Seems it won't have any upside down cousins either when it finally enters service.

Would need MK 34 Gun Weapon System (GWS), part of the DDG-51 Aegis combat weapon system, arbitrary guess £25M so 10% of Type 31e overall budget, may be 15% of hardware costs if you exclude support. Presumably this is part of Baes' CMS as it's now their product. Plenty of non Aegis tubs use the 5&qu...

Nobody signs a 30 year support contract. Google PFI and welcome to the MoD appreciation fanclub. Think we're going to be paying for Tornado maintenance after they've left service if the letter of certain contracts are upheld. Not that I'm saying the contracts for T26 are 30 year ones, that's all co...

Whilst ordered the Bombardier situation could yet put a bit of a crimp on this project. Remember the DUP coalition agreement that gave NI assembly £1 billion? Well the 125 passenger aircraft that Delta Airlines have ordered from Bombardier have been slapped with 222% import quotas after Boeing lobbi...

IIRC all of the Type 26 contracts include through life support, makes it look as though they're spending lots of money up front as part of our rising defence budget and £178.... blah. Signing a $245 million contract doesn't mean you are handing over that cash and getting 4 guns in return, payments w...

Baes has done a good job with the QE class, it provided the OPVs on budget and on time, I'm not sure that Baes is at fault here. ACA have indeed done a good job with the QEs though the low level of capability provided at eye watering cost on the Rivers is hardly worthy of great applause. Are congra...

I wouldn't get too fond of Echo and Enterprise either.

The only thing I can think of which has zero value to the RN is allowing BAEs to con the taxpayer into funding yet another over budget, late and mistake riddled tub.

The sticker price of £1.25Bn would be worth it merely to break their monopoly.

The earlier concepts are (to my mind) a better balance between capability and affordability. We could have got a good deal more than 13. Pure speculation on my part but the delay in the T26 design seems to be linked to the newer classes of Russian subs being put through their paces. If you are goin...

A roro ferry in the Gulf.....

I'm saying that it will be a glorified OPV, not that it won't be "used". Which as an opinion is fine. It's even quite a popular one. There's much skepticism about the price point and I rather doubt myself whether several of the designs could meet it. Arrowhead in particular. Leaping from ...

Rather naive of you if you don't mind me saying. Tubs have length, beam, draught and politics. The latter being the most important. You think Qatar buying fighters from the US, France and the UK despite only wanting 72 has anything to do with their performance? Oddly enough it's pretty much the 70s ...

That it will never fit the budget so will never happen. Who says it will come out of our budget? Yeah you can properly tool up some tubs and permanently deploy them thousands of miles away, or you can just get the locals to buy them, provide training and let them get some photo opportunities of the...

Let's indulge a little more; for £250m the RN could buy a utility platform, plus 2 helicopters, plus 2 combat boats, plus 5 fixed wing UAV's. You still talking about a cross channel ferry? :) The gumps spent about $150 million converting theirs, hence you might get a single new chopper, but not a M...

They only come out in the sun, hence the rarity of sightings.

The issue is extra patrol boats don't fit the gaps left behind by the carrier group and SSN's. They're not capable, and they're not rapidly configurable. The RN has been down this route before, it didn't work. They are if the futurologists are correct. Most of the capabilities supposedly lacking ac...

I wasn't proposing any option, just saying a primary role of self defense makes absolutely no sense. A role has to be properly defined, otherwise if the inputs are wrong, the output will never be right. It makes some if you happen to be serving on one of them. The RN has properly defined roles, tho...

Its rather a stark comparison is it not.

Same idea twice the price.

No midgies in the North Atlantic though.

Or the PPA.

What was it $3-4 billion for 6? That's one big empty ship with a large crew and pricetag for the light variant, which is basically all of them.

Maybe they should have gone for cross channel ferries instead.

Is the term frigate a bit like an irregular verb? My country builds multi purpose patrol frigates with very light armament that are flexible, affordable and can be upgraded as need be. Your light frigate program is a waste of money because it doesn't carry enough missiles. They use a cross channel f...

You might have missed the fact that the Craigside and a Point are not quite the same thing anymore. Would a drawing help...? I don't particularly care whether they've put sharks with head mounted lasers on it, it's a roro ferry. With their hundreds of tubs the gumps, gawd bless em, have found a spe...

Are you drunk? You think a cross channel ferry is the answer to the RN's needs? That is a cross channel ferry they already indirectly operate? A T31 built to LNR standards isn't a warship but whenever we happen to have 200 SF sneaky beaky types spare ( which is never by even a long shot by the way) ...

http://www.marinelog.com/media/k2/items/cache/b191ca13bc319cd30240e921084cc9f5_XL.jpg?t=1475710012 What your Point would look like if someone objected to all these special forces and helicopters operating from one. I must have missed the clarion calls from the RN to use ferries as warships. You are ...

I didn't notice a ranking system, just requirements the tub had to be able to meet. The latest gen minehunting gear is containerised and UUV based. Saying the Type 31 won't deploy them is as daft as saying they couldn't be deployed from land. Which they will be as necessary. No tub changes necessary...