HMS Tamar, the fourth of the five new Offshore Patrol Vessels, has been formally commisioned into the Royal Navy today.

HMS Tamar recently arrived in her home port of Portsmouth again after a period of training, becoming the fourth of five new offshore patrol vessels to be delivered from Glasgow shipyards.

The ship is a Batch 2 River class Offshore Patrol Vessel and is fundamentally different in appearance and capabilities from the preceding Batch 1.

Notable differences include the longer 90.5 metres long hull, a higher top speed of 24 knots, a Merlin-capable flight deck, a greater displacement of around 2,000 tonnes and greatly expanded capacity for accommodating personnel.

The Batch 2 ships therefore arguably represent a distinctly separate class to the preceding Batch 1 in everything but name.

What will Tamar do?

According to the Royal Navy website, like her three older sisters HMS Forth, Medway and Trent, HMS Tamar will be deployed on lengthy missions around the globe, operating out of overseas ports and bases as part of the Navy’s Forward Presence programme.

“Her remit is to protect UK interests at sea, work and support our allies, assist British citizens, provide aid in the aftermath of natural disasters. She has a flight deck and is armed with an array of weaponry, meaning she can support a range of operations, from counter-piracy to anti-smuggling.”

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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37 COMMENTS

  1. White Ensign officially raised just off Devonport. A nice touch to do so on the river with which she takes her name. Great to see these ships progressing well.

  4. Never mind the artillery. I still wish they had a hangar and shipped a Wildcat with Martlet and we had enough Wildcats to go round! Now that would be a really useful capability

  5. Yes a hanger would seem to be the real missing piece with these ships. That would make a lot of sense if these ships take on the Atlantic deployments.

    Anyone know why they did not go for a hanger other than penny pinching ?

    • I’ve read that given the inflated price paid ( TOBAR ) that a hanger could have been included. So no penny pinching.

      Whether that is true I do not know.

    • Sorry to sound like a broken record but for constabulary roles the surveillance reach could (in my non-expert view – I’m open to correction) be enhanced massively by adding something like a Schiebel S-100 Camcopter with a decent surveillance package all housed and maintained in a standard ISO container secured either port or starboard of the crane (or one each side to embark 2 x S-100 if more persistent surveillance was required). That could provide a fully embarked and maintained asset as opposed to lilly-padding a manned helicopter which is all that B2 can realistically do right now. One nice thing about B2 is that it does have aviation fuel storage since it is designed to be able to refuel manned helicopters. The Gulf would seem to me to be a pretty good testing ground for such a concept due to relatively clement weather and testing high temperature limits.

      S-100 has even been tested with 2 x Martlet although I worry there whether there would be enough payload capacity left over to also carry the required sensors and maintain acceptable endurance or if such a setup would need a target designated by some other ground/sea asset. I suppose there is also FreeFall LMM that weighs 5.8kg vs Martlet 13kg.

      Getting slightly more wacky, for constabulary roles I wonder if some launcher could be designed to allow an S-100 or similar to carry non-lethal weapons (flash-bangs, CS, smoke etc) which might be useful in anti-piracy/smuggling to delay/confuse until other forces could get on scene and would presumably put far less strain on payload capacity than LMM or even FFLMM.

  6. The trouble with up arming is three fold.
    1) Cost, what doesn’t happen to pay for it
    2) Crew numbers increase and in a service short of personnel what gives? (1 less T23)
    3) How much an upgrade, the more you have the more the treasury my say why need T31???

    Plus on a hanger, nice to have but with only 32 HM2 Merlin’s and 25 Naval Wildcats , we don’t have anywhere near enough helicopters. If we had more Wildcats I would rather see 2 embarked in each T45/T31 first. UAVs based in containers is the best option for the Rivers

        • Completely agree. 12 Merlin HM1 airframes weren’t converted to HM2 standart. They’ve been left to rot and cannibalised. The ROyal Navy now possesses 25 HC4 Merlins, inheriting them from the RAF’s fleet of 28 HC3/3I models. However, 3 HC3 airframes won’t be converted to HC4 standard. This is understandable, as I believe two were severely damaged in Afghanistan.

          Wildcats numbers were originally 40 for the Army, 30 for the Navy, with an option for an additional 10. This was reduced to 34 and 28 respectively. Whilst the fleet is shared between the services, I’d still like to see an order for the originally planned numbers to allow for two to deploy on the escorts that can accommodate it and take the pressure off the fleet a little.

          Your three points regarding upgrade are pretty accurate. Upgrading the weapon systems will require additional money, additional people and additional maintenance. One of the big advantage of the River class is their ability to put to sea, remain on station for long periods of time and in the case of Batch 2 vessels, provide support for wider operations. With the addition of complex weapon systems, this becomes harder to achieve.

          Personally, I’m in favour of equipping them with containerised UAV technology (in itself not as simple as it sounds) and when it’s cleared for service, Martlet. I suspect this is what ‘increasing the lethality’ means.

          I could lean towards replacing the 30mm with a 40mm, adding two 30mm guns with Martlet to the bridge wings, and adding UAV provision. But that will still encour a cost, considerably add to the maintenance of the ship and may impact the T31 programme. Each ship would need to be modified and undergo trials to ensure the additions can be cleared for active service, further reducing the capability of the fleet when one can argue it’s needed the most.

    • S100 copters with optional missiles. Save the Royal Navy also suggested same. Also add the Same missiles on the gun too. Not too expensive, force multiplier for all of them.

  8. Now that the 57mm has been chosen for Type 31 this is surely the obvious way to increase the lethality of the River 2s. With the programmable ammunition it has a punch against surface targets out to the horizon and good AA capability. Keep the mini guns or replace with 30mm and add a UAV and torpedo tubes and you have credible global ….Black Swan sloop??

  9. if it’s in Gibraltar it wont need a hanger as they have an Raf base there it would be a great asset in that area

  11. “…armed with an array of weaponry”? You’re having a laugh! It can see off terrorists in small boats but is otherwise defenceless against anything larger, aircraft, missiles, submarines & can give zero NGS.
    Typical HMG spin to decieve the public which no adversary will believe as they do proper research rather than believing publicity soundbites. Rather than undergunning T31’s with 57mm, thay’d be better on these, though I’d prefer 76mm.

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