The third of the Royal Navy’s new patrol ships has arrived in Portsmouth for the first time.
According to a Royal Navy news release:
“With HMS Tamar and Spey still to come, the quintet at the heart of the RN’s new ‘forward presence’ strategy, with the goal of permanently stationing the vessels in areas key to the UK’s military, political and economic interests around the globe: Caribbean, Mediterranean and Asia-Pacific region.
For now, however, Trent’s eyes are fixed on home waters and getting through trials and training ready to perform any mission from fishery protection through to anti-smuggling, border patrols, counter-terrorism and counter-piracy.”
The Royal Navy say that aside from a crew of 40, there’s space for up to 50 troops/Royal Marines (who have their own mess facilities); the flight deck can accommodate Wildcat and Merlin helicopters; there’s a 30mm automated main gun; and flat out the engines push Trent along at 24kts.
“It is a great privilege to be the ship’s first commanding officer and I am proud of what has been achieved thus far”, said Lieutenant Commander James Wallington-Smith.
“Trent now enters the next phase which will see her develop into a warship, being made ready for sustained patrol operations in the new year.”
It’s official then. Forward based in due course.
Norfolk I think mate. Why?
Correction – Suffolk.
A crew of 40…..what on earth do they all do?
Seems small to me for a ship that size?
You were on the H class? Didn’t they have a similar number? Or more?
Are they all on shifts aboard?
Probably more, but then they were conducting hydrographic surveys…..from dawn to dusk. A lot of post processing of data, such as reducing soundings and creating the charts in situ. Plus there would be a couple of boats doing inshore work…all of which would have to be processed. Then you have the guys manning the shore details monitoring tide-gauges and scaffold offshore tide-guage mounts. On top of that, they had a decent hanger and a Wasp with the relevant flight crew. A really active and productive industrial ship, not quite commercial standards of efficiency, but very effective none-the-less. All in 2,500… Read more »
I remember manning a navigation station in France for the Eastern approaches survey that included Echo and Egeria back in 1976….possibly before you time Andy!
I don’t remember Enterprise being there, but it is quite possible. Eastern approaches is a big area and lots of shifting sandbanks to plot. We didn’t have much to do with the vessels themselves, I think that the boats were fitted out by a tech from Great Yarmouth….weren’t they old minesweepers that had been found a new and useful life.
There’s usually a split into 2 or 3 watches, so only half or a third are working at any time as the ship needs to be active 24 hours at sea.
Thought as much Frank, cheers.
I used the wrong terminology “shifts” !
Well Andy, I have always maintained that you could do the same job with an offshore supply vessel as used in the North Sea. Less than half the displacement, really good accommodation and a fraction of the price of the Rivers. Put a civilian crew on board and they will work all the hours required! A complete waste of tax-payers money!
Given the absurdity of some of the decisions taken at the highest levels, we deserve to fail as a nation! The MOD needs gutting…its staff sacked or repositioned within the civil service. If Dom Cummings (the Mekon) has better ideas, lets see them…they couldn’t be any worse than the ad hoc approach to defence that has been going on for years.
Why is it flying the blue ensign?
It’s the Government Ensign, as at that point, she is under the control of the UK government but not actually .
It has since been lowered, with the White Wnsign being raised. However, this is only a technicality as she is seen as vessels whose commissioning ceremony is to be held some time after acceptance are entitled to wear a full suite of colours.
In short, she flew the Government Ensign on entry to Portsmouth and lowered it for the White Ensign when alongside. She’ll commission early in the new year.
Attempt #2 (to forgo my late-night typos!)
It’s the Government Ensign, as at that point, she is under the control of the UK government but not actually in commission.
It has since been lowered, with the White Ensign being raised. However, this is only a technicality as vessels whose commissioning ceremony is to be held some time after acceptance are entitled to wear a full suite of colours.
In short, she flew the Government Ensign on entry to Portsmouth and lowered it for the White Ensign when alongside. She’ll commission early in the new year.
Thank you!
Andy mate, the Archers support the UNS RN! University Naval Squadrons RN.
In all out war sure put a cannon on them and use them along the coasts and up rivers.
Why are these RN ships so under armed with 30mm guns as their main armament, rather than something to match most other navies like a 57mm + at least 2 30/20mm guns?
It often seems that way, but underfunding is probably the main problem. The thing that appalled me most was the RN getting in such a mess when trying to recreate cats & traps for the QEs before they went with the VTOL option. After inventing & developing carriers over nearly a century, we suddenly didn’t know how to do it!!! I’d prefer a VTOL aircraft that could take off & land anywhere, rather than needing exorbitant special coatings to stop the deck being melted. Kinda nullifies a big part of the VTOL advantage. As far as properly arming our Rivers,… Read more »
Because we paid too much to build them. BAe had a captive customer with ToBA and promise to build ships in Scotland, you can imagine the negotiation with BAe. We can build you three OPVs for 348m or you can pay us to sit idle until T26 is finalised, take it or leave it.
The criticism of River 2 is a bit unfair. We maybe forget why it is as it is. It was designed and configured specifically to handle fishery protection and constabulary duties in UK home waters, it was never meant to be a fighty corvette. The FP role is part-funded by defra if I remember and there is no way they would be contributing to a 76mm gun or Astor missiles or similar! In that role, it can call on land-based helos, so pretty logical to build it without a hangar, which would bump up the loa and increase the hull… Read more »
Very true!! Adhoc funding has caused substantial delays to build programmes and millions are then added to their costs aswell additional millions being spent on trying to keep outdated kit serviceable. The R2s are a consequence of delays to Tyoe 26 programme now reduced to eight vessels! The money spent on the R2s should have been spent on five more – negating the need for a Type31e!!
Paul42#
WRONG! The RN does Not need £1 Billion Specialist ASW frigates to petrol places like the Gulf. That is what the T31 frigates are for!
Also the R2’s are to replace the R1’s, OPV’s.
The R2s came about and were built purely as a result of delays to the Type 26 contract!!!! If there had not been a delay, these vessels would never have been built!! The plan was originally for 13 x Type 26, but money was spent on these vessels to honour an obligation to keep the yards busy. Subsequently less funding was available for Type 26 and a decision was made to reduce the number of hulls to 8 and build the Type 31e, which although based on a very successful is heavily underarmed.
Meirion X is correct. £1 billion assets are being misused (and will continue to be) and the R2 and Type 31’s fill this gap at a fraction of the cost.
Remember that 5 of our Type 23’s are classed as General Purpose Frigates and not ASW. Hence the split makes sense.
Misuse? Making use of the assets you have for a job that needs doing right now, but might not in say six months? It’s about the strength of the fleet as a whole and ensuring you have the number of assets you require for multiple roles. The General purpose Type 23 is superior to the Type 31 and capable of engaging and sinking its replacement. – why? The Type 31 has no offensive armament – no anti-ship or land attack capability (Harpoon does both), iit has extremely limited AAW 32 Sea Ceptor on Type 23 as opposed to 24 on… Read more »
The propose of the Type 26 frigate program, is to counter advanced peer Russian subs.and maybe Chinese ones as well.
The original idea was for them to be ‘Global Combat ships’ performing in multiple roles including ASW, which with the 5” Gun, Mk41 Vls , and specialist ASW kit including Towed Array sonar they are perfectly capable of doing. Thanks to the delays with Type 26, the RN lost Type 45 hulls 7 & 8, found themselves with 5 x OPVs they don’t actually want and only 8 Type 26 and 5 poorly armed Type 31e.
The River batch 1’s are already 15 years old, they will become more expensive to maintain in the future, so a decision would have had to be made to replace them anyway in next decade. It Not, the UK would be Without OPV’s, Unable to carry out constabulary duties in the Med. etc. The 3 batch 1 Type 26 are already costing £3.7 Billion to construct. It is clearly Unaffordable to have ordered All 13 Type 26 frigates as replacements for the Type 23 frigates. I do agree that the proposed Type 31 frigates should be better armed with capabilities… Read more »
You are missing the point. Type 45 Hills 7 & 8 (which the RN badly needed) were sacrificed to speed up and bring forward the Tupe 26 programme. That didn’t happen, the programme was bogged down and extensively delayed. As it transpired there was an obligation to keep the yards busy with work and hence the B2s were conceived and built – already taking funds away from the T26 programme. Then because of the delays a Lifex refit programme was conceived to keep the Type 23s going ,- yet more money going elsewhere……….the end result? Well the 13 Hull Tupe… Read more »
The MoD kept changing the specs of the Type 26 at the time, eg. flight deck had to be big enough for a Chinook heli. as well as designing the T26 took longer then expected.
MoD just could not make their minds!
I disagree with the decision to cut T45
hull numbers.
Yes cutting hulls 7 & 8 was a huge mistake, but the decision was made on the basis of bringing the Type 26 programme forward. The MOD Pro cement process badly needs sorting out, so much money wasted, combined with incompetent decisions.
Good summary of events. But there is a route forwards I think. The 5 R2’s will free up frigates: in addition to fisheries they can do Caribbean, Falklands and FRE duties. And they have growth potential. The choice of the Arrowhead 140 hull for Type 31 was very smart. It is capable of being developed into an AAW / ABM platform thereby compensating for the reduction of Type 45 numbers from 8 to 6. I would build 8 of them, 6 GP frigates as heavily armed as we can afford and 2 as AAW ‘destroyers’. Questions…would Type 26 be cheaper… Read more »
Unfortunately the B2s have no real purpose other than perhaps Fisheries/ Constabulary purposes, there is certainly no growth potential as it were. If they had been completed in an enlarged form as a Corvette with a Hangar things might be different. I fully agree with the notion of arming the Type 31e to the teeth as it were, the Danish variants are very well kitted out – but this the UK………. The Type31e is unsuitable as an AAW Destroyer, unless you can find away to fit Sampson and Astor to these vessels. We’d be better off purchasing second hand Ticonderoga… Read more »
The T31e in its current form yes, but it does have the capacity to be an AAW Frigate with some design changes so we could add to the current production run, in theory that is. On the batch 2s I get that there were delays to the T26 and ToBA meant we had to pay BAe so we may as well build something, but what bugs me is what we got for the money. Oman got 3 corvettes for 400m, 50m more than the first 3 batch 2s. The Samuel Beckett class OPV was approx. 55m per ship including the… Read more »
You could add additional CAMM launchers to Type 31e, it should have the same as Type 23. But you cannot build an AAW version without fitting Sampson and Astor and that is a non-starter. Our Type 45s are indeed very capable AAW Destroyers and the envy of many…..the weapons load out could and should have been better….but this is the UK – where half a job will do.
Unless you can persuade BAE to build hulls 7 & 8, or maybe more, we won’t be improving on our AAW situation anytime soon.
I agree its not a realistic short term solution but I think the T31 design could be modified and later batches include AAW capability. Firstly because the any later design will probably not have Sampson radar and may a panelled design like the APAR on the Iver Huitfeldt class and secondly the hull has the space to introduce more VL cells. Using an exist hull form will keep down costs and allow that more realistic load out imo. I can see there could be a competition between BAe and Babcock for the next AAW platform.
The Tupe 31e is a Frigate which could be outfitted to perform the GP function admirably with at least a Bow Mounted sonar, Mk41 Vls with a decent loadout – say LRASM and ASROC and a decent size gun . Any replacement for Type 45 needs to be bigger and better. We could have opted for AEGIS which would no doubt fit on a Type 31e, along with a decent MK41 AAW loadout – but that would negate the huge amount spent on developing Sampson
I personally don’t think the UK will go for a destroyer sized vessel to replace the T45. If the T26 or T31 hull could be used it would save a lot of new design cost and with known build cost we should add more hulls. Crew size will also play a large part in hull selection imo. T26 will have Aegis fitted for Australia so that’s a sunk cost already. Aren’t we also talking to Saab on CEAFAR 2 radar also. I also assume our next AAW will utilise some form a direst energy weapon, or at least have the… Read more »
Indeed, more Warship hulls and less OPVs interestingly, we opted to payout yo develop Sampson when AEGiS was available. We could replace the Type 45s with some second hand Ticonderoga class cruisers…….they would boost our AAW capability by a long way!!
We should definitely look at buying some of these. Sure we could probably get a good deal!!
I would say they are affordable and excellent value for Money!!