The Royal Navy is operating seven frigates as 2026 begins, the Ministry of Defence said on Monday, highlighting continued strain on the surface escort fleet as it transitions away from the ageing Type 23.
In a written parliamentary response to a question from Baroness Goldie, Defence Minister Lord Coaker confirmed that while seven frigates are formally listed as in service, not all are available for operations. “The Royal Navy will have seven frigates in service, of which one (HMS Kent) is currently undergoing planned deep maintenance,” he said. The disclosure means the number of frigates immediately deployable is lower than the headline total, which is normal for any naval force.
The reduced availability reflects the condition of the remaining Type 23 fleet, which has been in service for more than three decades in some cases. Several ships are undergoing extended maintenance periods to remain safe and operational. HMS Kent, one of the last Type 23 frigates, is in a major upkeep cycle, temporarily reducing frontline strength at a time when demand for escorts remains high across NATO operations, carrier strike deployments, and standing maritime commitments.
The Ministry of Defence has said that new frigate construction is intended to restore numbers later in the decade. Lord Coaker confirmed that “the new Type 26 and Type 31 frigates are in build in Scotland currently.” The Royal Navy plans to operate eight Type 26 City-class anti-submarine warfare frigates and five Type 31 Inspiration-class general-purpose frigates, replacing the Type 23 fleet as it leaves service.
The Type 31 programme, being delivered by Babcock at Rosyth, is expected to begin entering service in the late 2020s, with all five ships planned to be operational by around 2030. The class is intended to provide a lower-cost platform for routine deployments, maritime security, and allied engagement tasks.
The more complex Type 26 programme, built by BAE Systems on the River Clyde, will form the backbone of the Royal Navy’s future high-end anti-submarine warfare capability. The first Type 26 is expected to enter service towards the end of the 2020s, with the remaining ships following through the early to mid-2030s, according to current government planning.
Once both programmes are fully delivered, the Royal Navy’s frigate force is expected to rise to 13 modern vessels. Until then, frigate numbers and availability will remain constrained through 2026 and beyond, requiring careful management of maintenance schedules and operational deployments during the transition period.
As first planned and built, the Type 23 frigates were meant to have only an 18 year service life. Now over 30 years in service!
Shh, don’t give the powers that be any excuses. We’ll be lucky if we finish the decade with 7 ships in service of any type.
Very good service and are still good ships. old, worn out harder to cree, but their design is still valid
pathetic utterly pathetic and embarrassing for the nation. we are not a tier one military , we’re not even the biggest in Europe two big ornaments in Pompey harbour and a few f 35’s. don’t make us one either unmanned this, unmanned that. hybrid fleet it’s utter fucking nonsense. the MOD is not fit for purpose and should be ripped up. s new organisation set up and a full merger of the u.k armed forces should be given a serious looking at. stuff the traditionalists. I was 22 years royal navy I wouldn’t have given a toss if my ship in the Falklands was built by Monkees it was manned and it worked. that’s what matters and nobody wants to listen to a non politician, WE could do a better job at building and maintaining a nav, but nobody will give us a voice. it’s a fucking joke and we are part of it.
And out of the 7 how many are seaworthy and how many will never go to sea again??
Hearing lots of rumours about several of them being done.
I doubt Richmond is in great shape after two world tours.
Well Iron Duke is being extended in refit due to lack of crew to get Kent out. And yeh Richmond is probably done in.
From what I hear it looks like neither will return to sea and possibly even more
As of yet those are the 3 in question, but they’re keen to get Kent out
RAN also starting 2026 with 7 frigates of which 6 are currently available for deployment with seventh HMAS Paramatta just returned to the water after AMCAP upgrade and awaiting sea trials early 2026. They are about the same vintage (first of type early 1990s) as T23 so also showing their age although they have arguably had more extensive upgrades.
All three Hobarts are have been deployed in 2025 and likely available for deployment in 2026 until the first of them goes into upgrade program for Aegis Baseline 9 upgrade starting later this year.
All Hobarts have NSM fitted with progressive rollout across Anzacs (3 to date) plus Tomahawk test fired from HMAS Brisbane and SM6 from HMAS Sydney with roll out and integration progressing in 2026 across the rest of AWDs.
The RAN is experiencing crewing problems like most navies, but seems from reports here to be in better shape operationally than the RN at present.
Quell surprise !
The RN has 4 actually operational Frigates
Well yes, not all are going to be sailing at the same time.
That’s 4 actually in a fit state to sail.
The RN is effectively defunct as a fighting force
That’s the goal, to dismantle the Armed Forces, and they’re getting closer and closer.
Is that why there are 13 new frigates, new SSNs, SSBNs, FSS on order along with new AFVs, aircraft, missiles and investment in the defence supply chain and increased spending to try to improve recruitment and retention?
Absolutely! Well said! Keep licking the windows and hopefully you’ll gain some nutrients.
The 13 new frigates are being built – some don’t even have their keels laid
There are no SSNs on order
SSBNs have just been started – have a look at the lead times
FSS – look at the lead times
AFVs – you are either a kid or intellectually challenged.
Missiles? Good luck integrating them on the F35 et al
And the 2026 Golden Mong Award (and it is only January) goes to NathanP for suggesting there is increased spending… talking about it and delivering it are not the same thing.
Dimwit acting like ships all suddenly materialise at the same time…
I forgot to add. There is an SSN on order and nearing completion – Achilles, the last Astute Class.
I’d tried to post this earlier but included a link to support the line about spending so I has been awaiting moderation, hence my comment about HMS Achilles being out of sequence.
What a splendidly weird personal attack – have I accidentally strayed onto X?
I wrote 13 new frigates, etc, on order and didn’t claim they were all in build. They have been ordered and money is being spent, even on SSN-AUKUS. Why are you falsely asserting that somebody wrote something just so you can dismiss it?
AFVs – Boxer at least is progressing, and Challenger 3 and the M270 upgrade and expansion. AJAX may be a shambles but spending billions on new vehicles, even if they turn out to be unusable lemons, hardly supports the claim I was replying to that successive Governments’ goal has been to dismantle the armed forces.
That more money is being allocated to Defence this year, in cash terms and as a share of GDP is a simple fact. Not enough and not increasing fast enough in my view but more. Again, not what you’d expect of there was some cross-party conspiracy to dismantle the armed forces.
I mean 4 out of 7 is pretty good especially for their age, rule of thumb is usually 3 to 1 availability
We have
1 operational tanker
1 operational Destroyer
0 operational SSNs
0 operational Carriers
A slack handful of Sweepers
The only thing holding up an RN presence is 6 OPVs being flogged to death
It’s just after Christmas. Ships aren’t all going to deploy immediately
” Could he last person to leave the Navy switches the lights off ,” use too be the messdeck joke doesn’t seem funny now .
Totally agree. What person in their right mind would want to sign up to our armed forces which have suffered endless cuts to front line strength year after year. We live in a debt ridden Country (almost 3 trillion in debt), with endless problems, run by an incompetant Government who clearly cannot protect its people, which is their first priority.
But only St Albans is the only one operarional.. but currently in Aberdeen Harbour
Would a short term solution be to buy or lease a few allies warships? Such as the Arleligh Burke class from the USA, assuming that they have spares? Just until we can get the number to an up to a less alarming number
I think that the US Navy also have a numbers problem with their high end escort fleet so very much doubt they could assist even if we had the money to fund such a lease. Also as said previously, the build time from inception to in-service of modern naval ships is mind boggling! As I understood it the first Type 26 was to start building up to joining the fleet some time in 2027-now they are talking about the “end of the 2020s” !! This is another 4 years away. There has to be a quicker way of getting these ships on to the water, either via a less ambitious build or ability to add equipment at a later stage. Surely even partial availability is better than nothing? How about a larger fleet of simpler corvettes based on say, the Type 2 OPVs all sharing the same hull but with specialising within the build-lesser abilities but with all the requirements in the numbers? Look at the hits the Russian Navy has endured at the hands of Ukraine. Think of a highly and broadly equipped Type 26 venturing on to the high seas, brand spanking new, and suffering a hit from a hypersonic missile!! These opinions are from someone(self) who has no idea ofhow these ships are built but surely we should be looking at all options. The current situation is untenable.
There is no way in hell UK could crew a Burke class destroyer. you can’t crew the sadl number of ships you have.
If they can’t speed up and or order more T26/T31s maybe at least a radar upgrade and uparm the B2 Rivers and maybe same for B1s? Build a small batch of BAE Leanders type corvettes? Convert/upgrade the two Wave class to a multi-purpose drone mothership?
No, it would take us just as long to do that as to introduce the new frigates.
Further evidence, as if it was needed, of the complete and utter failure of both the Tories and Labour (and a little bit of Lib Dems) over the decades.
Would you seriously want to go into a high risk area with hostiles taking shots at you in a River class OPV? They are not intended or designed for taking on anyone who can lob a missile at them…
Given the situation – aging frigates, financial constraints, need to rebuild shipbuilding, increasing threat, changing technologies I think the RN and HMG have chosen the shortest affordable path to effective securing of the N. Atlantic and High North which will also protect the UK from cruise missiles. i.e. complete T26 program, extend T26 numbers by creating a 13 frigate joint ASW fleet with Norway, develop Bastion and use of drones ( T92, T93), complete the 5 T31 GP frigates, add 3 MCMV, standardisation of P8 across UK, Norway, Germany. I think the DIP will increase E7 numbers to 5 and I think we will build a Sky Sabre GBAD.
It’s too late for any stop gap, whether it’s building a gun boat or up arming a River, by the time that’s actually done the real frigates will be coming into service. We can’t afford to do both.
I agree, maybe we need more automation and or more young people taught
Welding, plumbing and electrics to fit these ships out faster. The Chinese seems to be able to bang out a few war ships per year. We need to get to at least one per year!
I don’t think an AB would be a good fit for the RN, or any navy on this side of the pond. It is still a powerful AAW ship, also good at AsuW, but not nearly as good at ASW (a capability the RN very much needs). It also requires a very large crew, which would make it a bad fit for any navy experiencing crewing problems. The ones the US Navy would want to part with (if any) would be decrepit anyway, as Gun Buster has pointed out here several times. Capable used warships that aren’t totally worn out are very hard to find, these days.
Should we have needed circa 32 FF/DD in the naughties with pocket carriers and 12 SSNs, what do we need now with just 6 SSNs on the books (ahem) and two major carriers?
13 FFs does jot cut it; nor does it include the Norway allocation…
All is absolutely shocking!
All the SSNs are non operational
Are you laughing? It’s beyond a joke. This Govt has now been in power for 18months and I have not seen any meaningful change just prolonged decline in the RN and the Royal have been salami’d
One SSN is operational just having returned from a deployment. Granted she is not at sea, but is probably at 48-72hrs notice for sea if required. Expect the crew are catching up on some well earned leave having just been away for several months.
Just because she is not at sea doesn’t imply she’s not operational.
Perfect excuse to sell one of the carriers.
Sell a carrier to Italy or Japan, order a Trieste type instead and order a smaller quantity of MRSS?
Oh ffs….. no, we cannot afford to ditch a carrier just to chase a fantasy Amphib fleet idea, and how do you plan to crew all these Amphibs anyway.
i get shouted down for saying the RN is unbalanced. Sell a carrier and invest more in escorts. Also means we wont need as many f35 too so can buy more typhoon or f35a
The RN is unbalanced, especially at the moment as the T23s age out before their replacements are ready, but the RN + Norway, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, Germany… etc. is in a much better place. I don’t see the sense in getting rid of something we have now and that our allies can’t provide, to eventually buy a few more of the things they already have in abundance.
I’d make the same argument against those saying we should trade SSNs for a larger number of SSKs or nuclear weapons for a bigger army (actually the last one has gone a bit quieter in recent years!).
You realise the current F35B buy wont even cover one carrier. Also you make it sound like wed get our money back on selling a carrier, we wouldnt, there would be no money for more escorts.
No. Two carriers are a bare minimum.
We are on our knees and no one seems to have the balls to do anyhting about it. Maybe they don’t want to.
The simple fact is there is nothing that can be done.. the time to prevent this was in 2010.. not 2026… the time to save a person is before their heart stops.. once they arrest they are for all intents and purposes fucked.. the navies heart has stopped.
Absolutely spot-on Jonathan.
Sanity is rare in this place well said
Ghee, some commonsense….. that won’t go down well!
Yes “Ghee” is great to use in Curry, common sense really. 👌
Only if you want a heart attack by 60
I’m 62, you got me worried now, I’m going to get the wife to check If I’m dead yet, hang on, I’ll be right back,
Phew, Nope, I’m still here, thank the Lord and Deliveroo !
Think I might just get a Curry for tea now !
It was something with HM Coastguard training, the whole CPR training – and yet was 4 – 6% of people actually had a chance but we were being taught to perform for the cameras…
Which then raises the Q. should we really spend so much money on Defibs being put everywhere? I saw an emergency stab bandage dispenser (?) in Croydon and perhaps that has merit but, defibs? The immense training cost that goes into it…
Takes us back to the Q of whether people are living too long and are doctors keeping people alive needlessly if they will never contribute again – and I admit, that is a dark place to think about but the NHS is just hoovering money and without a modern filter on the collection, is pumping out shit for the rest of us to breath and take care of… should you understand the analogy. Dark one.
Youre not bring taught to preform CPR for the cameras. The 4-6% isnt the survival number, it’s the ROSC percentage. Return of SPONTANEOUS circulation. I.e. the people who recover from cardiac arrest through just CPR, no hospital, no ambulance, just compressions and they wake up.
People with a shock able rhythm who recieve early pre hospital defibrillation have about a 50% survival rate. If you include non shock able rhythms that drops to 1 in 3. By comparison if you wait until the ambulance arrives for a defibrillator your survival chance drops to 12%. So yes, they are worth while.
AEDs are extremely easy to use, but are specialised and you can’t improvise them. A pressure dressing on tge other hand can be improvised (as can a tourniquet), but is harder to learn. You are also much more likely to have to use CPR than a trauma dressings in a civilian context. (And even then uncontrolled catastrophic haemorrhage will result in cardiac failure, at which point you go into CPR, so even if you do teach trauma dressings you also have to teach CPR).
It actually depends.. we suffer arrests for one of 3 groups of reasons.
1) sudden reversible cause ( the young person playing sport who had an underlying arrhythmia and has a sudden arrest ) generally their is a sudden interruption of the electrical impulses that run the heart as a pump..in this case using a Defib will almost always work and the person will essentially wake up and go “ what the fuck just happened “… I’ve actually shocked one guy back 3 times in a row like that as we wired him for external pacing… this is really what Defib’s are good for.
2) sudden arrest without reversible cause.. essentially something physically catastrophically broke all of a sudden.( rupture of major thoracic vessels) . in this case nothing on earth could make a difference
3) the body is suffering from a chronic illness that wears it out and the person dies… resuscitation in this case may be successful but is essentially a waste of time.. because the person’s body is essentially knackered.
4) the person is suffering an acute illness that you have not spotted left for to long and they arrest.. the cause may be reversible but essentially by the time they arrest the damage done to their body means resuscitation is essentially pointless.
5) arrest due to traumatic injuries ( hypothalamic shock, high spinal cord damage, catastrophic loss of airway or other critical function all at the same time usually) they are dead.. resuscitation in the case of arrest due to catastrophic trauma is essentially pointless.
6)damage to the parts of the brain that run critical functions )Medulla Oblongata).. your double dead dead without reprieve.
7) airway occlusion.. the restaurant arrest.. remove the steak dinner from the airway.. shock the heart back into sinus rhythm and if your quick you can have a chat about chewing your food before they go to definitive care ( yep I’ve done that.. always make a joke about the person dying for their dinner it lightens the mood)
8) the really weird ones.. hypothermia comes into this one.. because even though you arrest due to hypothermia your not dead until you have been warmed up.. because the cold is a reversible cause and by its nature it also slows cell death.. I have personally been involved in a 4 hour long resuscitation of a victim of hypothermia and they survived with zero impairment.
9) just being old..
Basically if it’s sudden with an immediate reversible cause it works.. if you have left a person with a disease process to get to a point they arrest it will not work and if it does they will just die again after a bit more suffering.. that’s is why Dern is correct out of hospital sudden arrests are always worth a crack , because many are sudden and reversible. In hospital generally if the person has arrested it’s because you have missed the disease process and they are dead one way or another…
It just goes on and on. All very equal though! By my reckoning, give or take the odd hull, we had 35 destroyers and frigates in 1997; 27 in 2010 and 13 now. That doesn’t count the six T45’s cancelled under Blair. Brilliant isn’t it?
Hopefully someone will stand up and do something about it. It is an absolutely appalling state of affairs. Come on Britain, wake up and get up!! 🇬🇧 🚢
How many warships did we have in 1986? How many, operational, ( or not) do we have now? How many submarines did we have in 1986? How many do we have now?
I don’t know the answers, but I suspect we have less than half, maybe a 3rd. Is the world more or less volatile now than ir was in 1986? I’d guess it is massively worse now, so we need to build our navy up to the numbers back then. This should be a massive national endeavour funded to whatever it takes
Ahh but yes but no but, one Astute can be in 4 places at once nowadays.
I read It on here, just like the F35 can do the job of 5 Tornado’s, It all true because experts say so.
😉😁🤦♂️
Looking back to my 1986 “British Warships & Auxiliaries” by Mike Critchley, we had:
4 Polaris SSBN
17 SSN
15 SSK
3 Invincible CVs plus Hermnes awaiting disposal
2 LPD
15 DDG
26 FFG
Can’t say how many were operational. An additional 5 FFG were awaiting disposal/scrapping.
I’m not holding my breath.
How many of the Type 45s are operational?
2 or 3, which is surprising for the rule of thumb for ship availability
Have any of the T45s had their NSM added yet? Any update on the CAMM farm upgrade?
No, and only defender is having CAMm refit currently and it’s not due out to this or next year.
To add – still no T45 fitted with NSM (visibly) as of yet,Defender 1st for CAAM Upgrade C/W PIP,should be fit for Trials sometime late this year.Diamond also undergoing/following the same process,with Duncan the last for PIP to follow.
Actually at sea running?
One
I take it we won’t be intervening in Greenland then?
😆
I break out in cold sweats every time I think about that.
When trump first threatened Greenland, the response on Reddit from users in Britain, Canada, Australia and Europe was overwhelmingly “Sign us up, we’ll fight him.” Granted that’s only Reddit and normally not a forum to be taken seriously, but the sheer anger and frustration that was coming out. It was a tremendous propaganda victory for anyone who hates America.
The Americans in those discussions all understood, but from what I’ve seen elsewhere there are a huge number of US citizens who would support trump against their own allies. To misquote Horus in the novel Horus Rising, “they are not mighty because they are right; they are right because they are mighty”.
Sorry but if you think anyone who frequents Reddit will fight anybody on behalf of their country, I have a bridge to sell you.
I believe I covered that with “granted it’s only Reddit and not normally a forum to be taken seriously” 🤔
I could have deleted the “normally” though, to make it even more accurate.
You need to get out more 🤔
Maybe you can “have a lot of fun” asking AI for suggestions 😁
How about getting a Bike, maybe a little one first, just to see If you like it ? 🚲
Or how about a scooter, you could get a nice little pink one 🛵 with a shopping basket to carry your Bible.
Just trying to help.
You’re welcome. 🙂
What an absolute load of inbred drivel. Are you still here making posts about curry and calling people girls and then telling them they’re waelcome for your inane gibberish?
“Just trying to troll” is more like it, well I’m done talking with 11 year old kids like you, from now on you can post whatever rubbish and I simply won’t read it.
So much hate !!! 😁
Now then, about your 11 year old kids habit 🤔🤦♂️
The hard fact is that the navy’s absolute determined insistence on returning to to the carrier game rather stuffed the rest of the surface fleet. Near on £7bn was lashed out on the two carriers. Which of course left no money to pay for new escorts.
Instead of building a new escort every year or 18 months, not one single escort has been commissioned for 12 years and it will likely be a 14 YEAR GAP before we eventually get the first T26 or T31. No wonder the T23s are falling apart!
There is a strand of opinion on here that says blame Starmer and Reeves, or blame past governments or both political parties. But the RN has had the biggest slice of the defence budget for years and is still in a mess, with non-working Astutes, T45s needing thousands of man-hours of cutting and welding and the gallant T23s expiring.
Essentially, procuring the carriers was completely unaffordable – no nation of the UK’s size can afford a vastly expensive nuclear deterrent submarine fleet + aircraft carriers, on a defence budget of barely 2%, as ours has been until recently.
It is all very well for Lord West and chums to chunter on about.the poor state of the navy and how it needs yet more funds, time after time. Fact is the navy has had the funds but splashed them on two prestige carriers, which of course we don’t have enough escorts or replenishment ships to support. And which now look rather vulnerable in the hypersonic missile age.
As well as rather stuffing up the RAF’s combat air power, as the RAF has not been able to afford any more Typhoons, because the Fast Jet budget has for close on a decade now all gone on buying expensive short range, low-payload, troublesome F-35Bs to sit on the deck of one operational carrier somewhere east of Suez.
The RN needs to buckle down now and start to plan a fleet that fits its budget, rather than every year creating another black hole in the defence budget, which it has been doing for years.
There are a lot more pressing things on the defence budget than having a gold-plated, ‘world-class’ fleet that we simply can’t afford. The defence budget may at last be rising, but the cost of modern warships, sensors and missiles is of course rising at a far higher rate. The RN needs to accept financial reality and adapt to the pretty generous budget it is allocated.
Well said Cripes! The only thing i would add is that maybe the way forward is as we are witnessing as with Norway-fleets with a central core of a QE class with escorts provided by the RN and its NATO allies. The reality is that the UK is unlikely to embark on a defensive conflict in a major war on its own in the future so fleets with friendly and close European allies will do the job more than adequately. Defence of the far fling bits such as the Falklands still remain well within the capability of the UK against any foreseeable action by Argentina.
Crikey-time to wander off to the office 🙂
Cheers
Hey Geoff, happy new year Mate! Hope all is well in sunny Durbs!
Did you notice what the short range f-35 aircraft did last year in Iran and Venezuela?… Just because the UK doesn’t get their head out of their ass and put actual weapons on their aircraft does not mean the aircraft is not okay. Iran was defenseless and Venezuela. Had the best of Russian and Chinese. Anti-stealth radars…. And then they died
You ar3 confusing the F-35A, which did the raids, with the F-35B supplied to the UK, which does not have the range, endurance or weapons payload to carry out said mission.
Regarding weapons, we and the rest of the F-35 world are still waiting for Lockheed Martin to enable non-US weapons, so we are stuck with short-range Paveway etc until LM manage to change up to second gear. They have already had 10 years on the job but still haven’t managed to do the planned tech refresh 3, let alone the Block 4 upgrade, which is now six years late and vastly over-budget.
The F-35, with its painfully slow development, endless maintenance issues and extremely low serviceability rates, is basically a bit of a dog and a painful lesson in how not to build a fighter aircraft.
It absolutely has the weapons payload, they’re just dropping JDAMs, and you think no aircraft used aerial refuelling during that raid?
The F35 has many issues but is hardly a dead dog, as it continues to be purchased. And what exactly is your alternative?
Could not agree with you more. The quicker we realise we bought a pup with the F35B the better. That aircraft was designed for the USMC not us. The wingspan was limited to the size of the USMC ships it was to operate from. The aircraft works for the USMC as a ground support aircraft, they carry AAM for self defence. Not as fighter. It’s a straight replacement for the AV8.
At the outset it was the USMC plan to replace their squadrons in Carrier Air Groups with the 35B. That has since been abandoned and the 35B order reduced. In short the USN would not accept the 35B as part of the carrier air wing..
And your point is? There is no alternative
As the USMC guys said to me on more than occasion if that dog don’t hunt stop feeding. Get a new dog.
Instead of metaphors how about you suggest a solution
For me we should pull the plug on the carriers and the B variants. As a nation we could make better use of the defence expenditure. If we go with the status quo as the metaphor suggests we will continue to feed a dog that does not hunt.
So just throw away billions in equipment. Because we’re not selling any of it for even half of what we payed for it.
To keep it means throwing good money after bad.
Good money after bad!? We already have the carriers, they’re paid for, and you seriously want to cut our fighter jet force again for whatever your fantasy air force is?
Not cut to any fighters. Just the 35B. Which is a ground attack aircraft. Designed for that role for the USMC.
Don’t be daft, the F35B can carry AMRAAM just like any of our fighters.
Now you’re just trolling… the F35B is a multi role fighter and we’re not going to get any replacements if we ditch it
The then never ending foreign wars sapped the budget, it was never adjusted properly.
Ironically, the army is just as toothless.
Spain, with a third of the UK’s budget, has more tanks, almost the same number of aircraft, and is now in the process of building two LHDs in addition to the Juan Carlos and is already building the F102 frigates. It is true that they do not have SSNs, SSBNs or aircraft carriers, but even so, they spend their money much better.
They’re not “in the process” of building 2 LHDs, nowhere close to that.
And I’m sorry their planned fleet of escorts is like, 10-11 ships so are we really comparing fleets?
Enough blaming the carriers! Thing how much we’re paying for T26, T31, FSSS and so on today, combined over 10 billion pounds yet you blame the carrier program for cost at well under that ( and a budget inflated by government mandated delays).
You think we’d have magically doubled the escort fleet or something without the carriers? No, just would’ve given the treasury an excuse to cut the fleet back further, and let the RN become just another escort force with no sovereign mission.
Oh woe to the RAF who’s been spaffing their cash on all sorts of things like E7. You realise an F35B is less expensive than a Typhoon right?
Typhoon keeps me and my family safe at night thanks to its outstanding DCA capabilities. That it also can deploy SS makes it a versatile platform.
Another 100 please Starmer and Reeves.
More like zero new ones most likely….
I tend to agree
A single Dreadnought submarine costs more to buy than both carriers put together and we are currently building four of them. We could have built as many carriers as the US Navy for what we are spending on SSBNs, and that doesn’t include the spend on upgraded warheads. As well as the increasing proportion spent on nuclear (around 40% of procurement at the last count), we now need to spend more on Space and Cyber. Also on cross-domain integration, which theoretically should save money, but never seems to. You blame the carriers because they are highly visible, but the truth is that we don’t spend enough money on conventional military capability overall to maintain our armed forces.
The RN does need carriers of some description, but I think it’s clear now that the simple fact is the UK was never willing to support the air wings for 2 70,000 ton carriers as well as 2 large carriers and the amphibious fleet.
It would have probably been more sensible to go down the route other navies have and produced a number of more modest general purpose amphibious and sea control ships. Something in the 30,000 to 40,000 ton range that could be adaptable and
1) do sea control with 2 squadrons of F35b
2) act as an amphibious vessel with command and control
3) helicopter and drone carriers as ASW operations centre peace.
The RN could have produced those to replace the 3 invincible class and later the Albion class.
In hindsight with all the issues the RN now has this would have been more sensible
We decided to build two carriers in 2007, nearly twenty years ago. Before the financial crash. Before austerity Britain. Before Brexit. Before Covid. Before Ukraine. Before Trump. We decided to build ships that will last at least 50 years. Looking at it today, you might well come to your conclusion, but will you still be coming to that same conclusion twenty years from now, when who know what the future has in store for us?
The debate was live 20 years go.. 3 smaller or 2 large.. they had massive concerns at the time the Uk could not afford 2 super carriers and yet signed the contracts in the middle of the financial crash.. well within the timeframe that everyone in the know knew there was a massive liquidity crisis and it was melting down.
Are you suggesting three of a more aviation-focussed Trieste? I could see that having worked, though we would probably have lost the Albions a lot earlier.
But as for what we do now, we have two Fleet carriers but no Fleet. We need to decide straight away (DIP) whether Atlantic Bastion is a shield for the UK or a shield for the fleet as well. If it’s the UK, the carriers are largely redundant- using them in the Pacific doesn’t justify the cost. If it’s the fleet, then the doctrine must be to use the carrier group as a hunting force for the Northern Fleet using SeaGuardian and Merlin to find subs cued by the Bastion sensors, and to help strike ashore using Vanquish and F35.
The Navy HAS to build itself around the carriers, that’s the only way forwards.
Yep we have them and we should double down on them because we cannot change paths.. you work the decision you made.
I am however at a complete loss for what that doubling down looks like. Protector STOL feels like a free win with the ASW focus and the long ranges required in the Atlantic, but there are still concerns about its operation from a carrier in high winds. If Vanquish produces useable designs, as I think it will, then the two will make a good no-modifications pairing for long-endurance and strike missions.
And T91 especially needs to be controllable from the carriers, we don’t have enough manned escorts so unmanned ones will have to do sometimes.
We can easily afford it. None of this is outside the range of the National budget.
We just choose to spend 2.5x the defence budget on pensioner UBI instead. Rather than means testing, we just hand out free money to the unproductive (where 25% of them are millionaires, and 61% have no mortgage or rent to speak of).
Well put Saccharine,you hit the nail on the head
Agree we have too few fast jets and that the Army armoured vehicle and artillery situations look dire. Patria 6×6 and Nurol Makina look racing certainties. Regarding the origins of the carriers, all you say is true, but we are where we are and it seems to me that we are acting sensibly to recover the situation: 8 RN T26 are happening. 5 T31 are happening. We probably can’t afford or crew more but can work jointly with 5 Norwegian T26 (and maybe) 3 or 4 Danish T31s. We will probably buy or build 3 Kongsberg Vanguard type MCMV. I would bet we will increase to 5 E7s and build a Sky Sabre based GBAD. We have committed to an increase in SSN, are building Dreadnoughts, are building the support infrastructure, have funded (with £15m ) a new sovereign nuclear warhead, a squadron of F-31A with B61, 600km Nightfall and a joint 2000 km IRBM with Germany. F-35B issues are not insurmountable; better maintenance and Storm Breaker or JSM. With revised propulsion, Sea Ceptors, Aster 30NT1 and NSM the T45s will be formidable combatants. On the whole I am optimistic. I think we just need to crack on with all this.
These are the seven as I count them:
HMS Richmond, will need soonest possible inspection. Unlikely to return to service.
HMS Kent, in maintenance and we hope it will start working up by the end of this year.
HMS Portland, will need deep refit by Spring next year.
HMS Somerset, likely gone in 2028.
HMS St Albans, newest T23, could last well into the 2030s, but might be abandoned early through the usual stupid decision making
HMS Sutherland, also should last into 2030s
HMS Iron Duke, oldest frigate (GP), gone in 2029.
3 of those 7 are in rag order and will get paid off as they will fail Lloyds
And no chance of a T26 or T31 in operational use before 2027. Poor future replacement planning on the part of RN/MOD/Treasury/HMG over the last 20 years. No major kit can last more than 10 years without a replacement plan from it’s inception. T83 & T32 already close to having complete plans you might hope if we are to have a rolling replacement program of frigates going forward.
T83 is still a PowerPoint project
T32 doesn’t exist
If we were to go to war, you’d be amazed at how quickly we can work up the HMS Glasgow from this point and the type 31 can’t be that far away. Once in the water undergoing sea trials in my mind (correct me if I’m wrong) In an dire emergency it would be trialed by the RN firing at the enemy.. this comes at high risk obviously as to not having tested everything first but no one is going to say hang on we’ll test this or that.
Fair post. 2026 will likely see Glasgow and Venturer undergoing trials; Cardiff not too far behind. The fixes and upgrades to the T45s are going well. Time for a more positive outlook.
God help us in a war situation, i.e., Russia would wipe the floor with us. Continuation of defence cuts via Tory and Labour governments, always talking up defence, but instead of spending money on defence, they cut the armed forces down. They are gutless.
There are 5 immediate actions that could alleviate the situation (where there’s a will there’s a way):
1. Return all River B2s and crew to UK AO except Forth.
2. Apart from TAPS duty minimise use of all remaining t23s with focus on hull preservation
3. Upskill t45s for ASW
4. Install NSM in all remaining T45s/ t23s
5. Buy back 3x t23s from Chile
Chile aren’t going to sell us back the frigates besides the fact they use unique equipment.
The T45 is no good for ASW, too noisy and would require even more extensive refits when we need them at sea.
Returning the rivers won’t relieve the frigates from essential duties like TAPS
T45 sounds like a bag of spanner’s to a submarine – they are Very very noisy boys
2 and 4 are probably happening.
I would return only 1 of the Rivers so we don’t have to use Tides to escort Russian corvettes through the Channel. Leave the rest; they are doing a good job.
Yes this has been decades in the making by all previous governments with no interest in defence they all talk a good game but do nothing!
I have to disagree about the carriers in terms of cost they have been very cheap compared to the capabilities they bring that are finally about to come good after the teething problems over the last few years and it would be insane to get rid of one now!
It’s the 10s of billions to replace the nuclear deterrent that has crippled the budget since the comedy due Cameron and Osborne added into the defence budget when it was separate before so they could fiddle the figures to get to 2%.
This!
Mountbatten when he was Sea Lord warned acquiring the nuclear deterrent mission would cripple the Royal Navy.
Look at Fleet numbers since 1966 -always downwards as Polaris/Trident ate the RNs lunch
Ha very true but it is something we do need with all the crazies about these days unfortunately and is best delivered by submarines just treat it as a separate entity not in the navies budget that skews their percentage of the pot for the other services to argue over with all the in fighting.
So we have seven T23’s left in service:
Nominally operational: Sutherland, Somerset, Portland, St Albans
Maintenance: Iron Duke
Refit: Kent
Status Unknow: Richmond
Six if we accept that Richmond is actually done in and unlikely to sail again before her scheduled decommissioning next year.
Looking at the remainder, its going to be tough to keep any going beyond 2030. Bitter experience has shown that the T23 hull is good for a max of 30 years service, and that it’s just not practical (regardless of cost) to extend it beyond that.
We unfortunately have to accept that due to utter incompetence and unwillingness to see risk HMG ( both the legislative, the executive, ministries and executive agencies ) have let the UKs defences fall into an almost terminal decline, they have ignored the clouds of war gathering since 2010 and the risk of the west falling apart.
If we accept that the T23s are essentially now falling apart and unlikely to get beyond 2031, what can we do.. well accepting that the frigate fleet from 2031/ will be 2 type 26s and 3 type T31s means that they really need to maximise capabilities of the Type 31s, rivers 2s, type 45s for 2030 onwards..
Plan 2030
1) yes get T31s built as quickly as possible but refit them while we still have T23s.. give them a thin line towed array, 36 CAMM and NSMs as a minimum fit. 2) Speed up the refit of the T45s and maybe go further with that refit… look to 36 CAMM and NSM.
3) admit we fucked up so badly urgent measures are needed and turn the rivers2s into patrol frigates.. 57mm ( deck mounted) 40mm on the back and some CAMM as well as a 3D sensor fit.
4) give the carriers and large RFA ships a proper self defence kit ( 40mm or even 57mm guns).
5) build a small surface combatant to cover patrol frigate and mine warfare.. build 10.
plan 2033-2040
1) build a type 26 derivative for the RN every 18 months post the first 8
2) build a type 31 derivative every year for the RN every year
Stop when the have 30 large surface combatants… and move to the type 83 as the type 45s retire.. keeping the fleet numbers at 30 and no ship to be older than 25.. but that in law with a supermajority required in parliament to reverse it.
Unfortunately the First Sea Lord thinks that we can create mass by saying the word hybrid three times and waving a magic wand. That’s where any extra money will go. Not on T31 upgrades or new small surface combatants.
Right now, I might even follow Serco’s play and get on the phone to Damen. However, I think we could and should still throw money at three of the T23s: Portland, Sutherland and St Albans, pretty much with no upper limit. If it costs £600m to get them to around 2033-35, we should chalk that up to the cost of not building frigates fast enough from 2008.
Couldn’t we have built another batch of six Type 23s in the interim? They may have cost around £250m a piece, more than twice the 1990s price, but how much better off would we have been right now? I sometimes wonder would we have been better off building T23s than B2 Rivers, but it would have been too late to start by 2014. I also wonder if it’s a lesson for the T45s if we get long delays on the T83s: build an upgraded version of the T45.
In other news, the Army just wasted £5 Billion on a tank that doesn’t work and will probably be scrapped without ever entering service….
Change in RN escort numbers over the decades
| Year | Destroyers | Frigates | Total |
| 1990 | 12 | 38 |50 |
| 2000 | 12 | 20 | 32 |
| 2010 | 8 | 13 | 23 |
| 2020 | 6 | 13 | 19 |
| 2024 | 6 | 7 | 14 |
1999 seemed to be the worst year when 9 frigates we decommissioned.
The batch 3 type 22 barely saw 10 years in service, which was quite wasteful
Think your math is off re the type 22 batch 3 service life? They were decommissioned in circa 2010; so 20- 22 years of service
Batch 3 were the last retired i think you mean the Batch 2
Arn’t navy ship looking a bit run down and rusty, as if standards have fallen or no one gives a dam. When those i know served a ship would never look that brown and rusty may they just worn out or the Navy can not paint them like they used to due to some H and S rules or skint and have no paint. Last time i seen a Royal Navy ship that rusty was on the way back from the Faulklands war when they docked in Gibraltar.
Hello Martin, apparently yes It’s H&S causing the problems, They don’t allow Scaffolding or ladders anymore as It can be dangerous in bad weather and choppy seas.
umm, why is no one surprised about that, what about in port?
The consequence of successive government paying lip service to defence of the realm. The 2% spending was nothing but an accounting trick and not real spending .