Social media users have been once again sharing an article from last year titled ‘French firm wins Royal Navy Type 31 frigates contract’ without actually reading it.

This article is a fact checking article, if you believe we’ve made an error you can submit a correction in line with our correction policy.

The five Type 31 Frigates on order are being built at Rosyth in Scotland.

The article from Plymouth Live, while having a bit of a “clickbaity” headline according to some commentators, does go on to explain that the news relates to some components of the ship. Although,

Amazingly, they stood by this headline.

https://twitter.com/UKDefJournal/status/1384779327619878912

We covered this news in a less exciting way here at the time, essentially, Thales as part of Babcock Team 31, has been selected to be the mission systems integrator for the Type 31 programme, delivering the combat system, communications systems and the navigation and bridge systems.

This is normal. According to Thales, the work will be done in the UK.

More ships?

Additionally, in addition to 8 Type 26 and 5 Type 31, there are to be an unspecified number of Type 32 Frigates built in Scotland.

More frigates to be built in Scotland

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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32 COMMENTS

  2. George!

    Your headline, ‘No orders for Scottish ship yards haven’t gone overseas’ is a double negative and makes no sense.

    Aooowah! Grammar alert!

  4. Indicative preterite…did not go
    past participle……….have not gone
    present perfect continuous….have not been going

    are all correct

      • Here you go. I can see the logic for just 12 missiles in the context of the probable intended role for the first batch of Type 31. Seems to me they are likely intended to replace the forward deployed batch 2 Rivers or perhaps just those deployed East of Suez; anyway, say 3 of the R2s return to home waters to replace the batch 1 Rivers as they retire. For l ‘constabulary’ duties a few Sea Ceptor would be needed to fend off the occasional Houthi Exocet or suicide drone: non state actors.
        That said I do see the Type 31 pairing up with a littoral support ships. In an expeditionary scenario I would expect them to be more heavily armed; maybe that’s where the new frigate class mentioned by Boris comes in.

        • I think I’d be more inclined to believe that if we didn’t have such a lousy track record of underarming our ships. At the moment it just feels as though Boris et al., have said words to the effect of: “right, um, [random latin], need to make it look as though I’ve made the navy bigger. Votes etc….boats win votes!”

      • It just seems to me that at the moment the Type 31e is barely able to protect itself let alone project any kind of offensive power or offer any kind of protection to other assets.

        I know the gun combination is, at least for the 21st. century RN, unconventional, but it seems the ship has no role other than making the navy look bigger. Something like the NSM for littoral sea operations, plus another row of Sea Ceptor at least. Not sure what the sensors are like but presumably it has no real anti-submarine capability either, aside from providing refuelling for helicopters.

        Some ability to deploy undersea and aerial drones at the very least would be a start. Make it a bit more multi-role such as controlling a handful of minehunting drones for example. Anything more than just a target.

    • Hi Gareth, I agree. It’s even getting annoying seeing this picture of an underarmed looking T31! I hope they come to their senses on the actual build. Even 1 more lot of 6 Camm would be half decent. Or, replace the forward 40mm with another 12 Camm.
      As I’ve posted else where they could look at adding 2 lots of 24 Camm down the sides of the Aster silos on the T45s. It’s all above deck and pretty light and would double the missile count overnight. They can use the cheaper Camm before the more expensive Asters.
      I saw on Twitter that the QE and POW are not having their 30mm put in? I hope they’re not just going to see with three phalanx’s each! Has anyone got any up to date news on this?

      Cheers. QD

      • The Aster VLS on the Type 45’s aren’t above Deck,they go down several Levels,if you put CAAM Launchers alongside as you suggest they will still need to be Deck Penetrating,you might as well put the MK41 in as designed ( but not funded ).

        • Hi Paul, I didn’t think that the Camm would be deck penetrating seeing them on the T23s but anything extra would be good and make these ships even more formidable. MK41 as you suggest and to permanently kit all the T45s out with 8-12 ASMs. Let’s hope with any future refits that they can muscle up a bit more.

  6. Thing is… I got caught out by that Click-baitness of Plymouth Live and will never read their articles again. If they actually produced decent quality articles that matched up with the headline, I’d have likely been a loyal reader!
    M@

      • Indeed it is Dern. To that I say, ‘good job’ to the UKDJ team (and others) for challenging the “facts” of other media outlets and socialising good content in return.
        M@

  8. Completely off-topic – Tuesday 27th Apr, BBC4 at 11pm ‘How to build a nuclear submarine’. It’s about HMS Astute. I think this is an old one – but might be of interest again.

  9. When referring to said organisation the terms Plymouth and Live are contradictory. They couldn’t tell the difference between a frigate and fishing boat. Another recent article had Keir Starmer, on a visit to Plymouth, stating that the Tories should no longer build warships abroad but build them in Plymouth to secure new jobs. To help us out Plymouth Live attached a very good shot of a Wegetail and I do mean the aeroplane. See what I mean!

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