Luke Pollard, the Shadow Minister of Defence, asked whether the Secretary of State for Defence plans to allocate additional funding for the construction of Type 32 frigates.
In response, James Cartlidge, the Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, stated that the Type 32 frigate program is still in the concept phase and has not yet reached the maturity level for full budget allocation.
Luke Pollard, the Shadow Minister of Defence, asked whether the Secretary of State for Defence plans to allocate additional funding to Babcock for the construction of Type 32 frigates.
Luke Pollard, a Shadow Minister (Defence), asked:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, whether he expects to allocate additional funding to Babcock for the construction of the Type 32 frigates beyond that which was previously agreed.”
James Cartlidge, Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence, responded:
“The Type 32 frigate programme remains in the concept phase and has not yet reached the level of maturity for full budget allocation with only concept funding being allocated to the programme to date. As announced by my predecessor in the House on 30 January 2023, it remains the intent of the Ministry of Defence that ‘the programme and procurement strategy will be decided following the concept phase.”
It is possible that the Type 32 frigate programme may end up being a second batch of Type 31 frigates currently being built by Babcock instead of a distinct vessel, but this has not been confirmed.
Just order a second batch of Type 31’s but at a minimum they should all be armed with NSM surface to surface missile.
The T31s will be, we’ve ordered 11 sets for the 6 T45s, then GP T23s which will go in to T31. Might be a bit of moving around but that’s the general idea.
As for T32, until funding is in place there are no guarantees. For me it just makes sense for T31 batch 2. They have plenty of space for drone operation.
And a larger main gun so we don’t have to rely only on our most expensive AAW & ASW T45 & 26s for that role.
It’s sad that both the USN & RN failed to develop a 155mm standard as a naval main gun. I’d like to see something heavier on our more dispensable escorts. Shame we didn’t standardise on the 5″. Taking 3″ as a minimum,whatever calibre, it makes sense to choose a gun plenty of allies have stocks of ammo for rather than our own super pricey bespoke or something best suited for constabulary/AAA/CIWS(Which the 57mm does very well), but less so for anti ship & NGS.
That’s the view from my armchair anyway!
I would like to see a radical design. Failing that upgraded T31s meaning with 24 Mk41 tubes and lightweight towed array and T26 powerplant. Or simply 3 extra T26s mk2’s.
Trouble with radical designs – cost overruns, development problems, lots of high cost one offs instead of making use of off the shelf components – high risk, not always better but certainly a lot more expensive!
ACME Frigate placeholder. Beep beep.
What?
The AlexS AI seems to have a wee bit of a problem. ☸ Bzz, Bzz.
Poor kids, don’t you know the famous company ACME Corp.?
Meep meep, glug, glug, glug 😂…. Cmon Andy, Y li coyotes ‘nemesis. 😉😕🙄👍
Yerp, way ahead of you, tee hee. 🙃
T32 is just the next frigate nothing specific. It is just holding a place.
Some eager PM might just start talking about Challenger 4 but it too would mean nothing more than a desire.
Don’t think the government are any rush for Type 32 if it ever gets the green light .Hopefully HMG will start to take Defence more Serious .🙄
T31 B2 ffbnw, with one exception, good sonar; then just get them in the water.
Typical of this government,the armed forces have been cut to the bone as have all major services,the world is a 100 times more dangerous than it was 14 months ago and sll this government can do is sit on the fence and wait for things to happen,and when we are really on the brink of a war what will our boys and girls have to fight with,hardly anything, the whole of the srmed forces need a serious and vast injection of funds, orders for ammunition, aircraft,the army needs to have more recruits by at least 30000 and more recruited year… Read more »
I think there is no need to hurry T32. RN need to allocate man power before build money. Building ship needs less time than training a skilled engineers. I think T32 shall be start delivering around 2040, when T31 hull-1 AND T26 hull-1 both become nearly 15 years old after delivery to RN, and long maintenance be needed. At this timing, RN needs at least 2-3 more escorts to keep the “number of escorts in ready” (not just on paper). “Start delivering around 2040” means, start building on 2035. If it is new design, design phase shall start around 2031-32.… Read more »
For the £2bn cost 3 more T26s would be more useful.
But would they have the space to operate the drones that the RN wishes to use these ships for?
They have mission bays… hopefully they will get filled with stuff.
Batch II Type 31 is unquestionably the way the RN should go with this. The T31 is a large platform and should be easily capable of being the baseline for any number of variants. This approach would be far cheaper than doing all of the R&D necessary to stand up an all new class of warship, and there’s neither the budget nor the need for that. This is absolutely the fastest and most efficient way to expand the critically low numbers in the RN’s surface fleet.