The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

[RobWilliams]

I'd say India isn't a prospect either, they're already building their own frigates from their own designs so don't need us for it.

Won't get any AAW versions, only reason France has gone for variants of their own for FREMM was because they only got two full blooded AWDs. That's not to say that FREDA/FREMM-ER are bad at their job, type 26 could be if the main silo was expanded, but still not as good at the work a Type 45 could do both in terms of weapons capacity and sensor quality.

In terms of ratios, 6 AWD is an ok number if the number of type 26s is expanded. Keep the type 26s doing regular patrols and deploy type 45 either with a task group or high threat area like the Gulf.

 

[Volkodav]

I'd say India isn't a prospect either, they're already building their own frigates from their own designs so don't need us for it.

Won't get any AAW versions, only reason France has gone for variants of their own for FREMM was because they only got two full blooded AWDs. That's not to say that FREDA/FREMM-ER are bad at their job, type 26 could be if the main silo was expanded, but still not as good at the work a Type 45 could do both in terms of weapons capacity and sensor quality.

In terms of ratios, 6 AWD is an ok number if the number of type 26s is expanded. Keep the type 26s doing regular patrols and deploy type 45 either with a task group or high threat area like the Gulf.

Well an Australian Type 26 would likely have a 48 cell Mk-41, CEAFAR / CEAMOUNT, CEC, IRST, ESSM and SM-2/6. That's about 90% the way to an AWD as it is and, but for the physical size issues with Sylver restricting the maximum number of cells, the RN could do the same without too much problem.

Then again I may be living in fantasy land as I also thought SPY-3 on a Daring with a 64 cell Mk-41 looked pretty good.

 

[Astute]

Cammell Laird at Birkenhead can deal with anything short of a CVF. I think the No. 5 dock is almost, but not quite, big enough, but could be enlarged, as Rosyth no 1 dock was. Been used for refitting amphibs recently.

Pallion has a big enough dock for frigates, destroyers, etc., but I think might need upgrading of other facilities.

Either would bring employment to an area which needs it.

As a proud scouser I'd love to see major ship building come back to cammell laird , theres plenty of room to expand and develop if needed around the current site , there's so much unused dock space from times gone by I think it would be perfect as a plan c ,

Also was impressed by Babcock and there recent OPV for the Irish navy , it seems a lot of shipbuilding still goes on outside of Scotland but the news press seem not to know this lol

 

[Astute]

I'd say India isn't a prospect either, they're already building their own frigates from their own designs so don't need us for it.

Agreed rob , after bae eurofighter group failing to get an order from India and the cancelling of the 12 AW101 helicopters from Augusta/westland , I very much doubt India wanting any type-26 frigates from us .

 

[RobWilliams]

I meant more along the lines of their a Project-17 frigates are indigenously designed and being used as the basis for the Project-17A next generation FFG for a total eventual fleet of 10 (3+7) for the classes combined so they have a working design with indigenous weapons and Aegis is being touted for the combat system so considering that I don't believe there's a whole lot we offer in the Type 26 they don't already have.

 

[t68]

India, Brazil, Australia and perhaps NZ remain at least prospects.

Well unfortunately Australia is no certainty either for T26, ADM magazine sends me via email a preview of its content recently and it seemed to indicate that they will adopt the existing AWD hull, unfortunately I deleted the a summary of the article as you need to subscribe to get full access I did not read the whole article, just an indication.

That doesn’t mean they will go down that road but at this stage there are no certainties.

 

[Volkodav]

Well unfortunately Australia is no certainty either for T26, ADM magazine sends me via email a preview of its content recently and it seemed to indicate that they will adopt the existing AWD hull, unfortunately I deleted the a summary of the article as you need to subscribe to get full access I did not read the whole article, just an indication.

That doesn’t mean they will go down that road but at this stage there are no certainties.

I genuinely hope not as the basic design is quite old now and much of the equipment on the AWDs was the last of that type manufactured to the point that a fourth AWD would be very difficult to build and would need to substitute a lot of equipment removing any arguments for commonality.

Far better to go for a more modern hull with more modern, more highly automated and reliable equipment and a smaller crew. Build eight of these and if the government of the day decided they need additional AWDs build them on the new hull.

 

[Astute]

It would be nice to have a partner in the type 26 project but either way these ships will be built and they will be the back bone of the RN for years to come , the only thing which needs to be confirmed is where they are going to be built and numbers , fingers crossed on 13 , but I hope if the costs can be kept down and maybe gain a few orders from other nations along the way we could get a few more which would be nice

Worst case in my opinion would be a situation of a build of 10-12 and no additional orders gained .

Also hoping they ditch the Sylver vls and use the MK 41 vls { not sure if this as been decided yet } which would open the doors to the full range of US missiles already in service and being delveloped or upgraded now and in the future , cutting cost and making the type 26 look more appealing to protential buyers who already use US systems .

Also replace Sylver on the type 45 in there mid life refit so we are not messing about in two different vls supply chains , we should use the benefits of being a long time close allie of the US instead of trying to reinvent the hammer wasting money and resources developing bespoke equipment which is already out there , this keeps cost down and might help us get more hulls in the water over time .

 

[40 deg south]

International participation? I've no solid information - Canada and Turkey bailed a while back, although Canada's reasoning was that they wanted something in production now, but they've then went on to delay their decisions by so long, we might be back in with a shot.

India, Brazil, Australia and perhaps NZ remain at least prospects.

How long is the construction programme expected to run for the UK vessels?

NZ's two ANZAC frigates have been booked in for an upgrade by Lockheed Martin Canada from 2016 - 2020. The Defence Minister announcing the work suggested that they would serve into the 2030s.

The current defence plan is to replace he ANZACs with an 'equivalent or better' design when they are retired. But given our three-year electoral cycle, that is at least 5 elections away. In that time, pretty much anything could happen.

A sale to NZ is a possibility, but too far in the future to be much more than a vague hope.

 

[the concerned]

I think the answer on more T26's will be when they have nearly finished the current 13 ship order which would be towards the late half of the 2020's. The question then is do they update the T45's which would be approaching 20yrs old or do they build a AWD variant of the T26.

 

[StevoJH]

I think the answer on more T26's will be when they have nearly finished the current 13 ship order which would be towards the late half of the 2020's. The question then is do they update the T45's which would be approaching 20yrs old or do they build a AWD variant of the T26.

Or they could do both depending on the strategic situation then.

Remember that 2030 is a long time away, and the last T23 isn't due to leave service until midway through that decade.

There could be a cold war again with Russia and China on one side and NATO + Friends (Australia, Japan, South Korea, Singapore etc) on the other by then.

 

[RobWilliams]

ber that 2030 is a long time away, and the last T26 isn't due to leave service until midway through that decade.

Must mean enter, the first Type 26 won't be in service until 2020ish so she won't be paying off till before 2045+.

 

[swerve]

I think he meant Type 23. Since it was decided to upgrade Type 23s rather than retire them when their sensors & weapons became out of date, a few will still be in service in 2030.

 

[John Fedup]

International participation? I've no solid information - Canada and Turkey bailed a while back, although Canada's reasoning was that they wanted something in production now, but they've then went on to delay their decisions by so long, we might be back in with a shot.

Yes, the Cdn govt has once again delayed this program (big surprise LOL). I have not heard much lately on design choices nor is it clear if the 15 surface combatant ships will all be frigates or if three destroyers (or enlarged frigates) will be included in the 15 total number. If the Type 26 is to be considered then the UK needs to start some serious promotion in Canada.

 

[Astute]

Some good news about the type 23 frigate HMS Sutherland refit it seems she's hitting the water again after 6 months in dry dock , the full story is on navy-technology , the updates include the new artisan radar system , a new sonar dome fitted to the bow and modification/upgrade to the 4.5inch main gun . Her refit will be completed in a few months time and after sea trails rejoin the fleet

On another note BAE systems have finished the third and last of the khareef class corvettes for the Oman navy , got to say these are good looking ships and a very good buy considering the capabilities they bring to the table asw/ / aaw , i would of liked to see a few of these in the RN tbh , but I'm sure our politicians would use them as a excuse to cut type 26 numbers so no corvettes for us lol

 

[Systems Adict]

On another note BAE systems have finished the third and last of the khareef class corvettes for the Oman navy , got to say these are good looking ships and a very good buy considering the capabilities they bring to the table asw/ / aaw , i would of liked to see a few of these in the RN tbh , but I'm sure our politicians would use them as a excuse to cut type 26 numbers so no corvettes for us lol

The link references £400M for 3 ships & based on hearsay, plus the odd comment I read on other forums on the net, I think the reality of the Khareef Corvettes is that the costing will probably be closer to 1 for 1 on a T26.

The T26 will be more potent, with more missiles, a bigger gun, oh & the fact that Khareef is only circa 2k tonnes & T26 will be closer to 6k tonnes.

There's also the fact that the RN will be getting x3 OPV's, so would there be a need to go for another class of ships ??

 

[Astute]

I totally agree the type 26 when it's in service will be in a totally different league it will be far more potent , powerful warship than the khareef class with out any doubt . But the price of 1 type 26 will be in the range of 250-350m each maybe rising to 400m , sure over time the price will drop and with additional orders it should drop even more , the price for 3 khareefs was 400m done deal as I said isn't bad for a ship of it's capabilities .

The khareefs have been around for a while now , the 3 new opv for the RN was only announced late last year and only came about as a better alternative to just giving away 100s millions to BAE in contract penalty payments , better to get 3 opv out of it than just giving money to BAE for nothing . The first will not be ready until around 2017 ,

I wouldn't ever swap khareef corvettes for type 26s but these corvettes do have there uses and before the 3 opv were announced , there was a place in the RN for these ships if the government bought a few in my opinion , like anti pirating , anti drug smuggling patrols etc these would of been perfect which also ment we wouldn't have to use a frigate for these deployments .

 

[RobWilliams]

Khareef class corvettes are overkill for the operations you describe, piracy patrols and hunting down drug smugglers does not require local area air defence systems nor does it require surface to surface missiles. Main tool for those jobs is pretty much a Lynx, they're the ones who chase the dhows, take out the engines and send in boarding parties because they have the speed. Our OPVs with a single 30mm up front are perfectly adequate for those roles.

If the option for those vessels came up, it would almost certainly be at the price of a couple or even a few Type 26s.

 

[Astute]

That's what I said rob I wouldn't swap or bring into service anything that threatens the type 26 build numbers ^.
But on the point of khareef corvettes been over kill for anti pirating / drug smuggling , we were sending frigates to do these deployments ???? That's over kill in my opinion but we didn't have anything else to send , in the future we will have these 3 new larger opv with a helicopter flight deck which will do these missions but up to last year we didn't know we were getting any opv , so as I said these could of done them type of deployments in my opinion if and that's a big if at the time the government was looking for a uk designed/built ship solution . But it doesn't matter anymore time as moved on we are getting them stretched rivers now yay !!!!

 

[RobWilliams]

So you believe that because we are already using overkill assets that it makes it OK to still use overkill assets whilst wasting our budget and manpower resources at the same time to crew these new ships?

You can't say with impunity what these OPVs can be doing, firstly because the RN needs to find the budget to run them and this translates into cuts elsewhere. There has been nothing definitive about if those 3 will replace or supplement the River class fleet, if it's to replace then they will resume the responsibilities of the Rivers and never leave UK waters.

Secondly that AFAIK it's not even 100% sure that these OPVs will even have a hangar and associated facilities to run a helicopter, we've only been told the deck can handle aircraft the size of a Merlin but flight deck capabilities does not mean that the ship is capable of maintaining it. If they don't have a helicopter, they may as well replace the Rivers as they won't be much good chasing pirates because they will rely on another ship (like a frigate or destroyer already there) to supply a helicopter. So instead of having one overkill vessel chasing them we have 1 as well as a useless bobbing can.