UK Defence Forum

shark bait wrote:Concerning and embarrassing. Its the second time in a year a T45 has dropped out of a NATO exercise in home waters

It seems that from now on a tug must allways accompany Type 45 destroyers- same as Russian aircraft carrier Kuznetsov

Does the design for the Type 26 include a tow bar?

2HeadsBetter wrote:Does the design for the Type 26 include a tow bar?

It would be wise to have it...

2HeadsBetter wrote:Does the design for the Type 26 include a tow bar?

Fitted for but not with

I think they're missing an opportunity.

In sure green flag or the AA would pay good money to advertise on their hulls.

HMS Duncan has sailed from Plymouth to resume duties with NATO allies. The Type 45 destroyer will rejoin SNMG1 on duty in northern Europe. Facebook, Royal Navy.

Banzai, Daring-san as state-of-the-art British and Japanese destroyers meet in Middle East

HMS Daring spent two days in company with one of Japan’s most advanced warship as two of the world’s leading navies joined forces in the Gulf of Aden.

Just weeks ago, the heads of the RN and Japanese Maritime Defence Force signed an agreement committed to working more closely together, an opportunity presented when the Portsmouth warship encountered the Suzutsuki.

Having safeguarded shipping – merchant and military – through the narrows of the Bab al Mandeb to counter the threat of anti-ship missiles in the hands of rebels in neighbouring Yemen in recent weeks, Daring’s focus shifted to counter-terrorism/smuggling/piracy in the troubled waters between Yemen and Somali.

She’s assigned to Combined Task Force 150, an international force of warships drawn from around half a dozen nations committed to maritime security and ensuring the safe passage of international shipping in the Indian Ocean.

The ships of the task force typically work independently – but with the common goal of stopping drugs, people or weapons being smuggled, or merchant ships being seized.

Read more: https://navynews.co.uk/archive/news/item/15575

GibMariner wrote:Banzai, Daring-san as state-of-the-art British and Japanese destroyers meet in Middle East

Nice to see JMSDF and UK-RN collaborating. Note to the document: Suzutsuki's commanding officer is Cdr. Nakayama, and Captain Minami is the Task Force (Japan's, not TF150's) commander.

donald_of_tokyo wrote:

GibMariner wrote:Banzai, Daring-san as state-of-the-art British and Japanese destroyers meet in Middle East

Nice to see JMSDF and UK-RN collaborating. Note to the document: Suzutsuki's commanding officer is Cdr. Nakayama, and Captain Minami is the Task Force (Japan's, not TF150's) commander.

Agree. I have a lot of respect for both navies. I suspect they'd learn a great deal of good things from each other.

Amazing likeness of looks, save for the main radars (mast construction)

Can anyone confirm a rumour I heard?

Namely the Type 45s cost £550 million each, and all the rest was development costs? £3 billion split across 6 vessels....

Literally in the last few days a written answer in Parliament gave the Type 45 unit cost (with Sea Viper but excluding "development") at 633 million pounds each.

And by Development we mean Sir Humphrey's tea and biscuits no doubt.

I always wonder how much the MoD actually costs us. Not just in terms of pay and pensions but cock ups and incompetence.

Gabriele wrote:633 million pounds each.

Which, for the capability, is cheap.

We should be tearing up our clothing and throwing some ash on the exposed areas, to make up for the deficit, but the failures can be found in other areas.

Saw Spinflights comment appear and, yes, agree. But the HQ is being slimmed down and from the central DE&S powers are being delegated to the Commands... so the direction of travel is the right one.

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Which, for the capability, is cheap.

No it's truly remarkable. Almost astoundingly so considering the first use technologies.

Which makes only building 6 of them unfathomably stupid.

Spinflight wrote: unfathomably stupid.

On the other hand, it was an early recognition (AAW being so expensive) of the fact that even if you allocate one for London, there will have to be RN assets (exsting and) at sea, to defend.

AAW is defensive after all. if you have a navy that cannot do anything offensive, then it could well be much smaller. Who would want that?
- not even the politicians, because Britain - allegedly - invented Free Trade and the Freedom of the Seas.

More defensive than an ASW frigate?

With the manpower devoted to the 14 Type 42s they could have crewed almost 20 Type 45s. Instead we ended up with 5 shagged out Type 23 GPs, which whilst similar in manning hardly equal the capability of a 45.

Spinflight wrote:More defensive than an ASW frigate?

Goes back to what were the primary threats (were perceived to be) at the time.

ASW denying sea denial to an adversary that has bet the bank on achieving it makes all kinds of offensive uses (of the sea, not just individual warships ) possible.

Whereas limited "safe area" bubbles against Tu-22Ms (and other, but few , a/c that by virtue of their range would have been a real threat) would have their accent placed on the "defensive"
- it is all about context; which, by now has changed. And is always subject to change.

Spinflight wrote:
I always wonder how much the MoD actually costs us. Not just in terms of pay and pensions but cock ups and incompetence.

I once have counted, and as far as I was able to see, about allmost 20 bln. pounds during last 20 years...

Well yes but decisions like it have knock on costs. The cost of refitting and upgrading the fairly pointless GP Type 23s ( anyone know how much these cost per ship?) , the rapidly increasing costs of running them well past their sell by date and less obvious cost of having hulls that can do little but wave a 4.5" around.

When you are having to add a few hundred tonnes of ballast to keep them within top weight margins and consider hat a Type 45 with a Merlin on the back isn't much less capable at ASW than the GPs and isn't in demand for escorting CVNs it makes less and less sense.

Getting value for money from the £3 billion in development has to mean spreading that over as many hulls as possible, otherwise you end up concocting things like the Type 31 to cut corners later.

abc123 wrote:I once have counted, and as far as I was able to see, about allmost 20 bln. pounds during last 20 years...

That sounds awfully low to me. Not too long ago there was 87000 of the useless bastids presiding over not that greater a force of uniformed personnel.

Spinflight wrote:

abc123 wrote:I once have counted, and as far as I was able to see, about allmost 20 bln. pounds during last 20 years...

That sounds awfully low to me. Not too long ago there was 87000 of the useless bastids presiding over not that greater a force of uniformed personnel.

I was talking only about cost overruns of various equipment projects ( just the most shining examples like Type 45, Airbus A330, Bay class, carriers, Typhoon etc. ).

Spinflight wrote:Well yes but decisions like it have knock on costs. The cost of refitting and upgrading the fairly pointless GP Type 23s ( anyone know how much these cost per ship?) , the rapidly increasing costs of running them well past their sell by date and less obvious cost of having hulls that can do little but wave a 4.5" around.

When you are having to add a few hundred tonnes of ballast to keep them within top weight margins and consider hat a Type 45 with a Merlin on the back isn't much less capable at ASW than the GPs and isn't in demand for escorting CVNs it makes less and less sense.

Getting value for money from the £3 billion in development has to mean spreading that over as many hulls as possible, otherwise you end up concocting things like the Type 31 to cut corners later.

abc123 wrote:I once have counted, and as far as I was able to see, about allmost 20 bln. pounds during last 20 years...

That sounds awfully low to me. Not too long ago there was 87000 of the useless bastids presiding over not that greater a force of uniformed personnel.

Could you please explain why the GP T23s are useless and only marginally better at ASW than the T45s? I was under the impression that the GP T23s were still considered useful ASW assets. Thanks

Typhoon alone was meant to be £7 billion for 232.

We've got what, about 125 for well over £20 billion?

I wonder how many billions they cost us just in pay, pensions and biscuits?

dmereifield wrote:Could you please explain why the GP T23s are useless and only marginally better at ASW than the T45s? I was under the impression that the GP T23s were still considered useful ASW assets. Thanks

No towed array on them hence other than the Merlin not much. I guess they're probably quieter.

AAW system is quite expensive to develop. But, much of the part is software. AESA is software controlled. AAW combat management system is a huge software development. But, after development, software can be copied (of course with licence-fee, but I think the 633M GBP cost MAY NOT include the fee, becase MOD has already payed for it in its development = has the license).

# Also note that treasury cut no money. They payed as much as RN asked for as planned (even added 1B GBP). It is simply the development cost which ate all the hull 7-12.

So, the question must be, why RN developed its own AAW system?

Also, in T45 hull 7-8 discussion, I remember it was banned in favor of CVF and T26. It is also RN's decision. Having 8 T45 and 11 T26 would be much cheaper at last. But, it was a decision made around 2010, right after the "Lehman shock". So, in some sence, understandable...

I always think, RN was toooooo optimistic about economy right before the Lehman shock, which made them go for 2 of 70000t large large CVFs, huge dream of 12 T45s and 16 T26s or so. After the shock, CVF confronted NO CUT. As a consequence, ALL other assets, T45, T26, LPD, LPH are sharing the burden. Actually, not bad idea, in regard of CVF's uniqueness among Europe. But, for escort fleet, it is very diffuclt days now.