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.

It’s different that a foreign government decided to return to it’s default status as an adversary and attack our government.

That government attacked your government at the request of ... your government. As long as we remember that, then we see things as they are.

Anyway, yes, let's extradite Steele and others. They're going to point to Obama and Hillary anyway.

If soldiers can be jailed for following legitimate orders that later become politically inconvenient, then why not intelligence assets?

To be fair, I think naval architecture and CAD and simulation has come along a lot since the Type 45 was designed in the 1990s. The QEC class carriers thus far haven’t had any major problems because the simulations used during the design process have been able to identify design flaws before they are actually built. The Type 26 is a cutting edge design and the others are older designs and most of them are more generalised than Anti submarine. If the US Navy wants to remain on the cutting edge of anti submarine warfare, it will need the Type 26. None of the others are as advanced.

Yes, the globalists (the name we use internally for the arms vendor unit is Merchants of Death) want to follow up on prior successes selling the US Bofors cannons, Chobham armor, Merlin engines, Uzi machine guns, and Harrier fighter jets, and in supplying thinly rehabilitated Nazi rocket scientists to put Americans on the Moon. And the builder of the Type 26 frigate has a US subsidiary, BAE Systems, which already has over 30,000 employees in the US and billions in annual revenue from the Pentagon. The Bradley IFV is even a BAE Systems product these days.

I’m sorry but the QEC class runs on WINDOWS XP. How is this not a major problem?????

And after the SA80/L85 debacles, what idiot would believe MoD’s claims otherwise?

Remember when the British claimed the SA80 would be the cutting edge of infantry warfare and that no other rifle would be as advanced? How did that work out?

We never stopped ordering Burkes, but the Burke is an aged design that was not the best to begin with and now has almost no room left over for upgrades. Basically, even a brand new one is the design equivalent of a 1984 Ford Taurus with tons of electronics upgrades that have been duct taped to the interior and exterior. Sure, it’s a brand new 1984 Taurus - but it’s still a 35 year old design.

In recent exercises against the British Type 45 destroyer (when the Type 45 powerplants were working), the Type 45 thoroughly trounced it. In fact, the Type 45s were ordered to deliberately degrade their sensor abilities by half to make it “fair” for the US forces. The Type 45’s construction also means that a shipkiller has a harder time seeing it in the first place, something the Burkes can’t do anything about short of slapping RAM coatings and exhaust diffusers on as not-terribly-effective bandaids.

Sure, we can make more naval 1984 Tauruses for now, but we really need to get something better in the pipeline.

There are a lot of articles out there about why LCS doesn’t work. The LCS was originally intended to be a shallow sea combatant, kind of like a bigger version of the Vietnam river patrol boats. The Navy decided to make it a multirole vessel that could take on different roles by loading in different mission modules. (Shades of TFX which was supposed to be the do-everything airplane and became the F-111.) It didn’t work out at all, so the Navy’s idea of using flotillas of LCSs to replace frigates and destroyers didn’t work out either. The LCS has turned out to be fragile, underarmed, not actually very adaptable and with very poor seakeeping. All the modifications to it made it a poor choice to do its original mission too. LCS don’t even have organic CIWS on board so they can get swarmed easily by missile boats.

These FFG(X) are actually supposed to be fitted with a version of Aegis - basically Aegis Light, to be delivered by Lockheed Martin, so yes, they will be fighting datalinked with Aegis.

Read the thread. These ships will be built in the US, but it was the US Navy’s insistence on LCS that killed US frigate development and the DD(X)/DD-1000 project that stifled US destroyer design. This is all on the Navy, not globalists or “FreeTraitors.”

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/new-aircraft-carriers-dont-run-windows-xp/ that is a popular myth. As for the SA80 the problems with the A1 were sorted out with the A2, they are currently being upgraded to the A3 standard. It is by all accounts, an excellent servic3 rifle in its updated incarnation.

I am referring to the lies, lies, lies and more lies the MOD spouted after the SA80/L85 problems were exposed in Desert Storm. After that long, drawn out years long farrago, I am disinclined to believe ANYTHING the MOD releases - including the claims of the Type 26’s (potential but unproven) supremacy.

Also, note that you yourself admit that they had to try multiple times to get the rifle to be acceptable - the US does not *have* the time to wait to get the bugs out if the Type 26 ends up being the New SA80/L85. If it ever proves out in British service, we can talk about it then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDCRop6CRwY

As for Windows XP - see above, the MOD is claiming it doesn’t, there’s clear photographic evidence that there are computers on board that do run XP, I have severe problems with MOD’s assertions. XP should not be anywhere near a brand new military vessel at this point, even for development purposes. As someone who works IT for a living, the fact that even ‘standalone’ XP machines are on that carrier tells me that there’s something horribly, horribly wrong with that ship’s IT.

It says pretty plainly that it will not be using XP for the operational systems, what can I say?

By the time the US rolls the first Type 26 off the production line, the type 26 will already be in operational service will have ironed out the bugs and can apply any lessons learned to the US ships. Much of the equipment used on the Type 26 is already in operational service elsewhere anyway, including generators produced by General Electric that are also in service with the US Navy in the Zumwalt class and the MT30 gas turbine already in service with the Zumwalt class, Freedom Class and the QE class.

Some of the tech will be new and untested of course, but unless you want your ships to be obsolte before they’re even completed, you have to push the envelope and try untested tech that will need to be debugged during operational service, which the Royal Navy will be doing anyway before the first US frigate hits the water. There is however, nothing to match the hull design which will be the most accoustically quiet in the world and optimised for anti-sub warfare, which is perhaps the most dangerous threat to the USN because they can actually get close enough to pose a threat, unlike enemy surface combatants. Other designs are more general purpose frigates that are not optimised to anywhere the same extent for ASW as the Type 26.

As you’ve already said, the Type 45 destroyer is already vastly superior in its specialist role than the Burke class, the only major issue is the engine, which is currently being rectified as the ships come into port for maintainance.

It should be remembered that at the time these ships were designed, it was expected they would normally be operated in the colder waters of the Northe Atlantic/South Atlantic, and the problem stems from the fact that the design that was geared towards toning down the thermal signature also causes overheating, which isn’t so much of an issue in the cooler waters it was assumed it would be operating in. Now that naval architects know better about how geopolitics has developed in recent years and that the Type 26 will be operating in warmer equatorial climates, this will be accounted for before the ships are sent for testing. The QEC hasn’t reported any problems when being tested in carribean waters during recent trials, so it isn’t likely to be a problem with the MT30 that will be powering both ships.

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