seen.

            Given the mantra of the modernisation fund I think we can all take an educated guess as to what the most likely items in the T31 shopping cart will be.

            The T31 has got to look credible at shepherding STUFT/RFA in a Corporate type situation as well as being able to undertake Gulf duties.

            I think we will find out in early/mid summer……

            We all say Boris Clown / Bufoon but he is the ONLY PM we have had since ? Who has increased defence funding. He does have an at least partial grasp of not letting things naval slip any further. I’ll admit some of that is driven by Churchillian dreams and the rest by Jeremy Hunt’s promises in the leadership contest.

          • The only options currently are the same as the QE class as various systems and options exist. That are self contained switchable units. And many in development but are now being designed as plug and shoot. In that they only need a power supply and data link. QE class will develop this system but they are likely to be a
            Stored item unless conflicts.

  5. Is unfortunate this frigate isn’t getting a fixed, multifaceted AESA radar like other NATO and Chicom ships are now getting. I guess rotating radars do save a few pounds though.

    • There are Pros and cons for AESA panels v Rotating radar and DaveyB has covered them
      A Rotating AESA does not just look at the environment at an angle of 90 degs from the radar face as the old traditional rotating radars did. The beam is steerable across the aerials face so it can look up, down, scan the horizon, look a large number of degrees forward and back from where the aerial is facing all at the same time. With a 30 RPM speed it covers everything that a flat panel does.
      In addition the cooling requirements( Chilled Cooling water) is less as you dont need to pump as much of it if any up a high mast to cool the back side of the panels and the mast head equipment.
      Cooling is a radars achilles heal. Lose cooling to the cabinets and mast head and you have to Battle Override the safety cut outs or you quite literally slag, melt and burn out the set.

    • As GB alluded to above, there are pros and cons between the way the radars are used and mounted. The primary pro for a rotating antenna is in general they have a much lower weight, therefore you can mount them a lot higher, on a mast for example, ala T45’s Sampson. A large fixed panel weighs a lot, which is why the Arleigh Burkes (ABs) in particular have their SPY panels mounted quite low on the structure, below the bridge. GB is probably best placed to describe the interaction between the length to beam ratio mixed in with top weight.

      The Australian Hunters will be using CEFAR, which is a halfway house between the two. Instead of four really large panels like the ABs, they will use either 6 or 8 smaller antenna arrays mounted above the bridge. This may seem like they are missing a trick here, as the small panel’s cross sectional area would limit the effective detection range. However, this is an Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) system with either a 60 or 45 degree field of view depending on the number of panels they use. But, the adjoining arrays can interact with each other and through mutual interference will boost the effective detection range. Though it still wont match a very large single panel’s effective detection range like a SPY’s.

      As for placement, the high rotating antenna is best for earlier detection of sea skimming missiles, as its higher up, so its radar horizon is further. Whereas, a large panel is better for longer range detection (but has a shorter radar horizon), as the larger cross sectional area means that it can contain more transmitter receiver modules (TRMs) to amplify the transmitted signal and make the receiver more sensitive. There is a proportional link between the number of TRMs an array contains and the effective detection range.

      It would be best to have a combination of both. Which is what the Hunters are trying to achieve. The CEFAR system is made up of two AESA radar types. On their mast they show two different sized diamond shaped panel arrays. The larger is a lower frequency search radar, whilst the smaller panels are higher frequency search/tracking radar. The beauty with CEFAR, is that there is no rotating dead zone. It will detect a sea skimming missile earlier than a ship equipped with a SPY type large panel radar, but not as early as a T45.

      I’m betting that the next upgrade to the T45s radar, will be to their S1850M radar. This is a very powerful Passive Electronically Steered Array (PESA) radar made by BAe and Thales. Thales have produced an updated version of this as an AESA radar. It has been designed with the lessons learned from the S1850M and has a dedicated anti-ballistic missile (ABM) search and track mode. However, it is still mechanically rotated. If the ship has the power capacity, this radar could be mounted as four fixed panels. But, I would fully expect the T45s to get the mechanically rotated SMART L-MM AESA radar to begin with, as this would allow the ship to counter ABMs, when armed with the longer range Aster 30 1NT or Block 2 BMDs.

      The T31 will be get the Thales NS-100 AESA radar. These use the same TRMs as used in the SMART L-MM, but not as many. This is the perfect radar for the roles that the T31 will be doing, if anything it is over-spec’d. Like the T23/26s Artisan, it is a single panel array mounted high on a mast that rotates once every 2 seconds, operating in the S band (between 2 and 4GHz). This operating frequency is good compromise between effective range and small target resolution. Again placing it up high will extend the radar’s horizon, so it will detect sea skimmers earlier than a fixed panel system, which will likely be the main threat the ship faces. The NS100 has a high elevation search and track capability, so it will also detect high angle diving threats.

      • Software controls modern radars and its software that differentiates radar capabilities not top trumps numbers.

        NS-100 is a bottom basement radar, hardly over specc’ed. A Thales spokesman has stated the RN would prefer its stablemate the NS-200 but that’s not affordable at the current budget.

        By the way, length to beam ratio has very little to do with ship stability.

      • Not so sure S1850 gets an upgrade. Probably not necessary for Aster 30 1NT range (also see below ref Sampson) and I thought Block 2 BMD was going to need strike length cells, so either Mk41 or Sylver A70, I don’t see that upgrade happening for T45 by the time Block 2 BMD is ready for deployment. The Dutch can use SM-3, which has been mooted as a plan for some time, hence their upgrading of their SMART-L arrays.

        The next T45 radar upgrade might be a Sampson upgrade to BMD around 2023/4. The planned upgrade is shown on a BAES timeline at about 1:50 into the Cowes virtual tour video about halfway down the webpage here –
        https://www.baesystems.com/en/productfamily/radar-uk

        An upgrade for Artisan is also shown as planned for 2027/8.

        BAES also post on their Future Radar webpage that “Working with a third party technology provider, we have developed a new bespoke transceiver which has been tested at our site at Cowes on the Isle of Wight. The system’s ability to cancel clutter has been proven and this approach is ready for adoption in new and existing radar throughout 2020.” So I suppose its conceivable that the Sampson and/or Artisan upgrades could include hardware in the form of GaN TRM (with AESA capability added for Artisan) in addition to the perhaps more likely software-only upgrade.

        • I was really shocked when the RN did not include artisan on the T31, especially when they are going to keep upgrading it on the T26. Is Thales system better or just cheaper?

          • Well on paper the Thales NS100 is a more modern GaN (versus GaAs) based radar that claims higher specs in terms of range and number of tracks. NS100 is an AESA radar. While Artisan claims to leverage Sampson technology it is never stated to be AESA. Artisan is air cooled while NS100 requires cooling fluid. However, the radar system software capability is also key and only those that have seen both in operation would be able to comment on the system as a whole.

            I suspect the T31 decision for NS100 was tied to a number of points. Not least is likely to be the cost to integrate Artisan into the rest of the ship’s software systems, whereas NS100/200 is probably already supported in the Thales Tacticos CMS.

            More broadly, I suspect the MoD and the RN may be concerned that they are essentially the only customer for BAES’ CMS and radar systems, and are having to carry the full development cost and pay a premium price for what amounts to bespoke products, when perhaps they don’t have to. It doesn’t appear like BAES is interested in targeting the open market, while BAES competitors such as Thales, Leonardo, Hensoldt, Saab, CEA Technologies, Raytheon and Lockheed are all producing a range of advanced modern naval radars and actively promoting them.

  6. Well Con hot air has been found to be Con hot air.

    Truly hope I am proved wrong and no more innocents have to give up their lives.

    FFAW to the dogs knacks, be great to see them doing what the RN do best.

    • The UK built a 66000ton aircraft carrier for £3.3 billion.
      This Canadian paper is saying that 15 frigates are going to be $60 billion. $4 billion a frigate…. £2.5 billion pounds sterling.

      Really?

      • Makes the UK T45 and T26, never mind T31 and QEC acquisition look positively bargain basement.

        At this rate it would be cheaper to get the UK to build them for them……

      • Both Canada & Australia tend to use whole of life costings when it comes to defence. ie if you don’t think you can afford to not only buy the asset, but run & support the asset for the time you expect to have it in inventory, then perhaps you should not be buying it. They tend to include both staffing & the asset itself & all expected maintenance, running costs & normal upgrades for a peace time asset. So Canada has allocated C$60 billion to build & fully support 15 high end frigates for something like the next 35+ years. If you look at Austrlia’s current costing estimates for its 9 x T26 (Hunter class) or 12 x Attack class heavy d/e submarines you will find similar massive numbers. If you buy a new motor vehicle & keep it for 15 years you will usually find the original purchase price was the cheapest part of the deal.

          • “In other words this 100,000 circulation newspaper is making mischief.”

            Not correct.
            The biggest problem are the delays since the Halifaxes are from 90’s. Second, the delays will certainly will impact cost.

          • But – even if that were true – there are no unfair comparisons between the RN type 26 and the FREMM ship and the new proposed Canadian frigate.

            What happened or did not happen in the 90s is not relevant. What has happened is that military and strategic needs for Canada gave changed and it’s determined it needs 15 frigates. And it’s chosen a good one.

          • And the point is that will only get the first in earlier 30’s if this is the only delay until then. Type 26 is said to need 7.5 years to be build against the expected 5.
            So the Halifaxes will have to soldier on until 2040 by which time they will be almost 50’s old, and spend money in them to be updated.
            I suspect the report that is about to come out will advise to get a mix of Type 26 and maybe lighter frigate – Type 31 for example – the later ones to be fast build in a hi-lo mix.

  8. When asked by the SNP Spokesperson “To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on the timescale of the Type 31e frigate project.”

    He should have replied

    “We would be much further on obviously if you bunch of clowns had sorted out the Covid vaccine Program and where not lagging behind the rest of the country. “

    Wont happen though…Bare faced Honesty just isnt the done thing!

  9. Why would the Russians wish to invade Europe as a nuclear desert with no economy. Russia is loosing around 100,000 citizens every year, it would be best for her to build a real economic base The only place i can see as a desire for them is Kalingrad and the baltic states but that involves NATO.

    • Russia is dying. There is a reason they have approached the UK with a proposal on joint development of covid vaccines. I suspect they fear China more than we do. Russia will turn to the West for allies.

      • I’d see this as being a pretty cynical Kremlin ploy.

        UK has some of the best medical research in the world.

        If we cosy up with them it will be spun back as how weak the UK is and how much UK needs Russian ‘expertise’

        It is also classic Putinian divide and poison relation with post truth, truth.

        • Agree. Probably a ploy to divide UK from both Europe and the US by appealing our ego which could get inflated by our covid vaccine success if we are not careful.

          • A ploy I don’t think we are going to fall for: judging by the cool response it has got so far.

            There really is no advantage to us trying to work with Putin: he will just game it however he sees fit.

            We are in a good position to use vaccine aid with all the extra doses we have bought.

            Why get muddled up with Russian propaganda when we can given millions of doses to poorer countries funded by our foreign aid budgets?

          • Sell at or below cost I think. Even poor countries have their pride. But yes, the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine enables us to exert real soft power and can be a real counter to the huge amounts of
            cheap Chinese money and aid flowing into Africa.

  10. Cutting first steel is a trivial activity in the ship build process.
    It’s normally a staged event and completely disconnected from the real production schedule.

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