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SHIP SURVIVABILITY

News on the Type 26 Frigate programme for the Royal Navy

26/05/10

Britain’s “Future Surface Combatant” program is slated to replace the existing fleet of Type 22 Broadsword Class and Type 23 Duke Class frigates with 2 new ship classes. Outside attention often focuses on big-ticket ships like aircraft carriers, submarines, and advanced destroyers – but the frigate is the real backbone of most modern navies.

Lord Nelson loved his HMS Victory and her fellow first-rate ships of the line, but he asked the admiralty for more cruisers because he knew their versatile value as the “eyes of the fleet.” Modern multi-role frigates that can engage threats on the water, under water, and in the air fill that same role today, protecting other navy ships or undertaking independent action away from their task group. The Type 26 multi-role frigate will have to fill that niche – but first, its requirements and design must be defined…

Britain’s Future Surface Combatants

Of Britain’s 30 frigates built – 14 Type 22s and 16 Type 23s – 17 (4 Type 22s, 13 Type 23s) still serve in the Royal Navy, and some of the Type 23s have received modern refits to keep them going a bit longer. All remain outclassed by more modern designs. Another 10 frigates of these types have been sold abroad to Brazil, Chile, and Romania, and 3 Type 22s have been deliberately scrapped or sunk.

Type 26 is actually the 1st of 2 classes of ships to be built under the Royal Navy’s Future Surface Combatant program. The first ships of the Type 26 class are due to enter service in the early 2020s, and by the 2030s around half of frontline Royal Navy personnel are expected to operate on a either a Type 26 or the 2nd FSC variant.

At present, there is no real design or equipment set for the Type 26, though DESi 2009 did feature some initial models that included an aft “mission bay” for swappable payloads. Key design criteria include multi-role versatility, flexibility in adapting to future needs, affordability in both construction and through-life support costs, and exportability. In reality, these requirements represent a set of key trade-offs. Some can be complementary, such as cost and exportability. Other pairings usually come at each other’s expense, such as the desire for high-end multi-role capability within a small ship footprint, versus the desire to keep initial purchase costs low. Initial reports indicate an imagined cost of about GBP 400 million per ship, but the Royal Navy is no better than the American Navy at shipbuilding cost estimates.

The forthcoming Assessment Phase is designed to make many of these trade-offs, and the program is timed so it can take the forthcoming Strategic Defence Review into account.

Both British FSC variants will also be developed with an eye to export orders, in hopes of to spreading development costs over more vessels, getting more benefit from the manufacturing learning curve, reducing costs per ship thanks to volume orders, and sustaining the UK’s naval shipbuilding industry. A Defense News report cited talks with Australia and New Zealand in early 2010, and Canada also has a requirement for a 2-stage frigate program to equip its future Navy.

Talks do not a deal make, however, and Britain will have a formidable set of established competitors to contend with.

While the Americans have more or less abandoned this field, the Franco-Italian FREMM program offers a fully modern design, using the same MBDA PAAMS air defense missiles and DCNS SYLVER vertical launch systems as Britain’s Type 45 air-defense destroyers. Meanwhile, variants of France’s Lafayette Class stealth frigate design remain popular around the world.

The German-Dutch F124 air defense frigates offer stealth and advanced air defense via active array radars, while using the ubiquitous American Mk.41 vertical launch system for their missiles. Lower down the scale, ThyssenKrupp Marine’s globally popular MEKO Class family of ships provides a budget alternative. So does Schelde’s modular Sigma Class, which can be built as anything from an Offshore Patrol Vessel to a full-size frigate.

Beyond the standard competitors, and countries like Russia with their own set of naval clients, China has recently begun exporting frigates. They will soon be joined by South Korea’s very capable naval shipbuilding industry, which has demonstrated success in fielding modern domestic warships, and has a very strong commercial shipbuilding base to draw from.

Contracts & Key Events

March 25/10: The UK Ministry of Defence signs a 4-year, GBP 127 million contract with BAE Systems, to conduct the Type 26’s Assessment Phase. A team led by BAE Systems Surface Ships, working with the MOD, will consider requirements and design proposals for the new multi-role frigates. An 80 strong joint MOD and BAE Systems team has already been established out of Bristol and this will rise to 300 over the next 4 years.

Britain’s First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope:

“These programme announcements are welcome news for the Royal Navy. You simply cannot have an effective Navy without capable frigates, and the Type 26 combat ship will form the future backbone of the Royal Navy’s surface combatant force, alongside the new Type 45 destroyers. These ships will be highly versatile, able to operate across the full spectrum of operations, from war-fighting to disaster relief.”

Source: http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/Britains-Future-Frigates-06268/

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