Home Sea Type 23 frigates get £2.3m navigation radar work

Royal Navy closely monitors Russian warships and submarine in UK waters — Image of HMS Somerset (centre) and HMS St Albans (left) with a Merlin helicopter operated by 814 Squadron seen flying alongside (right). Naval helicopters and ships HMS Somerset, HMS St Albans, HMS Mersey and RFA Tideforce were dispatched to shadow four Russian Navy vessels, including a surfaced submarine, in the English Channel and North Sea. Portsmouth-based HMS Mersey were activated three times between March 29 and April 7, working with a Wildcat helicopter from 815 Naval Air Squadron and tanker Tideforce, to report on the movements of Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich, Ropucha-class landing ship Aleksandr Shabalin and Kilo-class submarine Krasnodar. Separately, Type 23 frigate HMS Somerset intercepted Russian Udaloy-class destroyer Severomorsk and accompanying oiler Kama, near the coast of Brittany, France, and kept close watch using her powerful array of radars and sensors through the Channel and into the North Sea. Sister ship HMS St Albans briefly joined Somerset as part of a formal handover as the latter begins four months of operations in the North Atlantic to monitor submarine movements and protect critical undersea infrastructure.

Type 23 frigates get £2.3m navigation radar work

August 31, 2026

The Ministry of Defence has awarded a £2.33 million contract to procure and support replacement navigation radars for Royal Navy Type 23 frigates after warning that the existing equipment is unsupported and a failure could prevent a ship from sailing, the UK Defence Journal understands.

The contract details notice, published on 30 August, covers replacement Second Naval Navigation Radar equipment and associated in-service support. The contract was signed on 30 July and runs until July 2031, with options allowing it to continue until July 2033.

Defence Equipment and Support awarded the requirement directly rather than holding a competition, citing technical reasons, urgency and the need to maintain the operational capability, readiness and safety of the Armed Forces.

The MOD’s justification states: “The MRUP team are in an unusual and unplanned position whereby the current SNNR used on Royal Navy Type 23 Frigates is unsupported; as SNNR is a critical system this presents a significant risk to Navigational Safety for the T23 vessels and a risk to the operational capability of these Royal Navy vessels.”

It added: “The failure of a Navigation Radar will result in a high-level Operational Defect (OPDEF) and could prevent the ship sailing. With this in mind timescales to procure a replacement radar are of the upmost importance.”

The requirement forms part of the Maritime Radar Update Programme and is intended to replace the existing Second Naval Navigation Radar while minimising changes to the frigates themselves. According to the procurement notice, the MOD sought equipment with the same properties as the existing radar so that existing shipboard infrastructure could continue to be used. This was intended to avoid additional design work and reduce the time needed to carry out the replacement.

The department stated: “Due to the necessity to replace the radar at the earliest opportunity, the Authority will seek to limit any change on the platform. The Authority’s requirement is therefore for a radar which has identical properties to the current radar so as to enable the existing infrastructure on the platform to be used.”

It continued: “This will remove the time required to undertake design work, and to model interaction with it and other systems. This approach will also ensure that the time required to update the radar on the platform is kept to the bare minimum and that the impact on platform readiness is limited, thereby enabling an update to be done whilst a vessel is operational.”

The MOD concluded that the Hensoldt S Band Turning Unit and Antenna was the only system meeting those requirements.

The contract notice lists Kelvin Hughes Limited as the supplier, while the direct-award justification names Hensoldt UK Limited as the company with which the MOD intended to place the contract. The agreement also contains a series of options for additional work. These include fitting Multi-Display Multi-Function Displays to additional Type 23 frigates, producing technical publications, providing additional operator and maintainer training and carrying out security testing.

Later options cover the possible replacement of existing RT1084 equipment with Hensoldt UK equipment using the SharpEye system, modifications identified through an earlier concept design study, and combinations of those changes. One option specifically covers replacing existing RT1084 equipment with a new Hensoldt UK Multi-Display Multi-Function Display and Mk11 S-Band SharpEye radar.

The initial five-year contract can be extended through two one-year options. The earlier voluntary transparency material associated with the procurement estimated that the wider requirement could be worth up to £3.5 million if options were taken up. The contract includes quarterly performance measures covering helpdesk responsiveness, equipment availability, delivery of reports and contract documents, and responses to technical assistance forms and requests for quotation.