That is an absolutely cracking shot of a Mexefloat doing what it does best. Never realised they were that big actually, despite knowing they wer emodular.

A thought just sprang to mind. With a stated price cap of £250 million for the first batch of five Type 31s, surely the door has been left open to allow following batches to increase in price and, presumably, capability? Or is this just sloppy wording? Of course, it'd take a change in the winds of ...

The USN put ESSM and RAM on their Amphibs. But the Aussies don't put a missile. So its not just the Brits who make that judgement (and their is less of a justification for not doing it on Amphibs) Because the Juan Carlos class doesn't have a demonstrated missile integration yet (given Spain's own b...

Optimistically, maybe it ends up with: 5” gun, Sea Ceptor, Artisan, NH90 / Wildcat sized hanger, a bow ASW sonar, soft kill defences, a couple of RHIBs….with a minimum of 28 days endurance, 6500 nm and less than 100 core crew Doesn't sound to bad, does it? It sounds pathetic. As a note, we've had a...

its doesn't matter what the ships are like what makes them special is the Crews Well, if you want to go into a high end war without any anti-air missiles, any anti-ship missiles, torpedoes or land attack missiles and just a 30mm to protect you and then say that "the crew will win us the day!&q...

Spinflight wrote:Leanders, Rothesays, Type 21s and the like were hardly laughing stocks.

Because back then the RN had more than 14 escorts outside of those ships.

The UK cannot afford, like everyone but China and the USA, to equip its military to a level to meet what is deemed to maximum theoretical threat whenever it designs a new system. As it stands the current plans for the T-31 maintains RN in terms of numbers and is the best we could have hoped for. An...

Despite some screams of protest on this forum, I think the RN is taking an intelligent and radical new approach to the T31 procurement. This radical change is centered around much much faster and shorter Concept, Assessment, Demonstration, and Manufacture phases. It is also based on a build to cost...

It's even LESS than predicted.

So essentially what they've stated is that it's going to be a minimum speed ship with a 30mm gun that can carry a Wildcat and has a non-ASW hull sonar. And may not even have CAMM.

That. Is. Pathetic.

Chill, everyone. If there's further insults directly back and forth then we'll be taking stronger action here. Remember that a level of respect and politeness is expected at all times here. If you have a problem with someone's posting, then use the Report System, rather than wading in with insults. ...

Then why not disband or mothball PoW and shift those resource to ASW vessels? If the ASW threat is considered to be sever, this will be the good answer. Because both highly capable escorts and carrier strike are both enormously important assets, cutting PoW would be just as disastrous. "Just c...

As someone said, the only reason QE doesn't have hard-kill torpedoes or SAM batteries is cost.

As has been brought up time and again in the past, when everyone else in the world does it but we don't, the reason is fairly clear.

I do NOT agree, "anything less than T23 is waste of money". To be precise, "in what tasks?" should come as the start point. And what the RN needs more than anything is to stop its capable high end escort numbers being absolutely gutted like it already has been, and is about to h...

Thanks for the prompt and useful response. I know I'm being optimistic, again, but is it not at least slightly possible that we may get something close to what you describe as a T23 replacement, *if* the £250 million price cap is the build cost only.and if we assume that most of the kit is being re...

Decent radar, medium gun, 32x SAM, ASW hull sonar, FFBNW towed sonar, 2x torpedo stations, 8x ASM, Merlin capable hangar, acoustically quietened, CODLAG, 30mm stations/ It would ideally have that towed sonar fitted, but a T23 GP time period equivilent would still be entirely useful and easily capabl...

I don't follow this thread, so are we talking 6x45, 8x26, and 5 of 31? How does that add up to 14, or are you saying these can't be classed as escorts? For that budget, do you honestly think the UK's shipbuilding could produce something capable of being considered a proper escort that could survive...

Bear in mind that CAMM has already been declared as 25+ by MBDA.

So the Royal Navy/MoD saying the equivilent of "20" is very much just an understatement, as usual.

So, the Royal Navy is officially down to 14 escorts then, it seems.

Unless there is some sort of miracle of design for this ship, then that is absolutely humiliating.

Waste of bloody money.

You can see the MK29 launcher on the huge flat sponson in the stern. https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/CuWXTu1xfvgUYkY0Zwu5VA--/aD0yNTI0O3c9MzkzOTtzbT0xO2FwcGlkPXl0YWNoeW9u/https://s.yimg.com/os/creatr-images/GLB/2017-06-01/b4c7a620-4723-11e7-ab9a-31619a83548e_USS-Gerald-R-Ford-.jpg And the other M...

ArmChairCivvy wrote:

RetroSicotte wrote:That's just the Scimitars.

Is that the Scimitar 2's? I.e. Spartans with Scimitar turrets.

Back when I looked at the document it just said "Scimitar", so likely a combination I would imagine. It was a very "overview" type doc.

CVRT went out along with FV432. They use Jackal for recce and for the support weapons, now. Husky is used for the mortar teams. Thanks Gabby, I was relying on the April 2017 statistics that show 201 CVR(T) and 895 Bulldog as still in service. Presumably they've all gone since April? Edit: Crossed w...

Unfortunately, I read into that as "no, we're not getting them then."

Just wait for it. I've been expecting them to drop it for a while. It being in a separate pod is just TOO easy to cut.

Really, an FTI equivilent ship is the absolute bare minimum for this ship, or it's not worth doing.

What does the T26 do for us? Apart from the quieter hull. Mission Bay - Yeah, obviously the mission bay, that goes without saying Much greater support for UUVs, UVVs, UAVs Greater automation allowing much smaller crew, thus making it actually much cheaper through life Much bigger VLS launcher that ...

Okay folks, lets move to the escorts threat. News only.