Britain's new 'sub hunter' combat ships are FINALLY given the go-ahead (tr)

MAILONLINE ^ | 4 November 2016 | JAMES TAPSFIELD

[sukhoi-30mki]

Work to build eight 'sub hunter' combat ships will begin in the summer of next year, it has been announced.

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said the construction of the 'next generation' Type 26 Frigate will secure hundreds of jobs on the Clyde for two decades.

They will also be armed with the Sea Ceptor anti-missile system under a £100million contract confirmed by the government.

But the cutting-edge project has already been blighted by delays, with the original intention having been for work on 13 ships to start earlier this year.

Speaking during a visit to the Govan area of Glasgow, Sir Michael said: 'Backed by Britain's rising defence budget, the Type 26 programme will deliver a new generation of cutting-edge warships for our Royal Navy at best value for taxpayers.

'The UK Government's commitment today will secure hundreds of high-skilled shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde for at least two decades and hundreds more in the supply chain across Britain.'

Ministers' plans to build the eight anti-submarine Type 26 global combat ships were set out in the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR15).

The ships are principally designed for anti-submarine warfare and will fulfil many ofd the functions of the current Type 23 frigate.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3906272/Britain-s-new-sub-hunter-combat-ships-FINALLY-given-ahead-weapons-including-100m-Sea-Ceptor-missile-defence-system.html#ixzz4P7mSctiw Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[sukhoi-30mki]

A computer generated image of the new Type 26 Frigate. The government has announced that construction will begin next summer

The Type 26 Frigates are designed for anti-submarine warfare and will be equipped with the Sea Ceptor missile defence system

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3906272/Britain-s-new-sub-hunter-combat-ships-FINALLY-given-ahead-weapons-including-100m-Sea-Ceptor-missile-defence-system.html#ixzz4P7mkzGMq Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[knarf]

TRUMP AFFECT

[Fai Mao]

The British build good frigates. Since the US Navy is abandoning the poorly thought out “Littoral Combat Ships” which they’d hoped would replace the US frigates. Maybe the US could license this design and build 40 or so of them?

[Gaffer]

I heard the other day that one of the Navy’s Littoral Combat ships cracked a hull in the Panama canal...hitting some rocks or something.

Funny, Littoral means sea/land battle space - able to get close in, down and dirty....yet the hull on this one gets “cracked” (as the article explains it).

[Fai Mao]

Another one broke in the Philippines Sea

[Gaffer]

I seem to remember the Coast Guard spent a buttload of money on development of some new bigger deep ocean ship that was bigger, longer, better, etc. It had “hull integrity problems” in rough seas...... Don’t know what happened to the program, but I believe it has been put on hiatus or re-tooled..

[JohnnyP]

Has the David Taylor Model Basin been corrupted as well, by this administration?

[Gaffer]

I don’t know that it specifically has, but I’ve been around long enough to know that problems in instantiating something to design specifications and the performance requirements that are supposed to drive them can sometimes get relaxed because of money problems, prototype problems, optimistic system error assessments and a whole host of things.

[Tallguy]

Couple of thoughts:

8 frigate-class vessels for 100M British Pounds — good luck with that.

“Provide construction jobs for 2 decades”??? Seriously, how long does it take to crank out 8 frigates assuming you lay down 2 per year?

[Tallguy]

The Brits need sea-keeping capabilities in their vessels to deal with the North Sea. That would make the hull requirements a little bit more elaborate than USN needs I would think. If we’re going to build 40 - 80 hulls (I agree with that), then we need something pretty affordable.

One of the ideas floating around is a stripped-down “Burke”. That gets you building a proven hull in the shortest period of time.

[Vinnie]

I heard the other day that one of the Navy’s Littoral Combat ships cracked a hull in the Panama canal...hitting some rocks or something.

My guess, Aluminum hull or Chinese steel.

[heye2monn]

I’m surprised the British government has money left for ships after pouring so much down the rat hole called the National Health Service.

[Fai Mao]

Taiwan and South Korea also have new designs. Those might be more affordable.

The reason I suggest this is simply due to development time. Building a licensed copy of an existing design would greatly speed up the time from laying the keel to launch. The Littoral Combat ships have not proved to be up to the job. It was a good idea that didn’t work out.

[Fai Mao]

Aluminum hull

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Truthfully, if you are going to hunt subs, you should use drones.

Technologies:

ASW Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACTUV

Echo Voyager

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-adv-underwater-drones-20160722-snap-story.html

There are many more.

Also: “An unmanned surface vehicle commanding an unmanned submarine to launch an unmanned aerial vehicle.”

It’s a whole new Navy.

[Tallguy]

I understand where you’re coming from. The design wouldn’t take a long time if the USN could write a simple specfication and put it out there to the shipbuilders. If they take a proven hull & engineering, you cut out all the modeling and testing. Remove the Aegis system, put in a point-defense AA system and retain the Sonar Suite. There’s your interim design. Start building this year.

They you build a cheaper design on a new hull. Single screw, gas turbine. Or you take the Coast Guard’s new endurance cutter and muscle it up a bit.

[Fai Mao]

Do you mean the National Security Cutters?

Yeah, those could work. Especially since they have a small 115 man crew that is about the same size as the Littoral Warfare vessels. If the navy were to give them a 75mm or 115mm cannon rather than the 57mm along with a a small 12 tube VLTS that could carry some combo of Harpoon, SM2 and ASROC. Then add a CWIS and improved sonar and radar. They don't have the stealth of some of the newer designs but I bet they could be built for less than 700 million each even after up gunning them; especially when you consider there would be almost no development cost. They'd be sort the opposite of the Littoral Warfare ships which are really fast at 40+ knots but evidently rather flimsy while these would be a slower at 28 - 30 knots but with much more firepower. I bet the cutter design is more sea worthy and has better sea keeping abilities too, especially in heavy seas. At 4500 tons displacement they would be a big frigate and could be considered either a large frigate or a small destroyer. There is sort of a rule in naval design; "Never build a replacement class of ships that is less capable than the ones it is replacing" The navy sort of broke a rule with the Littoral Ships, Their only real advantage is speed.

National Security cutters