Work is under way on the Royal Navy’s five Type 31 frigates at Babcock’s Rosyth yard, with two ships fitting out in the drydocks and two more at earlier stages of construction inside the assembly hall, according to imagery.
Vice Admiral Steve Moorhouse, Fleet Commander of the Royal Navy, visited the yard on Tuesday 18 August and posted photographs of the ships. He said: “A fantastic opportunity to see @Babcockplc T31 hulls inc @HMSVenturerRN taking shape. Brilliant to see the future of the @RoyalNavy coming to life, built for the challenges ahead and ready to deliver at the heart of our hybrid navy for decades to come.”
HMS Venturer and HMS Active are both fitting out in the drydocks. Venturer, the first of class, carries her pennant number F12 on the bow and appears externally complete along the hull, with scaffolding still in place around the mast and superstructure and equipment under wraps on the upper decks.
Inside the Venturer Hall, the covered assembly building at the yard, HMS Formidable is further along with a bow block sitting adjacent to the ship awaiting joining. Bulldog, the fourth ship, is in the early stages of construction. The fifth, Campbeltown, has not yet been laid down.
The five ships are being built under a £1.25 billion contract placed in 2019, derived from Denmark’s Iver Huitfeldt class through Babcock’s Arrowhead 140 design. They are intended as general purpose frigates, freeing the anti-submarine Type 26s for task group and deterrent protection work, and will be armed with a 57mm main gun, 40mm secondary guns and Mk 41 vertical launch cells added to the design after the original contract was signed.
Delivery has run behind the original schedule, but the Ministry of Defence now expects the first ship to be handed over by the end of the decade, and Babcock has set aside around £140 million against design changes and rework on the programme.
Ships are assembled under cover in the Venturer Hall, a facility built specifically for the programme and sized to allow two hulls side by side, before being moved out to the drydocks for fitting out. Babcock has invested roughly £200 million in the site.
The programme sustains around 2,500 skilled jobs across Scotland and the UK supply chain, along with 400 apprenticeships established through partnerships with colleges in Fife and elsewhere in Scotland.
What follows the current batch remains unsettled. Babcock has pitched the design abroad, with Poland and Indonesia selecting Arrowhead 140 variants, and the local MP Graeme Downie has been pressing the Ministry of Defence to confirm that the planned Common Combat Vessel will use the Type 31 hull and be built at Rosyth.
Imagery was published by Vice Admiral Moorhouse.
