Is The U.S. Navy Missing The Boat By Not Including The Type 26 In Its Frigate Competition?

As the U.S. Navy gets closer to issuing the final request for proposals for its future frigate competition, or FFG(X), one particularly notable design, BAE System's Type 26, has largely been absent from the discussion. It seems particularly curious given that the British-designed ship is well on its way to becoming one of the most popular warships in its class among some of America's closest allies, with 32 examples in various configurations on order for the U.K. Royal Navy, the Royal Australian Navy, and the Royal Canadian Navy.

BAE did propose a variant of the Type 26 to the Navy in 2017, but the United Kingdom-headquartered defense contractor did not receive one of the five initial developmental contracts in 2018. The service says it still expects other firms to make offers when it announces the formal request for FFG(X) proposals, which is supposed to happen by the end of September 2019. But with an eye toward reducing risk and keeping costs low, the program, at present, is focused on designs based on ships that are already in service. Construction of the very first Type 26 for the Royal Navy only began in 2017.

The Type 26's design itself, also known as the Global Combat Ship (GCS), dates back to the mid-2000s. BAE Systems originally developed the ship, which The War Zone previously examined in depth, in response to a U.K. Royal Navy requirement, but has always had an eye toward the export market.

"BAE Systems has a proven track record in licensing warship designs and combat systems to international customers and partners, enabling local build which enhances skills and improves in-service support," the company's website says. "BAE Systems has committed to working with prospective international partners to learn more about their requirements and ensure these can be met by the Global Combat Ship design."

If it weren't for the "already in service" requirement, just based on the Navy's other publicly stated demands and from looking at the other FFG(X) contenders, the Type 26 would certainly be a competitive design. BAE says the ship has a maximum speed of 26 knots, or around 30 miles per hour, and a range of over 7,000 nautical miles, which would meet certain FFG(X) threshold performance requirements. It is not clear if this reaches the Navy's desired top speed, though, although it surely could be modified to do so.

A crew of just over 150 can operate the frigate, fulfilling another Navy stipulation. The basic design has a big flight deck and associated hangar that could easily accommodate the MH-60R Sea Hawk helicopters and MQ-8C Fire Scout the service expects will fly from its FFG(X)s.

With a displacement of around 7,000 tons, the Type 26 is also larger overall than the other known FFG(X) competitors by varying degrees. The existing proposals include a design from Fincantieri Marine Group based on its Fregata Europea Multi-Missione (FREMM), or European Multi-Mission Frigate, and an offering from General Dynamics Bath Iron Works derived from Spanish shipbuilder Navantia's F100 Álvaro de Bazán-class.

Austal USA has pitched a new version of its Independence-class Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), while the proposal from Hungtinon Ingalls Industries remains unknown. Lockheed Martin, which had been working on a variant of its Freedom-class LCS, just announced it had decided not to make a bid for the final contract later this year.

The ship's starting size could make it easier to accommodate the Navy's existing weapons and mission systems requirements. For instance, the Royal Navy's Type 26 design already has 48 vertical launch system cells for the Sea Ceptor surface-to-air missile, as well as another 24 Mk 41 vertical launch system cells, each of which can accommodate a wide array of weapons, including quad-packed RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM) or a single Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) cruise missile, among others. FFG(X) calls for a total of 32 Mk 41 cells, which BAE could certainly find space for by deleting the Sea Ceptor system.

BAE would still need to accommodate other systems the Navy has outlined in its FFG(X) requirements, including Lockheed Martin's COMBATSS-21 battle management system, which is a derivative of the Aegis combat system, and Raytheon's Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR). The service also has significant demands for trade space to support the integration of additional capabilities in the future, including manned-unmanned teaming capabilities and directed energy weapons, among other things.

The core Type 26 design already features a reconfigurable "mission bay" that could help with the rapid integration of new systems in the future and make the ship more flexible overall. This, along with the larger starting design, could make a version of the ship particularly attractive. You can read more about the service's exact requirements for the FFG(X) and its future plans to expand its capabilities here and here.

The bigger design may also simply be more expensive. The Navy is targeting an average FFG(X) unit cost of around $800 million.

The U.K. Ministry of Defense's awarded BAE a 3.7 billion pound contract for the first three of its Type 26s, which would average out to more than $1.5 billion per ship, though the deal almost certainly includes other ancillary items and costs that don't factor directly into the price tag of the individual ships. Still, past estimates have pegged the unit cost for the Royal Navy's new frigates at between 750 and 800 million pounds. At the time of writing, the current exchange rate is $1.26 to the pound.

At the same time, the price the Navy would pay would likely be lower given that the United Kingdom and others have effectively financed the base Type 26's development already. The service also plans to buy 20 frigates in total, more than twice the number of Type 26s the Royal Navy eventually expects to receive, which could help push the unit cost down, as well.

With all this in mind, and with BAE's hullform design already mature enough to enter production, one has to wonder whether the Navy is unnecessarily limiting its options by preventing ship designs that are not in service yet from at least competing in the FFG(X) program. In its most recent report to Congress on the frigate project, which came out earlier in May 2019, the Congressional Research Service raised just this question, writing:

As mentioned earlier, using the parent-design approach can reduce design time, design cost, and technical, schedule, and cost risk in building the ship. A clean-sheet design approach, on the other hand, might result in a design that more closely matches the Navy’s desired capabilities for the FFG(X), which might make the design more cost-effective for the Navy over the long run. It might also provide more work for the U.S. ship design and engineering industrial base.

Another possible alternative would be to consider frigate designs that have been developed, but for which there are not yet any completed ships. This approach might make possible consideration of designs, such as (to cite just one possible example) the UK’s new Type 26 frigate design, production of which was in its early stages in 2018. Compared to a clean-sheet design approach, using a developed-but-not-yet-built design would offer a reduction in design time and cost, but might not offer as much reduction in technical, schedule, and cost risk in building the ship as would be offered by use of an already-built design.

There is a possibility that BAE may already be looking to partner with an American shipyard and to make exactly this case. It is worth remembering that Huntington Ingalls Industries has categorically refused to give any details about its FFG(X) proposal or any information about the team it has working on the ship's design. This is already curious given that the shipbuilder had been publicly offering more combat-focused frigate variants of its Legend-class National Security Cutter, which it developed for the U.S. Coast Guard, for years now.

There has also been speculation that Huntington Ingalls might join with one of the companies competing for the U.K. Royal Navy's Type 31e General Purpose Frigate tender and pitch a variant of one of those designs to the Navy for FFG(X). Another option might be a design that leverages the Danish Navy's StanFlex modular mission systems technology.

BAE could also look to partner with Lockheed Martin, as the two companies are already working together to supply a Type 26 variant to the Royal Canadian Navy. The American firm has also now dropped out of the FFG(X) competition as a prime contractor, saying it made its decision in large part on the fact that it will be supplying various systems, such as the COMBATSS-21, to whoever wins the final FFG(X) competition. The two would still need to identify a U.S. shipyard to build the American variant of the Type 26.

All told, it is hard to deny that the Type 26 offers a more modern design than any of the existing FFG(X) competitors. The fact that three of America's closest allies are betting big on it is also very attractive, to say the least. Its size and unique feature set lend themselves better to longevity and the ability to offer more flexible capabilities down the road, too.

Although the Navy wants something as close to off the shelf as possible, it seems irresponsible to not at least consider what they are giving up by leaving the Type 26 out of the competition.

BAE SYSTEMS

An infographic giving a basic overview of the Type 26 for the Royal Navy and its performance and capabilities.

$800M for a frigate. Wow. Times change. Frigates were always the cheapo ships, not all that capable (as in they would do only one mission like anti-submarine warfare) but you could have lots and lots of them.

In the cost world, Carriers > Cruisers > Destroyers > Frigates. 15 years ago or so, a new destroyer was about $1B a I recall so $800M for a frigate seems almost like "why bother, just build some destroyers." But I suppose the cost for a destroyer is much higher now too.

Keep in mind that literally all the FFG(X) competitors are much larger than the Fletcher class destroyers that devoured the Japanese Navy - and the current DD-1000 destroyer class is actually larger than some *battleships* that fought in WW2.

Also keep in mind that any surface combatant at a minimum has to be able to fight in datalink with its peers or in conjunction with a CBG if it wants to survive in a modern peer or near-peer fight - that requires a lot of capability.

The US Navy has long suffered from the NIH (Not Invented Here) Syndrome that leads to the rejection of foreign innovations and designs. The Type 26 is an excellent vessel that could well win the competition.

I know, I was a contractor systems engineer for navy surface ships combat systems for 25 years until about 10 years ago. So my info is stale. But I'm very well aware of the missions and capabilities of modern warships. The thing about a small ship is that there are some things you can't shrink. Missiles are one of those things. So inevitably you will have fewer of them on frigates. With the the current threats, I'm not even sure it's fair to call other navies "near peers", maybe WE are the near peers now.

It feels to me like the Navy would be well suited to cut the Littoral Combat Ships off, build more destroyers and frigates so we always have lots of missile platforms available to deploy to places where we will likely be needing to take lots of shots to knock out these newer threats.

But I'm probably wrong. Like I said, I'm an engineer, not a military strategist.

We don’t have time to wait for a fresh frigate design. We bet on the LCS and they turned out to be a massive failure in that respect. We need replacement ships NOW - that’s why the requirements include “already in service elsewhere”. Off the shelf, ready to go is what we need now. They will be built in the US, no matter who designed them.

We need the ships *now*, not in 10-15 years. And with LCS, we screwed up and killed off all the frigate development programs. There is *no* ready-to-go US frigate design - the Navy made sure of that with LCS.

“$800M for a frigate. Wow.”

A lot of money for a ship that among other things, is intended to take torpedoes to save carriers.

Just kidding, I’m old, and I’m sure roles have changed.

The Navy is already curtailing the LCS and has all but admitted they were a failure. This FFG(X) program is the Navy running a crash program to get frigates. The destroyer part of the fleet is a much larger problem because all destroyer development resources went into the Zumwalts, and those at this point are more than a little failure. Again, we don’t have a different design ready to go and we can’t afford more Zumwalts (not just in terms of money either).

Technically, that’s what the decoys they carry are supposed to do. They were *also* supposed to be carrying anti-torpedo torpedoes but that program was abruptly cancelled a couple months ago.

The US and UK have historically enjoyed great success collaborating on weapons of war.

For instance: the Sherman Firefly, the Mustang, automated decrypt of Lorentz and Enigma, and of course Radar.

That ease of collaboration is now recognised as one of the starkest differences between Allies and Axis in WWII.

Collaborating on a frigate might be another good example. The Type 26 is a fine vessel, but I think a US conversion to ship more multi-role missile slots is the way to go.

Some of the components will be built in Austrailia, Canada and the UK, and many of the components in these country’s Type 26 are already built in the US, including the Mk45 5 inch naval gun. There is also an economy of scale that will bring the price down because 32 are already being built. This is to be encouraged. All 4 countries are close allies and not even the US has an unlimited budget so closer cooperation on the design and manufacture of weapons systems to deal with threats such as the rise of China is to be encouraged, everybody will benefit from this and it will be the best anti-sub ship on the market, bar none. Anti submarine warfare has been the Royal Navy’s speciality since the cold war and our ship designers and sonar manufacturers know what they’re doing.

If a US order brings the cost per unit down due to the obvious economy of scale it might even pursuade our parsimonious MoD to order more than 8 of them. They’re already talking about raising the defence budget beyond the NATO minimum so this would be a great way of stimulating the growth of the Royal Navy back to a sustainable level.

“Technically, that’s what the decoys they carry are supposed to do.”

I’m old school enlisted, rode a cruiser and a destroyer. When push comes to shove, all ships in the battle group are torpedo catchers if it means saving a carrier. But I’m absolutely sure that’s not the intended purpose for any modern vessel.

Lorentz ??

Anything to do with this guy - Hendrik Lorentz?

Don’t understand!

The Type 26 isn’t in service yet. And there’s another good reason to not buy a British design that’s not yet in service - they STILL haven’t gotten the overheating and propulsion problems out of the Type 45 yet!

The requirement that whatever is proposed already be in service elsewhere is a good one. We’ve dumped enough money down unproven designs to the point where we need the FFG(X) to fix the huge capability gap we induced in our own Navy. We do not need someone else’s boondoggle and we don’t have time to be someone else’s beta tester.

I believe this ship is designed to be flexible. The RN version is designed with 72 missile cells, 24 of which will be full length designed to take Tomohawks. This could be expanded with more VLS for American tastes.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.