HMS Clyde returns to UK after 12 years guarding the Falkland Islands

Reminds me of the late Dr Bull, the Canadian scientist, that welded the barrels of two 16 inch ex-US Navy guns together. The object was to launch small reconnaissance satellites into low orbit using a sabot. He achieved some success at doing this but the US decided that they were not going to fund a development programme. He went off in a sulk and dabbled with Hussein producing a supergun. I believe he was murdered in his hotel room by Mosad agents. One of those James Bond type stories that seem hardly credible!

Agreed, we don’t participate in EU military activities in any significant way; our presence in the Baltics is NATO, and our more active partnerships with France, Netherlands and Norway are unilateral rather than via the EU.
Increased manning will give us something like 15% greater availability for our escort fleet without building any more hulls at all, seeing as there’s a T23 and a T45 tied up semi permanently on a rotational basis due to lack of crew.

Were the RN manpower issues due to the government cutting 5,000 Royal Navy personnel since 2010? And then not exactly trying to recruit as many as possible, just like reducing sandhurst intake numbers. We probably train far more foreign officers/ soldiers than our own these days!. Atleast the Gurkhas have had an increase in numbers!

The RN has too many Admirals tied up in port for lack of ships and sailors 🙂

The answer to your first question is, in short, yes.

According to the RN they will in due course be based abroad. As 1SL alluded to a few years ago.

Hopefully relieving our main escorts from this task.

Allied to the LSS that I believe will be procured, and the T31.

I agree. Leaving the EU makes no difference to our membership of NATO or our commitments to it or elsewhere.

It makes no sense always sending ships to the Caribbean every year, may aswell have an OPV permenantly based there and maybe a new base to go with it, maybe fund it out of foreign aid for disaster relief operations, shame our OPVs have no dedicated hangar for a small chopper! Merlins a bit over kill. An old lynx would have been great, folding tail ect.

we already have a base in the caribbean, its on Andros island in the bahamas and is jointly operated with the US. Nice place too.

If we are so short of money and manpower, my suggestion makes more sense surely.

Type 31 cost £250M (expected to exceed this amount according to a post by Janes Defence)

Batch 2 cost £ 155M

Type 31 Crew 117 (Based on Iver Huitfeldt class frigate)

B2 Crew 34

I would have thought the Type 31’s would be of more use protecting the carriers and patroling the world oceans and shipping lanes than UK escort duties?

And don’t forget, we still need ASM’s to fulfil this role, price not included!

NSM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Strike_Missile

Literally the opposite. When you’re short on manpower and hulls, the solution isn’t to take hulls from other important roles, increase their manpower requirement, and end up with an inefficient half arsed corvette.

What relevance does the unit cost have? We’re discussing upgunning existing ships, not buying new OPVs. Unless you’re suggesting we buy more OPVs instead of T31? Regardless, you’d have to account for a significant increase in the cost and crew of an R2 to make it fit for escort duties, and even then it’s still lacking crucial features like a hangar or mission bay, and would be rather cramped.

The T31s ARE for patrolling the world’s oceans. UK escort duties are either already often done by existing OPVs (the Fleet Ready Escort, bit of a misnomer) or require a dedicated ASW platform (the frigate protecting the deterrent). Can you see how an upgunned OPV/corvette is therefore unnecessary, given that the role is either already done by normal OPVs or required a proper ASW frigate?

TLDR: an upgunned OPV is overkill for what it could be used for, and not fit for what it would need to be used for. It would also take funds and crew away from ships that are more useful.

My point at the beginning of this thread was to replace the ageing batch 1’s not add to the five Batch 2’s that we have ordered and make them more flexible. It’s about making the most of what you have available and having a Type 31 escorting Russian ships around these shores makes little sense to me.

“Furthermore, the BAES OPV can be fitted with up to six 20 ft ISO containers. There is no indication that this capability has been removed from the R2s. This means that the ships will be able to be fitted with just about any system or equipment that can be containerised or palletised.

One can easily imagine the ships being fitted with containerised/palletised mine hunting systems, or mine-laying systems (for defensive mine laying, probably in support of allies), or containerised workshops and spares stores to act as command and support ships for minehunters or patrol boats, or a containerised/palletised system carrying unmanned surface vessels and extra rigid hull inflatable boats allowing the ships to serve as forward force protection base ships. One could even imagine them being fitted with palletised Sea Ceptor missiles (would should be relatively easy to do) — assuming each pallet carried six Sea Ceptors (as would be carried by each vehicle in the land-based version of the missile), an R2 could carry anything from six (one pallet) to 36 (six pallets) missiles, making it a very useful local area air defence escort for amphibious ships and auxiliaries.”

“The other source of flexibility for the R2s resulting from their lack of a hangar is that fact that this allows them to have a larger flight deck, capable of taking the Merlin. As the RN is standardizing on the Lynx/Wildcat and the Merlin, and these will carry out all helicopter roles and missions within the Fleet Air Arm, this means that the R2s will be able to support all these roles and missions: anti-surface vessel warfare, ASW, airborne early warning, assault, and so on.”

Army Fires a Naval Strike Missile from a Palletized Load System Truck.

https://www.military.com/video/army-fires-naval-strike-missile-palletized-load-system-truck

https://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2016/06/thoughts-batch-2-river-class/

You are right that River batch 1s will Not last for ever. There will come a point a decision will need to be made to either, replace them with more batch 2s or Not replace them at all. Then the UK back down to 5 OPV’s!

In which case strike a sensible balance between B 2’s and type 31? Both of which appear on face value to be lightly armed, especially in regard to ASM’s!

The B2’s could be far more useful to the RN now that we have them with options for canister launched weapon systems depending on the mission type (see above).

https://www.iiss.org/blogs/military-balance/2019/10/uk-type-31-frigate-programme

It seems to me the decision to retain the batch 1’s was a stop-gap measure until all 5 batch 2’s enter service, by 2021. Plus, just in case a Post Brexit conflict with EU fishermen. Are we expecting a conflict this coming Spring?

River 2 is a very flexible ship design. I can see it becoming a RN workhorse with containerised weapons and unmanned remote vehicles, and roles defined by crew skills: inspecting fishing nets, Caribbean humanitarian aid containers, anti drug running, anti-piracy ( with helo from an RFA ), casualty evacuation, fleet ready escort, mine hunting mother ship, global OPV, special forces insertion, lily pad refuelling for extending range of task force Merlins.
Very handy ship. I’d build more when we retire the B1s.

?

I prefer the Saab missile its cheaper and can target land and ships, longer range also, is it the RBS15?

Yes Cam, the RBS15 Mk4
https://www.naval-technology.com/projects/rbs-15-gungnir-next-generation-anti-ship-missile/

I’ve mentioned this many time before with the added ability to launch from land, sea, or air. Range 300km+ a mobile land system would be a good choice for us too.

https://saab.com/air/weapon-systems/air-to-surface-missile-systems/rbs15-family/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzfC6q_LG5gIVRLTtCh3JywliEAAYASAAEgKCYfD_BwE

And in addition to this, the LRASM will eventually canister launched too.

“For smaller frigate-sized vessels that don’t use the Mark 41 VLS (in U.S. service, Littoral Combat Ships or some future FFG(X) design), Lockheed Martin is developing a deck-mounted canister-launched version—though the U.S. Navy has chosen the cheaper, shorter-range Norwegian Naval Strike Missile to fulfil this role for now.”

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/meet-lrasm-us-navys-powerful-new-missile-91706

We won’t get 5 T31 for the budget.

We would better buying 6 Holland class OPV. For the budget we could afford them all to have the ‘electronics mast’ option and perhaps a few Wildcat too.

I disagree. I think we will. And we should have at least 8. The Babcock bid has been accepted: Type 31 ought to be a low risk build. The sooner we start paying Babcock to build new ships rather than Lifex Type 23 the better. Sir John Parker was spot on. We need to stop treating RN ships as if they are classic car restorations!

I agree Paul.

I also think what will happen is T26 down to 6, with just 3 in batch 2. And the T31 increased to 8.

Saves Billions and then HMG can say the RN escort fleet has increased.

I don’t agree with significant extra armament on the R B2s. They are presence vessels, or force enablers. Enabling our best ships to be used in their primary role.

I would like to see the B2s forward deployed ( as the RN have already implied )

There was an excellent article on Save the RN about this, which included possible extra intelligence fits for them.

Much more sensible and achievable.

I’m still doubtful that 5 Type 31’s can be produced for the £1.25 billion allocated,there is always going to be a few problems and snags along the way which will push the price up – not massively but maybe up to about £100 million per Hull or so, hopefully I’m wrong but time will tell.But Daniele has a fair point – with a new regime in No10 and whispers of scrutiny with the MOD’s finances the price of the T26 vs the T31 in the eyes of lets just say the Military Illiterate will surely raise some questions.Id hate to see a Politician try and spin a reduction in the T26 order (especially as all 8 are named) but if it happened would anyone here be surprised ?.As far as has been reported negotiations for the last 5 T26 are ongoing ,maybe BAE won’t miss the chance of an open goal and some costs can be reduced.

I wonder if the naming saves them. Typically London was last I think and the Cardiff Glasgow Belfast first. Far easier to cut that, it’s only the Capital of Great Britain after all!

This ship is only 14 years old, could it not serve a purpose in home waters

Ian – certainly but all things considered its a win-win for all parties.If the RN saw a need to keep it on their books then surely that would be the outcome but with the B2 Rivers coming into service they should have all needs covered.

Every Time I watched Hms Clyde on tv it seemed to always be having problems! Atleast BAE paid for the “problems”

I’m not sure if this could be done, but…

If BAE Systems was smart, they would take HMS Clyde, refurbish/refit the ship at their expense; and then donate it back to the Royal Navy.

HMS Clyde could be used with the 3 batch 1’s in home waters, or as a spare hull for when the batch 1’s need service.

I think this would earn BAE more than it would cost them.

Thanks,

The 2020 defence review should answer the question of how many escorts/ personal are needed to provide a permanent four escort plus SSN availability for the active carrier and meet standing commitments.

That’s the question, it remains to be seen if Boris will rise to the challenge….

Things are never as basic or clear cut than that. There will be cuts, there always are in SDSR’s. Does not mean the roof is caving in.

https://rusi.org/commentary/end-defence-austerity-2019-spending-round-and-uk-defence-budget