UK Defence Forum

" Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate design is lacking "something""- Can you provide ANY justification for this comment, to me pure hokum. Completely agree. Just because most naval shipbuilding markets are rigged as hell doesn't mean the Danish didn't succeed in producing something ef...

What is also important to note is, however, to look into the escorts Naval group in French, Navantia in Spain, and Fincantierri in Italy designed and built AFTER the Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate was built. Apparently, they do not follow the cost reduction of Danish Danes, and still they are competit...

Forth now at Gib, and Clyde coming back very soon. At where they will "meet"?

I do not share to optimistic growing UK defense, sometimes discussed here, and this article looks more reflecting the real situation. A welcome sense of perspective. https://thinpinstripedline.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-ship-of-state-leaks-on-defence.html Yes. And, Sir Humphrey also mentions anything...

Type 23 Crew = 185 Type 26 = 157 Type 31 = 100 T Boat = 130 A Boat = 98 Means a crew saving of roughly 700. As new replaces old. Enough to fully crew PW. Small correction. PoW and QE needs 800 crew. The "670" or "700" is an old value. However, this does not affect your conclusio...

I read the "times" article, referred in the tweet. One CV is in danger to be lost (or mothballed), or escorts are in danger for cut (relying allies for CVTF escorting tasks), look like. I do not share to optimistic growing UK defense, sometimes discussed here, and this article looks more r...

Also about cashflow too. HW went bust because it couldn't manage it effectively. H&W did not go bust. The parent company that owned H&W went bust and sold H&W as a going concern. Yes. But, H&W was on sale for 1 year or so, and couldn't find buyer = surely not a brilliant branch of t...

Well BMT and Navantia joined together to bid the contract. I guess that’s there choice but I don’t see why it should be an issue. I’ve never understood the obsession in the naval world to have everything designed and built exclusively in the UK, no other section does. Type 31 has imo been a welcome...

Interesting to look at the weapons loadout of the contract placed yesterday by Senegal for three OPV 58S missile patrol boats, displacement 550t, 10% of a T31. OPV 58 is a Kership design, joint venture between Piriou and Naval Group, Concarneau, Bretagne, France (re Xav earlier Senegalese post) Tha...

I do. I am impressed with your optimism. Keep the faith :thumbup: "I do" means ironically. If budget is too tight, the T31 will omit CAMM and use Phalanx CIWS in place. No problem it completely meets the T31 RFI requirement. On the other hand, I agree at least some part of the added 500M ...

You two have no idea how contracts work. :D I totally understand all options are already fixed. So, any proposal here is simply because the detail of the contract is not yet disclosed. We are not even sure if T31 will carry how many CAMM. It could even be zero, because it at least complies the orig...

What the heck are you talking about? They've just signed a contract with Babcocks for 5 ships at an average 250 mill each. You want to rip up that contract that's a mere two days old? No. Not at all. Do you really believe the five T31's aure going to be built for £1.25bn? I don't and I suspect othe...

Sounds surprising that GFE could comprise 40% of the programme costs, especially since Babcocks AH140 seems to use so little kit from RN inventory. What are they using exactly other than CAMM that could be furnished by HMG? Not 40%. Added 500M GBP is only 32% of the 1.25B GBP. And, I moved to escor...

From Type-31 thread. GFE can't be account for much of that, surely. Why not? I (optimistically) imagined that it reflects the decision to "add" non-negligible GFE to the program? # If total money is not enough, for exmpke, by disbanding HMS Monmouth now and relocating CAMM system (and its ...

GFE can't be account for much of that, surely. Why not? I (optimistically) imagined that it reflects the decision to "add" non-negligible GFE to the program? # If total money is not enough, for exmpke, by disbanding HMS Monmouth now and relocating CAMM system (and its ~60M GBP update cost...

Beautiful. Bon voyage, Forth.

I take the point on a finite budget, but do not agree with this. The old Fearless LPDs used to have 16 SeaCat AAW missiles back in the day. Also, the whole “landing ship” principle is up in the air - in a lot of ways like MCM it is becoming less restricted to single classes but a role of multiple v...

To avoid stretching the Navy's escort force, the new amphibious platforms are gong to need far greater self defence capability than that of our current platforms. They are going to need air defence and close in defence together with warship levels of ECM and decoys as a minimum. Thanks, great read....

Without Government Investment, the NSS in any shape or form is dead. This reminds me that all government has been claiming "committed to XXX B GBP 10 year equipment plan". So, they do commit for it. So, adding a sub-section that "HMG is committed to YYY B GBP 10 year budget for ship ...

Apparently, if ordered from UK shipyards, the FSS will need to reduce the requirement; only 2 hulls, and with smaller/simpler hull design. UK shipyards claim that, foreign yards are subsided by their government and cannot compete against it. If literary read it, it means South Korean government was ...

Just a matter of how strong you say, I guess. I think both of your are correct in some sense. "Trade off between silent hull with small sonar (presumably CAPTAS-2) vs noisy (or less silent) hull with large sonar (presumably CAPTAS4), and selecting the latter" is the official statement of N...

Worrying as a delay will have impact, though maybe the pressure to build in the UK is increasing it may have a silver lining. ‪Royal Navy halts order for support ships as bidders could not meet budget https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/11/05/governments-shipbuilding-adviser-hits-contracts-bu...

Looking at the new French FDI (Defense and Intervention Frigate) following the steel-cutting ceremony of the first ship October 24th., previously the FTI (Frégates de taille intermédiaire). ... Leonardo 76mm MG, FCS Thales STIR EO Mk.2 both radar and electro-optic tracking systems, able to fire the...

So the 20ft ISO container onboard HMS Medway at DSEI 2019 was, Thales MMCM (Maritime Mine Counter Measure) systems' Portable Operations Centre. Great to see, using River B2 OPV as (part of) modern MCM systems on going. PS There was another 20ft container in the starboard waist. What was that, anyone...

As the "full-time trained crew" number is 1400 soul short Once again, not all of the 1400 shortfall relates to sea-going crews, especially as the RN has been pushing to fill the sea-going shortages first. (hence the 1SLs statement that the crew shortage was almost solved, some months ago)...