Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

[benny14]

Type 31 as Fleet Ready Escort, for example, is it really viable?

In regards to the vessel used for fleet ready escort.

The Type 23 would be just as sunk as a Type 31 in this type of situation. No idea what the Typhoons are doing there, what are they going to do, go in for a paveway strike? They would be knocked out the sky before they could blink. The only counter to this is to deploy a proper fleet escort with multiple vessels, which we are not capable of doing, therefore it is simply flag waving.

With the Typhoons, another serious weakness highlighted here is a lack of air-launched ASM.

[Poiuytrewq]

In my opinion the T31e is a good idea but not at £250m each. Increase the budget up to around £400m a vessel and the RN would have a genuine Type23 replacement. It may also at that price point prove to extremely attractive for export.

Also, if the Type 31e is going to be fitted with a 57mm or 76mm main gun what is going to provide NGFS when the last T23 retires? If the answer is the T26 it seems to be asking a lot from 8 vessels.

Not enough capability in my opinion if this Nation has to go to war without coalition partners.

[Repulse]

The value in the T31e Sloop is if it can be forward based, to provide presence in areas of Sovereign UK interest to monitor / deter low level aggression. To do this it has to have limited but credible sensory (Artisan), offensive (Wildcat), defensive (57mm CIWS gun and possibly SeaRAM) and littoral / HADR capabilities. We should be thinking River B2+ not T26-.

Aiming for 5 of these B2+ vessels should be @£150mn per ship, leaving money for another more a capable T26.

[donald_of_tokyo]

Is SeaRAM that cheap? including all the logistics?

[benny14]

To do this it has to have limited but credible sensory (Artisan), offensive (Wildcat), defensive (57mm CIWS gun and possibly SeaRAM) and littoral / HADR capabilities.

You near enough just described the Type 31. Remember the Type 31 is using alot of the gear from the Type 23, so it is a 300-400m vessel.

[Repulse]

Is SeaRAM that cheap? including all the logistics?

Smaller navies can afford to operate it so why not the RN. Public costs are not easy to come by but a 2003 unit cost of $8mn is quoted on some websites, so say double that to get @£12mn per unit, need to add support costs of course (say half that per annum)?

An alternative would be to go for two 57mms with 3P ammo.

[Gabriele]

The Type 31 is happening, no amount of wishful thinking will change that.

That does not mean it is a smart use of money in any way.

[Aethulwulf]

I believe that the RN is hoping to forward deploy one T31 to the Falklands and one to the Gulf. Once forward deployed, the ships would only return to the UK once every 6 years for major refits. It is considering using either the OPV or MCM manning patterns. This will provided APT(S) and Op Kipion at much higher levels of cover than in the recent past.

The remaining three T31 will be UK based and cover FRE, APT(N) for the non-hurricane 6 months of the year, and NATO commitments.

[benny14]

That does not mean it is a smart use of money in any way.

What is a smart use of the Type 31 money in your opinion?

The remaining three T31 will be UK based and cover FRE, APT(N) for the non-hurricane 6 months of the year, and NATO commitments.

An escort is not really needed for APT(N) that is a LPD and River deployment at the most. And as for APT(S), how long has it been now since we deployed an escort, I dont think the RN see it is a priority currently given the sorry state of the Argentine Navy, a River is all is really needed there at the moment, with the occasional escort deployment.

[Gabriele]

Another Type 26 or two before moving straight into MHPC territory, ideally.

[benny14]

Another Type 26

While another Type 26 would be great. It does not fix the problem of lacking hulls, it makes it far worse and would leave us will less vessels to deploy in a CSG, which would also require us to abandon lots of our standing tasks whenever it deploys. The Type 31 is what is needed to fulfill our current tasks within the budget. As I said before, many of our tasks dont require an high end escort.

[Gabriele]

It is just not true. Even just an additional "tail" frigate would actually be a big improvement. Constabulary tasks can be met by MHPC.

The only quick way to have more hulls is to keep the River Batch 1 in home waters, so all or at least most of the Batch 2 can be used abroad, anywhere they are sufficient for the task.

Type 31 is just a thing that pretends to be a frigate so government can keep saying they are not cutting.

[Poiuytrewq]

£8bn should have been enough to replace the T23's if the budget had of been properly managed

[SKB]

If the SSBN budget was not in the usual MOD budget, as it once was, there would be no denying the MOD budget has been cut.

[benny14]

is just not true. Even just an additional "tail" frigate would actually be a big improvement. Constabulary tasks can be met by MHPC.

The only quick way to have more hulls is to keep the River Batch 1 in home waters, so all or at least most of the Batch 2 can be used abroad, anywhere they are sufficient for the task.

Type 31 is just a thing that pretends to be a frigate so government can keep saying they are not cutting.

Fair enough. I can also see that side of the argument. Do you think that keeping the three batch 1 rivers would be enough? And how would we raise the escort hull numbers back up?

[Gabriele]

I don't know. The only option is funding new ships, there is no real way around it. The point is that Type 31 is not an escort anyway. If a non escort is all i can get, personally i would never bother with a light non- frigate. For constabulary tasks I'd rather have more MHPC, cheap and "boxy", built to carry offboard systems all along. Not something with a tiny hangar and two containers as saving grace.

[inch]

your right Gabriele the type31 is just pretending to be a frigate and glad not just me who thinks that then ,more like a v large opv in my book but saying so just risks being called a out for saying so etc .also agreed they are cutting from first rate frigates to patrol vessels .looks like france and Italy can manage a large true first rate frigate new build fleet but mod/rn cant .I will never stop thinking this no matter how they spin the t31 its terrible really tbh

[seaspear]

Would anyone like to comment on the BI -Static capability of the type 26 or lack of in asw operations

[matt00773]

Would anyone like to comment on the BI -Static capability of the type 26 or lack of in asw operations

By bi-static I assume you're referring to the 2087 sonar in which case this has multi-static capability. Here's a specifications brochure for the S2087:

https://www.thalesgroup.com/sites/defau ... 202087.pdf

[Lord Jim]

I thought that with the T-45 and T-26 the Royal Navy was at least matching either France or Italy in top tier escorts. Where they are ahead is that their second tier platforms are going to be far more effective than the T-31e as it is currently envisaged. Now as I said earlier, the T-31e could be far more useful with a few additions that would not raise the programme cost greatly, and that I think most of these will appear in the final design, or in a batch 2 variant if the Government keeps it promise to actually grow the fleet.

Until other Agencies gain additional assets, we are going to have to initially keep the B1 Rivers and most of the B2s in home waters post Brexit, as it is going to be a bit of a wild west situation especially regarding fishing grounds. I can see one B2 in the Falklands but that is about it. As for other deployments, could someone re post a list of current RN commitments they are or should be manning, with both their full and abbreviated titles please. I always get confused on this.

AS always it comes down to money. The Government will never admit the T-31e is not a "Frigate", so will not reduce the design specs. IF the Navy is not will to take the T-31e then it will not get anything and the funding will go elsewhere. So my hope is the T-31e will turn out more capable than we currently think and more in line with the French and Italian Tier 2 platforms.

It is a bit funny that the RN is ending up with what was originally called the T1, T2 and T3 with the last being the future MHPC programme. What they really needed was what was the T-26 was supposed to be, somewhere between the T1 and T2, but mission creep and wish lists have scuppered that. Besides lacking a full military spec hull the T-31e is not that far away form the lower end prediction for the T2. There was supposed to a sufficiently large gap in the MoD's plans to prevent the Treasury saying the T2 was good enough and so cutting the numbers of the T1 platform. So though I hope the T-31e is eventually more capable, I do not want it so much so that the T-26 programme is reduced to six hulls for example. With 20:20 hindsight the RN would have done better with a less capable and cheaper T-26 and retained the thirteen planned.

[donald_of_tokyo]

Is SeaRAM that cheap? including all the logistics?

Smaller navies can afford to operate it so why not the RN. Public costs are not easy to come by but a 2003 unit cost of $8mn is quoted on some websites, so say double that to get @£12mn per unit, need to add support costs of course (say half that per annum)?

I'm afraid RAM B.2 is not much different from CAMM itself. (I even hope for a cheaper version of CAMM (Point-Defense oriented SeaCeptor-lite, to share logistics with SeaCeptor itself), to "cover" RAM role, but this is different story).

An alternative would be to go for two 57mms with 3P ammo.

Good candidate, I agree.

[donald_of_tokyo]

I don't know. The only option is funding new ships, there is no real way around it. The point is that Type 31 is not an escort anyway. If a non escort is all i can get, personally i would never bother with a light non- frigate. For constabulary tasks I'd rather have more MHPC, cheap and "boxy", built to carry offboard systems all along. Not something with a tiny hangar and two containers as saving grace.

<assessment>
Actually, I almost totally agree to Gabrielle-san's point, as I myself is a strong supporter of "9th T26 and some other vessels with remaining ~500M GBP". So, note my favorite is this way.

But, I think LordJim-san's argument that RN "needs" T31e to just get rationale of getting the "1.25B GBP for 5 hulls" is valid. "Within this restriction, what can be done?" is all I am thinking on T31e.

As many here say, the cost (~40% of 5-hull FTI project) says it can never be a "proper light frigate", even considering equipment carried-over from T23GP. Thus, T31e is "(1) a large OPV, (2) armed as typical corvette of the day, (3) added with a small mission bay".

- Item-(1) means, 120m long, 3700-4200t FLD, which is considered important to provide good enough stability for efficient helicopter operation in blue water.
- Item-(2) means, a 57/76 mm gun and 12 SAM (and some SSMs), with mid-sized helicopter. Add hull-mounted sonar if you like.
- Item-(3) is as it is.

<proposal>
T31e shall better be more "modular", "simple", and "biased"
- The helicopter hanger must be unified with the mission bay. Make it > 25-m long, capable to carry "1 Merlin + UAV", or "2 Wildcat + > 2 ISO containers" or more. Arrowhead 120 is so. In case of Leander, shift the funnel to the right, and locate the hangar to the left = arrangement like the Heritage class USCG cutter.
- The armament shall be located in place of the mission bay, not along with it. In case of Arrowhead 120, locate 24 CAMM VLS in place of the amid-ship mission bay. In case of Leander, the same. Just reuse the forward VLS section for accommodation and free-up the space amidship.

This will give us 2 types of hull based on the same hull design.

(A) a 4000t ship with larger mission bay, armed with only a 57/76 mm gun and a CIWS (good for APT-N and Indian Ocean), ESM/chaff/flare kit, with a CMS in low level, not much different from River B2's.

(B) a 4000t ship with 57/76 mm gun, 24 CAMM, hull-sonar or CAPTAS1 (or even CAPTAS-4CI in future, but never CAPTAS-4-full), a Wildcat (but Merlin capable in emergency), with so so "future growth margin", ESM/chaff/flare kit, torpedo-defense kit, and with mid-grade CMS.

Apart from the design+initial cost of ~250M GBP, I hope we can build three type-(A) with ~150M GBP each, which will enable two type-(B) built with ~275M GBP each (added with equipments carried-over from T23GP, equivalent to ~325M GBP or so).

<note>
Again, I myself is a supporter of "9th T26 and some other vessels with remaining ~500M GBP" but this is a comment on "Within this restriction, what can be done?".

[shark bait]

If the T31 comes with an ASW tail, and can act as an escort it will be a valuable addition to the RN.

If it's just for maritime security, they should not bother, instead merging the project with MHPC, and buy as many T26 as is affordable, consolidating the RN around 2 core platforms.

This is how the MOD have defined the T31;


source: https://www.dcicontracts.com/resource-c ... e-frigate/ …

......no mention of escorting.

Everything in that list could work off a big commercially derived utility vessels, that is applied for RN use on remote mine hunting and maritime security operations.

The only reason the T31 exists is so politicians can continue to pretend they're growing the Royal Navy, its a distraction from what is a real capability cut.

[shark bait]

The value in the T31e Sloop is if it can be forward based, to provide presence in areas of Sovereign UK interest to monitor / deter low level aggression.

Is that valuable? None of the UK's territories are under contention, and neither are they likely to be in the future. The days of sailing around and shaking the White Ensign at the colonies are long gone.

There are other regions where an enhanced presence may be suitable;

Hybrid tactics are well established in the South China sea, an increased presence is required here to monitor the situation, but the UK has no sovereign interest there, neither is it a region where the RN could support a small platform long term. Is this a region the RN would send a patrol frigate?

Another region is the East Mediterranean, where the Russian navy is pushing to gain influence. Here we do have sovereign and strategic interests, Cyprus and Suez, along with NATO commitments. Is a small gun boat the correct response to the Russian situation here?

[Lord Jim]

The thing is none of the designs put forward for the T-31e meet any of those requirements, they exceed them by a huge order of magnitude. IF these requirements are set in stone, what the MoD are looking for is a large Coast Guard Cutter armed with a 25-30mm cannon, able to operate a helicopter, carry 2 or more RIBs, and have space on deck for a couple of ISO containers. Oh and not forget, a ballroom/conference room/cinema. It is going to be interesting to see what the Defence Select Committee have to say has this programme develops. They have no teeth, but have pretty strong views and I think the new Defence Secretary is not going to be happy signing off on a vessel that just meets these requirements if he has to call it a warship.

I still think the requirements are going to change before any contract is let, as those requirements seem to be the ones any RN vessels can meet ( except the IOS containers) and so can be considered standard requirement for all new RN vessels. It is the requirements above and beyond these that is key and I do not believe are set in stone. The argument to be made is that whoever published that data is anti T-31e and pissed off they are replacing five T-26 and so is down playing the whole idea.