Type 31 Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

[R686]

I think the idea of using it for NGFS has been finally ditched thank god.

I think the idea of using it for anything worthwhile has been ditched, rather.

If you just want to do patrols, then just build a patrol ship. You can do that a lot cheaper than this. This ships primary role and purpose is just to allow Fallon to say we're building 13 frigates.

Never ever mistake that. This is checkbox military at its most extreme.

seems they are more worried about perception and shipbuilding without actually meeting the needs of the defence force

[seaspear]

There is a need for ships to perform constabulary duties , the argument being sending a large warship to perform this role is wasteful and expensive ,no argument! but confusing the abilities of these ships to meaningfully engage in front line roles where they are just likely to be target practice is pitiful .
But when considering the size of N.A.T.O and adversary ships how many front line frigates are needed ?

[cky7]

As advertised it will still be a far better platform for many of the jobs the UK si currently using RFAs and RN research vessels for.

It isn't replacing those vessels though, it's replacing our current patrol frigates which seeing as the types you mentioned are covering these roles are clearly needed to do things that require a proper warship and there aren't the numbers to do both with such.

Telling ourselves what type 31 is looking like being is anything other than a disgusting waste if money and more evidenced how little the govt gives a shit about the lives of our service men and women is really dangerous imo.

We Continue to give away billions in aid whilst destroying our armed forces and some of what I've read over the last week about the upcoming cutbacks has me too depressed to even bother anymore.

[Repulse]

I sit (I think) in the middle of this debate towards the slightly less pessimistic end.

- On one hand dipping to 14 DDs/FFs seems very low even if their role is just CASD and CSG escorts, more are needed - even just one more (based on the 3:1 rule) would allow the RN to have permanent T26 East of Suez to add muscle to a T31e quickly if needed.
- The T31e is clearly more aligned to what a Frigate was back in and pre WW2, it is not an equivalent replacement for a GP T23. However, given the aim is for non BAE yards to build it (who haven't built a complex ship for years), then jumping to a mini T26 straight away would have been probably very expensive and had incurred delays.
- The only hope for the T31e is if:
> it has a solid base hull design with credible sensors and defence weapons
> it signals a change in philosophy in the RN with a focus on numbers and off board systems.
> It is ultimately the start of a 20+ vessel MHPC replacement to be credible.

[Repulse]

What I do not understand however is the @100 crew figure. The specification doesn't warrant such a large number and surely will be the key cost driver long term.

It could be the crew accomodation requirements with all the bells and whistles. Or, it could be the number including rotation for forward basing.

[donald_of_tokyo]

Firstly many, many, thanks to Gabriele for finding and publishing the document for us.

Agreed.

1. The schedule: first responses due by Oct 16, 2017. Final by Dec 1, 2017. Design Competition contracts Summer 2018. Main gate 4Q 2018, Build contract 1Q 2019. Wow. Seems totally unrealistic.

2. Ship requirements: as detailed by Repulse & Gabriele, base design has no, zero, zip, warfighting requirements. Catching slow pirates, cocktail parties, freedom of navigation trips & the occasional international exercise. Future development to get even the minimal ability to protect another ship. Odd mix of very vague, general requirements and very specific. This is not a frigate by anyone's definition.

3. Cost, this is a direct quote: "£250M is the maximum average price per ship for an initial order of 5 ships. This includes non-recurring engineering costs, contractor risk and profit, minimal GFX proposed by the contractor, initial training and spares. All costs are at outturn assuming an in service date with the Royal Navy for the first of class of 2023, and a drumbeat of a ship delivered every 12 months thereafter; Warranty and Insurance will be treated as risk inside of cost; and it is the MOD’s intent to maximise the transfer of risk to the contractor during this programme, and minimise the dependencies that the MOD would manage"

To me that says, after subtracting design & development costs, each ship will have to be £200 million ($260m?) or less. Worth remembering as we compare to other frigate sales in other countries.

I read-through it and notice the same issue. No war-fighting is in the requirements. With its size of 4000t, Wildcat operation up to sea-state 6 requirement, very modest requirement for armaments, it looks like it is aiming at "up-armed-extended-Floreal", which I think is complying with its cheap cost and very high-speed building schedule.

My comments:

1: As RetroSicotte-san is claiming, T31e is apparently NOT a proper escort. It is simply because of the cheap cost 250M GBP. Calling it a "frigate" cannot be justified, I agree.

2: The tasks described in RFI cannot be covered with River B2 OPV. No CIWS/CAMM against Hoiti-revel's ASM, no "sea state 6 boat and Wildcat operational capability". So, building different ship is reasonable. In addition, its armament requirement reminds me of Venator 90; a 76/57mm gun, 2x 30mm guns, 12-24 CAMM, proposed to "self escort". Just replace their MCM-kit hangar with helo hangar and boat hangar, and make the hull 4000t large, then T31e comes out. For me, there is nothing new in this concept, and I am not much against the T31e concept (although my favorite choice is to add a T26, and a few River "B3").

3: Clearly, RN is losing the "19 escort" fleet. It is surely sad, depressing issue. But, it looks like MOD is even thinking to cut 10 F35Bs to make T31e happen. To make the cost twice larger to make it a proper light frigate (as Venator 110), another 10 F35Bs will be at risk.

I dislike (actually "hate") Fallon keep saying "increasing RN fleet" or "XXX billion GBP investment". No, they are cutting the RN fleet. What is more, cutting ALSO its operational cost, because significant fraction of "XXX billion" is expected to come from "efficiency saving", which is damaging UK military very very severely.

I hate stealth cut. If HMG is cutting something, it shall be open and apparent to the public. If the Ministers keep saying "we are increasing", the public will not be aware of cutting. UK military must stop "efficiency saving". It is a fantasy. RN must not call T31e a frigate, and must state "we are going to have 14 escorts, 5 Patrol Corvette and 5 OPVs", which is the fact.

One question: Is including "initial training" normal? Or very special only applied to T31e? Wiki says it was included in Romanian navies SIGMA 10514 light-light-frigate contracts for 4 hull with 1.6M Euro.

[ArmChairCivvy]

. Just replace their MCM-kit hangar with helo hangar and boat hangar, and make the hull 4000t large, then T31e comes out.

Luckily, with that bigger hull, you can do the same in reverse

One question: Is including "initial training" normal?

A big line of business in Babcock Also, the guideline is to base selections on thru-life costings, so whether it is in the "headline price" or not, it will still be factored in

[xav]

I am back from DSEI where I could interview Babcock, Steller Systems and BMT Group on their respective design...

BAE Systems said "management told them NOT to discuss Type 31 with the media"...

[Jake1992]

I am back from DSEI where I could interview Babcock, Steller Systems and BMT Group on their respective design...

BAE Systems said "management told them NOT to discuss Type 31 with the media"...

Well if the representative from BMT is to be believed we could well end up with a whole new desgin that no one has put forward yet, we could end up with some sort of hybrid between the Arrowhead 120 and the Venator 110.

They were all saying the right things but we'll see if they can really build any of these for the stupidly low price of £250m. I'm still holding out hope that the RN and MOD have only set that as a test price to see what the industry can really give us, to allow for a bench mark in the future and if need be will raise the budget but my opertmisum is dropping by the day

[donald_of_tokyo]

I am back from DSEI where I could interview Babcock, Steller Systems and BMT Group on their respective design...

BAE Systems said "management told them NOT to discuss Type 31 with the media"...

Thanks a lot Xav-san. So, BMT (around 6:50-) is designing a Venator 120, "with more sophisticated propulsion system, longer range, faster speed, and quieter, to be more optimized for anti-submarine operations, for example". They are also getting a partnership with Babcock, to discuss/compare/improve both designs.

Very interesting.

[RichardIC]

The headline news from Xav (thanks Xav) is clearly that BMT are teaming with Babcock rather than going head-to-head.

So they're in the red corner and maybe BAe can be bothered to turn up in the blue corner, and maybe not.

And the other thing I learned is that Venator is pronounced with a soft A, rather than the way I've been pronouncing it - which, my wife tells me, is because it has a Roman derivation.

[NickC]

The Type 31e RFI specifies a Point Defence Missile System (PDMS) + Sensors or Close in Weapon System + FTR PDMS to survive attacks as expected in constabulary operations.

The CAAM/Sea Ceptor AAM has a claimed range of 25 km, therefore would classify it as a local air defence system, not a PDMS.

First thoughts would be the Raytheon SeaRAM PDMS with range of 9 km, developed from the Phalanx 20mm autonomous mount and due to its much greater range now replacing Phalanx in the USN. With the new and larger RAM Block II missile range might be double.

Another possibility might be the Thales Mach 4+ Starstreak II, 7 km range PDMS to meet the stated RFI requirements and presumably much cheaper than Sea Ceptor. The Starstreak could use the MSI SEAHAWK SIGMA - Stabilised Integrated Gun & Missile Array, which is the 30mm DS30M Mark 2 with seven Thales LMM/FASGW(L)/Martlet missiles attached. So replace the LMM with Starstreak II as understand the launch tube/container same size.

The Type 31e RFI specifies the LMM/FASGW(L)/Martlet for the Wildcat HMA2.

[Jake1992]

The Type 31e RFI specifies a Point Defence Missile System (PDMS) + Sensors or Close in Weapon System + FTR PDMS to survive attacks as expected in constabulary operations.

The CAAM/Sea Ceptor AAM has a claimed range of 25 km, therefore would classify it as a local air defence system, not a PDMS.

First thoughts would be the Raytheon SeaRAM PDMS with range of 9 km, developed from the Phalanx 20mm autonomous mount and due to its much greater range now replacing Phalanx in the USN. With the new and larger RAM Block II missile range might be double.

Another possibility might be the Thales Mach 4+ Starstreak II, 7 km range PDMS to meet the stated RFI requirements and presumably much cheaper than Sea Ceptor. The Starstreak could use the MSI SEAHAWK SIGMA - Stabilised Integrated Gun & Missile Array, which is the 30mm DS30M Mark 2 with seven Thales LMM/FASGW(L)/Martlet missiles attached. So replace the LMM with Starstreak II as understand the launch tube/container same size.

The Type 31e RFI specifies the LMM/FASGW(L)/Martlet for the Wildcat HMA2.

The up front cost of CAMM might be more but wouldn't it be cheaper on the through life cost due to the fact it'll be only every surface combatant, certainly cheaper than introducing seaRAM and having a whole new line for maintainence, ammunition and training.

[Gabriele]

And the other thing I learned is that Venator is pronounced with a soft A, rather than the way I've been pronouncing it - which, my wife tells me, is because it has a Roman derivation.

From the latin word for Hunter. Venari, i believe, comes from "Hunting". In Italy, hunting senson would be, in fact, "stagione venatoria". She is absolutely right, in other words.

The Type 31e RFI specifies a Point Defence Missile System (PDMS) + Sensors or Close in Weapon System + FTR PDMS to survive attacks as expected in constabulary operations.

That is part of why Type 31e horrifies so many of us. I think we were expecting the bottom line requirement to include, with no uncertainty, Artisan 3D and CAMM coming off the decommissioning Type 23s.
In my case, i was expecting Merlin capability as well.
The requirements turned out being even lower than even the pessimists here were expecting.

[Simon82]

Judging by Xavier's video from DSEI it would appear Stellar Systems also totally misjudged the Royal Navy's requirements for the Type 31 programme and mistakenly assumed the call would be for a 'full-fat' frigate.

[Jake1992]

Judging by Xavier's video from DSEI it would appear Stellar Systems also totally misjudged the Royal Navy's requirements for the Type 31 programme and mistakenly assumed the call would be for a 'full-fat' frigate.

Can you blame them or any of the others when the MOD, FSL, Fallon and HMG have all been banging on before hand how the T31 will be a capable light fridge and not just a pimped up OPV as seems to be the way it's going now.

You'd think the FSL if he had anything about him or any balls at all would speak out and say how the RN is getting the short end here, but no to worried about the pension and possible seat in the lords

[RetroSicotte]

It does appear as though there was a thought process amongs differing entrants.

Steller definitely seems to have looked at the FTI, FFG-X and PPA and thought that was what the MoD meant. That is after all the sort of peer they had to match for an export success.

Babcock and BMT seemed to think more on the Type 26 Lite sort of route, a cut back from what was being dropped.

BAE from what little we've seen apparently guessed pretty correctly that it would be an OPV.

[donald_of_tokyo]

Thinking about Venator 120.

Actually, the Venator concept was "not to change the hull", BMT is changing it. This fact itself is interesting.

-- a fantasy world starts --

I guess it will be 127m long, 18m max beam, ~4500t FLD ship. Making the propulsion CODLAD, adding CAPTAS4 astern (and no adding any armaments more), it will be a nice frigate with a 127mm gun, 2x 30mm guns, and 24 CAMM (and 8 SSM FFBNW). It may have only a small mission bay, but if its primary tasks is TAPS and escorting CV (the largest mission bay in RN inventory), it is no problem.

This ship is so attractive, thus it may invoke reduction in T26 number. 6 T45, 6 T26 and 6-7 Venator-120-ASW fleet is, actually, not bad in its capability, maybe not so far away in its cost, and good in its man power. The major risk is, if the build cost of Venator 120 significantly increases, it will just cause another disaster... So, in short, this is just a fantasy..

[Jake1992]

It does appear as though there was a thought process amongs differing entrants.

Steller definitely seems to have looked at the FTI, FFG-X and PPA and thought that was what the MoD meant. That is after all the sort of peer they had to match for an export success.

Babcock and BMT seemed to think more on the Type 26 Lite sort of route, a cut back from what was being dropped.

BAE from what little we've seen apparently guessed pretty correctly that it would be an OPV.

Well if you look at all the entrance beside BEA, if built to lloyds wars ship standard and have the weapons and sensor fits depicted they would all be credible capable light frigates that most of us would be happy to have especially if it meant increased numbers.

The problem is the MOD, HMG, FSL and Fallon miss lead everyone when saying they wanted a peer capable light frigate yet put specs out for a pimped OPV.

So either everyone else was putting forward what they were lead to believe was wanted and BEA didn't really want part of it. Or BEA have been giving a inside track from HMG and MOD

[donald_of_tokyo]

Maybe BAE knew how the cost limit is sever. They were fighting with MOD/RN about the T26 total cost.

[ArmChairCivvy]

It could be the crew accomodation requirements with all the bells and whistles.

- Interestingly, when LM ups the LCS length by 10 m and kits it out as a proper warfighter, the crew goes from 65 to 130

we could end up with some sort of hybrid between the Arrowhead 120 and the Venator 110.

NDP

[ArmChairCivvy]

Off topic, but from xav's video:

Posted a couple of months back how Wave Glider have a powerful ambassador: Adm. Z
- and from all that I have read, it sounds like a great concept
- a nodular screen around the MTF, wave and solar powered
- never goes to harbour; you just swap nodes (units) one or a few at a time
Better than the disposable UAV swarms... haven't seen a self-powered design yet

[PAUL MARSAY]

I like the idea of the venator 120 as an ASW light frigate as described, now this would be useful .

[Repulse]

Looks like BAE did have it right with the Avenger. Shame they seem to be disinterested as a evolved River design IMO is the right approach as it would reduce design costs and potentially training costs given other Rivers in the fleet. It would also make it interesting to Brazil which must be a potential customer.

[~UNiOnJaCk~]

I like the idea of the venator 120 as an ASW light frigate as described, now this would be useful .

Sadly, when the BMT representative was talking, he never gave me the impression that this particular design was being aimed at the UK requirement in any way...