The Ministry of Defence has said the Royal Navy is carefully managing the transition from its ageing Type 23 Duke-class frigates to the new generation of Type 26 and Type 31 warships.
The clarification follows questions in Parliament about whether the joint Type 26 programme could affect the out-of-service dates for the Royal Navy’s existing fleet.
Responding to a written question from Helen Maguire, Liberal Democrat MP for Epsom and Ewell, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said “the Ministry of Defence welcomes Norway’s defence procurement deal which will see a fleet of Type 26 Anti-Submarine Warfare frigates operate jointly by Britain and Norway in Northern Europe, significantly strengthening NATO’s northern flank.”
He added that “the Royal Navy is carefully managing the transition from Type 23 to Type 26 and Type 31 frigates, with the Duke Class Type 23s currently due to exit service in 2035.” Pollard confirmed that the Navy “continuously reviews out of service dates to achieve maximum availability of its platforms and ensure that it can meet its operational commitments.”
The Type 26 frigate, built by BAE Systems at Govan and Scotstoun on the River Clyde, will replace the Royal Navy’s current anti-submarine warfare fleet. It is designed for operations in contested environments, featuring advanced quieting technologies, the Sea Ceptor missile system, a 5-inch Mk 45 gun, and facilities to host uncrewed systems and a Merlin or Wildcat helicopter.
The first ship, HMS Glasgow, is undergoing fitting out, while HMS Cardiff and HMS Belfast are under construction.
The planned Norwegian order of five represents a growing trend among NATO members toward shared design and production of advanced maritime platforms. For the UK, it reinforces the role of the Type 26 as a common anti-submarine warfare asset across the alliance, strengthening joint operations in the strategically vital North Atlantic.
According to the Ministry of Defence, maintaining a balanced frigate force during the transition remains a top priority.
Stupid questions being asked by stupid people at least a decade late.
We are lucky If we can get 3 Frigates to Sea now. (16 were deemed the minimum requirement when ordered).
So was Helen Maguire erected a decade ago? She maybe a new breed of MP? That’s what we want, back benchers asking government minsters difficult questions on defence matters!
I wish I could work in the upper levels of MoD procurement where nothing ever seems to be a problem and you can take as long as you need to get a job done or sometimes not even bother finishing.
It seems like a very relaxing work environment.
I just can’t understand how the top brass keep screaming at us that we are in a state of war and that we need to gut health spending and jack up taxes yet they take longer to finish a frigate than all of World War I and II took to fight and we are still two years away from the first being handed over.
Boom.
Exactly.
We should call for a meeting.
I suggest we use HMS Daring as the venue, shouldn’t take too many £Billions to sort the Accomodation.
Just have to check we have the tea and biscuits as set forth in the protocols.
No doubt we will have to make sure we have the proper jacket and hat for the occasion.
It’s the dress code that makes the UK armed forces what it is don’t you know.
Not its Anti Submarine Warfare capability.
3000 days and counting. Rumour has it she might emerge in 2026.
Yes!! That was on…Sir Humphrey I think? Crew working up.
I think we need a Committee to discuss this matter, at least hopefully we should have some feedback by the time HMS Glasgow is decommissioned.
“carefully managing”. In other words business as usual. Slow, disorganised and fitted for but….
The time has already come to admit defeat on Richmond sight unseen and put all resources on getting Kent fixed up as soon as possible. There’s no point in spending tens of millions before deciding Richmond can’t be fixed, even though it’s had the PGMU upgrade. Having Kent worked up and operational from next year when Portland goes in for a refit is the most critical short term aspect of keeping the highest number of ASW frigates available. In the highly unlikely event it turned out that Richmond could be refit, delaying it by a year would mean little, because it wouldn’t be operational for three years starting Q1 next year, by which time the Navy will be struggling to onboard Type 26s and Type 31s. Instead plan to storob it blind from the start, maybe recyle the new engines into Portland, and forgo the tuppence-hapenny we could get from Chile if we sold it to them semi-fixed up.
This frigate shit show hasn’t been well managed so far or Somerset wouldn’t have been the NSM lead, nor would Lancaster have been the lead on Peregrine. And someone might have been able to satisfactorily explain Argyll. Fingers crossed they do better in the future.
Wonder if T22 might just outlast them. Will any of the T-23s be salable? If not might be a close run thing.
T22 were built to last and critically had a maintenance schedule to match.
T23 were built to be scrapped after 18 years and most importantly didn’t have the 8 year hull maintenance interventions that would have elongated hull life. They also were not designed for it having inaccessible areas such that coatings couldn’t be re-applied even if you’d wanted to.
The PGMU upgrade was only administered to the best hulls that were worth the spend.
Moving the DGUs to another hull is a non starter.
As you may recall, Northumberland was scheduled to start a PGMU upgrade in Q1 last year (confirmed by DE&S in the April 2024 Desider, published on .gov.uk), so I don’t think PGMU is an infallible guide to the state of the hull. Richmond was the first to get it five years ago, and a lot will have changed since then. If moving the gen sets is not possible, more’s the pity.
PGMU was done by a specific team that is now dispersed doing other things.
The problem is the more resource is hoovered patching up old ship the less there is for upgrades and build.
Same goes for money – it can only be spent once.
people talk as though we are low on ASW frigates at the moment, but we aren’t! Despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth, we have six ASW frigates (out of the target eight) with only Kent in long term refit. So five available. This year we are at a high point. The crash has not happened yet. Even if we get Kent operational by the end of 2026, 2027 will see the first really low point with only three out-of-refit ASW frigates: St Albans, Sutherland and Kent, in the year many claim the Chinese will go for Taiwan. If we are thinking about moving OPVs to the Gulf right now because can’t find an available escort next year, ask yourself: how impotent will the surface fleet become when five ASW ships drops to three? I suppose we’ll at least have the possibility of rushing Glasgow early into service.
The question is how long will we be stuck at only three or four ASW frigates out of refit? If we can’t keep the Type 23s going into the next decade, it will be from 2026 to about 2033 when the sixth Type 26 becomes operational. About seven years to get us back to the point we are at right now with five ASW ships not in refit.
Richmond and Somerset are the oldest ASW T23s; neither they nor Sutherland are likely to make it through another refit. Even if we accept the bland assurances that BAE can cope with the Norwegian order without impacting UK deliveries, we are still going to be very short on ASW frigates in the first half of the 2030s without nursing Kent, Portland and St Albans. With those three, we could maintain ASW frigate numbers at roughly what we have now from 2029 when Cardiff comes operational. It’s a world of difference. Those three T23s are where we must spend the time and money.
“As you may recall, Northumberland was scheduled to start a PGMU upgrade…”
Unlikely Hms Northumberland would of got PGMU, She was the second oldest ASW Type23 to Hms Westminster, with a OSD of 2029!
Hms Kent, is still in refit, not finished until mid 26, most likely spring 27 before operational again.
That’s why I want more effort spent on it, to get it operational by the end of the year as Portland goes into refit.
Total bollocks, the time for careful management has passed, this is a crisis of our own making.
We really need to have some things that are decided/ funded cross party to ensure continuation of the acceptable minimum.
The stated minim7m escort fleet is 19 vessels. I would be surprised if we have 10 available.
Sickening that the effects are that the whole system is to save money for existing Govt’s by piling it onto the next Govt or two down the line so costing us a lot more in the longer run while leaving us seriously weak in the meantime which makes the whole point of having a navy pointless for long periods. National politics is on a completely different priority to the very international events that demand defence spending in the first place.
Agreed, plus we are being outsmarted and out delivered by those countries (South Korea, Singapore, China) who think longer term.
Governments need to think in 50 yr time spans, ours thinks in months possibly 3 yrs and hopes for the best, it’s simply not good enough
Hard when the electoral cycle is 4ish years….politicians are no longer elected to execute specific policies…..so all they care about is not offending as many people as possible.
Hence the current mess made of the economy by briefing out a new tax increase each day.
Then add to that Darlek Starmer saying it will be hard for months before a budget just to put a pall on the economy.
They are so utterly stupid from a practical sense never mind an economic sense.
Front Line Naval ships above 600 tons
Japan
24 attack (defensive) submarines inc, 6 w. lith-ion batt, non nuclear
4 helicopter carriers (2 +stol)
3 LST
36 destroyers – with AAir, AMis, ASh, ASub, ALand capability
12 frigates
20 anti mine
6 patrol
3 surveillance
total 108
RN
4 missile (agressive) subs – nuclear – US controlled warheads
5 attack (defensive) subs – nuclear
2 carriers – stol – unreliable, with unreliable F-35 aircraft
6 destroyers – with limited/poor AA cabability only – unreliable
8 frigates – ageing/obsolete
7 anti-mine
8 patrol
total = 40
Despite spending roughly the same on naval warfare capability, Japan has almost three times as many major ships, most of which are more capable and have much better availibility than RN equivalents. Japan does not have sub-launched ICBMs but UK capabilty is questionable, to say the least.
So we are transitioning to a shared design and construction system? What happened to keeping naval production entirely sovereign? Could the same process be applied to armoured vehicles too. We already outsource aircraft and associated systems. It seems like the Navy is modernising. Just the Army to catch up now.
We could have saved millions if the army bought off the shelf cv90 and k9
Short term strategy, fraught with long term risk.
If you sacrifice expertise, you sacrifice your ability to innovate.
Yup getting rid of puma before a replacement was in service barking mad exactly what they did with harrier and the support carriers how the hell Argentina didn’t take advantage of that beggar’s belief
Simple, their politicians are even more incompetent than ours. They have virtually no navy to speak of and their air force has been reduced to a handful of A4 Skyhawks… That’s not to say they couldn’t become a threat again, but right now, no chance.
The state of their armed force beggar’s belief.
Cheers CR
They’re being built in Britain with a little bit of help from the Norwegians in steel cutting. The design collaboration is just that if we upgrade our ships we will also upgrade theirs, and the Norwegians have a say in which upgrades we do.
So we are just assembling them from a lot of bought in parts. So much for keeping the production in the UK. That is the point! All defence procurement nowadays is collaborative, and each partner wants a share of the action.
We fully produce our Type 26, it’s the Norwegian Type 26 they’ll do bits on. did you really expect Norway to accept an agreement where they have no input or production at all for ships they are about to use?
Not really we still buy stuff in for them!
This is the key sentence to which we RN and MoD seem to be agreeing with and to which I was referring:
“represents a growing trend among NATO members toward shared design and production of advanced maritime platforms.”
Shared production means sharing bits of the ships! Sharing production and design means collaborating with other countries!
Exactly, it’s literally written into the contract in big bold text. This is a surprise to nobody.
Norway wouldn’t have signed the dotted line without such provisions. I presume Nick would have preferred this outcome.
Isn’t it a good thing that our yards have so many orders they are struggling to keep up with demand?
The majority of block fabrication will still be in the UK, the Norwegians are just helping us top up the ones we don’t have capacity for following their order.
This is the key sentence to which we RN and MoD seem to be agreeing with and to which I was referring:
“represents a growing trend among NATO members toward shared design and production of advanced maritime platforms.”
Shared production means sharing bits of the ships! Sharing production and design means collaborating with other countries!
That made me chuckle!
By carefully manage does he mean run 30 year old frigates until they are literally rotten and have to be scrapped whilst replacements are still years away.
Good bye HMS Lancaster, that will bring the RN Frigate count down to 7
Replacements? …..nowhere near commission.
Spin and nonsense. What else is the MoD expected to say. The truth printed in every national newspaper and on every TV news bulletin would be brilliant. Alas, fingers in ears and heads in the sand for most of the public and MPs.
“Oh, yes, well the previous administration took so long ordering the new ships, and us ( Labour ) previous to them cut several more. So we are at rock bottom. But it is a top priority, honest.”
Why is there no national enquiry where previous Defence Secretaries, Chancellors and Prime Ministers are brought in to face questions?
The establishment covering its arse, as usual.
Hi M8, There is one simple reason for no National Enquiries into the actions or inactions of ministers or civil servants and it’s called “dangerous precedent”.
If the present Government authorised an enquiry into ….for instance…the idiotic delay in ordering the T26 Frigates, it would go so far back it would drag in 2 Labour PMs namely Blair and Brown. Everyone knows they should have been in build to follow straight on from the T45, but the Sand Box Wars and Browns interest in the QE’s accounted delaying it and then Cameloone was so fixated on “Give Peace a chance” and enshrining foreign aid into law, he didn’t order them till 2013 (10 years too late).
FYI if you look at the timelines the last T45 was launched in 2010 so B1 T26 (C1 GCS back then) should have been ordered @2003 for 1st steel cutting (laid down) in @2007/8 to be launched in 2012/13.
Same goes for the biggest financial disaster of the lot, not ordering any SSNs to follow on from the Vanguards (that cost Billions to rectify).
Anyone in power knows damned well that if they go muck raking it will eventually be their turn because when they lose power any muck ups on their watch would result in their heads on the block next. Whats more the advice from their respective CS and Defence Chiefs will be not to rock the boat either because of their muck ups (a certain CGS seems to be mainly responsible the present state of the Army).
Odd thing is in the US no one seems to have pointed this out to Mr Trump, but then again the way he is going there may be no one left to stand against his MAGA successor or he takes a leaf out of Putins book and he just abolishes elections that don’t result in a 99% vote for them.
Hi mate.
Quite right too.
So the UK has to settle for ongoing institutional incompetence, lack of strategic thinking, short termism, and politicians covering each other’s behind.
No wonder Reform are leading in every poll for months and other voters are so sick with the lot of them they won’t bother voting.
The penny has finally dropped with the public at what Labour or Tory means.
Same old, same old. Rinse and repeat.
Good Morning M8. Alvaston and Allenton in Derby have 6 reform councillors and have had for 6 years which meant that until last year we were the only English wards with 100% reform. They do a great job locally, unfortunately it seems that the rapid growth hasn’t gone too well elsewhere as most of the new councillors haven’t a clue about how to run anything. At county council level a lot of promises were made and a lot have been backtracked when reality set in, from a reform point of view it’s worrying. The sheer number of resignations and reelections isn’t a good sign.
They have 3 years to prove they can deliver at county level and more importantly sort out who has the ability to step up to the next level as MPs and have the competency to run the country.
What I find interesting is non of the better ex Tory MPs have jumped ship, so we would have a Government with not one single person with any experience of Governing. Last time this happened was in 1923 when Labour got in for the 1st time as a minority Government, they had the support of the Liberals and some of their experienced Politicians ended up in the cabinet in senior posts.
Morning my friend.
Not yet, I think more will.
Compared to the experience in the current Cabinet!
Good Morning M8. Alvaston and Allenton in Derby have 6 reform councillors and have had all 6 for years which meant that until last year we were the only 2 English wards with 100% reform. They do a great job locally as they are on the doorstep, sorting things out local councillors. This was a 100% Labour stronghold for decades but they just took us for granted, parachuting in whomever they wanted and did absolutely zilch.
My concern is it seems that the rapid growth hasn’t gone too well elsewhere as most of the new councillors haven’t a clue about how to run anything. At county council level a lot of promises were made and a lot have been backtracked on when reality set in, from a reform point of view it’s worrying (I have known the longest serving Reform councillor for over 40 years). The sheer number of resignations and reelections isn’t a good sign, but what can we expect from a zero to hero growth rate with virtually no time to vet candidates.
They have 3 years to prove they can deliver at county / City / Regional level, build experience and more importantly sort out who has the ability to step up to National level as MPs and maybe the competency’s to run the country.
What I find interesting is non of the better ex Tory Cabinet Ministers have jumped ship, so we would have a Government with not one single person with any experience of Governing. Last time this happened was in 1923 when Labour got in for the 1st time as a minority Government, they had the support of the Liberals and some of their experienced Politicians ended up in the cabinet in senior posts.
It’s a long way to go 🤷🏼♂️
Must have pushed the button earlier on OOPS.
This is a complete pile of steaming shite 💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩
Stupid decision 1 The simple fact of the matter is the 16 steaming piles were build cheap for 18 years of service.. that was inescapable mistake number 1, yes you could keep them in harbour and work them less, patch them up more and maybe get 25 years of services. That was a stupid pile of shite idea because an 18 year life on a fleet that needed 20 frigates mean that the new design would need to be commissioned as soon as they stopped building the type 23..
Stupid decision 2 The mod did not fund the replacement frigate concept programme until 4 years before that last frigate was due to be commissioned.. which anyone could tell you was stupid because the first type type 23 was due for decommissioning in only a decade…
Stupid decision 3.. With the time limits as they were and financial constraints the RN stuck its thumb up its arse and spend 7 years deciding what a frigate actually was instead of designing a will do the job replacement they could build 20 of.
Stupid decision 4 the treasury would not provide adequate funding for the 20 frigates the RN needed and the RN then spent another 5 years trying to figure out away around that.
Stupid decision 5 the navy and treasury had finally agreed what a frigate was and Cameron came in and told them to scrap that idea and make it cheaper.. five years later they essentially ordered the same concept they had 5 years before..So instead of the first new frigate coming on line without a break from St Albans.. as it should have if the type 23s were to be decommissioned after 18 years.. the first ship was essentially Laid down 23 years to late.. ( the first type 26 should have been laid down next to the last few type 23s in the late 1990s.. because of the stupid 18 year cheap design)..
So the lessons is don’t build cheap ships.. build them like the US does to last 25-30 years…don’t waste decades on concepts and arguments about budgets just build an adequate ship.
Anyway as I have said before there is no management of this the T23s are clearly well beyond knackered and not a single one of them has lasted more than 6-7 years after their mid 2010-2020s lifex.. so simply put the last one is not lasting to 2035 it will be decommissioned on or around 2030-31 and the navy will be down to about 4-5 operational frigates..and only 2 of those ASW frigates..a shameful 30 years of failure and penny pinching meaning we are looking down the barrel of WW3 without a fleet worth shite…
You’re slipping 😉 You missed the biggest financial / industrial / RN capability one of all ! Brown (Bob Ainsworth) in 2008 cancelling T45 nos 7 & 8 “in order to accelerate the replacement of the T23” but not actually doing anything about it. Thus leaving the Clyde with no Warships to build or outfit, BAe screaming Blue Bloody Murder about the workforce / investment getting decimated with just 5 OPV as infill work.
All so Brown could continue to fund Blairs Sandbox and Brown continued to get his carriers built in the next constituency to his own.
Oh and mistake no1 regarding building the T23 for only 18 years lifetime was probably an understandable decision at the time. They needed to replace the Leanders and they couldn’t afford sufficient T22s so after a long convoluted design process which started with a very minimal design, they ended up with the T23. The basic problem was that the Treasury associated cost with size and it all resulted in a very tight design, which did the job but with very little margin for upgrades. They also remembered the cost of upgrading / modifying those very same Leanders to a barely modern state had been exorbitant., which was one of the reasons they couldn’t afford more T22’s.
So they decided that as they were primarily an ASW design suitable for the Atlantic and would thus have a very hard life they would build them for an 18 year life and then replace rather than try to refit / modernise.
Which was IMHO a perfectly logical decision at that time, unfortunately the Cold War ended, the Political Class started to sing John Lennon songs and
completely forgot that all the equipment they had would actually need replacing.
So we have now ended up having try to refit / modernise them and extend their service lives as well all at vast cost ! Worst of both worlds !
The bizarre thing about the 18 year life was that to keep the 20 frigates they would need to have a constant drumbeat of one every 10 months without any breaks at all.. it was insane really.. it was essentially sacrificing the future..
Yes the less said about the T45 the better… because the RN new very well it needed 10-12..
Have you ever read the RAND report on T45 acquisition, it makes for an interesting use of time.
I’ve not seen that one I will give it a read.
It pretty well underlines just how well BAe did to get all its ducks in a row, merge with VT, concentrate surface warfare on the Clyde, assembly of Block builds and deliver 6 complex ships in 5 years. They were all ready to invest in a Frigate Factory at Scotstoun, planning was done for a continuation of T45 build followed by T26.
Then Bang the rug was pulled from under them !
I can’t agree with your takeaway. Nothing wrong with building cheap frigates as long as you keep building. They never meant to keep twenty frigates going, certainly not twenty T23s, and as far as producing a frigate every year or so, we’d be in an excellent position if they had done just that: wouldn’t sixteen operational, relatively new Type 23s sound good right now? A separate frigate factory that keeps on producing cheap frigates while the complex stuff happens in parallel is close enough to where we’ve ended up anyway. At least we have that opportunity again.
I believe the real takeaway is — never stop building. If we can’t decide on what the Type 83 looks like, we’d be better off building AAW T31s, more T26s, or even modified Type 45s than nothing at all.
Hi Jon you can build cheap frigates that is fine.. the T31 are cheap.. but don’t build a frigate with a life of only 18 years with not the foggiest plan of how you will replace it in a reasonable time frame.. the only time you ditch sustainability as in being able to produce a stable number vs life expectancy is during war… and at the time the Type 23s were build the plan was 20 frigates always was 10 ASW 10GP.. not 20 type 23 but 20 frigates 16 T23 and 4 T22 then the replacement program of 20… building them to 18 years life meant it was impossible to achieve that.. even in 97 the goal was 20 frigates.. they should always have been build to a 25 years life, it would have not cost much more, steal was cheaper than systems… and the RN know it was foolish because they are now building the T31.. less systems and far more life. They essentially knowingly mortgaged the future.
“…the first type 26 should have been laid down next to the last few type 23s in the late 1990s…”
For that to have happened, the T26 GCS development would of had to of started in the late 1980’s. CAD digital tech at the time, would have not been mature enough to produce the present advance ASW T26 design.
As well as the T42’s needed replacing in the 2000’s, first T45 laid down in 2003.
Yep indeed and that was why the 18 year life was a steaming heap of bollox, because it was impossible to sustain the escorts numbers if the tT23s were paid off after 18 years…while planning for a fleet of 30-32 escorts ( 20 frigates) they put in-place the structures that meant it was physically impossible to maintain a fleet of 20 frigates.
The state of the RN and in particular the escort force is a national scandal. Politicians and admirals should not just hold their heads in shame, but be made accountable and stripped of their undeserved honors and medals. The moment I knew we were were heading for a road crash was in late 2007 when Des Browne, then Secretary of State for Defence, told Parliament that the planned seventh and eighth Type 45 destroyers would not be ordered. He stated that the money would instead be used to buy the first batch of the Future Surface Combatant (FSC), these would start to replace the current Type 22 and Type 23 frigates from the mid-2010’s. It kind of made sense at the time, but a year later (2008), Richard Scott revealed in an article that due to its huge budgetary “black hole”, the MOD had quietly suspended the FSC Programme and shutdown the Project Office! After the disastrous 2010 SDSR, BAE Systems threatened to close down its Portsmouth and Clyde shipyards due to the lack of once promised MOD orders, and so in 2013 it received a massively over priced order (basically including a 100% subsidy) for the River Class Batch 2’s. They have turned out to be useful ships – but ultimately we could probably have had a couple of FSCs for the same price. Typical MOD – penny wise and pound foolish, whist jeopardising the security of the UK.
Bang on.
Yep it was essentially about 20 years of insanity from both parties.
So as of 2026 we are looking at the following
Lancaster decommissioned
Kent still in its 6 year post lifex refit ( a refit no other type 23 has ever come out of.. so now to be called the refit of death)
Richmond will be going into the post 6 year refit of death.
That’s 5 active frigates for 2026
2027 will see Portland go in for the refit of death
And if Kent does not come out in one peace that’s 4 type 23s
Venture will be commissioned but it will then have to hit the 12-18 first in class sea trials before it’s operational.
So only 4 operational frigates
2028 will see HMS Somerset into the refit of death
If Richmond does not come out of refit that’s 3 type 23s
Will see active get commissioned and Start RN see trials
Will see Glasgow commissioned and start first in class trials ( 12-18 months ) Cardiff will go to Norway..
But if neither Kent or Richmond come out of refit the RN will be down to 3 operational frigates
2029 will see iron Duke and St Albans into the refit of death
Formidable commissioned and starts RN sea trails
Belfast commissioned and starts RN sea trials
If Portland, Kent and Richmond don’t come out of refit then the RN will have only 1 type 23 left and Sunderland will be its only operational Towed array frigate. Venture and active opperational for 3 frigates available
2030 will see Sunderland into the refit of death.. this may be the end of the type 23s in service.
Buldog commissioned
If none of the T23s get through the refits the RN will have 3 operational T31s and 2 operational T26s ( but if all come out it would have 4 extra T23s )
2031 Campbeltown commissioned, Sheffield commissioned
If none of the T23s get through refit the rn will have 4 operational T31s and 2 operational T26s ( but if all refits come out it would have 5 extra T23s)
2032 no new frigates delivered
If none of the Type23s get through refit RN will 5 operational T31 and 3 operational T26 ( if all refits work would have 6 T23s)..
You can see how important the 6 year refits are.. a refit no T23 has yet got beyond.. I’m taking bets. But also how the Norway deal will slow up the regeneration of the RN.. if the refits work it’s not a problem if they don’t it’s a huge problem.
If this means T23 sticks around a little longer, I don’t mind that so much.
She’s a stunner.
‘managing’ in a juggling balls while spinning plates sort of way…
No wonder as a new broom the 1SL has pushed for an accelerated drone ship programme.
Yes but what does he use for Mother Ships before T26 / 31 enters service ? T23 can’t do it due to no growth Margin left !
Motherships aren’t needed for ASW drones, which would be deployed over a large area. After detection a Poseidon could be dispatched or any NATO ASW frigate in the area could be notified.
Motherships are only required for things like drone arsenal ships.
The question is will it be Belfast or Birmingham (or both?) that will be given to Norway in order to match their agreed in service dates (2029)? Yet again leaving The RN even shorter of hulls.
Are any bits of the retired or planned for T23s going into the T31s? Tongue in cheek, but are those CAMMs on the T45s brand new or recycled from T23s? If 6×24=144, that’s just under 5×32=160 used T23 CAMM siloes! And all those Artisan’s, 30mm, decoys, are they getting refurbished or upgraded for reuse or sale?
Any news on additional T31s or the mythical T32s? Why spend money on drone ships when 3-4 more crewed T31s might be a lot more useful for presence in more places and spreading the load? Prices are low, readily upgradable, multi-purpose, good sales potential, might even help mitigate fleet numbers if any T26 delays with the Norwegian order? Yes, need to sort out money, personnel and have a genuine operational need first up.
Yes all the CAMM for T45 AAW upgrade will be all new.
T26 B1’s(3) were also ordered with new sets of CAMM and Artisan, the MoD did not expect any T23 in ASW role to have been decommissioned before
2028.
I would of expected most remaining equipment from T23’s GPs to be carried over to T31 as GFE. That could of included hull sonar?
Any more T31 ordered now, will not be in service until early 2030’s.
The RN really needs to make a OTS purchase of LCS to address the frigate gap, especially in the general purpose role. A fleet of 4/5 LCSs’ would be useful to RN for escort role and increased presence. Well armed, still young vessels could be in service before T31!