Current & Future Escorts - General Discussion

[Poiuytrewq]

Moved across….

…as per the budgetary pressures

Will these budgetary pressures still exist in a few weeks time after the budget? It’s time to start adjusting to a new reality.

Surely it would be easier to make any changes now whilst it is being built than as a subsequent refit!!

Expensive refits are specifically excluded within the T31 procurement model. If that changes then the T31 procurement model is dead.

Rosyth needs something to build AFTER them (from 2040-)

Simple, more frigates. Replace RN’s Tier2 Frigates at 15 years service and augment with export orders. Patrol vessels can slot in when required to maintain the drumbeat.

if Belfast not Rosyth gets MRSS, then, what will they build after that?

FSS followed by a drumbeat of MRSS and then onto eventual Tide/Wave replacements would keep H&W or Cammell Laird busy into the 2050’s without difficulty.

In short, I think enlarging Clyde and Rosyth will benefit a lot. And, both yards must have "sustainable future plan" so that they can increase their workforce with confidence.

This is simply not compatible with the current political situation in the UK. All eggs in the Scottish basket is strategically nonsensical now.

[ArmChairCivvy]

eventual Tide/Wave replacements

If something is on the 'for sale' list,will it get a replacement? Like after a decade or so?

Even though it is a fact that the RN used surface combatants as a currency to pay for the carriers, I think the reassessment (that has just been started) will put the Barents Sea into focus and that will/ would place more P-8s and SSNs (the latter just quicker, rather than more in number?) ahead an increased build prgrm for surface ships.

[donald_of_tokyo]

Rosyth needs something to build AFTER them (from 2040-)

Simple, more frigates. Replace RN’s Tier2 Frigates at 15 years service and augment with export orders. Patrol vessels can slot in when required to maintain the drumbeat.

Sorry, but I do not believe it will happen. "15 years service" was also the dogma for T23 and Ocean. We know what happened. Export build? Even with many design export success, there is NO export build yet. NZ is the almost only hope? Almost all other nations want to build escorts by their own. (other than middle east nations).

if Belfast not Rosyth gets MRSS, then, what will they build after that?

FSS followed by a drumbeat of MRSS and then onto eventual Tide/Wave replacements would keep H&W or Cammell Laird busy into the 2050’s without difficulty.

In short, I think enlarging Clyde and Rosyth will benefit a lot. And, both yards must have "sustainable future plan" so that they can increase their workforce with confidence.

This is simply not compatible with the current political situation in the UK. All eggs in the Scottish basket is strategically nonsensical now.

Why Tide needs replacement by 2050? No. RN need to be efficient. There is no room for inefficiency just to make shipyards survive. And, if you think there is "political issue", then Belfast is not an option as well.

Yes I agree MOD must push more on Cammel Laird. Bidding for RV SD Attenborough too cheap made them big damage. But, it also means they are one of the best trained workforce to build a big ship. Many lessons learned. There is no time to waist on another lessons to be learnt in Belfast.

If you think Scottland is a risk, "supporting many shipyards" is not an option, as well. UK will face reduced budget, increased money to "move" many things from the north. As RN shall keep their SSBN, SSN and CVF forces, inevitably, number of escorts will be reduced. No other choice. Move BAE Clyde to Barrow or Cammel Laird, or disband BAES-Clyde escort division and move Babcock-Rosyth to Cammel Laird, and support a single escort shipyard. This is the only way to go in such scenario.

World is changing. UK ship industry must be efficient. Investing on many small inefficient yards are pointless, a dream only good in peace time when military/industrial inefficiency can be accepted to pay for politics (or more directly, for "vote").

[donald_of_tokyo]

moved across ...

…max out the capability of the ships we are building….

Based on where the world finds itself today and considering the global presence role the RB2’s are currently conducting, what justification does the MOD now have to introduce such an under-armed vessel such as the T31?

IMO there simply is no need for such a lightly armed RN patrol vessel. As many have always suggested the T23 GP replacements need to be at least as capable as the vessels they are replacing.

If there is any uplift to defence spending in the Spring Statement an additional £750m added to the T31 programme budget is now essential IMO. An extra £150m per hull would really allow this class to become what they really ought to have been from the beginning.

Maximising the T31’s is only maintaining what RN currently has. To return the escort fleet back to where it should be the T32’s or additional T26’s need to plug the hole left by the scrapping of the T22’s. That will require another £3bn to £4bn. Hard to see an uplift like that without increasing defence spending to 3% GDP.

Taking into account all RN escorts, rather than T31 only, I think the highest priority is NOT up-arming T31. T31 "as is" has a good place to live = Persian Gulf, at least for 3 of the 5 planned hulls.

For me, top priority issues will be
- adding BMD capability on T45.
- adding 24 or 48 CAMM on T45.
- improving the radar of T26.

Then:
- purchase 5-sets of I-SSGW for T31. (temporary on T23)
- secure "24" CAMM on T31.
- increase the number of T26 to make it at least 9.

Then:
- add 16-cell Mk.41 VLS to T31 (in place re-locate I-SSGW to T45)
- add simple HMS and CAPTAS-4CI to 2 of the T31. (3 can be "as is")
- add 48 CAMM-ER to existing 48 CAMM on T26, by adopting ExLS
- further increase the number of T26 to make it 12 (4 more) and forget T32 (or call it T32).

Simply, I am not a fan of maxing out T31 armament. "High-end assets" are T45 and T26, and these two are not enough armed as a 1-st tier assets. This is the problem. T31 is a 2nd-tier asset (for me) and she perfectly fits in Persian Gulf operation to counter fast boat swarm and occasional ASM attack. Russian invasion does not mean these threats disappear.

[NickC]

Breaking News write up on RN MAPLE 5, C2 architecture for drones, future variant "could include assessing it in a defensive surface warfare or anti-ship missile defense context and from that then building apps and vehicles to test those concepts using MAPLE" a ship CMS?, similar attributes required.

https://breakingdefense.com/2022/04/mee ... val-fleet/

[ETH]

An article I wrote for NavyLookout on upgrades for the Type 45

https://www.navylookout.com/upgrading-t ... estroyers/

[NickC]

Amongst the many lessons to be learned from the sinking of the Moskva by the two Ukrainian Neptune ski-skimming anti-ship missiles, looks like deja vu of the Falklands in respect to the vulnerability of the ships, two thoughts.

Overall impression is that Moskva was a forty year old ship from the 1980's and expect with its weapons and sensors even older, no doubt with major obsolescence making them operationally problematic at best, brings us back to Sir John Parker's National Shipbuilding Strategy of continuous drumbeat build replacing ships every 15-20 years with new gen sensors and weapons avoiding the very expensive mid-life rebuild, defence doesn't come cheap

Even though the Moskva one of the largest cruisers in the world at 12,500t, half again the size of a T45, its damage control with its 500 crew was not up to saving the ship from the equivalent of just two hits by Harpoons, why not? Reminds me of Adm Beatty's "there's something wrong with our bloody ships today", that includes internal and external armour, current ships built with the strength near of a sardine can (anyone know thickness of T26 hull plate, 10mm?), armour cannot stop a hit but it will mitigate the damage from the explosion, depth of penetration and fire to give the ships damage control teams a fighting chance to save their ship.

PS RN ships depend on their soft kill with decoys and hard kill defences, think soft kill higher probability of success than hard kill eg Sea Ceptor and Phalanx, Sea Ceptor as far as know has only been trialled against a 70 kg 0.6 sub-sonic drone, so has never tested against equivalent Neptune of 800+ kg at Mach 0.8-9 with a KE of ~ 34 MJ (1 Joule is equivalent to 1 kg*(m/s)^2) so doubts remain. Phalanx max effective range ~1.5 km with its sabot tungsten penetrator round, so in theory can fire 5 seconds till impact unless more than one missile attack then all bets off. If attacked by Mach 2.8 2,500 kg BrahMos or its Russian equivalent think neither Sea Ceptor or Phalanx would be able to stop it due to its massive KE of 1,152 MJ, Phalanx would only fire max 2 secs before BrahMos hit ship due to its high supersonic speed. Noticeable USN investing heavily in soft kill for their major surface units, the newest ESM SEWIP Block 3 adds active GaN jammers, not cheap at ~$70 million each.

The problem as always with anti-ship missiles is targeting beyond the line of sight, it has been suggested the Moskov target coordinates provided by the Ukrainian Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone that enabled the Neptunes to hit. T23, T26 and T31 have no medium range AAMs to take out a targeting drone, would have to rely on T45 or other support, or otherwise need to stay out of harms way.

[wargame_insomniac]

Amongst the many lessons to be learned from the sinking of the Moskva by the two Ukrainian Neptune ski-skimming anti-ship missiles, looks like deja vu of the Falklands in respect to the vulnerability of the ships, two thoughts.

Overall impression is that Moskva was a forty year old ship from the 1980's and expect with its weapons and sensors even older, no doubt with major obsolescence making them operationally problematic at best, brings us back to Sir John Parker's National Shipbuilding Strategy of continuous drumbeat build replacing ships every 15-20 years with new gen sensors and weapons avoiding the very expensive mid-life rebuild, defence doesn't come cheap

Even though the Moskva one of the largest cruisers in the world at 12,500t, half again the size of a T45, its damage control with its 500 crew was not up to saving the ship from the equivalent of just two hits by Harpoons, why not? Reminds me of Adm Beatty's "there's something wrong with our bloody ships today", that includes internal and external armour, current ships built with the strength near of a sardine can (anyone know thickness of T26 hull plate, 10mm?), armour cannot stop a hit but it will mitigate the damage from the explosion, depth of penetration and fire to give the ships damage control teams a fighting chance to save their ship.

PS RN ships depend on their soft kill with decoys and hard kill defences, think soft kill higher probability of success than hard kill eg Sea Ceptor and Phalanx, Sea Ceptor as far as know has only been trialled against a 70 kg 0.6 sub-sonic drone, so has never tested against equivalent Neptune of 800+ kg at Mach 0.8-9 with a KE of ~ 34 MJ (1 Joule is equivalent to 1 kg*(m/s)^2) so doubts remain. Phalanx max effective range ~1.5 km with its sabot tungsten penetrator round, so in theory can fire 5 seconds till impact unless more than one missile attack then all bets off. If attacked by Mach 2.8 2,500 kg BrahMos or its Russian equivalent think neither Sea Ceptor or Phalanx would be able to stop it due to its massive KE of 1,152 MJ, Phalanx would only fire max 2 secs before BrahMos hit ship due to its high supersonic speed. Noticeable USN investing heavily in soft kill for their major surface units, the newest ESM SEWIP Block 3 adds active GaN jammers, not cheap at ~$70 million each.

The problem as always with anti-ship missiles is targeting beyond the line of sight, it has been suggested the Moskov target coordinates provided by the Ukrainian Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone that enabled the Neptunes to hit. T23, T26 and T31 have no medium range AAMs to take out a targeting drone, would have to rely on T45 or other support, or otherwise need to stay out of harms way.

The best AAW systems have multiple layers.

I have asked before whether, given the increased number of hypersonic and high-supersonic Anti-ship missiles, the RN should look at SeaRam as an alternative CIWS to Phalanx given the increased range and speed. But my query was summarily dismissed.

With Mk41 VLS you have the flexibility of fielding several types of missiles. So T26 can easily have some additional AAW missiles in their Mk41 VLS if the RN chooses to invest in some.

Have also spoke before about CAMM-ER to give longer ranged AAW to their escorts. So the RN do have options to improve their AAW, but like most things it would require additional investment to achieve. And quite clearly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, IMO we have to focus far, far more on warfighting versus peer-level opponents.

[tomuk]

PS RN ships depend on their soft kill with decoys and hard kill defences, think soft kill higher probability of success than hard kill eg Sea Ceptor and Phalanx, Sea Ceptor as far as know has only been trialled against a 70 kg 0.6 sub-sonic drone, so has never tested against equivalent Neptune of 800+ kg at Mach 0.8-9 with a KE of ~ 34 MJ (1 Joule is equivalent to 1 kg*(m/s)^2) so doubts remain. Phalanx max effective range ~1.5 km with its sabot tungsten penetrator round, so in theory can fire 5 seconds till impact unless more than one missile attack then all bets off. If attacked by Mach 2.8 2,500 kg BrahMos or its Russian equivalent think neither Sea Ceptor or Phalanx would be able to stop it due to its massive KE of 1,152 MJ, Phalanx would only fire max 2 secs before BrahMos hit ship due to its high supersonic speed. Noticeable USN investing heavily in soft kill for their major surface units, the newest ESM SEWIP Block 3 adds active GaN jammers, not cheap at ~$70 million each.

Trying to judge the effectiveness or otherwise of Sea Ceptor on the kinetic energy of a drone it was fired against in a trial is nonsense. The trial is there to validate the modelling the weapons designers have created not to prove the ultimate effectiveness of the missile.

Your view of intercepting a missile also seems very simplistic. You would have a mixture of weapons being fired, Aster, Sea Ceptor, Bofors 3P, Phalanx, decoys being deployed, passive and active and jamming plus the ship would be manoeuvring thats a lot of variables the missile has to deal with. Not to mention the wider tactical picture i.e. what action may have/be being taken to deny the enemy to fire the missile in the first place.

The RN have the MEWP and MEWSIC programmes ongoing to upgrade the current ESM systems. This covers sensors, decoys and active countermeasures.

[NickC]

Trying to judge the effectiveness or otherwise of Sea Ceptor on the kinetic energy of a drone it was fired against in a trial is nonsense. The trial is there to validate the modelling the weapons designers have created not to prove the ultimate effectiveness of the missile.

What we do know is that the USN found in WWII that the Bofors 40 shells were not capable of stopping a Kamikaze, the Kamikaze kinetic energy of around 40 million J was just too powerful that is was able to shrug off the hits of the 40mm shells before impacting on ship. Your in effect saying Sea Ceptor trials with a 70 kg drone validate the computer simulation modelling that it says it will be capable of taking out anti-ship missiles, I would argue its just good basic engineering principals that it needs an actual test to confirm the computer model. I think its telling the French with the Aster (a Eurosam missile not MBDA) thought it necessary to go to the large expense of carrying out trials, successful, against a US supersonic drone, they didn't just rely on their modelling. Bottom line Sea Ceptor has never been tested against 80's era sub-sonic anti-ship missiles not far off the Kamikaze kinetic energy figure or a current day supersonic anti-ship missiles eg the BrahMos and its Russian equivalents, BrahMos with its more than one billion joules of kinetic energy.

Your view of intercepting a missile also seems very simplistic. You would have a mixture of weapons being fired, Aster, Sea Ceptor, Bofors 3P, Phalanx, decoys being deployed, passive and active and jamming plus the ship would be manoeuvring thats a lot of variables the missile has to deal with. Not to mention the wider tactical picture i.e. what action may have/be being taken to deny the enemy to fire the missile in the first place.

Agree my view basic, other things involved, but think your view wildly optimistic to think all the weapons/systems you mention capable of taking out anti-ship missiles and being deployed simultaneously as RN has so few ships.

The RN have the MEWP and MEWSIC programmes ongoing to upgrade the current ESM systems. This covers sensors, decoys and active countermeasures.

Thanks for info will check them out.

Would add have you any thoughts on the lessons to be learned from the sinking of Moskva which was the main point of my original post.

[Tempest414]

A few things here Moskva was said to be sailing a predicable course and the missiles were cued from a drone with this said I feel CAMM could deal with said drone at 35+ Km on top of this the fact that the ship was sailing a predicable course tells me the Captain and crew had become sloppy at best and that is the lesson to be learnt

The fact that Ukraine's drones are able to roam the skies tells me that Russian air defence is lacking at most levels

[Scimitar54]

The answer is “Get your hits in first” !

[tomuk]

I think its telling the French with the Aster (a Eurosam missile not MBDA) thought it necessary to go to the large expense of carrying out trials, successful, against a US supersonic drone, they didn't just rely on their modelling.

I'm sorry but Eurosam is a JV between MBDA (France and Italy) and Thales and Europaams, the company which supplies the 'Naval' version is a JV between Eurosam and MBDA (UK). To say that Aster missile isn't an MBDA missile is stretching to say the least.

Bottom line Sea Ceptor has never been tested against 80's era sub-sonic anti-ship missiles not far off the Kamikaze kinetic energy figure or a current day supersonic anti-ship missiles eg the BrahMos and its Russian equivalents, BrahMos with its more than one billion joules of kinetic energy.

What? You seem to be suggesting that because a missile hasn't been tested against a specific target it can't engage said target. If you followed your logic Aster couldn't hit a SU31 because it hasn't been test fired at one. Quoting billions of joules of KE and kamikazee in WWII all the time doesn't mean anything, similar to your obsession with GAN radar.

Regards Moskva she was an old outdated ship (she had not had the upgrades the others in her class have/are having) it would appear being operated in a poor way. I'm not sure what relevance her loss has to the RN in particular regards the effectiveness or not of Sea Ceptor.

[NickC]

I'm sorry but Eurosam is a JV between MBDA (France and Italy) and Thales and Europaams, the company which supplies the 'Naval' version is a JV between Eurosam and MBDA (UK). To say that Aster missile isn't an MBDA missile is stretching to say the least.

MBDA is owned by Airbus 37.5%, BAE 37.5% and Leonardo 25% whereas Eurosam owned by Airbus 33.3%, Leonardo 33.3% and Thales 33.3% and are two totally seperate companies legally, that both Airbus and Leonardo holdings via MBDA France and Italy respectively is just semantics, to claim Eurosam is a JV with MBDA from UK viewpoint is nonsense, from the UK point of view MBDA has a big fat zero interest in Eurosam which understandable as we invested zilch in Aster development.

What? You seem to be suggesting that because a missile hasn't been tested against a specific target it can't engage said target. If you followed your logic Aster couldn't hit a SU31 because it hasn't been test fired at one. Quoting billions of joules of KE and kamikazee in WWII all the time doesn't mean anything, similar to your obsession with GAN radar.

What am saying Aster 30 was tested in 2012 against the best available, the USN rocket-boosted, ramjet-powered GQM-163A Coyote target missile to simulate a supersonic sea skimming anti-ship missiles traveling at Mach 2.5 with an altitude of less than 5 metres, USN developed Coyote to specifically to simulate Russian supersonic anti-ship missiles like BrahMos etc. The navies of Australia, France, Japan and US have bought Coyote to test their ship missile defence systems, what is so special that RN ship missile systems do not require testing against supersonic sea skimming anti-ship target missiles?

Sea Ceptor was tested in 2017 only against the Mirach subsonic aerial targets traveling at Mach 0.7 within 2 km from the firing frigate HMS Argyll.

Regards Moskva she was an old outdated ship (she had not had the upgrades the others in her class have/are having) it would appear being operated in a poor way. I'm not sure what relevance her loss has to the RN in particular regards the effectiveness or not of Sea Ceptor.

On your point on Moskva agree, refelcting my thoughts from original post, re Sea Ceptor my point is that it needs testing against the best to confirm what it claims on the tin.

[tomuk]

MBDA is owned by Airbus 37.5%, BAE 37.5% and Leonardo 25% whereas Eurosam owned by Airbus 33.3%, Leonardo 33.3% and Thales 33.3% and are two totally seperate companies legally, that both Airbus and Leonardo holdings via MBDA France and Italy respectively is just semantics, to claim Eurosam is a JV with MBDA from UK viewpoint is nonsense, from the UK point of view MBDA has a big fat zero interest in Eurosam which understandable as we invested zilch in Aster development.

I didn't say Eurosam was a JV with MBDA UK I said The UK were/are involved on the Europaams JV for Naval Aster.

[Lord Jim]

I agree Sea Ceptor should be tested against more types of targets with live firings, but modern computer modelling is now very advanced and will give accurate data on the effectiveness of the systems against a variety of targets as long as the performance data on the various AShMs is accurate.

As for the 40mm issue, yes the USN were not happy at the ability for the Bofors to actually shred an incoming Kamikaze so the target ship was not damaged, hence the mode post war to the radar controlled 3" gun with VT fuses. However the 40mm we effective and did prevent many of the Kamikazes from actually getting into a position to dive at a particular ship in the first place.

Aren't the RCN going to use Sea Ceptor as their primary point defence weapon to engage the sort of AShMs we are talking about. Wasn't Sea Wolf able to engage incoming sub sonic AShM effectively? Surely we would replace it with a less effective system? Isn't the warhead on Sea Ceptor the same as fitted to ASRAAM? IF the latter can destroy a plane going in excess of Mach 1, surely the same warhead can negatively influence a AShM, either destroying it or knocking its guidance out of whack?

[NickC]

I agree Sea Ceptor should be tested against more types of targets with live firings, but modern computer modelling is now very advanced and will give accurate data on the effectiveness of the systems against a variety of targets as long as the performance data on the various AShMs is accurate.

If computer modelling is so good why did the USN bother to go to the expense of shipping a Coyote launcher from White Sands and temporally install it on the Outer Hebrides range for the Formidable Shield 2021 Exercise, along with other target missiles. 10/11 NATO nations ships participated including HMS Dragon, Dragon only used its Asters to take out subsonic drones, it was not tested against the supersonic sea skimming QM-163 Coyote for whatever reason.

Aren't the RCN going to use Sea Ceptor as their primary point defence weapon to engage the sort of AShMs we are talking about. Wasn't Sea Wolf able to engage incoming sub sonic AShM effectively? Surely we would replace it with a less effective system? Isn't the warhead on Sea Ceptor the same as fitted to ASRAAM? IF the latter can destroy a plane going in excess of Mach 1, surely the same warhead can negatively influence a AShM, either destroying it or knocking its guidance out of whack?

My argument Sea Ceptor needs to be actually physically tested against Coyote to confirm what it says on the tin, as you say to "negatively influence a AShM, either destroying it or knocking its guidance out of whack?", BrahMos and Russian equivalents are very fast at Mach 2.8/3 and with smaller RCS than fighter a/c when head on attacking ship.

[Poiuytrewq]

Aptly named and a cost effective solution especially if deployed via drones.

https://afresearchlab.com/news/afrl-tec ... a-reality/

[Lord Jim]

Well a 2000lb Bomb will certainly ruin any Ship's Captains day that is for sure. I wonder what the range is and can a "Glide" package be fitted?

[wargame_insomniac]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/ministe ... re-lethal/

[donald_of_tokyo]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/ministe ... re-lethal/

Combined with this article, it gives us interesting suggetions.
https://www.navylookout.com/hms-echo-re ... apability/

For me, it is
- resource is limited, not only money but also skilled man-power (non-skilled man power shortage looks like relaxed a bit).
- but minister wants to add offensive weapons on RN ships (which needs money (purchase and maintenance/logistics) and skilled man-power)

Mixing these two items, one answer comes into my mind.

Why not LESS number of hulls but fully armed with offensive weapons in addition to defensive ones ?

1: Putting HMS Echo in "reserve" provides precious 72 crews to be used in other assets. It also clearly exemplifies that RN lacks resources. Although bad thing, I think it is a right selection within current limited resource.

2: In future, do we really need FIVE T31? Why not four or even THREE? Three T31, with simple armament and new/fresh hull may be able to provide sea-going days as long as those provided from 5 T23GPs they ought to replace.

Exporting two of them in build (Poland, Indonesia, Chilli, Brazil, or even NZ), to make up a 3-hull T31 fleet? On paper, this will free-up £800M (2/5 of the total £2Bn cost), but export sales does not include developnmnt cost in general (see French export sales), then it will be £500-600 (so-called "£200M each" (excluding SeaCeptor) + SeaCeptor for 2 hulls). At the same time, it free-ups more than 200 crew. If with this £500-800M and 200 crew, many can be done:

2a: increase T26's CAMM by a factor of 4 by adopting ExLS, from 48 to 196 (may even include CAMM-ER). Of course it takes money and additional man-power, but at least the latter won't be large because it is just increasing the number of existing system.

2b: Pay for the T45 "24 CAMM" (or even increase it) and even enable adapting Mk.41 VLS. Of course it takes money and additional man-power. If including BMD, I'm afraid this "plan-2b" only exceeds the "£500-800M", but 100-150 of the crew will remain. They can provide HMS Echo (or its successor) back at sea, enable River B1 replacements, and MCM mother ships.

2c: Obviously, I-SSGW can happen, even 10-15 systems? (needs money and man-power, of course)

2d: All the T31 up-arming and River B2 up-arming discussions can take place.

Just a proposal ...

[Repulse]

Why not LESS number of hulls but fully armed with offensive weapons in addition to defensive ones ?

I would agree and start by putting permanently on-hold any aspirations of a RN National Flagship till new money is available (and additional RN headcount). This will avoid 70 crew being diverted, and £200mn for MK41 VLSs for the T45s.

I would then double down on the MROSS concept, bringing on a converted commercial ship in the short term, but looking at fleet of five purpose built survey/mothership vessels to replace the Echo, Scott and Protector classes - and act as a MCM mothership in the Gulf. Optimising automation and lean crewing. They should be built by Babcock to replace the planned T32 in the pipeline. This could save 200 in crew requirements.

Next, let’s stop all talk of the T31 replacing the B2 Rivers. The RN needs to be laser focused on their role which should probably be to provide a forward frigate in the Gulf and escorts to the LRGs. These requirements should define the weapon/sensor fits.

In terms of additional cash saving for more lethality, scrap the T32 and use the money to ensure the T31s are kitted appropriately in the medium term and try and squeeze in another T26.

[Poiuytrewq]

The simple solution is more money for defence.

3% will have to happen now. Noticeable cuts are not politically sustainable in the current climate or for the foreseeable future.

IMO, adding lethality to RN vessels is a no-brainer but cutting capabilities to fund it is not acceptable. Extra money for extra lethality, dropping hulls is not an option even if it is the easy option for the bean counters.

The original justification for a lightly armed T31 was always suspect but it makes absolutely no sense now. All five hulls should be introduced as planned but provide the extra funding to configure them properly. Anything less is a cut. The T31 programme always has been a cut in plain sight.

The lightly armed global patrol vessel role should be provided by an additional batch of extended River Class patrol vessels with a heavier armament of 57/40mm and a hanger. A class of 3 such vessels would fill the gaps adequately.

An added lethality budget of £400m for the T31 and £600m for three River Batch 3 patrol vessels would maintain RN’s 13 escorts and 8 global patrol vessels even after the RB1’s decommission for a total of £1bn. This would be a good result whilst we await the jam-tomorrow T32 class.

Adding lethality to the T45 and T26 vessels is a much bigger conundrum with a much higher price. We are in all likelihood talking well in excess of £2bn in which case extra hulls may a better use of any additional resources.

A class of three Frigates based on the T31 design fully loaded with Mk41 and CAMM cells to operate in the centre of the CSG or LRG when required may be a better option than consigning the currently overstretched escort fleet to another time consuming and costly round of additional refits.

Due to the size of RN’s minuscule escort fleet I think in this instance, additional hulls is preferable to adding more and more armament to existing hulls.

Just my opinion.

[Tempest414]

For me it has to be more money it is time to pay for the penny pinching of the last 12 years and get on with it so for me

Type 45 = quad pack 32 CAMM into 8 A50 cells adding the 16 Mk-41's to allow 40 x Aster 30 , 32 CAMM and 16 other weapons

Type 26 B2's = 32 Mk-41 and 12 EXLS to allow 48 CAMM and 32 other weapons

Type 31 = Add one more hull and then fit 24 Mk-41 and fit 24 CAMM to allow 24 CAMM and 24 other Weapons

River B2 = add a 40mm

After this or in line with this scrap Type 32 and build a class of 10 x 110 x 14 meter OPVs fitted with 1 x 57mm and 1 x 40mm a Hangar and a 25 meter covered working deck and a 20 meter open working deck plus a Mid range 3D radar these ships would replace the 3 B1's , 2 Echo's and 5 Type 32's

Leaving the RN with 20 escorts and 15 global Multi role patrol ships

[donald_of_tokyo]

The simple solution is more money for defence.

3% will have to happen now. Noticeable cuts are not politically sustainable in the current climate or for the foreseeable future.

IMO, adding lethality to RN vessels is a no-brainer but cutting capabilities to fund it is not acceptable. Extra money for extra lethality, dropping hulls is not an option even if it is the easy option for the bean counters.

Thanks.

Just pointing out that, before talking about more weapons and/or more hulls, RN also needs more skilled man-power. Essential is to improve the retention rate (skilled engineer is very demanding in UK, not only in RN), which I think needs significant money (increasing salary). I think this will cost more than the actual weapons/hulls.

Also, UK need good amount of ammo and logistics/spare-parts, on which UK is very short of. This will also require a lot of money. On the other hand, "more ammo and more logistic/spare-parts" does not require more man-power. As such, I think this is the point RN must try first. It will make RN more stronger and efficient, although no difference "on paper". But, paper is just a paper, and real fighting power is the problem.

But yes, with 3% GDP, these will be doable.