On current plans, the Type 45 destroyers will leave service between 2035 and 2038.
Kevan Jones, MP for North Durham, asked via a written question:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the retirement date is of each Type 45 destroyer.”
Jeremy Quin, Minister of State for the Ministry of Defence, responded:
“On current plans, the Type 45 destroyers will leave service between 2035 and 2038.”
The first ship in the Daring class, HMS Daring, was launched in February 2006 and commissioned in July 2009.
What might replace the Type 45 Destroyer?
The Type 4X, the Type 45 Destroyer replacement, is just an early concept at this stage but a variant of the Type 26 Frigate is officially being considered for the job.
The UK Defence Journal earlier chatted to Paul Sweeney, former MP for Glasgow North East and former shipbuilder, about the vessel. I have been told that consideration is already being given to the development of an Anti-Air Warfare variant of the Type 26, a variant that will function as a future replacement for the Type 45 Destroyer fleet – the programme is currently referred to as as T4X.
You can read more about it here.
Not sure how that works, we aren’t going to get 6 replacements built in 3-4 years are we?
If they can’t plan and replace 6 ships with 15 years headstart then they should just give up
It takes a very long time to design develop and build highly complex warships of this kind.
Hard to believe HMS Daring going to be use has a training ship to replace HMS Bristol when the navy are short of ships.
Because it isn’t true?
There is a big difference between a war worthy harbour training ship and the kind of accommodation ship that Bristol and Kent (In my day) before her was. These are never in any condition to go to war and are static.
I’ve seen nothing official that a T45 is going to be taken off the front line.
And now with the cash to fund the PiP (power improvements program) and other upgrades as well as a commitment to grow the navy thus would seem highly unlikely.
Given the hulls are big modern and upgradable and OSD’s are likely to be extended I won’t waste to much grey matter on this.
Kent!
You are showing your age shippers!
I think Daring is presently in dock 14 under or just about to be under refit, they were just waiting for the gantry crane to be ready before starting the refit. I think that’s correct but finding out exactly when Daring refit would start is not easy to find.
False! HMS Daring is now in the last stage of a refit before she goes to Cammell Laird
for PiP in the new year.
What’s false about it she was in dock 14, moved their June time I believe, and I did say I did not know what state her refit was in……
My reply was to Andrew about Daring just beening a training ship, Jonathan.
You are right she has been this newly opened dock since June.
Daring had been in another dock covered with scaffolding.
The order of replies on this site seems a bit unfair!
Got you Meirion, it is hard to keep track of conversations.
The Minister also said in the same statement, that the out of service dates would more than likely be extended. Why the above article didn’t include that line i don’t know.
I suspect that the out of service date will coincide with the end of the type 26 ASW run and swap over to type 26 ( type 46 ?) AAW hulls. I’m betting we will probably get a AAW version of the type 26, it will make sense to keep that hull production running for as long as it’s viable after all it will only be around 15 years since the first keel as laid down, which will still make it a modern hull type, which has lots of space to act as a mother ship. After all the first Burke keel was laid down 32 years ago and they are still churning them out.
If we want to increase the number of escorts we really do need to get better at managing our sovereign war ship production with secure production to keep capital costs within reasonable margins.
if we had:
1) 15 26 type hulls ( ASW/AAW)
2) 15ish 31/32 hulls ( GP frigate/MCMV/survey)
selling them all off at 20ish years old, when they still have good value and are not costing a fortune in refit and mantainace.
This will all all the supply chains to also remain open and make the whole logistics around spare parts easier. It will knock off a lot of different hull types also simplifying training and parts pipelines ( savings come from removing complete types of hulls ).
That way the budgets can really be balanced with constant known costs and allow the navy/MOD to sqeeze out as many active hulls as they can for the service.
hull shape and technology is very stable and mature, so use you development budgets on the stuff that matters, radar, soft kill, directed energy, autonomous vessels to carry in mission bays…
Whilst building new definitely makes sense as opposed to highly expensive refits and LIFEX such as those the T23 are going through there is also a danger that design skills wither if there isn’t a constant design workload.
There is a very different design skillset to a frigate / destroyer to an RFA and the ability to understand the critical drivers of a design package is central to success. So you can’t have the design office finish off the T26 then say right boys (and girls) design the Albion replacement and when they have done that back onto the T4X. Because by the time that has happened all the senior management that was T26 familiar has retired and the critical knowledge with them.
This has been extensively debated with N-a-B on Save The Royal Navy.
But the reality is you can have your design teams working and practicing, you don’t need to build every design they develop. The dead costs of keeping design offices open but not doing anything other than practice is liable to be insignificant compared to the savings of keeping an more limited number of common hull types, keeping a more limited number of training and logistic pipelines and keeping worn out hulls operating safety beyond the 20 year mark. There are lots of examples of just having capability practicing until you need it, is how you manage you military and emergency service capability much of the time….practice practice practice…use your skills in Ernest…practice practice e practice….
The T26 frigate design, may Not be suitable for a AAW destoryer due to a shallower stern of the hull. A deeper stern would allow more ballast to counter-act the top weight of the front missile silo.
30 years doesn’t sound like all that much as long as it’s kept in decent condition.
How often do such ships get major refits and is it just a case of it becoming overly expensive to maintain?
Even if they’re used constantly surely they won’t be hitting hull fatigue or anything like that will they?
30 year is a long time on the sea for any working vessel.
The sea is utterly brutal on boats and ships, especially larger longer hulls. Making way in even moderate sea states put incredible levels of dynamic forces on hulls.
Check out the MOL comfort, she was a good example of a young ship with no know structural issues with the clause, she was a five year old hull, heavy seas broke her back. There is no know fault with the design she just could not manage the dynamic stress of the sea state, over time every ship and boat keel is hammered if it fails the ship or boat is lost.
ships are alway being stressed with hulls hogging or sagging. But that’s only forces on a single plane (longitudinal). The sea ( wave energy and currents) exerts massive forces over every plane, which change by the moment
with further forces from wind, machinery and the ships own motion.
a boats hull is sort of like a flannel being wrung out and squeezed in every direction all the time.
There are also lots of holes in ship hulls with high pressure water pipes and seals all waiting to fail and flood the ship.Sea water is attacking these at all times.
machinery is always working in the hardest environment, Vibration on vessels is another factor on machinery or structure, this is from harmonic or shock excitation. Basically it’s just being hammered, if machinery fails you loss power then you loss your vessel, be that a small trawler or major ship.
Generally you will have around 50 to 100 ships flounder in any one year, with about 25ish of those being larger vessels, if you read MAIB reports on lost vessels ( lots of trawlers lost from flooding and machinery failure) you can see what tends to cause failures on U.K. flagged vessels.
To put it bluntly a 30 year old ship is likely to be utterly nackered (and I would not want to be on it in any sea state worth mentioning).I’m pretty sure they have slapped extra steel onto a number of older RN escorts due to concerns over the state of their keels ( but I could be wrong), again not a boat I would like to be on in high sea states.
Fortunately, Warships are built to take damage and stay afloat so the construction is far more robust than say a commercial Lloyds or ABS register vessel and lasts far longer.
New steel has gone into T23 and T45s to replace worn out and damaged steel and not just when the ships are in UK Refits…I know, I’ve done steel replacement work when they have been out this way on both classes of vessels along with RFAs and others.
Unlike the T21 and T42 the newer designed T22 and follow on T23 and T45 hulls have through good design not needed strengthening.(No railway track girders welded to the hull !)
Equipment on warships is also built to take shock and G acceleration and to keep working. Shock mounts of various sorts adorn just about everything , Auto Changover Power supply breakers, Motors and generators, main engines, electronic cabinets.
Cathodic protection also helps in reducing hull wear and tear. Sacrificial anodes will do something but an actual active cathodics system is hard to beat.
might sound daft but would it not be an idea to order extra type 26 and get them to do air defence work rather building a new ship…i am ex army and only ever got onboard invincible when i was out in Bosnia before people have a shooting match at me…
Damn phone should have been illustrious
Love mobile devices.
It does not help being an old fart with dodgy arthritic fingers on small touchscreen keyboards lol
I’m not that old and only mildly arthritic ???
I’m no naval architect but my understanding is that the T26 mounts it’s engine above the waterline for quietness when doing ASW and that this may limit the ability to ship as big a radar as possible as high as possible for AAW. Also the latest AAW ships are up around 175 meters which is quite a big stretch.