The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that the Type 32 frigate programme is still in the concept phase, easing concerns over its potential cancellation.
However, the project is still in the concept phase and lacks a concrete timetable for design and procurement.
This update came in a written parliamentary response on October 9th, 2024, by Luke Pollard, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, to a query from Graeme Downie, Labour MP for Dunfermline and Dollar.
Pollard clarified that “The Type 32 frigate programme remains in the concept phase and has not yet reached the level of maturity to allow publication of a specific design and procurement timetable.”
This statement echoes previous comments from the MOD earlier this year. Back in May, James Cartlidge, then Minister of State for Defence, explained that the Type 32s were still too early in their development for an in-service date to be set, with the first vessels expected to join the fleet in the 2030s.
At that time, the project had only received around Ā£4 million in concept funding, reflecting its early-stage nature.
The Type 32 frigate programme, initially announced under then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has been subject to ongoing speculation regarding its role within the Royal Navyās future fleet.
Previous reporting highlighted that, despite a public commitment to the programme under the UK’s National Shipbuilding Strategy, the specifics of the project have remained vague, with discussions continuing over whether the new vessels would represent an entirely new design or be based on an additional batch of the existing Type 31 frigates.
With the strategic defence review on the horizon, I recently asked Pollard questions about the future of the UK’s naval programmes, including potential expansions beyond the Type 31. He acknowledged the substantial investment in shipbuilding infrastructure at Rosyth but remained measured in his response regarding future ship classes:
āAs a new government, one of the first actions was the Prime Minister launching this strategic defence review. This is a serious review that recognises not only that the world is a more difficult place, and that there are new and evolving threats to the United Kingdom and our allies, but that after many years, especially with lots of gifting to our friends in Ukraine, which was exactly the right thing to do, the UK armed forces have far too many capability gaps.ā
Pollard detailed the focus of the review and its expected timeline:
āSo, what we’ve asked Lord Robertson to do is to conduct a defence review to not only analyse the threats we’re facing, but what kind of shape our forces will need to be. That review will report in the first half of next year. And in parallel to that, we’re working towards achieving 2.5% of GDP being spent on defence. Thatāll be announced by the Chancellor at a fiscal event in the future.
Combined, what we’re doing is looking to reshape our armed forces to make sure that we can deter aggression towards the UK and our allies and defeat it if necessary. That means more investment in our people, that means more investment in kit and equipment, but it means making sure we have the right kit and equipment in the right places.
And frigates like this, the Type 31, the Type 26, will form the backbone of the Royal Navy. I’m absolutely confident that that will be a future that we can take real pride in. But I look forward to seeing the outcome of Lord Robertson’s defence review in the months ahead.ā
Make more sense to increase the Type 31 order to say 8 ships and focus development on the Type 83. We need to ‘stop’ planning for two or three gold-plated something’s in ten or twenty years but get on and build “good enough” ships in sufficient numbers ‘now’.
Yes. I am sure they could tweak the design very slightly to be more drone/whatever friendly and churn out another batch of ‘,block 2’ type 31’s. Better still if the next batch could be seamlessly integrated I to the current 5 ship build program….
The best is the enemy of the good enough.
AA
āGive them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes.ā – Robert Watson-Watt, Engineer and leader of the team that built the Chain Home radar stations of Battle of Britain fame.
He was seriously up against it time wise as the system was still being upgraded / completed in early September 1939..!
Cheers CR
Wow CR, forgot about that one.
š, š³ļøšBtth.
Indeed, the Flower class frigate in the early years of the war is a perfect example. It would have been rejected in peacetime, but was central to winning the Battle of the Atlantic and keeping our convoy routes open. Develop the Type 31, but keep it cheap and cheerful, it’s hull quantity we need, not over the top technology platforms that always flatter to deceive once in service due to inherent unreliability due to over reliance on untested systems.
I agree.
As little change as possible. That way the investment in T31 #1 (which is where the money and risk is spent) is leveraged.
T31B2 is my preference 3-5 ship order would make perfect sense.
Iād other then with Mk41 / NSM / Sea Ceptor from the off. Maybe an NS200 radar but otherwise leave well alone.
Fully agree.
That should be the philosophy going forward for more than just ships, though; no point in having everything shiny and gold plated, 20 years down the line, in pathetic numbers.
The medium helicopter concept comes to mind as well. Just buy Blackhawks, which will be cheaper and we could probably get a good amount of them, rather than 40-odd gold-plated flying money pits.
40???? I’d be thanking the Lord for 30.
25 or less is the current whispered number.
I agree.
It’s ridiculous that it’s gone down to so few.
I dread the next war we’re involved in!
Yes SR, I don’t have a problem with purchasing yank helos. Soiux (Bell), Dragonfly, Whirlwind, Wessex, Seaking, all uprated for MOD usage and did the best job. I worked with them all, eccept the Dragonfly.
š, š³ļøšBtth.
Type 32 is to augment the T26 and T31 frigate fleet and presumably edge that fleet size above 13 hulls.
Why do you think it will be gold-plated and that there would only be two or three in the class?
If it is an evolution of T31, then that is a ‘no-frills’ frigate.
The Type 32 could be pretty much anything Graham – until more concrete information is available we simply won’t know.BAES have the ‘Adaptable Strike Frigate’ concept,the route to Gold Plating is certainly possible.
The issue is planning for something that’s gold plated and finding it cancelled. We need the results of the Type 32 concept phase to inform what we’ll actually get. We could have done that eighteen months ago. The RN/MOD seems to think that delaying decision making to the last possible second is a good idea, and that’s a real problem.
It’s already too late to develop a from-scratch design for T32 and maintain optimum production at Rosyth. We should still allow Babcock time to develop a T31 variant design that matches the required T32 philosophy.
Well it was getting quite concrete and over specified in its initial iterations.
The prices came back and there was a big gulp on RN/MoD land and the design went another iteration back to a stripped down version.
If you make T31 high spec with rafting and a big gun/VLS/high end radar and other toys it ends up costing T26 money.
Agreed. I think it will need to be cash limited. But concept shouldn’t be about specifying big gun and rafting. It needs to be about the reasons for those things, eg. NGFS and ASW if that’s what the Navy want. It’s then going to be up to manufacturers to offer solutions for the price. So instead of a big gun for NGFS, perhaps missiles, loitering munitions or drone swarms might be the proferred solution to achieve similar results. If the Navy ask for an onboard exquisite ASW, they might at least be offered an offboard UUV-based capability instead. It’s quite… Read more Ā»
To be fair, rafting, on a ship designed with the engineering tolerances for it, is not that expensive, Neither is a larger gun (unless you choose the T26 automated magazine), nor are VLS. What costs the real money is what you choose to put in the VLS. The mission control suite alone for TLAM, for instance, is $50m. High end radars don’t come cheap either A Babcocks spokesman stated several years ago that it would cost c. Ā£60m extra to build a T-31 ASW (with CAPTAS-4, quietening etc) Would it be as quiet as T-26 – no, but it would… Read more Ā»
Hi Graham,
The concern many of us share is encapsulated in your ‘If’… I’ll give you another one. If it is an evolution of T31 why is it taking so long to make any decisions..?
Far too many cooks – ‘discussions’ indeed! Stick ’em in a room, lock the door and don’t let ’em until ‘decisions’ are made. Oh and tell ’em its a T31 as you lock the door! Grr!
Cheers CR
I actually think that at present the T32 is effectively in a holding pattern due to several uncertainties which preclude any fast decisions. The1st one is the SDR, until it lands there will be no large announcements, then there is the FSS and H&W followed by the one that directly effects Frigates. If BAe lands the contract for 5 T26 for Norway, what is the impact to the Frigate replacement plan and can those effects be mitigated. If I were to sum it up we are committed to 13 Frigates, everything else is a Big wet thumb in the wind… Read more Ā»
It was designed and then costed and the cost was too much so another iteration.
100% agree
I agree. Much of MoDs budget is for a tomorrow that never comes, while the now is reduced to pay for it.
that’s a good strategy Phil- completely agree.
As far as I’m concerned they’ve knocked it out the park with Type 31.
Extremely flexible gun armament, generic 32 cell VLS
NSM canisters
Helicopter
And a BIG AND EMPTY hull for future capability upgrades.
I wonder how many mk41 magazines we could fit in there?
They should just make the Type 32 a Type 31, batch 2.
This increases the number of hulls for a reasonable price, and can be up-armed later.
Agree. Just continue with the existing hull and machinery but ‘tweak’ the weapons fit to provide different functionality. For instance, it would be relatively easy to ‘swap’ the 57 mm gun for the 5 inch being fitted to the Type 26 if that was wanted.
It wouldn’t be all that difficult to modify the stern and fit 2087 if an ASW bias was required but would prefer an order for more T26s for this job and that would keep BAe employed.
IH frigate (& Absalon) & itās A140 updated equivalents have options that T31 has barely explored. Main gun, missiles, rafted machinery, hull & towed sonars, radars, etc etc. Both IH & Absalon can handle towed arrays. T31 is not a particularly good frigate. It has potential, but poor decision making by MoD & government (politicians) means no matter what they do, they are limited. Sticking to a fixed budget regardless of the outcome is not how government is meant to work. Everything is of course a judgement call, but it requires an ability to make an informed & coherent decision.… Read more Ā»
Yes, more ships to spread and sustain a presence around the world and especially in keeping thevkey international trade routes open and safe. It’ll further boost UK industry and employment opportunities and hopefully attract some hard to get export orders.
Completely agree with the common consensus of others below. As much as I’d love to see the lovechild of a T26 and T31 I fear there would only be two possible outcomes, 1. Massive costs followed by only two examples actually ever making it to water (in 15 years time) or 2. Massive costs followed by the collapse of the project due to massive costs. We have several good cutting edge hull designs which we also now have a structured build process for both in place. Simply increase the numbers of T26 or T31 as required. KISS philosophy all the… Read more Ā»
option 3: the project succeeds and we have more frigates than we can man
I would strongly suggest everyone stops dreaming about extra Frigates right now itās completely pointless. If you havenāt already done so I urge you all to go onto Navy Lookout and read the article about RFA Fort Victoria and the state of the RFA.
Its official CSG25 will have 1 Tide class tanker and HMNoS Maude for support thatās it because out of 13 RFA ships we canāt crew even half of them.
The RFA thing is fixable for peanuts money – rounding error stuff.
That will get fixed Iām convinced of that.
So donāt let the RFA issue impact the warship issue.
As T32 wonāt hit the water until 2032/3 at the earliest that does give 8+ years to fix training pipeline.
Most of training pipeline can be fixed by actually responding to some of the very good candidates who are ignored for months in the present chaotic system that appears to have been borrowed from NHS England.
I donāt disagree with you, itās a small amount of money and considering itās RMT and Mick Lynch Iām amazed it hasnāt been fixed.
The batch 2 Rivers have shown the benefits of smaller ships for some flag showing roles. At the cheaper end of the options, they could decide to sell off the remaining batch 1s and build some slightly more capable batch 3s. Perhaps an hangar for rwuas, upgunned to 57mm and with a self defence missile system, would be affordable while adding a more muscular presence.
If the RN can’t crew it’s current fleet, T32 is pointless. The biggest loss in recent years has been the MCM fleet. Replacing that capacity is important. Stirling Castle has shown limitations but it was cheap. If 3 even larger motherships are acquired, we will still have lost the secondary patrol capability of the minehunter fleet, something the bespoke design bought by Netherlands and Belgium retains. It might be more realistic to order an extra T31 though I would prefer to see any available llmoney spent on giving the existing ships some ASW capability. Currently there are 3 ship classes… Read more Ā»
That is decade RN went down the ānew shinyā route because āit is cheaperā before the technical side or costs were fully bottomed out.
The civilian motherships were a Sunak identified priority, if you recall. So RN went shopping as that made The Boss, at the time, happy.
SB I donāt actually think itās a bad idea to try out, but the execution is Amateur hour. RFA manned but no RFA crews available.
Stirling Castle is RFA and at present laid up due to no crew !
It makes you wonder whether, however understandable the industrial action might be, we should continue to rely on personnel who can just refuse to work. Obviously, the RN has its own recruitment and retention problems, but transferring from RFA to RN operation might be better in the long term.
It would be a far more expensive solution that just paying the RFA properly, as well as impinging on the goverment’s maximum numbers cap.
The biggest capability gap is UK GDAB and the vulnerability to anything like the kind of cruise missile and ballistic missile assaults UK has seen.
Type 32 seems an option to do something. 5 hulls would leave 2/3 on station in the north sea, pushing out a radar and SAM umbrella.
Basic type 31 plus enhanced missile fit would suffice, ideally Aster or Camm MR if that is a 100km option. We really have too few Typhoon and sky sabre to even pretend that we can defend ourselves and 3 AEW aircraft is a bad joke.
I quite like this idea, doesn’t need to have amazing range either if it’s mostly for close to home or sailing with a CSG that has a tanker.
Go all in on Ballistic and Hypersonic defence capability, minimise the crew need, if there is spare space where you would normally put your helicopter hanger then use it for conventional air defence missiles and just have a pad for emergency use.
Would anyone disagree the smart move is Type 31 Batch 2? Lets not waste anymore money when we don’t need to (or have) it and a few tweaks on batch 2 makes total sense.
Please kit them out properly, with not for !!
Yes I would. Look at developments since Russia invaded Ukraine, I think something like an AIS submarine with a small crew, no more than 20 would be a far better option. They could easily be built inside at Rosyth once the T31 start to leave space. The small submarines would be small enough to fit up to 4 in the build hall so totally out of sight. They could be finished one day and put out and in the water being tested the next. I could see tenders with moon pools allowing them never to be seen on the surface… Read more Ā»
Underwater no longer means invisible and AIP doesn’t mean never surfaces. As for less than Ā£500K a pop, you’d be lucky to get a 2-man commercial submersible for that price. Did you mean half a billion?
As I suggested earlier, it’s the smart move. Exactly.
AA
In the unlikely event of this going ahead, expect the first ship to be up and ready by 2040 and the last by 2050. That’s being optimistic.
I think Boris misspoke and it became a thing; I honestly don’t think there was ever any real intent.
T26 and T31 are in progress. T83 is somewhere in the near distance. Why is another class needed?
Build more T31 so the numbers allow decent hull rotation so say another 4. Fit them out to a decent standard too perhaps?
Build another T26, perhaps work on an AAW variant too.
But T32? I don’t think so.
Well you are wrong, The RN was invited to propose future needs and proposed the Type 32 which could either be a Type 31 derivative or a brand new design. Their proposal was accepted.
Was this before Boris said Type 32 or after? Do you have a source?
Petty misogyny alive and well on UKDJ I see.
Yeh Stephanie, I was having a wee giggle at YouTube ‘s blog on the type 83. Do look for a laugh please. š³ļøšBtth.
I don’t see any thing to laugh about really. I can’t remember there being any mention of a Type 32 before Bo Jo said it. All I asked for was a source. I get tired of being a target on sites like this from idiots who never say anything themselves but always there with the unsupported one liner put down. And even if T32 was a thing I reasoned out why another class is unnecessary.
This is why sites like this are laughed at by quality persons.
Stephanie,me ol’ bucket o spume,wind yer frickin neck in..A light hearted look at YouTube does not qualify for a castigation by you or your likes.. I don’t see where your quality ranges from,try laughing it’s good for the soul!šš³ļø btth
Everybody here knows that we need more escorts but also more fighter aircraft, Wedgetails, helicopters, tanks, tracked armoured vehicles, field artillery, UKAD missiles, UAVs, cyber resources and on and on. The bottom line is that the present equipment budget is way short across all 3 services and every decision is a hard choice between a host of competing claims. The strategic priorities in my book right now would be an increase ine number of fast jet combat aircraft, particularly interdiction, and a build up of the numbers and tracked equipment for the war fighting division, which is palpably deficient in… Read more Ā»
… and omitted to add 2 additional T26 FF tacked on to the end of the order, as we are curremyly well short of ASW numbers. These would be post 2035, as I doubt we will have more than 7 by 2035, at the rate building is progressing.
RN do NOT needs type-32 frigates. More needed is,
T32 is very low priority… Just revive it on 2040s, for T31 replacements.
Exactly!!! The last thing the RN needs is another class of toothless frigates that can only host embassy cockers and bash the odd pirate.
Type 21 and Landers were also both very limited compared to Type 31. Yes there were numbers but not a lot of capability
Should be an evolution of the T31 but with build rate stretched to one unit every 18mths. Keeps Babcock going but allows capacity for exports or a surge in orders. If we managed to keep to a unit price of Ā£300m we’d be paying Ā£200m annually for a continuous pipeline of frigates. After 18yrs of continuous deliveries we’d have 12 more frigates, replacing all the River B1s and B2s and original T31s which could fetch good second hand prices (and win support/munitions deals) whilst avoiding mid-life refits and keeping a young and modular force.
As with most things the Devil is in the detail – your not going to get a Type 31 for Ā£300 million,that is unobtainable.
the project started with a unit cost of Ā£250m, although with some kit transferred from retiring T23s. By 2019, Ā£268m unit price was quoted. More recent updates have revealed Babcock making Ā£190m loss on the contract, suggesting a unit price now design is mature and in build to be Ā£306m if that loss is apportioned across the units. So Ā£300m for building to a mature design which would just slowly evolve isn’t beyond imagination.
It didn’t – the project stalled at the Ā£250 million price, none of the bidders could meet it. It was restarted at a higher price point and has still had funding issues after the start of construction. They won’t come in under Ā£400 million when delivered.
What is the issue. As far as I see there are two designs that seem to fit the bill fairly well. The Babcock stretched T31 and the Damen Crossover Combattant. Both designs are multi functional, both seem to be at a reasonable cost, one has no licence requirements the other should not be an issue. Both designs are capable of launching UUVs, ROVs, UAVs and or up to 120 Royal Marines with a good defensive capability and with some tweeking a good anti ship/land attack capability. So again what is the issue, Babckock could probably even give cost and timeline… Read more Ā»
I reckon Babcock probably have half a dozen T31 variants in the design book already, fully drawn up on best fag paper. One just need to be chosen and Babs will say “that’s 100 euros,” please, job done.
AA
But..
Babcock will say…UUV facility. No problem…how big? And the mod will say…ah well, we have study/competition going on now..let you know in 18 months after we cancel this one and start amother”.
THEN Bacock will say…UAV? No problem… how big? And the MOD will say..” well, we have…”
And so on.
AA
The Type 32 programme has been nominally in the Concept Phase since Feb 2021 – over 3.5 years now – and they haven’t even decided if it will be a new design or just a second Batch of T31’s. Clearly no serious work will be done until it becomes clear if its just a paper project, or whether it will be actually funded – presumably Ā£2-3 bn for the proposed “at least 5 ships”. As usual, there’s unlikely to be any news either way before SDR2025 is published.
Personally I think we should just extend T31 to be 8-10 ships allowing for better through life maintenance or provide hulls for export. The fleet needs some mass and if we ended up with 8 T31 actually equipped to strike an enemy Iād be okay with that.
If T32 isnāt a T31 derivative then I would strongly suggest we look at smaller frigate designs in the 3000-4000 ton range as this would add the capability missing from the Rivers, primarily a hanger and some air defence options whilst keeping build and through life costs down.
Personally, I would just order a second batch of T31’s. It will secure work at the shipyard ensuring there isn’t a gap between the 5 current T31’s and whatever comes next. Probably the cheapest option too given the ship is already designed and by then will have experienced workers on that design.
And the T31’s were designed to be flexible so batch 2 can still be used to specialise in drone usage.