The Royal Navy Discussions and Updates

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StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
And she's out to sea today - I had a running pictorial update from a friend, so she's under the bridge and into open seas with nary a hitch in some murky Scottish weather.

Good to think of both of them in open waters running after the years of uncertainty and a constant war on social media saying they'd never be built, would be scrapped etc.
 
ngatimozart

ngatimozart

Super Moderator
Staff member
Verified Defense Pro
StobieWan said:
And she's out to sea today - I had a running pictorial update from a friend, so she's under the bridge and into open seas with nary a hitch in some murky Scottish weather.

Good to think of both of them in open waters running after the years of uncertainty and a constant war on social media saying they'd never be built, would be scrapped etc.
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Ah that's impossible; a Boris Johnston propaganda ploy to divert attention from Brexit. Must be photoshopped like the moon landing :D:D:D

Good to see and about time.
 
John Fedup

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
StobieWan said:
And she's out to sea today - I had a running pictorial update from a friend, so she's under the bridge and into open seas with nary a hitch in some murky Scottish weather.

Good to think of both of them in open waters running after the years of uncertainty and a constant war on social media saying they'd never be built, would be scrapped etc.
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Perhaps both vessels should stay away from home waters in order to avoid pollie damage!:D Awesome ships that will serve the RN and the UK's allies well as long as the the pollies don't cluster f,?! them.
 
StingrayOZ

StingrayOZ

Super Moderator
Staff member
Todjaeger said:
The Type 26's ordered for the RAN and RCN are going to be built in Australian and Canadian yards respectively and to the respective nation's specifications. Right now it looks like the RN will have a choice when ordering future surface escorts of either the Type 26, or the Type 31, and these vessels will IMO likely be built in different yards, by different companies. This leaves the UK in the situation where any extra Type 31 orders would likely be coming at the expense of additional Type 26 orders, and unless a foreign country were to place an order for Type 26 frigates built in a UK yard, the Type 26 workforce is going to be looking for work once the RN order is completed.
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Makes it seem like the logical thing to do if you were working on the Type 26 is to emigrate to a place that has a long term 26 commitment.

John Fedup said:
Perhaps both vessels should stay away from home waters in order to avoid pollie damage!:D Awesome ships that will serve the RN and the UK's allies well as long as the the pollies don't cluster f,?! them.
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I wonder if they are carrying letters of Last Resort. What happens if the explodes while they are away.
 
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StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
Todjaeger said:
The Type 26's ordered for the RAN and RCN are going to be built in Australian and Canadian yards respectively and to the respective nation's specifications. Right now it looks like the RN will have a choice when ordering future surface escorts of either the Type 26, or the Type 31, and these vessels will IMO likely be built in different yards, by different companies. This leaves the UK in the situation where any extra Type 31 orders would likely be coming at the expense of additional Type 26 orders, and unless a foreign country were to place an order for Type 26 frigates built in a UK yard, the Type 26 workforce is going to be looking for work once the RN order is completed.
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I don't think there's any scope for additional RN Type 26 - the position appears to be "wait and see how 31 works out" and then perhaps (economy and manning levels permitting) tag another pair or whatever of Type 31e.


There aren't a lot of customers who'd want type 26 and who don't have a shipping industry to speak of so I think there's very little chance of a foreign order for 26 using a UK build - unless a very wealthy middle eastern customer decided they really fancied a state of the art ASW platform the eight ordered for the RN will be it.

Type 31e export success ? Possible but UK yards aren't that competitive and the yards building the blocks will be just getting into their strides when the work runs dry. I don't understand where the sustainable element comes from here, put it that way.
 
V

Volkodav

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
A thought crosses my mind that perhaps the most critical hole in the RN at the moment is air defence, due to the low number of Darings procured. If (and its a big if) UKs pollies stop staring at their belly buttons long enough to realise that the global situation is far less benign than when Type 42 numbers were halved and they have insufficient high end air defence and ASW assets to meet their stated strategic requirements, a multirole Type 26 would have to be a pretty good option to rebuild numbers?

The RAN version will likely be better air warfare ships than the Hobarts, while retaining the same ASW capability as the RN ships, it would be quite easy for the UK to design their own enhanced capability air warfare version, with no degradation in ASW, maybe even just integrate the Australian radars into their preferred combat system and build a batch of three to six of them, following the last of the ASW hulls. Perhaps even continuing to build batches to replace the Daring as they hit mid life and get flogged off to Chile.

The next cheeky suggestion of mine, is build additional Type 31s to replace the OPVs as they hit midlife and get sold off overseas. This way the UK could end up with two concurrent, continuous build projects, equipping the RN with continually evolving and improving Type 26s and Type 31s. Small increase in numbers, massive increase in capability, but with commonality reducing the training and logistics impact, and a sustainable ship building industry, not exporting huge number of new build ships, but feeding new ships to the RN who cascades the old to allies.

Perhaps the multirole Type 26 could be reclassified as the Type 83? A true replacement for the Bristol class carrier escort, a ship sometimes referred to as a cruiser (the Counties were referred to as DLGs a type that were reclassified as cruisers in USN service).
 
4

40 deg south

Well-Known Member
BBC Breakfast on Twitter

Champagne smash for Attenborough polar ship

Not the RN, but still relevant. 'The ship formerly known as Boaty McBoatface' has been officially launched. I was amazed to learn that, at 130m and 15,000 tonnes, is the largest civilian ship built in the UK for over three decades. It seems very likely that the yard will end up building modules for T31, despite being the planned build site for the rival Leander bid.

This build seems to have gone smoothly, which is hopefully a sign of things to come for the British ship-building industry. I guess sea trials will be put that to the test.
 
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StobieWan

Super Moderator
Staff member
FormerDirtDart said:
I can see 4xPaveway & 4xASRAAM. That's what, around 9000 - 10,000 lbs of ordnance?
Where are they carrying the other 12,000 lbs? I' don't think the can pack that much in the internal bay
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Maybe the pic is part of some trials images but not the one with the full load ? I'm sure they will do max load trials quite thoroughly as it's a key figure to work over.
 
John Fedup

John Fedup

The Bunker Group
No doubt the election was a factor. The debate about where RN ships are to be built is a familiar story. The UK, like Canada, faces huge political pressure to keep shipyards working with domestic naval orders. For pointy end naval ships, absolutely should be built domestically. There is a huge price penalty for building AORs and similar support ships domestically. Contrast the successful and cost effective Tide program with Canada's AOR build, half the number of ships for three times the cost and that isn't factoring in the endless delay. The Germans could build them for less not to mention SK! The money saved by building the solid support ships in SK could be used for another T26 or maybe a couple of T31s which could be built in the U.K.
 
K

KiwiRob

Well-Known Member
John Fedup said:
No doubt the election was a factor. The debate about where RN ships are to be built is a familiar story. The UK, like Canada, faces huge political pressure to keep shipyards working with domestic naval orders. For pointy end naval ships, absolutely should be built domestically. There is a huge price penalty for building AORs and similar support ships domestically. Contrast the successful and cost effective Tide program with Canada's AOR build, half the number of ships for three times the cost and that isn't factoring in the endless delay. The Germans could build them for less not to mention SK! The money saved by building the solid support ships in SK could be used for another T26 or maybe a couple of T31s which could be built in the U.K.
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The build quality on the Tides built in SK is appalling, they will have plenty reworking done in the first dockings.

UK shipbuilding at the moment is quite good value considering the low value of the £££ at the moment.
 
MrConservative

MrConservative

Super Moderator
Staff member
KiwiRob said:
The build quality on the Tides built in SK is appalling, they will have plenty reworking done in the first dockings.
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There were issues and delays with Tidespring mentioned in Parliamentary Question Time which considering Daewoo were almost imploding at at the time as a company, ending up being taken over by HHI, but the later ships I gather were more satisfactory.

The GMB Union PR campaign in the UK really did lay it on quite thick to be fair as they were completely against the building of the vessels outside of the UK.
 
Systems Adict

Systems Adict

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
KiwiRob said:
I heard it first hand from one of the electrical contractors working on the vessel which is at Cammell Laird.
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This may help...

RFA Tidespring – another refit behind schedule? | Save the Royal Navy


Unfortunately, from within the shipbuilding circles that I work in, I had heard similar stories. Use of commercial build vessels is often a difficult thing for UK personnel to understand, as the quality is often very different from the almost bespoke finish to the majority of the UK RN fleet. However, knowing that the intent was always that the hulls would be manufactured elsewhere, the vessels sailed to the UK & then the 'limited weapons & comms fit-out' would be fitted in the UK, it is only to be expected that between the contract being placed & the vessels arriving in the UK, that some of the fit-out would have changed, with the knock on effect of delays. As stated earlier the fact the SK shipyard where the vessels were built went into meltdown & was bought out / saved by another business helped with the delays (circa 18 months, IIRC).

IMHO (& experience over the last 20 odd years) change happens on a regular basis across the fleet, as newly approved systems are deemed 'important', or as is often more the case, that someone within the customer community deems that a specific change needs to happen.

UK RN are very fortunate as a customer, in that they are treated differently to other navies across the planet.Similar things are not that regular across the globe, as once a contract is signed / agreed, the navy will only get EXACTLY what they have asked for. Any change over & above baseline design is at the cost of the Navy, often with protracted contract negotiations & lengthy time delays to boot.
 
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