Type 31 Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

[marktigger]

the only way you are going to drive down cost is to have competition and that mean cosy deals with BaE should be off the table and the market opened up to Babcocks and the French, spannish, Germans, Dutch, Canadians etc to tender to supply FLF and the T26.

[rec]

Open competition is going to be the only way to drive costs down,or a commitment from the Government to build a significant number of surface ships. The T45s are quoted at a billion pership partly because so few were built and all the R&D costs were front loaded. In reality they are on a par with AGEIS cost wise.

[bobp]

Lots of good points raised. I got to thinking that perhaps the T26 has been pushed back a bit because of the need to repair and possibly re-engine the T45. But its also true that perhaps there is also a need to redesign the electrics on the T26. This is just conjecture on my part not fact.

[ArmChairCivvy]

the last navy to have won a naval battle.

- I wonder which one is being referenced?

Also, LaFayettes get derisory remarks all the time; look at the Singapore Lafayettes that have been made fighty (instead of being able to loll around and listen/ show presence) and are also 4 knots faster (as they are there to do a different job).
- like having CEC on them, we never got it onto the T45/ frigates combo, to be able to combine the assets they have, in the best way to counter a particular threat

[ArmChairCivvy]

Excellent post shark bait

I can see that in my previous, as I did not include all of the nested quote, the fraction was attributed to the one using the quote
- as per the quote above (fully subscribing...) I don't think a lot of damage was done?

[~UNiOnJaCk~]

You won't see SSK's again in the RN the Upholder class saw to that,you want an SSK you are going to have to buy foreign and that is not going to happen. Then again why would we want them. Likewise Khareef, no use at all for the UK. The waters that we operate in are not the same as they were designed for.

Not strictly true. BMT has a range they have designed and Qinetiq has a lot of experience when it comes to SSK based design software. Of course, informing a specific requirement and then building them is a whole different matter and would probably take a lot of foreign input consultation wise, just as with our efforts to restart SSN construction with the Astutes.

[Caribbean]

Just an observation, but BMT seems to be recruiting designers for both surface vessels and submarines.Business prospects must be good!

[S M H]

The prevailing thoughts on the F.L.F.is that our political leaders will revisit the procurement practices of the 1970s with warships cut down on equipment. to make up numbers. With the crews paying the cost if they are used in anger. The occupant of no 11 wants to micro manage the S.S.N.B. replacement. He should have left it a supplementary defence budget. The reason that it was left out of the core defence budget was to stop the large costs skewing other procurement. Which could effect the F.L.F. as did the unfunded sand pit wars effect the carriers procurement and number of destroyers . If we do get a true G.P. frigate with fitted for but not equipped E.G. silos fitted. Not space earmarked for capability at mythical later major refits. Or fitting two generators when three should have been fitted allowing none planned maintenance to undertaken. Without the loss of a single unit adversely effecting the ship. As per the type 45 destroyers . Even if fitting of equipment with the ability to extend in latter time frame because the control systems are fitted. Example 8 V.L.S. fitted with space for additional 2 or 4 units. As weapons they contain could be tailored to the task undertaken. This should not apply to air defence system were a reasonable number of silos should be fitted. Deck fittings and wiring for the C.I.W.S. allowing unit swaps. Manning should be maintained to a level that the ship can fight and survive. The automation of ships equipment should not be a ruse for through life cost reductions by reducing manpower. The navy should get a true replacement for the G.P. type 23s

[ArmChairCivvy]

Just an observation, but BMT seems to be recruiting designers for both surface vessels and submarines.Business prospects must be good!

Err, might it be the new shipbuilding strategy (for warships): a bit of countervailing power induced into the monopoly equation?
- experience from ACA as the proof of the pudding?

[donald_of_tokyo]

I share similar thought about Europian Light Frigates.

However, I reserve comments on French ships. Looking at the "design density" of ships in French Navy, it is not much different from those in RN. See FREMM, see the original La Fayette. For example, the latter is a "light frigate" in its displacement and range, but also very lightly armed, very different from what they sell to the world. Their ships are also globaly deployed, and maybe they seriously think about it. If their assets is "credible" light armed, and their export ship are heavily armed and less credible (but popular), maybe you can learn something from their design approach. (Any French guy here?)

[donald_of_tokyo]

As Shark Bait-san, and others, says, RN has its own naval standard. It is the lessons learnt from FI war and others. I agree you should stick to it.

But, because I think there is no resource to build 5 T26GPs (you can easily calculate what is left if T26 project is 20 or 30% cost-over-run), there MUST be cheaper FLF design, or RN simply lose number of escorts, or need to call for additional resouse. I assume the last one is less probable, and I think RN should NOT rely on such "good hope" in defining their "key assets for a credible fleet" = escorts for CVF-TF. Thus, I think there is ONLY 2 choice.

A: T26GP like large frigate, with less number
B: develop a "credible RN-light frigate" with 50-60% of T26GP cost, and have ~5 of them.

All other possibility is either very happy (= no discussion needed), or very sad (=just cry), so I shall focus on the 2 options. Since the 1st option is (almost) done (better build T26GP, which is the most effective solution), only the 2nd option remains for me.

So the quesion is, "how can we design a frigate with 50-60% cost of 600MGBP (my assumption on T26GP cost after 20% overrun), based on RN standard with enough credibility?".

If you stick to the "RN standard", the most accurate way will be to "start from T26GP and rip-off anything possible to make it cheaper, with a goal of making its cost half". (Alternatively you can add cost from scratch, but it make is very difficult to know if it is obaying RN standard.).

By doing this, most of the comments on RN credibility will be answered. And surely, it comes to the matter of "cutting the requirement lists".

T26GP requirement (or actual implemention of requirement) lists:
- quiet hull and propulsion with top speed of 27kt.
- 7000nm@16kt range
- 24 Mk.41 VLS (for TLAM and/or LRASM or like)
- large mission bay (for 10x 10-feet-ISOcontainer)
- Chinook capable flight deck and Merlin capable hanger
- large bow sonar (2050?)
- 2x Phalanx CIWS
- 1x 5in gun
- 2x 30mm gun
- 997 radar

As you can see, I listed on my personal choice for cut. Note that making your list as simple as possible DO impact the complexity of CMS and its cost.

Making it half or 60% is NOT easy. And if it is impossible, the light(er) frigate option disappears and the only option left will be decrease in escort number, I'm afraid.

[GibMariner]

To add to the secondary discussion about conventional submarine construction in the UK - the current submarines under construction for the Spanish Navy (plagued by various problems) have had considerable UK input. The pressure hull domes were designed by BAE and the fore and aft domes for the first two submarines were constructed at Barrow (the units for the 3rd and 4th boats were/are to be completed by Navantia in Cartagena, Spain IIRC). BAE also provided Navantia with support in the manufacture of the pressure hulls. The torpedo tubes and systems were provided by Babcock and the sonar systems and towed array sonars came from QinetiQ.

There could very well be the capability to design and build a conventional submarine in the UK (especially seeing as nuclear boats are being built), but like shipbuilding in general, it is a lack of investment in the industry that's the problem. Whether or not the RN needs SSKs is a separate argument.

[Engaging Strategy]

With regards the French light frigates like the Floreals and the La Fayettes I'll be blunt. They aren't escorts and they're certainly not "frigates" in the way the RN would describe a ship of that type. At most they're oversized long-range OPVs with a handful of Exocets and a big gun. Place them in anything but a permissive environment and they won't last five minutes. The RN doesn't need ships like that. Hell, nobody needs ships like that. In my view their existence comes down to the French government and military's tendency to prize the appearance of conspicuous power (lots of warships, planes, tanks etc...) over paying for the real thing. The reason they've scored export successes is because unfortunately quite a few other governments think like that as well. At least they've all had the good sense to fit credible self-defence AAW gear to the variants they've bought.

We may bitch and moan in the UK about how the RN is under-resourced (which they absolutely are), but we do tend to forget that the service's attitude to the equipment it buys is informed by recent and relevant experience of real combat at sea. So before people start trying to water down the RN's "gold plated" standards because other European Navies do it differently and appear to get more bang for their buck, just remember which navy learned the hard way why doing things on the cheap doesn't work. What should be surprising is that anyone can still believe that a "light frigate" like the La Fayette is at all useful as a combat platform.

It seems like the assumption is that the RN would have preferred 13 Type 26 (8 ASW, 5 GP) and that FLF only exists because costs couldn't be controlled sufficiently for this to happen. Therefore making FLF an attempt to stretch the remaining money to an additional 5 hulls and no more. Does this assumption need challenging? How accurate is the claim that Type 26 is so horribly over-budget that what's left isn't enough to build a class of credible escorts? Why did HMG even bother including the aspiration to increase hulls in the SDSR if they have no real intention of doing so?

I'd just like to pose the question: what if this isn't the case, and FLF is actually a genuine attempt at increasing the number of credible RN escorts (while maintaining key design skills by not simply building 13+ Type 26s)?

[RetroSicotte]

Unfortunately, the far more realistic thing is this is entirely wordplay on the Government's part to make it seem optimistic and big by calling OPVs "frigates" now and then making constant soundbytes of "We are investing in our armed forces to increase escorts numbers with our new frigate program..."

I cannot see any other reasoning than this. Especially is 50 men is the reality.

[Caribbean]

Err, might it be the new shipbuilding strategy (for warships): a bit of countervailing power induced into the monopoly equation?
- experience from ACA as the proof of the pudding?

It does seem to constitute evidence (though rather slim at the moment) that all is not quite so gloomy as some believe and that others, who may be privy to more detailed information than us, are putting their money on the line and gearing up for a punt at future contracts.

Perhaps it is worth reconsidering the point that certain of DC's comments in his SDSR statement were not actually "ad libbing" as some have contended and more a statement of intent (whether that intent is realised is another issue of course).

[jonas]

You won't see SSK's again in the RN the Upholder class saw to that,you want an SSK you are going to have to buy foreign and that is not going to happen. Then again why would we want them. Likewise Khareef, no use at all for the UK. The waters that we operate in are not the same as they were designed for.

Not strictly true. BMT has a range they have designed and Qinetiq has a lot of experience when it comes to SSK based design software. Of course, informing a specific requirement and then building them is a whole different matter and would probably take a lot of foreign input consultation wise, just as with our efforts to restart SSN construction with the Astutes.

I never suggested that we were not capable of designing and building SSK's, which we obviously are. It's just that even if the RN were interested, which they don't seem to be, our skilled labour force will be tied up for a couple of decades yet on Astutes and Successor

[ArmChairCivvy]

submarines under construction for the Spanish Navy (plagued by various problems) have had considerable UK input.

Building subs in the UK would be a piece of cake, except for the fact that it would upset the v carefully balanced drumbeat for the nuclear boats. The equipment for building those pressure domes is v specialised (=expensive) and they stand idle for most of the time. But the real reason for turning to the UK might be that the French hold that Spain nicked the design from a joint project (and are still sour about it... might even be the reason why Spain did not pitch for the Oz selection even though a lengthened design has been kicking about in the press for at least 5 yrs).

[ArmChairCivvy]

With regards the French light frigates like the Floreals and the La Fayettes I'll be blunt. They aren't escorts and they're certainly not "frigates" in the way the RN would describe a ship of that type. At most they're oversized long-range OPVs with a handful of Exocets and a big gun. Place them in anything but a permissive environment and they won't last five minutes. The RN doesn't need ships like that. Hell, nobody needs ships like that. In my view their existence comes down to the French government and military's tendency to prize the appearance of conspicuous power (lots of warships, planes, tanks etc...) over paying for the real thing. The reason they've scored export successes is because unfortunately quite a few other governments think like that as well. At least they've all had the good sense to fit credible self-defence AAW gear to the variants they've bought

I haven't seen what the original term is in French, but you often see them called surveillance frigates (I would call the Floreals colonial sloops, but that's just me).
- anyway, I think the term captures their purpose quite well

As a detail, all general purpose (as opposed to AAW specialist ships) are having their air defences updated, from the old "manpad level" which for naval use had been put on multiple launch mounts.

[Engaging Strategy]

Just a quick poll to sound out opinion on the outcome of the FLF programme.

The poll is in two parts, the first is what the programme will (or won't) produce and the second is the number of ships in the class. Please answer both sections.

[~UNiOnJaCk~]

How many voted honestly and not just based off wishful thinking?

[shark bait]

You missed the best option off the list

[RetroSicotte]

Any further information on what that is? Never seen it before. (Unless I have and I'm just missing it.)

Edit - Ah, found it.

http://products.damen.com/en/ranges/cro ... over-131cl

[shark bait]

That's the one! also nice to see they list it with a crew requirement of 63-83.

If you've following the thread you'll know I quite like the Danish designs as a source of inspiration for our FLF. The Damen design's look very similar and come with the advantage if having lots of fancy renders to oogle at .

Massive mission space, integrated mast, gun at the front and VLS. What's not to like, sound very good for a general purpose frigate.

Also not a light frigate, but a lighter frigate at 5,500 tonnes, these are still big ships, big enough to still be useful.

Big;

[donald_of_tokyo]

With regards the French light frigates like the Floreals and the La Fayettes I'll be blunt. They aren't escorts and they're certainly not "frigates" in the way the RN would describe a ship of that type. At most they're oversized long-range OPVs with a handful of Exocets and a big gun. Place them in anything but a permissive environment and they won't last five minutes. The RN doesn't need ships like that. Hell, nobody needs ships like that. In my view their existence comes down to the French government and military's tendency to prize the appearance of conspicuous power (lots of warships, planes, tanks etc...) over paying for the real thing. The reason they've scored export successes is because unfortunately quite a few other governments think like that as well. At least they've all had the good sense to fit credible self-defence AAW gear to the variants they've bought

Floreal is a patrol frigate, similar to Holland class. It is good for its task, to be "a queen of the ocean with no real enemy". I think this is important on their own, but just simply not fits in RN's task list. UK has much less remote dependencies than France, and also not sending even an OPV there in many case (e.g. Pitcairn Islands).

La Fayettes is also good at her task. With a descent CMS equipped, it is designed to be "an ordinal frigate" on anti-surface (SSMs and a helicopter = T23), anti-land (main gun and some Marines = better than T23), and anti-air (now with VT1 missiles, and in near future with ASTER probably added). But not on ASW at all, zero. Their range is 4000nm @15kt, but as long as 9000nm at 12kt with 50 days long endurance.

Compared to T23 GP, other than complete lack of ASW, they only lack in "number of SAMs", currently with only 8 VT1 missiles on the launcher with 16 reload. Compared to 32 VL-seawolf of T23, yes their SAMs are not VL, has only 1 FC channels, but the missile itself is similar, to my understanding. So, SAM capability will be "about half" that of T23.

I know they are not designed to be an escort. But their specification look "not bad". Looks like a credible light frigate with ASW totally omitted?

I do not understand why they are claimed to be "oversized long-range OPVs".

I admit I myself is not so much confident to call them "credible". But their low design density and "so so" armaments (other than ASW) make me hesitate to conclude it is "not credible".

(Note that I DO agree that Floreal are right to be named so.)

Of course, to be credible in 2020s, "La Fayette-like light frigate" must be a bit larger for future margin, say 4000-4500t FL.

[donald_of_tokyo]

That's the one! also nice to see they list it with a crew requirement of 63-83.

If you've following the thread you'll know I quite like the Danish designs as a source of inspiration for our FLF. The Damen design's look very similar and come with the advantage if having lots of fancy renders to oogle at .

Massive mission space, integrated mast, gun at the front and VLS. What's not to like, sound very good for a general purpose frigate.

Also not a light frigate, but a lighter frigate at 5,500 tonnes, this are still big ships, big enough to still be useful.

Big;...

So where is your criteria between "light frigate" and "lighter frigate"? At 4500t FL?
And also, you were claiming that only RN has the good standard. Being of Danish design, how much additional cost/weight do you need to make it RN standard = credible?