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

SW1
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by SW1 »

Are Thales not developing the Tacticos system for the RN at there Crawley site?

Caribbean
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by Caribbean »

TheLoneRanger wrote: the lack of "joined up thinking" by the UK MOD to investing in developing intellectual property that we ultimately own and can resell for economic benefit down the road
Is that why Tacticos set up a "Centre of Excellence" in the UK as a part of the T31 winning bid, because no-one was thinking about the future?
TheLoneRanger wrote:This approach by the MOD is a strategic threat to our national security, sovereignty and with each project, the UK MOD actively undermines the pillars of our national security. That is what I find most frustrating... frustrating.. frustrating ...
A tad hyperbolic, methinks
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

tomuk
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by tomuk »

NickC wrote:exemplified by fit out of the T31, only nominal UK content, would point out in this particular case though Thales a French company the TACTICOS CMS is Dutch as is the radar, guns Swedish, engines, gears, propellers German etc, etc
Just to point out;
the Swedish guns are made by a British owned company - BAE
the German engines are made by a British owned company - Rolls Royce
and
the Danish propellers are made by a German owned Company - Volkswagen
the Dutch radar/CMS are made by a French owned company - Thales

tomuk
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by tomuk »

TheLoneRanger wrote:but the future of warfare is increasingly software driven and the lack of "joined up thinking" by the UK MOD to investing in developing intellectual property that we ultimately own and can resell for economic benefit down the road is frustrating as well as the increasing "lack" of military capability from not being able to further develop new platforms.
Navy tests artificial intelligence against supersonic missiles
https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-l ... telligence
TheLoneRanger wrote:This is where the French do it better, and why you see Thales everywhere in all UK defence programmes.
Thales UK is the largest of Thales overseas subsiduaries and was formed of the former Racal and Thorn EMI defence companies.

SW1
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by SW1 »

I would assume the design integration with the ship is being done in the U.K. not to mention fit out and assembly.

You don’t need or want to design every last bit of subsystems yourself. But you do want to be able to choose the best bits and then integrate, assemble and test in the U.K.

This way you can then specialise in certain subsystems ensure there is the widest possible acceptance across all branches of said subsystems and come up with the lowest risk solution you can and evolve as you go.

donald_of_tokyo
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

TheLoneRanger wrote:No disrespect to the Dutch - but the future of warfare is increasingly software driven and the lack of "joined up thinking" by the UK MOD to investing in developing intellectual property that we ultimately own and can resell for economic benefit down the road is frustrating as well as the increasing "lack" of military capability from not being able to further develop new platforms.

This is where the French do it better, and why you see Thales everywhere in all UK defence programmes. They harvest long term strategic objectives from each of their military programmes whereas the UK treats each procurement as a single transaction with no strategic gameplan to further our military security or economic interests.

Warfar systems are progressive and iterative and we are losing with each iteration ....

This approach by the MOD is a strategic threat to our national security, sovereignty and with each project, the UK MOD actively undermines the pillars of our national security. That is what I find most frustrating... frustrating.. frustrating ...

Given the important of Naval capability to the UK, why don't we have a large naval ship yard that does both naval and military platforms like Damen : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damen_Group ??? ( https://products.damen.com/en ) There is something worng with the UK and the way we approach our commerical organisations that is so brutual in looking for short term market efficiency at the expense of long term strategic capability.

There is no investment strategy in the UK ..
I agree with you. Also, I am not that against all the comments you get against you. Simply why not do both?

Making UK industrial coverage as large as possible, by not leaving everything to "competition" but controlling the cost by growing your own "eyes", and grow up British industry in defense sector to be world-beating. This is what UK has been not good in these two decades (or longer).

BAE covers many of the USA defense industry. But, it has almost no relation to UK industry. So, this is another story.

Why not invest and grow-up more the CMS-1 of BAE? Government investment will lead to government share of the program, and BAE must have been "forced" to provide CMS-1 for all 3 bids of T31 = T31 could be forced to use CMS-1 for fleet-wide commonality reason. Why not Artisan 3D onboard T31? I'm sure French nor Dutch navy will not allow Artisan to be used for their frigates.

Good to see CAMM onboard T31. Why cannot the same applied to radar and CMS?

Apparently, HMG had no wish to support British CMS nor British radar. I share the frustration of TheLoneRanger-san here.

Again, having the world best marine diesel company under RR control is good. As diesel generator became so competitive and not many industries survives world wide, just like jet engines, it is reasonable. May be naval guns are the same = US 127mm, Italian 76mm, or Swedish 57mm/40mm. Only 3 choices remain, and 2 out of 3 is under control of BAE. Good.

But, why so "blind" to CMS and radar?

There are many things to do.

Poiuytrewq
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by Poiuytrewq »

donald_of_tokyo wrote:But, why so "blind" to CMS and radar?
IMO it's down to the fact that RN has ended up with an export Frigate because of time limitations almost exclusively due to incredibly poor procurement planning and decision making.

If the T31's are disposed off in the mid to late 2030's then NS100 and TACTICOS can be seen as an anomaly. However if Thales are involved to the same extent with the T32 then BAE may start to sweat. It would seem very odd not to maximise commonality with CMS-1 when the T32's are conceived and time pressures are normalised.

Including Thales, Bofors and MTU components/systems will not hurt export orders one little bit which has always been HMG's priority for the T31.

RN has just had to make the best out of a very British cock-up. Hopefully the T32 will clear the air.

SW1
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by SW1 »

Not sure I buy into that logic. The s1850m is a Thales origin radar as well is it not?

And with Thales involved with autonomous systems in the U.K. perhaps integration into the tacitos system with be the starting point

Poiuytrewq
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by Poiuytrewq »

SW1 wrote:The s1850m is a Thales origin radar as well is it not?
That's a fair point but what was the UK alternative at the time? There was none.

The UK has an alternative to NS100 and TACTICOS with Artisan and CMS-1.

The Thales centre of excellence is clearly a way to pressure BAE to drive down costs. How wise a move this turns out to be will be revealed with time.

inch
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by inch »

But is NS 100 more capable than artisan so maybe a good choice ,not sure the merits of cms-1 against tacitos ,as for t31 the French seem to giving their navy alot more frigate and money spent / investment in the new Fti than the UK in the a140 ,but after all that I do hope the government does support and full tilt export of t31/32 and it has some luck

Enigmatically
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by Enigmatically »

Ron5 wrote:
Enigmatically wrote:We have a home grown combat system and combat mgr system But Thales won the bid because BAE insisted on only allowing their combat system to bid for the Bae led platform.
Not heard that before. Why would Thales propose a Bae CMS when they have one of their own?
They might not have. But they might have if they thought that they were more likely to win the whole platform programme. Some in bae combat systems certainly think so.

Opinions on this in the industry depend on viewpoint and experience!

SW1
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by SW1 »

The only way your going to do such things is if they were government furnished equipment but then the risk would fall on the Mod for integration I would of thought like for example specifying it must use sea ceptor. It can be done but you need to decide what you consider important subsystems in your industrial strategy and work from there.

tomuk
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by tomuk »

Poiuytrewq wrote:
SW1 wrote:The s1850m is a Thales origin radar as well is it not?
That's a fair point but what was the UK alternative at the time? There was none.

The UK has an alternative to NS100 and TACTICOS with Artisan and CMS-1.

The Thales centre of excellence is clearly a way to pressure BAE to drive down costs. How wise a move this turns out to be will be revealed with time.
The S1850M radar is not wholly of pure Thales origin. Originally what became T45/Horizon Class was to have a French radar (Thomson CSF (Thales France) Astral) but it was too expensive to develop.

Alternatives were sought and two such were Signaal (Thales Netherlands) SMART-L and Marconi (BAE) Martello. The Marconi had a better backend but a poor antenna being a land based radar, SMART-L having a good Naval antenna but lacking some backend features. Thus Smartello or S1850M was born a SMART-L with a backend improved with Martello technology.

Now this was 25 years ago so with the intervening political and commercial headwinds how much Marconi tech remains would be interesting.

donald_of_tokyo
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

Great news. T31H proposal does carry 64 CAMM-ER and CAMM on 16-cell Mk.41 VLS. UK-based industry export has been (in impression) at least doubled!! :D

Now it is only "detailed hull design and build support" from Babcock-UK and (may be) "TACTICOS integration" from Thales-UK (both have origin abroad, Danish and Netherlands). Other than them, it looks like nothing is coming from UK-based industry (of course except for possible some minor subsystems).

So, CAMM from MBDA-UK and CAMM-ER from MBDA-italy (both shares one another) is a huge addition.


Ron5
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by Ron5 »

donald_of_tokyo wrote:Great news. T31H proposal does carry 64 CAMM-ER and CAMM on 16-cell Mk.41 VLS. UK-based industry export has been (in impression) at least doubled!! :D

Now it is only "detailed hull design and build support" from Babcock-UK and (may be) "TACTICOS integration" from Thales-UK (both have origin abroad, Danish and Netherlands). Other than them, it looks like nothing is coming from UK-based industry (of course except for possible some minor subsystems).

So, CAMM from MBDA-UK and CAMM-ER from MBDA-italy (both shares one another) is a huge addition.

Ignores the 48 limit in a single Sea Ceptor system. Of course they could have two systems but that would run counter to the ship's affordability.

Unless, of course, the new Albatros NG system has a higher limit and the proposal is to buy the Italian system !!! So even less from the UK.

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by Poiuytrewq »

donald_of_tokyo wrote: CAMM from MBDA-UK and CAMM-ER from MBDA-italy (both shares one another) is a huge addition.
Genuine news Donald, thank you.

For the UK not to add either 8 or 16 Mk41 cells to the T31 seems ludicrous. It's time for a full cost benefit analysis between the two launching systems. As the T26 will be using the Mk41, the commonality benefit must a significant deciding factor.

Why add the Mk41's to the T26 to future proof the design but not future proof the T31's? Seems nonsensical.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Poiuytrewq wrote:Why add the Mk41's to the T26 to future proof the design but not future proof the T31's? Seems nonsensical.
Has this new, 24 escorts 'target' emerged so that we can sell the 5 (first?) T31s?
... be back to where we started; but with fairly new ships
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Poiuytrewq wrote:time limitations almost exclusively due to incredibly poor procurement planning and decision making.
well, we (or rather, the RN) painted itself into a corner, to be able to get the carriers. The thinking must have been that other 'prerequisites' for their operation will automatically follow. They did not and thus the proc & decision making around it basically fell to pieces (got stuck, and then went into overdrive, to compensate)
donald_of_tokyo wrote:BAE covers many of the USA defense industry. But, it has almost no relation to UK industry. So, this is another story.
I take it that you are referring to the 'Chinese Wall' between those two parts of the company? There is none such between other subsidiaries (and it is not a company's choice to have that one either... but we have a BAE supporter on these pages to comment/ explain further).
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

Ron5 wrote:Ignores the 48 limit in a single Sea Ceptor system.
What is this?

Sea Ceptor's Launch Management System (LMS) is a hardware, so it does have a limit which is 12 missiles per box. As stating "48 limit", I understand you mean Sea Ceptor system can only handle 4 LMS. But, as a platform agnostic system, Sea Ceptor system must be software based. I do not understand handling 8 LMS and 4 LMS has a such a huge difference.

# On the other hand, handling 24 missiles with 1 LMS is impossible. You need two of them. Simple.

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

Poiuytrewq wrote:For the UK not to add either 8 or 16 Mk41 cells to the T31 seems ludicrous. It's time for a full cost benefit analysis between the two launching systems. As the T26 will be using the Mk41, the commonality benefit must a significant deciding factor.

Why add the Mk41's to the T26 to future proof the design but not future proof the T31's? Seems nonsensical.
Cost.

T31 carries 12 mushroom tubes, which is selected also by Italian navy because it is cheap. If using Mk41 VLS to carry 32 CAMM is twice as costy as carrying 24 mushroom tubes, I prefer the latter. And, currently, the requirement is even less = only 12. So using mushroom tubes in T31 is a logical answer.

I guess, if it comes to carrying 48+ CAMMs, then Mk41-with-ExLS or ExLS-standalone will be good candidates.

One thing to note. In RNZN TeKaha class update, RNZN selected 20 mushroom tubes by even ripping off the 8-cell Mk.41 VLS. Also, it was reported that 1 floor was freed thanks to it. Mk41 short version was penetrating 2 decks, but CAMM mushroom tube used only 1 deck. Even though it covers larger surface, mushroom tubes are not so "less dense" compared to Mk.41 in its volume density. In weight, of course, mushroom is much lightweight.

As Mk41 VLS with ExLS quadpacking CAMM will be the highest density CAMM carriage, I'm not against introducing Mk.41 (although I prefer ExLS stand-alone). But, mushroom tubes themselves has a so-so good rationale.

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by Ron5 »

Poiuytrewq wrote:Why add the Mk41's to the T26 to future proof the design but not future proof the T31's? Seems nonsensical.
Are you not forgetting that the RN isn't planning on firing CAMM from the Mk 41's? They will be using mushrooms.
donald_of_tokyo wrote:But, mushroom tubes themselves has a so-so good rationale.
We've been told the rationale for the mushrooms is health and safety. Better protection from an in-tube firing and the ability to inspect missiles without having to take them out.

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Re: Type 31 General Purpose Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by Ron5 »

donald_of_tokyo wrote:
Ron5 wrote:Ignores the 48 limit in a single Sea Ceptor system.
What is this?

Sea Ceptor's Launch Management System (LMS) is a hardware, so it does have a limit which is 12 missiles per box. As stating "48 limit", I understand you mean Sea Ceptor system can only handle 4 LMS. But, as a platform agnostic system, Sea Ceptor system must be software based. I do not understand handling 8 LMS and 4 LMS has a such a huge difference.

# On the other hand, handling 24 missiles with 1 LMS is impossible. You need two of them. Simple.
Never the less, there is an architectural limit. There are also limits to the number of fire channels per ExLs box as nicely explained by LM.

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Re: Type 31 Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by NickC »

Greek frigate contract, reported that LM with their 4,300t MMSC-HN bid has changed so that the 8 Mk41 VLS cell fitted will use the ExLS to fire 32 CAMM's and CAMM-ER's replacing the ESSM's at the prompting of the Greek Navy.

The suggestion in the report is that Babcock will follow with the A140 Greek bid with its 32 Mk41 VLS cells so as fire up to a possible max 64 CAMM's and CAMM-ER's replacing the ESSM's, time will tell (thought you could fit four CAMM's in ExLS per cell for max of 128?).

https://www.ptisidiastima.com/hf2-mmsc-camm-er/
https://www.ptisidiastima.com/32-camm-e ... -in-ah140/

PS The Israelis with the new ~2,000t Sa'ar 6 corvettes when fully fitted out may fit 40 Tamir's/Iron Dome missiles, so both Greek and Israeli Navies of the opinion large numbers of AA missiles needed for effective defence.

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Re: Type 31 Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by donald_of_tokyo »

If CAMM is really becoming more and more common word wide, it will be very very good.

Sea Wolf was used in; UK, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil and Chili = 5 navies.
CAMM is now already used in, and contracted for; UK, Chili, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada and (if including CAMM-ER), Italy = 6.

It is already more in country number, and actually more in total launcher number, as well. Also, Land Ceptor (or Sky Sabre) is adopted for British Army, Brazilian Army, and (if including CAMM-ER) Italian Army.

As Lapier land-based SAM, a "sister" of Sea Wolf, was very much well exported, not sure yet if the CAMM project is better than Lapier/Sea Wolf project. But, it is surely promising. ( By the way, we might be able to add ASRAAM blk2 (?) also as a "sister" of CAMM ? (although ASRAMM is not so much well exported, only UK, Australia, and India)).

Sending T23, T26 and T31, and RNZN Te Kaha class frigate with CAMM onboard to southeast Asia will be a very good promotion there.

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Re: Type 31 Frigate (Inspiration Class) [News Only]

Post by Ron5 »

I think Sea Wolf as a Rapier sister is stretching things a bit. How about a distant cousin?

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