With the recent news that Rosyth will build a warship for Ukraine, the total number of warships being built in Scottish shipyards between 2015 to 2035 now stands at 24.

In addition to the now built 5 Offshore Patrol Vessels, there are plans for 8 Type 26 Frigates, 5 Type 31 Frigates, 5 Type 32 Frigates and 1 Ukrainian warship to be built in Scotland.

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Click the below table to enlarge it.

A Ukrainian warship?

Ukraine previously signed a memorandum with the UK to secure £1.25 billion in funding to build new military vessels for the Ukrainian Navy, the first ship will be constructed in the UK and the remaining 7 vessels will be built in Ukraine.

Scottish shipyard to build warship for Ukraine

Type 32?

The new Type 32 Frigate will be built in addition to the Type 26 and Type 31 Frigates in the hopes of bringing the escort fleet up to 24 vessels from its current 19.

The Defence Secretary previously confirmed that Rosyth will be building more vessels than previously planned, with the Type 32 Frigate going into built at the yard after the Type 31 Frigate build finishes.

Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, recently stated that Rosyth would be building Tytpe 32 Frigates in addition to Type 31 Frigates.

“We are committed to building the Type 26 in the United Kingdom; it is under construction on the Clyde. In Rosyth, work is ongoing to build the facility needed to build the Type 31s and the subsequent Type 32s. He also knows that I recently recategorised the future Fleet Solid Support ship as a warship. I intend to make sure that, if not entirely, there is a considerable degree of UK build in that process, subject to tender. I have to be cautious about the contract, because the competition is to begin soon—very soon.”

According to the recently released ‘Defence Command Paper’, the Type 32 frigates will be designed to protect territorial waters, to provide persistent presence overseas and to support Littoral Response Groups.

The first mention of a new Type 32 frigate came in the Prime Minister’s 19 November statement. He said: “We are going to develop the next generation of warships, including multi-role research vessels and Type 32 frigates.”

The Defence Command Paper, titled ‘Defence in a Competitive Age’, describes the planned programme:

“Type 32 frigates, designed to protect territorial waters, provide persistent presence overseas and support our Littoral Response Groups.”

You can read more by clicking below.

Type 32 Frigates to be built in Rosyth

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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122 COMMENTS

    • You mean the SNP’s stating there are no warships in Scotland / there are no warships being built in Scotland.

      I was trying to figure out how

      8 x T26
      5 x T31
      5 x T32?
      1 x Ukranian

      added up to 24 units – then I noticed the total was backdated to 2015 include

      2 x QEC
      5 x B2 Rivers?

      But then that makes 26 by my maths or have I missed something?

      Or have the QEC’s not be counted for some reason?

      Unlike the number of new ferries that Nicola has ordered?

  2. Has anyone else read about Macron and Modi talking subs for the Indian Navy ? I would love to be the head Indian negotiator. I have a feeling they’ll squeeze the French till the pips squeak !

    • French defence exports don’t usually end up cheap: by the final account.

      Delivery prices for QEC (explicable) and T31 fixed price have got a lot of ears and noses twitching.

    • I’d love to see how the French react if they chat and sign on the dotted line.. only for the Indians to buy British. I think the French would simply explode.

      Yeah, I know – it’s more complex than that. But I couldn’t resist!

      • Oh sir that would be a moment to savour. A Steak n Chips supper followed by a very nice single malt and cigar ! Oh we can dream.

      • The Indians will only ever buy British if their is absolutely no alternative..The political class there still have massive chips on their shoulders about colonial times. Its why the French have done so well selling stuff to them, It’s a good way to stick two fingers up at London.

        • We have a lot of Indian diaspora in the UK and my engineering interactions with the Indian’s have always been on very good terms. I wouldn’t say they have an Imperial hang over. There is a lot of Indian’s I have met that greatly miss the efficiency of colonial administration compared to their own governments. Indeed most of the current Indian infrastructure, schools, Universities etc are originally designed by Victorian engineers and they have stood the test of time.

          • I have quite a few Indians who work for me. On the whole great guys.

            The whole reason they are in the UK is to get away from the inefficiency and corruption back home.

            They are universally dismissive of Indian politics and wish we could export some of ours to them!

            You have got to bear in mind all the chat around various people buying up the rump of British Steel when it went Indian. From a commercial perspective it never made any sense. From a nationalistic perspective it made total sense. If that makes sense…..one leading Indian businessman crowed to me “we are buying up all of your industries….look who the boss is now” OK, he was being tongue in cheek but there was that sentiment.

          • Yes I would agree that Indian politics is a bit parochial, corrupt, inefficient and bound by perceived slights of the past. They just don’tseem to realise yet if they got rid of the endemic corruption they would be one of the top superpowers in the world. Indeed they were when we led them.

        • They put their colonial chip in reverse when they purchased the Hermes , MOD police and Devon constabulary recovered so many stolen bikes that had disappeared from Plymouth dockyard and surrounding areas

    • I think the Indian’s will work increasing with AUSUK. I suspect that the Indians will want more capable kit from the US, UK and Australia. France may have bribed their way to the Rafale contract (the bribery scandal is just going through the French courts at the moment):

      https://www.deccanherald.com/national/national-politics/congress-rakes-up-rafale-deal-once-again-amid-fresh-bribery-allegations-demands-probe-970586.html

      Watch this space…this may give the Indian’s the chance to ditch the Rafale and then perhaps Eurofighter can swoop in again 🙂

      • That’s a strange one. They’ve got leases on a Charlie and an Akula with another Akula on order as another lease plus an SSBN. If anyone could explain why leased and not bought I’d be grateful. As to French well 2 reasons French SSN’s are no match for UK/US Boats but I’d guess they’d be superior to Russian SSN’s. Second and most important with Macron’s ego squashed I think they could use that to get a good deal on them but we’ll see.

        • Interesting indeed…. i guess it would be far easier for the Indians to operate new nuclear submarines. I’m guessing we wouldnt be allowed to sell them our tech.

          What makes our ubs better then the french ones? I notice they dont appear to have the anechoic tiles…

          • Why are UK/US SSN’s better ? If I knew and said I might get a visit from Special Branch. Thankfully all I have to go on is what I pick up for example Aus Def Sec when asked why UK or US SSN’s and not French said ‘They’re not superior’ Add in what I read on many diff sites. For USN I’d recommend USNI. It’s not what your looking for and there are guys on here who could give you more but bad guys monitor this site too and there are things that need to be secret.

          • The best news you can find is that our friends are very impressed with the Astutes and our enemies are very worried !
             :wpds_wink: 

          • Ah used an emoji in my comment so gone for adjudication. The more you learn about the Astute class vs it’s competition the happier you’ll find yourself.

          • Indeed as it’s most prominent compliment came from an unnamed US exchange officer during exercises with the. Virginia class one has to believe as a specialist hunter killer certainly they have no peer.

          • Yep and reading between the lines and sometimes not even that it’s clear the Russians are not happy bunnies when it comes to the Astutes. It I’ll be interesting to learn more about how the Chinese are finding them or not ! and the 23’s.

    • Naval Group are apparently going to ‘seek compensation’, which I assume means outside of their contract.

      Lol. So not only did they ultimately fail to con/rip-off the Aussies, but they apparently didn’t negotiate good enough cancellation penalties in the contract. And then on top of that in their head’s ranty newspaper piece has admitted they hadn’t even begun ‘basic design’.

      Meanwhile our shipyards have a very healthy order book.

      • Yep and when you think back to not so long ago the French,Italians and even Spanish seemed to be wiping the floor with us on warship exports. Maybe a National shipbuilding strategy is what we’ve been missing all along.

  4. No you couldn’t be more wrong Nichola has pinky sworn that the RN will be entirely equipped from Scots yards. Are you seriously calling that a fib ?

  6. So T32 has been ordered?

    We were having 12 T45
    We were having 13 T26

    How have things turned out?

    Rather than being a mouth piece for the Cons who are remowned at being cons, could we stick with the facts?

      • Given Labour cancelled the four CV01’s they were the least they could do to make amends. The Invincible class that later followed CV01s cancellation only got approved because of the RN’s sneaky reclassification of them as not being carriers – they were originally designed as escort helicopter carriers for the CV01s.

        But remember the QEC weren’t ordered for the RN, Blair meant them for an EU-led carrier group with other nations making-up escort numbers.

        • Earth calling Tommo… some economic reality would be nice.

          And as to Blair building QEC with allied nations in support, how would you describe events today?

          • Well you’re probably not remembering Blair’s mad-cap enthusiasm for the EU; remember he wanted us to ditch the £ for the € too?
            The RN was concerned about escort numbers for the carriers but he wanted EU nations to provide them. Remember the EU Constitution, aka The Lisbon Treaty introduced a defence clause that effectively gives EU members the equivalent of NATO Article 5 – one of the reasons the neutral Irish pushed against it originally.

          • Yes, unfortunately they didn’t fit into the great socialist utopia envisage by Wilson the 82s looked to threatening although the mk 10 mortar meant couldn’t have a Helo , plus the fact Britain was Bankrupt, broke cap in hand country at the time

          • Tyoe 81s Tommo. I fear the T31s are the equivellent T42s for the T26 we should’ve had. But just better equipping the T31s would do a lot.

    • Nearly choked on my cocoa , Sean after reading that post for a moment you had me hook,line and sinker luckerly I share an allotment with comrade Corbyn 😀

    • What about the extra rivers very expensive and prettymuch whole sale support for BAes Scottish yards? And as the article states the Ukraine vessel which was secured with Government backing.

    • If it has HMS at the beginning and it floats… Its a Warship.
      Radio Calls to other vessels or land stations even from a P200 start with something like “MV suchandsuch this is Warship xxxx, Warship xxxx” (xxxx being the vessels name)

    • Some would say role fit. Guess the alternative is we build more destroyers and use them to chase down drug smugglers, pirates and deliver aid. If we had I’m sure same bunch moaning why we have £1b assets doing lesser roles, what a waste etc. Perhaps we shouldn’t have built OPV’s at all and then not provide any assets to do the more mundane roles. Lastly the reason they are not better armed is BAe overcharged for them, they are the most expensive OPVs in the world.

      • And we’d have fewer Destroyers available because

        1. You can’t build as many destroyers as OPV’s for the same price tag
        2. You can’t keep a destroyer or frigate at sea for as many days a year as an OPV
        3. It costs more to keep a Destroyer at sea than an OPV.
        4. You need a lot more people, and a lot more specialist roles that require intensive training to keep a Destroyer at sea.

        So in practice if the OPV’s hadn’t been built and we’d gotten (at a push) 1 destroyer for the money, the availability of high end units would actually have gone down. And to be fair, the reason has little to do with what BAe charged (remember there was an agreement for the MoD to keep the yards in work, basically the builds where stretched to take longer and keep people employed so they would still be around when the Type 26’s needed building), and much more to do with the RN wanting them as inexpensive to run day-to-day as possible.
        Plus at the time fitting anything bigger than a 30mm would have meant procuring a brand new weapons-system, which would have added cost and logistics trail to the system, and would have driven the cost up again.

        • Yeah but there are features that could have been added like a hanger that’s selective on whether you use it and therefore has negligible running costs. And let’s be honest although the OPV is a warship being able to embark wildcat would have given them more punch should their role need it.

          Still think the negotiation with BAe went along the lines of well you have to pay to keep the yards open and this is all we’re willing to build. BAe had the upper hand in the negotiations as any delay in signing the b2 contract would have seen the government paying for the yard to produce nothing. Babcock were producing the Irish OPVs at a cost of around 65m per unit and whist there’s differences in the spec of the B2 does warrant a doubling of the price to 127m per unit.

          • Well, the B2’s are basically Amazonas class designs lifted and re-used, so integrating a hangar (and we have no idea how hard that would have been) would have represented additional costs and delays, when the B2’s where needed now, and the B1’s they where replacing didn’t even have a Helo deck, so there was already an uplift (and yes the B2’s where meant to be replacing B1’s not additional to them).

            I don’t think BAe was unwilling to build, building more, at profit and increasing the experience of it’s workforce (and possibly size of the workforce) would have been something they’d like. As it was the RN didn’t even want the B2’s at the time. The cost doubled because the build time literally was twice as long; SB’s took on average 2 years from laying down to launching, B2’s took on average 4 years. That was entirely down to the MoD needing Govan to slow the build rate down so that they didn’t have to order more ships they didn’t want.

  8. Even if Scotland goes independent what makes you think BAE and Babcock will up sticks and move, especially after all the investment in Scotland. I think the threat is just that a threat.

    • Because the MoD require the ships to be built in the U.K.

      I can see incomplete hulls being towed out of Scottish yards to yards in England for completion were independence to happen. If you don’t think it can, the MoD did the reverse in 2006 having the hull of HMS Lyme Bay towed from the Tyne to Scotland for completion.

      Even if the requirement is not in the existing contracts, the MoD can cite force majeure for the change.

  9. When the Jaguar was being sold to potential buyers the French insisted on demonstrating the Mirage F1. Of course they knew the contract details of the Jaguar Price, offsets, funding and would undercut BAC. French trickery also raised its head in the Anglo French helicopter deal. The UK bought the Puma and the Gazelle and the French Navy and the Army were to buy the Lynx. As it turns out only the French Navy bought a small number of Lynx’s and the French Army cancelled there order for Kynx.

  10. Is there anywhere we can find a list of what is being built at other ship yards around the UK? Seems the vast majority of navy ships go to Scotland.

    • Not easily.

      Barrow is for subs obviously.
      Cammell Liard is doing some refits and T45 upgrades I believe.
      CL also built the polar research ship.
      H & W may get the FSS but that could end up in Rosyth.
      Devenport is dismantling decommissioned subs, not a small piece of work with around 20 of them at £100m a pop and often overlooked.
      The new flag ship (love it or hate it) will probably be built outside Scotland imo.
      Most notably Scotland is not even placing vessel orders at their own yard. 🙂

  11. A bit click bait news, “to build” and then talk about 2015, you can’t build vessels already built. It also includes the t32 which are not even out of the design phase, let alone confirmation that they will go ahead and money put down and yards choosen. Removing these and your down to 14. Still a decent number but more accurate.

  14. It seem to me that the government are using the ship building programme for the RN as a carrot to keep the Scots happy in the union instead of diversifying our ship building around the country, at the moment we have our subs built in the NW of England and our surface ships built in Scotland. What about our other grate ship building areas of the UK like the NE and Belfast not to mention the smaller yards on the South coast all of whom could do with the investment from the government in the form building ships for the RN and the RFA.
    By using just one or two yards it adds to the time (and costs) of the build as there is physically no room to build more that one at a time.
    The Europeans and the Americans are building just as complexed vessels but in half the time 4 to 5 years/vessel it is taking the UK an average of 10 years/vessel which effectively is doubling the costs/vessel if we are to re-establish ourselves as a ship building nation we have to be able to compete with the Europeans/Americans also by driving down the costs/vessel we will be able to afford more than the pitiful amount of vessels we have on order and in service at the moment.

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