The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

[76mmGuns]

Morning all.

Since we're discussing UK frigates, I'd like to ask about where the UK makes it's money with the Type 26's being built in Australia and Canada.

It's one thing, if the UK builds all the ships for Aust/Can, but that's not what's happening. So how does this benefit the UK, economically, militarily, or finanacially? I can see some cooperation in design, and Aust/Can gives royalties to the UK (how much would it be?) but that's it.

Any ideas?

 

[StingrayOZ]

Well the UK government isn't really making any money directly.

I believe the design is licenced from the UK based company, BAE. There would also be some sort of payment for modifications,development, localisation for the design. Then some technology sharing and program management costs. Then the builds differ due to the actual build arrangements.

In Australia's case, BAE Systems Australia (the Australian Arm of BAE) ended up buying (or leasing?) ASC Ship building from ASC. So really BAE is now the prime, utilising their now owned ASC entity to build the ships. So for BAE its like building the ship with its (now) Australian workforce. So they pay employees, manage the project, and if they do it well, they get the profits from the build. At the end of the build ASC gets handed back to the Australian government ready for the next contractor.
Hunter Class Frigate Program | BAE Systems | Australia

BAE systems Australia has a fairly lengthy history and wasn't created just recently. They have been in Australia for over 50 years and been buying various Australian based defence companies. They employ thousands of people locally in Australia, across many projects.

However, for the UK, profits and UK based salaries will be taxed. The ships will likely use extensively UK base supply chains, so things like engines (MT30), motors, HVAC, subsystems, and all the little/big dodads you needs are likely to be UK based suppliers. They may select UK sensors and weapons. This does feed directly into the UK economy, and then via tax into the UK government. Some will be sourced from local suppliers where suitable and available, but these might be licence from other UK entities in similar parent arrangements.

Also note on the above diagram, the build is not for 9 ships, but 12 ships before ASC gets handed back...

That is for Australia.

The Canadian build seems more distant, and looks like it will be managed and built by Irving Shipyards. Which is more similar to how the Australian AWD builds were conducted. This proved problematic as who had to fix problems, and wear the costs.

But the choosing of the build does involve significant economic and strategic benefits. With the UK facing brexit, having secure tangible ties to countries like Australia and Canada are extremely important, to the UK and to be seen by other nations.

There are others here more intimate with the process that know more specifics.

 

[the concerned]

So are both Canada and Australia looking to build air defence variants of this ship or just multi rolled. If they are looking at air defence variants why are the royal navy not looking to do the same. I know I have mentioned this before but the timeline would be good to replace the t45.

 

[ASSAIL]

So are both Canada and Australia looking to build air defence variants of this ship or just multi rolled. If they are looking at air defence variants why are the royal navy not looking to do the same. I know I have mentioned this before but the timeline would be good to replace the t45.

T26 is a specialised ASW platform, both the RN and RAN have other specialised AAW platforms however, dependent upon tasking the ships may be loaded with a greater number of AAW weapons and perform the AD function for small TGs.
In particular, the Hunter class will be fitted with CEC which makes them a very good AD support for the DDGs in larger TGs.

The RCN is building 15 units and it’s their intention that three of these will provide AD replacing the decommissioned Tribals.

 

[John Fedup]

It will be interesting to see if only 3 AAW variants are built for the RCN. There were 4 tribals but one became unfit to a much greater degree earlier and was retired leaving the RCN with only 3 AAW destroyers. Needless to say the pollies decided the RCN didn't need 4 as a result of being able to function with 3 tribals for the few years they had left. Having 2 AAW variants for both the Pacific and Atlantic sides of Canada seems reasonable IMHO.

 

[the concerned]

I hope for once we go down the sensible route rather than wasting years on a competition. Surely even with this design there is growth potential. If you look at the Australian build plan by the time they look to potentially acquire and variants the Hobart would be getting to 20yrs old and t45 nearly 30yrs. I know I am living in dreamland but a final build of 20ships for the Royal navy is desirable 12asw/8awd

 

[Systems Adict]

I hope for once we go down the sensible route rather than wasting years on a competition. Surely even with this design there is growth potential. If you look at the Australian build plan by the time they look to potentially acquire and variants the Hobart would be getting to 20yrs old and t45 nearly 30yrs. I know I am living in dreamland but a final build of 20ships for the Royal navy is desirable 12asw/8awd

I hate to state the obvious, but....

T45 is an AWD & cost roughly £800 to £1 billon/ship.

T45 is supposed to be in-service till the early 2040's.

IF the replacement was designed right now, to give the RN identical capability, it'd more likely be closer to £2 billion/ship !

At an inflation rate of 5% / year, the budget funding needed to build the same ship in the 2040's is something mad like £26 Billion.
In the 10 years since the 1st T45 left the shipyard the tech has moved on such that some of the systems developed for T45 are now obsolete & UK PLC will need to contemplate replacing various systems across the class every other year till the ships go out of service.

As economics / global geo-political situations change in that intervening 20 years, the ships that the RN has right now will effectively be obsolete, as too many nations are trying to get more done with less, turning vessels into Swiss-army knives, rather than having the right tool to do the right job at the right time.

Design / tech / population demands on public spending & a raft of other influencing factors will likely see navies move from large vessels, to smaller, single role capabilities, so that each navy has more ships, highly automated, so that they can be run with less crew & cheaper, so that they can afford more of them...


Or should I stop taking this prescribed medication, as I'm tripping....?

SA

 

[John Fedup]

The other option might be a few large ships controlling smaller unmanned ships solving both the crewing and cost issues. This assumes the technology for such a plan will exist down the road.

 

[hauritz]

I hate to state the obvious, but....

T45 is an AWD & cost roughly £800 to £1 billon/ship.

T45 is supposed to be in-service till the early 2040's.

IF the replacement was designed right now, to give the RN identical capability, it'd more likely be closer to £2 billion/ship !

At an inflation rate of 5% / year, the budget funding needed to build the same ship in the 2040's is something mad like £26 Billion.
In the 10 years since the 1st T45 left the shipyard the tech has moved on such that some of the systems developed for T45 are now obsolete & UK PLC will need to contemplate replacing various systems across the class every other year till the ships go out of service.

As economics / global geo-political situations change in that intervening 20 years, the ships that the RN has right now will effectively be obsolete, as too many nations are trying to get more done with less, turning vessels into Swiss-army knives, rather than having the right tool to do the right job at the right time.

Design / tech / population demands on public spending & a raft of other influencing factors will likely see navies move from large vessels, to smaller, single role capabilities, so that each navy has more ships, highly automated, so that they can be run with less crew & cheaper, so that they can afford more of them...


Or should I stop taking this prescribed medication, as I'm tripping....?

SA

Agreed ... Australia will be paying $26 billion for 9 T26 frigates. The cost of 10 Anzac class frigates came in at $3.93 billion (1988 dollars). If you adjust that for inflation it works out that the Anzacs would cost $8.7 billion in today's dollars. Of course, the T26 is a much more capable ship than the Anzacs. The Anzacs were only intended to be low end patrol frigates. Still this does make you wonder whether or not any future generations of frigates or destroyers will even be affordable. The future may well be a flotilla of unmanned vessels supported by a few motherships.

 

[ASSAIL]

Agreed ... Australia will be paying $26 billion for 9 T26 frigates. The cost of 10 Anzac class frigates came in at $3.93 billion (1988 dollars). If you adjust that for inflation it works out that the Anzacs would cost $8.7 billion in today's dollars. Of course, the T26 is a much more capable ship than the Anzacs. The Anzacs were only intended to be low end patrol frigates. Still this does make you wonder whether or not any future generations of frigates or destroyers will even be affordable. The future may well be a flotilla of unmanned vessels supported by a few motherships.

The T26 cost has to be adjusted by the costs of building the new shipyard at Osborne but that will be less than $1b.

 

[StingrayOZ]

Design / tech / population demands on public spending & a raft of other influencing factors will likely see navies move from large vessels, to smaller, single role capabilities, so that each navy has more ships, highly automated, so that they can be run with less crew & cheaper, so that they can afford more of them...

I think 5% annual inflation is a long way off for the UK, and tax should increase at the same rate. It's entirely possible costs will outstrip inflation. They have previously.

However I think a continuous build program is the best option. As you can continuously update and renew your platform, and you have the ongoing know how and production capability to develop indigenous technology and solutions and for a war time effort. For upper middle power nations, it also allows you to build for nations in your orbit. The UK, AU, CA will now have a fairly common navy backbone and significant volume.

Australia's hunter class are pretty high end across the spectrum and I can only talk about that because the other Type 26 aren't really publically spec'd out. Aegis, 9LV, CEC, AUSPAR,CEAFAR2, ESSM, SM-2, likely to be SM-6, MU90 Torpedos, Sonar equipment, and some sort of long range land strike, possibly even SM-3, 2 x CIWS, 2x30mm mounts, able to embark mh60rs, UAV's, UUV's etc. Its so high end that the Hobart Destroyers we still haven't finished building will be gutted and have Hunter class systems replace their existing systems.

However a fully kitted Type 26 represents pretty fantastic capability. For Australia, we need to keep our technological and power edge, and the 9 Type 26's and the follow on destroyers will clearly do that.

 

[milliGal]

Nice clip of HMS defender taking down an aerial target on the Royal Navy's youtube channel.

Seeing how quickly the missile (presumably an ASTER30) disappears off into the distance really puts their speed into perspective.

 

[MrConservative]

The Arrowhead 140 walk through from Babcock.

Adds a bit more colour to the project.

 

[ASSAIL]

The Arrowhead 140 walk through from Babcock.

Adds a bit more colour to the project.

Let’s hope it wins the contest because this is a much more capable ship than the initial concept, completed I’m sure it will cost well beyond the original planned limit of £250m.
A140 is a true GP frigate, not those glorified OPVs from BAE.

 

[vonnoobie]

Agreed ... Australia will be paying $26 billion for 9 T26 frigates. The cost of 10 Anzac class frigates came in at $3.93 billion (1988 dollars). If you adjust that for inflation it works out that the Anzacs would cost $8.7 billion in today's dollars. Of course, the T26 is a much more capable ship than the Anzacs. The Anzacs were only intended to be low end patrol frigates. Still this does make you wonder whether or not any future generations of frigates or destroyers will even be affordable. The future may well be a flotilla of unmanned vessels supported by a few motherships.

Need to remember when we acquired the Anzac's even before the first one hit the water they were equated as being large patrol boats due to limited capabilities. Anzac's only became a truly capable ship during the mid to late noughties when we started to upgrade them. To compare the Anzac to the Hunter is to compare a Commodore to a Ferrari (Maybe not quite that much but you get the picture, It's apples and oranges).

Should also note that we don't know fully what the price entails in regards to the break up of the expenditure which could very well include some or all of life costs, spare parts, upgrades? or even a built in fund to cover any possible cost over runs (I remember reading about it in regards to the RAAF F-35 purchase).

 

[alexsa]

Agreed ... Australia will be paying $26 billion for 9 T26 frigates. The cost of 10 Anzac class frigates came in at $3.93 billion (1988 dollars). If you adjust that for inflation it works out that the Anzacs would cost $8.7 billion in today's dollars. Of course, the T26 is a much more capable ship than the Anzacs. The Anzacs were only intended to be low end patrol frigates. Still this does make you wonder whether or not any future generations of frigates or destroyers will even be affordable. The future may well be a flotilla of unmanned vessels supported by a few motherships.

Don’t forget you have to factor in the costs of the various upgrade programmes for the ANZAC. These add a great deal to the cost. This cost implication is supposed to be minimised by the continuous build programme,

 

[MrConservative]

Let’s hope it wins the contest because this is a much more capable ship than the initial concept, completed I’m sure it will cost well beyond the original planned limit of £250m. A140 is a true GP frigate, not those glorified OPVs from BAE.

To a certain extent the A140 reminds me of the Type 27 C2 concept that was originally mooted way back in 2006 which was probably going to be a good honest GP Frigate to complement the Type 26 then guesstimated to cost around GBP350m or there abouts iirc. I like the fact that it has been designed from the outset to be fairly flexible with respect to systems selected and future upgrade pathways as demonstrated by the two spokesmen from Babcock - which we should thank some very clever Danes.

 

[RDB]

Morning all.

Since we're discussing UK frigates, I'd like to ask about where the UK makes it's money with the Type 26's being built in Australia and Canada.

It's one thing, if the UK builds all the ships for Aust/Can, but that's not what's happening. So how does this benefit the UK, economically, militarily, or finanacially? I can see some cooperation in design, and Aust/Can gives royalties to the UK (how much would it be?) but that's it.

Any ideas?

It's more about BAe making money on the ships constructed in Aus and Canada, and by revenue source and scale of operations its more a North American company even if headquartered in the UK. All three variants will differ significantly in terms of capability due to the use of different combat systems, sensors and missile load, so it will be interesting to see to what degree that is reflected in hull and machinery also.

 

[StobieWan]

Let’s hope it wins the contest because this is a much more capable ship than the initial concept, completed I’m sure it will cost well beyond the original planned limit of £250m.
A140 is a true GP frigate, not those glorified OPVs from BAE.

Well, the team must have some indication that the financials stack up or they'd not be taking the time to bid I'd have thought. Agreed, if the 140 can fit inside the criteria set out, that's a "shut up and take my money" moment - it looks like a decent size GP frigate with some room for growth.

I'm hoping we're all over with the "make it smaller, it'll be cheaper" routine.

However, if we're looking for something to export, Arrowhead may well be "too much of a frigate" for that - the Leander is probably much closer to an ideal for that and it's a UK IP without any attachments that are present for the other two designs.

 

[hauritz]

Well, the team must have some indication that the financials stack up or they'd not be taking the time to bid I'd have thought. Agreed, if the 140 can fit inside the criteria set out, that's a "shut up and take my money" moment - it looks like a decent size GP frigate with some room for growth.

I'm hoping we're all over with the "make it smaller, it'll be cheaper" routine.

However, if we're looking for something to export, Arrowhead may well be "too much of a frigate" for that - the Leander is probably much closer to an ideal for that and it's a UK IP without any attachments that are present for the other two designs.

If it is a ship built with exports in mind I can see a few other issues with choosing a foreign design. Even if the licensing issues get sorted you would still essentially be competing for sales against the original builders.