It’s a shame Cammell Laird wasn’t building the Type 26s in parallel with BAe. It’d add an element of competition and put more hulls in the water faster. Perhaps the government could use the Type 31 budget to explore that option...

SKB wrote: There was a Royal Navy variant called the Sea Fury.... It wasn’t quite as simple as that. The Sea Fury was a navalised version of the RAF Fury, which was ordered in some numbers before being promptly cancelled upon the outbreak of peace in 1945. The Fury is a smaller aircraft than the Ha...

Lord Jim wrote: As the RAN Hunter Class design has been finalised, it still think we would be able to build out City class using the formers 32 cell Mk41 layout. If a mixture of Tactical and Strike length are incorporated the former alone would allow 32 Sea Ceptor and 8 VL ASROC to be carried I don...

My slight concern is how well will laser weaponry work on a foggy, rainy or snowy day? The efficacy of 20 mm shells from a Phalanx are fairly weather independent I believe.

Jake1992 wrote: I agree it could very well be difficult and expensive but between the RAN and RCN designs we can see that and extra 8 cells can be put in place of our forward CAMMs and and extra 8 cells can be put in the same row of our 24, this show 40 mk41 cells shouldn't need any major redesign ...

Jake1992 wrote: Well the T26 has be built with a lot of growth margins planed in, i would find it very hard to believe that the mk41 situation will not have been thought of. As matt00773 has point to above the Canadian option shows the same 24 mk41 cells as on the city class but with a further 8 fo...

Regarding enhancing air defence for the Type 26, does anyone know if any progress has been made on making Sea Viper (Aster 15 and Aster 30) compatible with the Mk-41 VLS system. I know it was under discussion at one point with an eye to making the missile system more saleable to other navies.

Jake1992 wrote: That is the big question what is the space like under the current front CAMM silos, is there space free like on the T45s or is all taken up. When looking at the design the CAMM silos sit slightly lower that the mk41s so replacements could be rased to match but yes it depends what sp...

Jake1992 wrote: This is eclectic my thinking to the T26 only I'd step it that little extra and have 40 Mk41s forward and 16 stand alone ExLS mid. I presume there would be a packaging issue with anything more than 32 strike length Mk-41 forward, they are after all much, much deeper than the stand-al...

Personally what I’d like to see on the Type 26 is the forward ‘mushroom’ Sea Ceptor silos gone and the number of Mk-41 launchers expanded to 32 to match the Hunter Class, these can be depending on the mission filled with various proportions of Tomahawk, ASROC and a vertical launch Anti-ship missile,...

Surely a ‘General Purpose’ warship should be capable of ASW, ASuW, local air defence and shore bombardment. If not it isn’t exactly general purpose, it’s just a souped up OPV. Of course I’m being slightly pedantic here as I’m aware ‘general purpose’ in this context actually means a warship built wit...

R686 wrote: The second tier fleet is a regional ship not global and also needs to be protected by the 1st tier fleet So presumably the Royal Navy will need an increase in the number of ‘1st tier’ warships on order if they’re going to act as a nursemaids to the tier 2 vessels in addition to their al...

Just as an aside can someone tell me where the two ship-mounted torpedo tubes are to be located on the Australian vessels? All the other weapon changes appear to be straight swaps: Front CAMM silos out, more Mk 41 silos in; midships CAMM out, anti-ship box launchers in. I’m just not sure where they’...

It would be interesting to know if the Australian decision to go with the Type 26 could result in any mutually beneficial economies of scale. Certainly any reduction in the unit price would increase the odds of further nations adopting the design and even open up the possibility of a future increase...

“Quantity has a quality of its own” has merit only if you have sufficient trained sailors to man your fleet of Iver Huitfeldt derived frigates. Hence the hugely expensive automation present on modern Royal Navy warships, as exemplified by the automated Mk 45 magazine on the Type 26 or the weapon han...

I suspect the focus was on the first sentence and not intended as a criticism of the shipbuilders themselves. jonas wrote: No wonder these vessels are costing an arm and a leg. The snail like pace that government has decreed they be built at, is nothing short of farcical. If the government had shown...

A bit off topic, but I was always under the impression that in RAF service at least Typhoon was envisioned as a ‘pure’ air superiority fighter to replace the Tornado F.3. JSF (as it then was) was to fill the roles then occupied by Harrier and Jaguar and the Tornado GR.4 was to be replaced, eventuall...

The Australian Type 26 configuration is 4 lengthways 8 cell Mk 41's rather than the UK 3 8 cell sideways config fronted by the mushrooms. :thumbup: Thank you, a picture says a thousand words and all that. It would still be interesting to know if all 4 Mk 41 modules are full strike-length. Presuming...

There are three sizes of Mk 41 ranging from the self defence to the strike length. Whilst it appears that the planned 2 8-Cell Mk41s on the T-26 are to be strike length and able to launch any of the current or planned load outs, the additional Mk41 for the T-26 and those for the T-31e would at most...

I can understand why for simplicity’s sake the ‘mushroom’ launcher conversion was performed on the Type 23s during their upgrade, but I really don’t understand why these launchers are being carried over to the Type 26 and Type 31 designs. If the amidships ‘mushrooms’ on the Type 26s were changed to ...

Here’s a video demonstrating a stand alone ExLS and a Mk 41 VLS that shows the comparative sizes

ExLS has two versions; one is an insert for Mk 41 launchers that houses the ejection system for the cold launch and 4 CAMM, the second is a stand alone CAMM launcher. It is this version I believe donald_of_tokyo is referring to. As each launcher houses four missiles it allows for a much greater pack...

RichardIC wrote: It was even worse than that. The nine includes two development aircraft that weren’t expected to be brought up to full service standard and become operational. I had a recollection that the development aircraft were to be discarded once development was completed, but I convinced my...

The moustaches are impressive, I’ll give them that.

I have a concern about the Type 31 programme, which may be unfounded, but I’m hoping someone more knowledgeable than me can correct me if i’m wrong. One of the principal costs of a warship is its crew, hence the drive towards ever increasing levels of automation on Royal Navy ships, as evidenced by ...