Type 31 Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Contains threads on Royal Navy equipment of the past, present and future.

What will be the result of the 'Lighter Frigate' programme?

Programme cancelled, RN down to 14 escorts
52
10%
Programme cancelled & replaced with GP T26
14
3%
A number of heavy OPVs spun as "frigates"
127
25%
An LCS-like modular ship
22
4%
A modernised Type 23
24
5%
A Type 26-lite
71
14%
Less than 5 hulls
22
4%
5 hulls
71
14%
More than 5 hulls
103
20%
 
Total votes: 506

NickC
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by NickC »

MikeKiloPapa wrote:
I wonder if the 6900t figure is lightship or standard displacement ? :think: .....as for the Hunters 8800t , that is supposedly its mythical End Of Life displacement , which IMO is a bit of a bollocks term anyway ( Full load is full load....ie the maximum displacement of the design....it doesn't change unless you lengthen the hull) , but in the case of the Ozzies/RAN ,they are known for cramming their ships full of new heavy equipment when upgrading and modernizing and thereby sacrificing seakeeping and stability,. Which means the Hunter class will probably end up weighing 10kt but only be able to sail in sea state 2 :roll:
Ships inevitably get heavier and become less stable during their usually long operational lives as new kit and systems added above center of gravity, its naval architectural practice for naval ships to be designed with built in displacement margin for this future weight growth so as not to exceed the ships design weight and stability limits. The normal cheap fix is to add lead/pig iron ballast to restore ships stability.

The USN had standards, but these days more ignored than honoured, as can see from table with the actual LCS figures and the new FFG(X) capability only spec'd at 5%.

Ship type----------------------------------------------Weight(%)------------------------------------ Vertical centre of gravity
Surface Combatants-------------------------------------------10.0------------------------------------------12"/0.30m
Aircraft Carriers--------------------------------------------------7.5------------------------------------------30"/0.76m
Amphibious warfare ships (large decks)---------------------7.5------------------------------------------30"/0.76m
Amphibious warfare ships (other)----------------------------5.0-------------------------------------------6"/0.15m
Auxiliary ships---------------------------------------------------5.0-------------------------------------------6"/ 0.15m
Special ships and craft-----------------------------------------5.0-------------------------------------------6"/0.15m
LCS requirements---------------------------------------1.4 to 1.6-------------------------------------------6"/0.15m

Re the Hunter I'm guessing the 8,800t EOL displacement quoted reflects 8,000t FLD on entry into service with 10% weight growth designed in.

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Tempest414
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Tempest414 »

shark bait wrote:
Tempest414 wrote:I have to say I would like a F-class with

Faithful - Fearless - Firedrake - foresight - Fortitude

Batch 2

Foxhound - Fury - Favourite
So may good 'F' names, almost a little wasteful to give them to the T31.
they may as well be given good names if nothing else

Lord Jim
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Lord Jim »

What about resurrecting the "Tribal" class, selecting names from across the Commonwealth?

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RichardIC
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by RichardIC »

Lord Jim wrote:What about resurrecting the "Tribal" class, selecting names from across the Commonwealth?
Depends how paternalistic and out of touch with the 21st century you want to appear.

abc123
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by abc123 »

No, I think that a F-class is the most likely choice.

Fortitude, Furious, Favourite, Fearless and Formidable
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

abc123
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by abc123 »

Tempest414 wrote:
shark bait wrote:
Tempest414 wrote:I have to say I would like a F-class with

Faithful - Fearless - Firedrake - foresight - Fortitude

Batch 2

Foxhound - Fury - Favourite
So may good 'F' names, almost a little wasteful to give them to the T31.
they may as well be given good names if nothing else
Yeah, if I was a politician, I would definitly give them such strong names, for such strong world-class frigates of the RN. :think:
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

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Tempest414
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Tempest414 »

abc123 wrote:No, I think that a F-class is the most likely choice.

Fortitude, Furious, Favourite, Fearless and Formidable
Stayed away from Furious as she was a Battlecruiser / Carrier and Formidable was also a Carrier

abc123
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by abc123 »

Tempest414 wrote:
abc123 wrote:No, I think that a F-class is the most likely choice.

Fortitude, Furious, Favourite, Fearless and Formidable
Stayed away from Furious as she was a Battlecruiser / Carrier and Formidable was also a Carrier
Just because they were carriers/battlecruisers. New Cruisers for the 21st Century... :think:
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

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Tempest414
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Tempest414 »

abc123 wrote:
Tempest414 wrote:
abc123 wrote:No, I think that a F-class is the most likely choice.

Fortitude, Furious, Favourite, Fearless and Formidable
Stayed away from Furious as she was a Battlecruiser / Carrier and Formidable was also a Carrier
Just because they were carriers/battlecruisers. New Cruisers for the 21st Century... :think:
Just call me sentimental with so many great names in the F class I just felt we could keep them back for LHD's or LPD's and the like. With this be said a fantasy LHD class of Courageous , Glorious and Furious would have epic

abc123
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by abc123 »

Tempest414 wrote:
abc123 wrote:
Tempest414 wrote:
abc123 wrote:No, I think that a F-class is the most likely choice.

Fortitude, Furious, Favourite, Fearless and Formidable
Stayed away from Furious as she was a Battlecruiser / Carrier and Formidable was also a Carrier
Just because they were carriers/battlecruisers. New Cruisers for the 21st Century... :think:
Just call me sentimental with so many great names in the F class I just felt we could keep them back for LHD's or LPD's and the like. With this be said a fantasy LHD class of Courageous , Glorious and Furious would have epic
There's no shortage of good names for the RN ships. The problem is rather lack of ships. :thumbdown:
Fortune favors brave sir, said Carrot cheerfully.
What's her position about heavily armed, well prepared and overmanned armies?
Oh, noone's ever heard of Fortune favoring them, sir.
According to General Tacticus, it's because they favor themselves…

NickC
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by NickC »

First images have seen of the L3 AlaMO projectile, which won out in USN competition following trials with the BAE ORKA developed from the BAE 3P round for an anti-boghammar round for use with the Bofors 57mm gun, max range stated as 10 km/5.4 nm by L3 per earlier video.

L3 have not disclosed any info on the guidance tech used, must admit not much wiser from watching video, mention of guidance section and 'divert' module.

2:38

Jake1992
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Jake1992 »

Possible order of up to 10, I though the initial plan was for up to 20 ? It’d be a surprising cut if this is the case.

The length to which it is modified from the original design almost makes the whole rule of it being based on an in service design redundant. A real shame as I really think the T26 would of won if not for this rule.

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Ron5 »

Jake1992 wrote:Possible order of up to 10, I though the initial plan was for up to 20 ? It’d be a surprising cut if this is the case.

The length to which it is modified from the original design almost makes the whole rule of it being based on an in service design redundant. A real shame as I really think the T26 would of won if not for this rule.
It's going to be re-bid after 10.

PS the slogan "You don't win tomorrows battles with yesterdays ships" made my eyes roll. FFG(X)/FREMM is the very definition of a yesterday ship.

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by SD67 »

abc123 wrote:No, I think that a F-class is the most likely choice.

Fortitude, Furious, Favourite, Fearless and Formidable
I really like F-class - D class Destroyers, F class Frigates, at least five good legacy names to choose from

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Lord Jim »

RichardIC wrote:Depends how paternalistic and out of touch with the 21st century you want to appear
Ok name them after members of the Commonwealth, Canada, Australia, Jamaica, New Zealand, Fiji, all are historical ship names.

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Scimitar54 »

Would much prefer Ceylon to Sri-Lanka though and come to think about it Malaya rather than Malaysia. Better to stick with the traditional names. Same goes for Tribal names as well. Give me Eskimo rather than Inuit any day. :mrgreen:

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by NickC »

ALaMO 57mm, have seen mention of $14,000 plus per round, have been unalbe to verify

L3 video April 9, 2018


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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by xav »

Rolls-Royce Seals Propulsion Systems Contract for Royal Navy’s Type 31 frigates
In total, the order comprises of 40 engines and generator sets to be used for main propulsion and on-board power generation, the MTU Callosum propulsion control and monitoring system, and Integrated Logistics Support (ILS). Each new frigate will be powered by four MTU 20V 8000 M71 engines, each delivering over 8,000 kW. On-board power will be provided on each vessel by four MTU generator sets based on 16V 2000 M41B units, each delivering in excess of 900 kW.
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/20 ... -frigates/

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Aethulwulf »

The CODAD propulsion package on the T31 is essential the same as on the Danish Iver Huitfeldt class, except the T31 will receive the latest 20V 8000 M71 engine rather than the 20V 8000 M70 fitted to the Iver Huitfeldt class.

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by NickC »

Gensets

The Iver Huitfeldt class gensets 2 x CAT3512 gensets @ 1,360 kW each + 2 x CAT3508 gensets @ 920 kW each, total 4.56 MW, compared to T31 four MTU generator sets based on 16V 2000 M41B units, each delivering in excess of 900 kW, total ~3.6 MW, a reduction of ~ 0.9 MW.

Presumably reflecting T31 lower power margin built for future weapon systems and reduced power required for T31 single NS100 S-band radar whereas IH has the SMART-L (T45 uses the S1850M variant) and the four panel APAR X-band radars?

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

As IH class is designed to be "easy to replace/add anything after build" (which is actually eating up non-negligible fraction of hull space), I think designing the generator sets optimized for its apparently lower power load is no problem.

Future is future. It is not a tightly packed ship, and you do not need to prepare for everything apriori.

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Caribbean »

How often will they be operating at full load, however? I would have thought that there was a great deal of redundancy built in. My guess (and it is only a guess) is that the IH would use two gensets for normal use, with the others being for peak/ backup usage.
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Aethulwulf »

The Indonesian MOD has signed a preamble contract that paves the way to procure a variant of the Iver Huitfeldt class frigate from Denmark.

The preamble contract covers workshare arrangements and was signed on 30 April.

Indonesia is expected to sign a contract for the first ship by the end of 2020.

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

NEWS, thanks to Aethulwulf-san

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/20 ... ter-force/

Not sure it is a good news or bad, for UK.

Not a single mention of Babcock joining the program. No surprise, it was Naval team Denmark's sales project years before Babcock started Arrowhead 140 project.

Arrowhead 140 is the first export success of Naval team Denmark. Export here means "technology transfer and local build".

Indonesian Frigate will be yet another export success of Naval team Denmark. But if it goes ahead (not clear yet), it will mean there be 2nd shipyard to build the IH-class derivative frigate other than Babcock.

For Brazil, Chilli, and other mid-class nations, Naval team Denmark will approach with the same way as they did to UK and Indonesia. For other cases in which the nation do not have their own shipyard, Indonesia will be a good rival to Babcock-UK (only if Indonesia goes on, of course).

Space left for Arrowhead 140 export is getting narrow. I think, NZ will be very important case, as they "may" prefer ships built by UK, rather than other nations. (but I can see they select, South Korea, Singapore, Dutch-Damen, Italian-Fincantieri, Spanish-Navantia, and even French-Naval. Many powerful rivals are there).

Anyway, to gain export, Arrowhead 140 needs very tough negotiation, if anybody still believes in its export success. T26 success was a bit surprise, but it was the design export = "technology transfer and local build". BAES is in the place of Naval team Denmark in the case of Arrowhead 140. Successful approach.

Babcock was stating selling systems and design for export. But, at least for IH-class, they need some "merit" compared to the Naval team Denmark's offer. Not much different from the Canadian shipyard to sell their T26 variant design. (depend on the contract).

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate [News Only]

Post by Repulse »

I’d be surprised if we ever see the UK (e)xports that were one of the key drivers of the T31 programme.Lets just rename it now to the T31c (c stands for cheap or cr*p - take your pick).
”We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow." - Lord Palmerston

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