The T31's are a political warship. Toothless and fit only for minor taskings such as flag waving and the occasional embassy rescue. I'm sure the RN will do what it can to add teeth over the years but, of course, that will be an uphill fight against the Treasury. That's all for me. Every warship is ...

IMHO what was always needed was a T26, built by Babcock. A decade ago when these decisions were being made there was still a lot of deadwood at BAE - people who joined as an apprentice in 1981 and were cruising to retirement with a quasi civil service attitude ( and pension ). I suspect these people...

Personal .02 euro worth - the elephant in the room is Successor being taken into the core defence budget. T26 for sure is a bit overspecced - why the Chinook capable flight deck - but it’s marginal in the greater scheme. A 10 billion program vs 35 . The vast majority of the cash is going beneath the...

People still have heads in the sand wishing for more when it simply isn’t going to happen. Hey we can all "wish". Batch 2 T26 has seen a significant move down the cost curve. A 150 million cost reduction x 8 ships could potentially one more T26 added to the end of the run. It's outside th...

Maybe also speeding up T83. because, if the MoD wants 12, +12 SSNR which are both roughly at the same time period it is going to be hell on earth to fund, with a total of +£50bn. If you think it's hard right now wait until that happens. 8 for both is much more realistic and would still be a substan...

Agree.

2030 is looking like a "danger year". T23s will be dead but how many T26s will really be active? And Xi will be 77 and hungry for a place in history....

I’ve always thought the Lifex made little sense. Old ships, worked hard - what’s the point.

Far better surely to spend that money upgrading the RB2s and or adding mk41 to the Type 31s

What’s wrong with simply procuring a cheap and cheerful Stuft / PSV to launch the drones, escorted by a frigate. Why try to do two in one?

Genuine question

The problem is no Irish politician will admit publicly that any such agreement exists, so we are "living in sin" so to speak. I really don't like the current arrangement and it feels like it is only a matter of time before something goes wrong.

France to join Aukus! https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/04/france-joins-aukus-submarine-program/ Oh god no, massive mistake. I don't see a single thing the French could contribute here, their small boats are a totally different beast. They will delay, procrastinate on every detail and be ge...

As an Irish Citizen - albeit a mere plastic Paddy - I think it's well time for ROI to pull her weight. I understand all the historical baggage but seriously the Russian Navy was directly harassing Irish fishermen, there are T95s probing Irish airspace. Now Sweden is a NATO member maybe there is an o...

They'd veto the sale of Soy Beans to the Dalai Lama if they thought it would annoy their energy suppliers

Thanks, I'm aware of the background, but FCASW doesn't actually exist at the moment - not in the 10 year equipment plan.. I simply don't believe it takes this long to integrate weapons on a modern platform, when Ukraine can jerry-rig an ancient SU24 in a couple of months. Even Meteor has apparently ...

So Storm Shadow has been integrated on the SU24 in 3 month but not F35B after 10 years

Maybe we can hire the Ukranians as a kind of procurement agency

Wow, there must have been quite some integration work going on over the past few months.

There was a classic Lewis Page whinge piece in the Telegraph the other day about how Storm Shadow is useless in Ukraine

Interesting

"For effects, MBDA UK and MBDA Italy are already one company"

My fantasy scenario - France leave MBDA and Japan join. GCAP and Meteor as the catalyst. What Anglo-French program is there? FCASW seems like vaporware. of course it's all politics

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said on May 10 that the Biden administration will respect his informal veto of a sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70/72s to Turkey, and warned that he will retaliate if any deal is made with Ankara. The remarks at a conference in Washington about Cyprus show that Menend...

The Australians did not order Type 26 - they signed up for a project to create an Australian Burke-lite, using the BAE Global Combat Ship as a starting point. That's a 5 year design phase, minimum, whichever ship was chosen as the base. TBH I don't think they're terribly troubled about design matur...

The Australians did not order Type 26 - they signed up for a project to create an Australian Burke-lite, using the BAE Global Combat Ship as a starting point. That's a 5 year design phase, minimum, whichever ship was chosen as the base. TBH I don't think they're terribly troubled about design maturi...

How many T23 and T45 are currently crewed? 12 in total. Just 12. If your info is correct, and all the other info is correct, I guess it means, RN has many less-trained man-power, but not enough well-trained one. Here I am NOT talking about just "trained", I am more talking about naval eng...

Nice article, quality stuff thanks

I bet we end up with "Warrior 2000" by default Taken literally, with the redesigned hull, more powerful engine and dual-axis stabilised turret mounting a Mk44 chaingun, that would be a pretty good option. Doubt it will happen though. With hindsight, it would have been the better option, w...

sol wrote: ↑01 Dec 2022, 13:28 And while waiting for Ajax and Boxer to arrive, Warrior will continue to serve beyond 2025

I bet we end up with "Warrior 2000" by default

Yes T45 must have a long life ahead of it given the limited sea time they've had so probably worth investing in, It's interesting - there's a great deal of "Dead end" equipment (from an RN-use perspective) on T45. Sylver, Mk8 gun, WR-21. Is the gun really going to be supported all the way ...

Funny, the current year's GMPP report has upgraded Tempest from Red/amber to Amber which rather supports your point