Half of the Type 45 Destroyer fleet is available and ready for tasking, according to the Ministry of Defence.
The information came to light via the following response to a Parliamntary written quuestion.
John Healey, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, asked:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the current status is of each of the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers”.
James Cartlidge, Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, responded:
“HMS Diamond, HMS Duncan and HMS Dauntless are all currently available for operations. HMS Daring, HMS Dragon and HMS Defender are all currently at various stages of the Power Improvement Project (PIP).”
Type 45
The Royal Navy says that the Daring class consists of six Type 45 destroyers (HMS Daring, Dauntless, Diamond, Dragon, Defender, and Duncan) that were purposely built for anti-aircraft and anti-missile warfare. The destroyers all feature a ‘clean’ exterior superstructure thanks to their deck equipment and life rafts being concealed behind panels. The ships are fitted with a Fully Integrated Communications System (FICS45), which provides voice, intercom, data links, and conference calls – both internally and externally. This comms suite also includes a Meteorology and Oceanography (METOC) system for total awareness of the ship’s surroundings.
The Sea Viper missile system can target and destroy multiple targets simultaneously.
Designed to protect both land and sea forces from aircraft attacks and defend the naval fleet against supersonic anti-ship missiles, Sea Viper is the principal weapon system of the Daring Class of destroyers. Comprising of long-range and missile-directing radars, a combat control centre and vertical missile silos, Sea Viper can launch eight missiles in under ten seconds and guide up to 16 missiles simultaneously.
Why the openness with the 45s but not the 23s🤔
Because they are just being incredibly inconsistent and did not want to give an answer that could be politically damaging for the government…
Unfortunately the level of if you don’t tell, nothing is wrong is pretty endemic across government..that’s from health, police, social care, fire, military etc..
Screwing a lid on problems has always been an approach to a wide range of ‘problems’….you can see it in everything from WW2 files is The National Archives to the Post Office Horizon scandal.
Don’t admit anything is wrong as it will damage confidence!
I think the 4th being available is not far off.
The reality is that the T23 crews may have been needed for T45s?
As some T45s have long been on the wall they hadn’t had full crews for ages.
IF only we had 12 of this class like first thought 🤔 there again no crews what a carry on .Still chin up 🇬🇧
It’s almost as if they knew they wouldn’t be able to crew them, don’t you think?
Wouldn’t trust any of them.
The original order was for 8 Ships to replace 12 Type 42’s
No, 12 then 8 then 6.
Actually you are both right and wrong ! The original intention was to replace the T42’s like for like with 12 T45’s. But there was never an actual order.
MOD realised that was unaffordable and there was an opportunity to reassess our actual needs due to the massive step up in capability of the T45.
MOD commissioned the RAND corp to carry out a top to bottom review of the needs against the costs and how to rationalise the build strategy.
The end result was further industrial merging of BAe and the Block build strategy with final assembly and fit out on the Clyde.
By this point the intention was for 8 but only 6 were ever ordered.
I actually have a copy of the RAND report and it is one of the best deep dive reports I’ve ever read.
Daring was like most 1st of class a bit of learning curve and the only one built at Scotstoun. The remaining 5 were built at Govan and fitted out in Scotstoun and delivered in just 4 years. Which just proves what can be done with an efficient build plan.
But when the costs to develop a completely new weapon system and engineering plant in a larger and more flexible hull were spread over so few ships the cost per ship scared the MOD off.
Damn shame because the shipyards and U.K. Industry had got their MOJO and more would have been a lot cheaper.
I think a public copy was issued by HM Stationary.
A massive step up in capability also means a massive loss of capability when one or more aren’t available or are lost due to enemy action . There is no replacement for hull numbers
Quantity has a quality of its own ! But each T45 has more AD capability than 6 T42’s(and that’s probably low balling it).
No 2 ways about we needed 8 not 6, but then again given the Recuperator fiasco we would just have had more ships cluttering up Portsmouth.
I actually think we should maximise them, they are still big, well built ships with lots of growth potential if funds could be found. I’d even suggest a couple of new builds using blocks built elsewhere in UK.
IMHO everyone is jumping on the bigger is better bandwagon for T83 based on the size of Chinas latest Type 55.
For us it’s too damn big, we couldn’t afford many and a crew of 300+.
Why not adopt the CEC like US, RAN and India (yep they have developed their own) and distribute the weapon load around multiple hulls and Airframes the future is Netcentric.
True. The RN had a valid Staff Requirement for 12 T45s.
I find it incredible that (army navy or RAF) still come out with the same garbage of technologically advanced ships tanks planes etc which is why we don’t need such big forces,we will be the most advanced in the world blah blah blah (conveniently not adding by the time they’re built and out of testing they won’t be most advanced or on budget or on time.
Do none of these admirals ever say to the government if we lost 4/5 ships we can hope to replace them in around 8/9 years. ???
Quite, What the bean counters don’t realise / admit to is that even though the tech has improved so has the enemies weapons. So in relative terms the T45 is no better than when the 42’s were new.
This is not only bean counters.
I think the admirals do say that but they have only so many ££££ to work with.
So you either have lots of hulls or lots of capability.
Still doesn’t say exactly where each ship is in terms of PIP, CAAM integration etc.
Dauntless is the only T45 to have completed PIP and returned to operations so far,Daring completed PIP at CL’s (Birkenhead) and is now at Portsmouth pending a return to Operational status.Dragon underwent PIP by BAE at Portsmouth to help speed the procees up but like Daring is still pending a return to Operations.Defender is now in Portsmouth at the early stages of PIP and will be the Lead Ship to have the CAAM/Sea Ceptor upgrade.Diamond and Duncan will follow Defender in due course.Duncan will be the first T45 to have NSM fitted as she is currently having enabling works at Portsmouth.
Believe that RN will develop an abiding interest in compressing the scheduled upgrades of T-45 w/ PIP, Sea Ceptor and NSM, given current maritime issues. PIP and Sea Ceptor mods for Defender have been grouped together, but not certain trend will continue in a serial, deliberative fashion. All of these mods are valuable enhancements of T-45s’ capabilities and can be argued to be an immediate necessity. RN may choose not to not await the next refit cycle to install, provided dry docking is not required and funding is available. 🤔
I agree.
But it comes down to qualified people to do the works in the dockyards as well as maximise the amount of time these ships are at sea.
Given the T23s are falling apart the T45s are going to be worked hard to cover the gap in hull numbers.
PiP has clearly been accelerated, NSM fit won’t need long dockings.
I am slight surprised that the Sea Ceptor works are so intricate – there must be something more to them that was first thought.
I do wonder if the issue is that the hole for Mk41 was simply a hole rather than an armoured and floodable magazine? But even then that would be able to be fabriacted and lifted in by a goliath…..3D laser survey is a thing…..
HMS Defender, as the lead ship in the class for the Sea Ceptor mod, will obviously entail the longest timeframe for implementation. Hopefully, as currently demonstrated by PIP, repetition matters in terms of schedule. 🤞 Gunbuster may be the best qualified to provide knowledgable insight. 🤔
Daring, Duntless and Dragon may never get CAMM, or be too near OSD, by time to get round for a refit?
Maybe, but the commitment has been made,the funding for all 6 must have been allocated,and the actual works needed should be much less of a challenge timewise than that for PIP.
I will make a bet with you that the OSD goes back at least 6 years. The T45’s have had very little Sea Time due to the Power issues so have more life left than planned. They are big flexible hulls, with a generous (11% I think) growth margin and more importantly we actually have them.
What has personal independence payments got to don with how soon ships will be ready. Should we be using independence allowances to get them working at night
It’s is relevant as the ships are using the personal independent payment benefit mobility allowance.
Instead of a mobility car there getting new diesel engines😂😂😂
I had hoped he was being Ironic 🙄
All smoke and mirrors. Generally a rule of 3 applies, Diamond is active but Duncan and Dauntless have just returned from long deployments and so are nominally active but require a bit TLC before they can head off again.
PIP and then Sea Ceptor upgrades will take into the early 2030’s, by which time the T45’s will be well past middle aged!!!
The T45s could be sent out again after maintenance with a relief crew.
Wow that means we can deploy nearly as many ships as inner mongolia
Stop divulging information
Labour wooden tops stop asking questions, self important little idiots. Has that man been vetted
He should be taken to the vet so he can be adjusted . He seems to be sitting on his brains.
All this, bla bla bla. As they sit in mums house thinking they are captain. These people believe the sun.
So what ships look after the Carriers when they are deployed ?
No carriers are deployed just now. What accompanies a carrier depends on what the carrier is doing. On a mission to friendly port perhaps one escort will do.
Going into a war zone it will probably have 3-5 destroyer/frigate escorts, a tanker and a sub or 2. Friendly ships come along for those trips normally.
All depends what is need at the time.
I know what would generally sail with the carrier , why I asked is what would happen if a carrier were to go and help with the situation off Yemen now, if things were to escalate there what would we be able to muster up and send to bolster the US , looks like the UK would not be able to put together a rapid response naval unit which is pretty poor.
As a brit. The UK must at all costs upgrade all three services as quickly as possible. Not as of many years drag it heels on we will fix it later on later on is too late. tens Billions wasted on covid equipment. Could have been spread out across health, defence, police. But no let’s continue to waste not even counting the costs of illegal immigration how many Billions gone down the tube on that one.
The processing centres need a large increase in staff and resources to process people much faster.
It shouldn’t matter if 10 million people show up week if there is the capacity to process them. It’s the refusal of the government to fund processing that causes large bills, the scaling back of normal immigration routes doesn’t help either.
This is not true dragon is a sh*t show , defender is in pieces in dry docks , daring is still getting worked on , dauntless is in dry docks getting striped
Dragon went out for a engine test, with a tug, a week ago. But still needs a lot of work on her.
Mmmmmmm I see Sea Viper missile system mentioned in dealing with supersonic Ballistic missile attacks. It’s all about emerging Hypersonics now. Is the Sea Viper a toothless tiger? The big bad nasty Houti Ballistic missile attacks on ships I have seen, leave a black smudge and barbecue fire on the deck. What’s really going on team🤪🤔
The Type 45 can not attack land or ship targets, 50% of the mere 6 are in dock getting fixed.