Responding to a parliamentary question from Andrew Rosindell, MP for Romford, on the operational status of the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers, Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard confirmed that “as of 31 October 2024, two Type 45 destroyers were immediately available, or deployed.”
Rosindell’s question specifically asked “how many Type 45 destroyers are (a) operationally available and (b) capable of being deployed simultaneously.”
Pollard clarified that while two are currently available, each ship’s “normal operating cycle” requires regular adjustments to readiness levels.
These levels depend on “their programmes, periods of refit and Departmental planning requirements,” which are essential to ensuring that the Royal Navy can meet both immediate and long-term operational commitments.
Pollard further explained that this carefully managed cycle enables the Navy to sustain “concurrent operational outputs” across UK and international waters while accommodating maintenance needs and programme upgrades. This approach, he noted, is designed to meet “changing defence demands in an uncertain world.”
The minister also highlighted the government’s focus on enhancing fleet readiness, stating that “options to improve the readiness and availability of the Royal Navy Surface Fleet form a key part of the ongoing Strategic Defence Review.” The review will explore avenues to boost the availability of assets like the Type 45 destroyers.
In context
The class are undergoing an effort to deal with previous reliability issues. Known as PIP, the Power Improvement Project, addresses the resilience of the engines and power generation driving the many hi-tech sensors, systems and weapons on board the destroyers. To make the necessary upgrades, the two original diesel engines were removed and replaced with three more reliable, more powerful, cleaner generators.
Recent trends in the fleet show a positive shift towards increased operational availability.
Earlier in the year, we reported that a lower percentage of these ships were active or immediately deployable, with the majority undergoing maintenance or refit. However, recent data indicates a marked improvement, with more ships transitioning from maintenance to active status.
The Royal Navy has managed to enhance the availability of the fleet despite the reduction in total numbers. This trend suggests a strategic shift in the Royal Navy’s approach to fleet readiness and operational capacity. By improving the availability of its remaining vessels, the Royal Navy has increased its ability to respond to operational demands.
The data, in summary, indicates a focus on maximising the utility of the existing fleet, ensuring that a more significant percentage of ships are prepared for immediate deployment when needed.
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.
The RN should attempt to make every ship at it’s disposal ready ASAP. I’m thinking the T45s could be sorted in a couple of years and further progress on the T23 needs to happen. Let’s get the T26 and T31s rolling as quick as possible and provide additional build capacity. The world is going to h**l in a hand cart. We should be as prepared as possible.
There is always going to be a certain percentage in repair or refit, so all available will never happen.
However, it does highlight that we don’t have enough escorts to protect the carriers, let alone do anything else. In a war situation the carriers would need at least 2 destroyers and 4 frigates to escorts each, and that would be dangerously low.
Our T45s are going through PIP plus having several extra bits done whilst they are at it. This should conclude in two or three years when we should be in a far better position.
I like your optimism, but the history of the destroyers have been back in for maintaince /upgrades almost immediately after the last was done, so who knows what they will do next.
The PIP Upgrades are taking much longer than was originally envisaged i can’t see them all complete and back in service before 2030 at the earliest,plus the Sea Ceptor Upgrade,whilst less complicated is still an unknown regarding timelines.When HMS Defender has completed her Upgrades we will get a clearer picture.
Can’t see Daring ever going back to sea ,hope I’m wrong seems a waist just stuck in port .
I know ships are traditionally considered female but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one described as having a waist before. Has Daring been working on her figure?
Never was a commenter more aptly named 😂
OOps 🙄
HMS Daring’s PIP surely took 16 months, Sep 21 – Jan 23. So why should PIPs now take so much longer?
When the PIP Upgrade was announced im sure the time stated was completion in 6 months,obviously this is miles out with the time it has taken.The delays now are probably due to the Payment Cycles to BAES ( as is the case foe New Builds ),and the limited supply of suitably Qualified staff to carry out the work.HMS Daring is an odd case ,for reasons which we don’t yet know.
Because the amateurs at BAE are doing 5 of them, should have left them all to Cammell Laird
Cammell Lairds have completed two ( Dauntless and Daring ) BAE will do the other four.
Believe original schedule for completion of PIP and CAMM mods across Daring class was 2032.
The original PIP Programme was for all 6 Ships to be completed by 2028,there is no way that they will achieve this now.The CAMM upgrade is another issue altogether,for practical reasons it made sense to combine the two for the rest of the Fleet.
Yes, it looks like the rest will go in for a PIP and CAMM upgrade. With the next T45 Duncan going in Spring 26.
Not while they are at it. They have to go in AGAIN for the Sea Ceptor addition.
Ah I thought Defender was doing PIP, Sea Ceptor & Naval strike all in one.
That will be the case for Dauntless,Daring and Dragon only -,Defender,Duncan and Diamond will have PIP and Sea Ceptor work combined.
I am no expert but 4 FF for a single CSG sounds a lot. It is unlikely that we would deploy both carriers simultaneously ie to sail two CSGs simultaneously.
During the Falklands there were 16 frigates deployed and lord West said it wasn’t enough to cast big enough anti sub web as he would have liked.
4 would be risky.
Active sonars then where nothing like the active sets now. Towed passive and LF sets did not exist.
Its not a valid comparison.
But the flip side to that is they failed to spot a ww2 era sub, and sub tech had also also progressed significantly.
“…and 4 frigates to escorts each…”
Not True! An QE carrier only need a minimum of 2 AAW, vessels escorts, and 2 ASW frigates, as an outer defence screen, on lookout for escaping subs. QE carriers will have own ASW helicopters for local ASW defence.
Hopefully we will never find out, but I suspect we will need way more to actually defend them against a peer or near peer opponent.
Despite those who say it has outlived its usefulness, the old mantra of the ‘rule of 3’ still surely has some meaning ie that you can expect 1/3 of a class of ships to be deployed or immediately deployable, one third to be alongside with crew split between watch and maintenance duties, leave and shore-based training…and one third being in refit at a shipyard. Thus two T45s currently operational (or as I have defined ‘deployed or immediately deployable’) is par for the course.
Yes I agree. That said the thing about T45 at the moment is that they are attempting to speed along PIP and consequently are doing a few other things at the same time. Therefore in theory we might well be in a position to task all these ships once PIP is all done. That said we might well choose to rest crews etc. it just might be that none of the ships are in refit for a while. Which is a good thing.
We all know we should have built eight of these ships. That would have meant today we would field at least four Type 45s at any given point, or we would hope we could. Penny-pinching with vital defence programmes is unforgivable. However, Mr Trump (if the threats are to be believed) could now make Europe, including the UK, dig very deep into their budgets and stem penny-pinching as the USA begins to reduce its footprint in the region.
If we had 8 instead of 6 we would have 33% more, which means 2.66 available not 4. We would have needed 12, which was the original requirement.
If 9 T45’s were ordered, it would of been 50% more, a much better position than now.
Ironically if they ordered 12 or 9 it probably wouldn’t have made a difference as crewing seems to be the main issue, so probably just meant more hulls alongside for various made up reasons.
We are where we are – no point in regretting past decisions.
T actions will be interesting going forward. He no longer needs to impress his fan base – he can do very much as he wishes. We just see what happens although preparing for the worst seems like a plan.
The German Government will be particularly concerned tonight. Years of under-spending on defence are coming home to roost, and they need US land forces, which are likely to be much reduced under Trump. I doubt the US Air Force will leave the two UK bases as we allow any European operations to be controlled from them. If anyone in NATO thinks the status quo regarding the US lion’s share, in terms of manpower and financing will continue may be in for a nasty shock. Shares in the European defence industries going forward, might be a wise investment.
T will do whatever he wishes however I never got the impression that T got into the details of the benefits of keeping particular bases etc. Indeed he seemed to say he was going to do x,y and z and it would be perfectly clear he had little idea what the implications of that would be. T will as usual bring a lot of uncertainty with him. Probably would be a good idea for all countries to aim to match US spending though.
Europe can not afford to hedge its bets with Trump. The mere fact that he’s mentioned his dissatisfaction with EU defence spending is enough to make plans, and fast! Air bases will take time to draw down, but land force commitments can be reduced reasonably quickly and would immediately impact the balance of power. Should Europe take Trump’s attitude as a possible pointer towards future administration policies? There appears to be a growing disquiet about the costs of America’s involvement in NATO, which should be seen for what it is and plan accordingly.
Rheinmetall supply chain yielding ’26/27.
No, we should have built twelve T45s – that was the Navy’s Requirement.
Perhaps we should tweak the design to update it and build 6 more. Trouble is the Government are probably going insist future warships are powered using green energy..
Shocking Ships and just don’t work as they should, so little used could be around for many years more without replacement once they sort out the power issues. We need a return on their cost before ever thinking of replacing them. More T26’s and T31’s needed to bring the numbers up to acceptable levels before they get replaced.
They are hardly shocking. Apart from the power issues they work exactly as designed and are world class.
i remember reading somewhere that the hull decay on the albion ships was increased due to them being in mothball and not reduced. So I don’t think we have gained years, just lost capability.
Hull degradation on being alongside has many factors.
Sort those out and the hull wont degrade.
Get Cathodic’s wrong and you end up with a big sea water battery with the ship as an anode and the jetty the cathode. The hull then degrades and wastes away rapidly.
I’m guessing you can’t go into details but has there been indications that they have fixed the issues or just as likely to happen now as then?
Personally I think they are excellent ships. I am not sure that as ships necessarily become more and more complex you are not going to inevitably get problems.
The weapons system is excellent when its working but they had next to no offensive capability and still awaiting the NSM to be fitted to give them a limited punch. The power train was a disaster and so much wasted space inboard, Even the Accom was not really an improvement compared to earlier classes. Dont forget they have next to no ASW capability even compared to the old T42’s which could not only find the sub’s but kill them too. So over all the T45’s have not been value for money and are certainly NOT excellent ships even though some… Read more »
Type 45’s have carried Harpoon when needed so they were not totally devoid of offensive Capability.
They are one of few ships deployed to the red sea thats had a 100% success rate and been able to engage targets that they’re not technically able.
So a Wildcat on a T45 doesn’t have torps for a vectac?
What offensive punch did a T42 have besides the gun and some skua? Dart in surface mode…excuse me if I snigger…
ASW isn’t a singlton game its a team game. Even an LPD can coord and kill subs using the link picture.
T42s happy ships…Some where a lot weren’t. But thats the same for all vessels.
As to accom are you really saying a T45 accom isn’t much better than a T42 B1/2 or a T23?
Wildcats have not been fully fitted or cleared to use the weapons your thinking of and the T45’s have been around since 2009 so have had little in the way of offensive other than the 4.5 the rest of the fleet has had and a sea skimming Sea Dart wound kill for sure. The Harpoons were taken off the T23’s and were not considered that worthy or trusted to work. Accom well to be honest having served on all 3 classes I’d prefer the T42/T23’s every time over the T45’s which often ran out of hot water and of course… Read more »
A couple of points – Lynx HMA-8 preceeded Wildcat,so had the capability to use Sea Skua ASM as well as Torpedos,also the Harpoon Missiles that some Type 45’s had fitted came off of the retired Type 22 B3’s,not from the Type 23’s.
True💯
The Type 45s are miles better than the Type 42 they replaced at their main mission which is anti-air. I would however argue that the magazine is far too small (as evidence by recent combat against what are terroriosts backed by Iran), for a ship that is the size of a Burke class but has less than half the weaponry. (althought Sea Ceptor will help, I still think its not enough). I would doubt the Wildcats on the Type 45 carry torpedos as they really have no way of finding submarines. You could put a Merlin on a Type 45… Read more »
Typical British build quality.
You really believe him?
Hopefully they’ll learn a lesson if the type 83 still goes on and build more than six
The biggest problem by far for the RN is it’s lack of manpower, it doesn’t matter how many ships it’s building or are available right now, it doesn’t have the people to crew the ships it has operational now, never mind in the future, nor can it support the ones on active deployment as its logistics arm the civilian manned RFA is currently on strike, due to 15years of effective pay cuts
Sad state of affairs 😟
Slightly OT but HMS Dragon is getting closer to a return to Sea, and she has had NSM Frames fitted so she will be the 1st T45 to have them,
Thank heavens
Pathetic. So the RN has 2 destroyers and 6 frigates available, in total, worldwide. The operational requirement the UK CSG alone is for 2 destroyers and 2 frigates. Then take out TAPS and the forward deployed frigate and we have two left for everything else – FRE, Red Sea, Standing NATO Maritime Groups, FOST, LRG escort, … gaps everywhere. Back in 2005 it was claimed by the government that only 8 T45’s (not the originally planned 12) were actually needed to replace 12 T42s as they would have far higher levels of availability and serviceability. The Key User Requirement was… Read more »
The original availability estimates obviously couldn’t take into account the issues with the Propulsion Set -up,no one imagined they would need serious ( and costly ) rectification work.
I blame the buffoon DS at the time who went against professional advice and OF COURSE as always played the politics and favoured industry with the military.
And of course the Labour lot who halved the order despite vowing to buy 8.
Yes indeed – Politicians should steer clear of making decisions where specialist knowledge is required.
Clearly not, but is 75% availability ever realistic for a complex major warship? Although the final Type 42 Batch 3s were actually very reliable – probably annoyingly so for those trying 20 years ago to prove that 8 T45s could match the workload of 12 T42s! Of course BAE Systems would agree to almost anything in order to get the contract signed – it was ultimately the MOD that was on the hook financially if there were any serious problems.
Wow, big time!
One more example of disastrous choice by RN by not having Aster 30 in the future frigates.
I don’t believe that choice has been made and I hope they will, at least for the Type 26s. I certainly haven’t caught any announcement about what will go in their silos. It’s a question of how much effort it’s going to be to get the Aster 30s working in Mk41 VLS. The Artisan radar should plenty good enough to make use of Block 1s. I’m not sure about the T31s’ NS100s, apparently they can be made to different specs with different numbers of transmit and receive elements, but I’d have thought they’d likely be a reasonable spec given they… Read more »
Why would we put Aster 30 on them when we’re moving away from Slyver cells.
Wouldn’t we go down the camm-er , camm-mr route?
Perhaps, depends on if they fit in the Camm cells or are integrated into mk41.
My guess is that it will be a progression. The T31 ships will delivered with CAMM specific launchers and at refit be fitted with Mk41 vls into which you ‘quad pack’ (or is it ‘tri-pack’ ) the larger, longer range CAMM versions as they become available: get a change in AAW capability while retaining the initial radar and CMS.
I thought the order of battle has usually been about one third of assets. Is it far off this now ?
Normal government policy though, we will work to get more availability from our existing ships – read cheaper than buying enough ships to service our needs (I know no magic formula to get more destroyers but it always reminds me of the hope of getting a free lunch).
Call me cynical but two out of six, is cause for celebration?
If you believe in the rule of 3 (I believe it still applies) then two is what we should have available. The thing us that the T-45 has had less available than that on average for the past few years.
We have two carriers . That means 4 T45, but as I doubt we have two Fleet submarines operational to escort them , I guess it is irrelevant.
Thing is you don’t want to be operating both carriers simultaneously most of the time, or they are going to need maintenance at the same time and thus negating the reason for having two, which was to have one available most of the time. Along two T-45 as escorts and hopefully at least two ASW frigates. Of note 3 SSNs at sea this week, so things looking up on that front
So if we are at war, we would only deploy one.
I think not.
Go gently please all. This is my first comment on this platform. I read articles by UKDJ and subsequent commentary, with genuine interest, near daily. From the outside looking in on this article, and from a memory from quite some time back. I understood that T45s were to provide defence from aerial attack to a carrier strike group, primarily. Based on an accepted principle/doctrine/methodology. Which means a group. One carrier within a strike group? The UK has two aircraft carriers. Currently two operational destroyers to protect two carriers, in immediate practice. Before anyone goes mad on detail. The point must… Read more »
Welcome Mark – a Carrier Strike Group can have many iterations,there is no set number of Escorts that you have to Sail it with,you go with what you have available at the time,and what you need to meet the threat you are countering.If you are short you can rely on Allies to provide numbers too.Im not sure of your ’26’ throws of the Dice Number,the T45 currently has 48 Missile Silo’s which if full will give 48 Shots at any Aerial threats.This number will increase to 72 when the Sea Ceptor Upgrades are complete.
I do enjoy the idiotic comments about how the T45 is better than a T42, so less is more 🤣
two destroy
ers, six frigates? what do we have to complain about?
why is venturer still not in the water? any news?
Not heard much recently about the addition of Sea Ceptor on the T45s.
It’s in progress – HMS Defender will be the first to be upgraded but it will take a few years as PIP is being done at the same time.
So, zero at sea then
This “immediately available” term is such a cop-out
HMS Duncan is definitely at Sea, Dauntless was till last week, now back at Portsmouth, Dragon will be out soon 👍.
I watched a short documentary about how the remains of the unknown warrior were returned to Westminster from WW1. 6 destroyers accompanied the ship carrying the casket.
Now we have 2.
The RN needs to drop this maintenence method and adopt the MN expectation of 100% availability by having sea going engineers in the wardroom.