Speaking today at the First Sea Lord’s Sea Power Conference, Admiral Tony Radakin announced the names of the five Type 31 frigate being constructed for the Royal Navy in Rosyth; HMS Active, HMS Bulldog, HMS Campbeltown, HMS Formidable and HMS Venturer.
This is something of a break from convention in naming practice, as there is no theme or initial letter that links the class names together. Instead they have been chosen based on the inspirational qualities of ships that formerly carried their name and officially will be known as the Inspiration class. According to the RN, names have selected to represent key themes around future missions. Forward deployment of ships around the globe to protect UK interests – HMS Active. Operations in the North Atlantic – HMS Bulldog. The Future Commando Force – HMS Campbeltown. Aircraft carrier operations – HMS Formidable. Technology and innovation – HMS Venturer.
HMS Active will be the 13th ship to bear the name in service with the Royal Navy. The most recent was a Type 21 frigate that saw action in the 1982 Falklands war. Previous Actives include a destroyer that served through WWII, earning 4 Battle Honours including involvement in sinking the German battleship Bismarck. There was also an Active that played a minor part in the WWI the Battle of Jutland, a scout cruiser attached to Admiral Jellicoe’s flagship, HMS Iron Duke.
HMS Bulldog will be the 8th ship to carry the name, the most famous being the 5th, which was involved in the capture of an Enigma machine and codebook from German submarine U-110 on 9th May 1941. She also participated in the demanding and dangerous Arctic Convoys, escorting merchant vessels carrying supplies to Murmansk in Russia. The last HMS Bulldog was the lead vessel of a 4-ship class of survey vessels and was decommissioned in 2001.
HMS Campbeltown will only be the 3rd ship to carry this name. The first was made famous by the commando raid on St Nazaire in 1942, known as the the greatest raid of all. The second was a Batch III Type 22 frigate that decommissioned in 2011 , prematurely axed from the fleet in the 2010 Defence Review.
HMS Formidable will be the 5th ship to bear the name. The previous two were a pre-Dreadnought battleship, and an aircraft carrier which saw extensive WW2 service. This included launching air strikes on the battleship Tirpitz and surviving a kamikaze attack while serving in the British Pacific Fleet.
HMS Venturer will be the 8th ship to carry the name. Most famous was the WWII submarine which, 9 February 1945, sank U-864 while underwater. To date, this is the only occasion a submarine has sunk another submarine underwater.
The first steel is due to be cut for HMS Venturer in September 2021, with all five vessels in service by February 2030.
Thanks to Matt Warwick for assistance with historical details.
Wot? No Tribal class?
Can’t imagine why not……
Naughty……. 🙂
I think we know why, not much good for flag flying duties if we offend the hosts (if they visit the countries of the ‘tribes’) or generally evoke colonial era memories which we nay have some nostalgia for but perhaps not the people we are inviting for cocktails onboard…
First class names excellent choices
I’m more than happy with the names, but there’s not a chance in hell I’m referring to them as the Inspiration Class. I’m sticking with the less cringe worthy reason that they’ve selected names of ships with particularly noteworthy careers.
I couldn’t agree more – henceforth anyone referring to these ships as the ‘inspiration Class’ shall in my mind at least be deemed a jackanapes and dismissed as untrustworthy. I shall discribe them as the “Active Class” or Type 31 as is traditional in the RN.
It seems like a class name from Star Trek or something, very touchy-feely. The names themselves seem fine.
If the t32 are to be similar which other 5 name’s would you pick.
Glowworm might be a good one for ‘inspiration’ on a thinly armed ship!
Amethyst another
HMS Fitted-for-but-not-with?
HMS Endeavour for exploration
HMS Bristol for trialling new technologies
HMS Theseus for expeditionary warfare and vertical envelopment
HMS Black Swan for convoy escort operations
HMS Bangor for minesweeping operations
To be honest, ‘Formidable’ seems something of a misnomer with the current weapons fit.
I think the full name is:
HMS Formidable *
(*Unless you are a hostile submarine, warship larger than a speedboat, have more than 12 anti-ship missiles in your inventory or are a target on land in which case we won’t be bothering you).
The Inspiration class do have the honour of being the worlds largest OPV’s though
Your primary weapon against AShM is EW. Then missiles. And then the 40mm. The latter two are back up.
Are you implying a ship would try to deploy radar decoys before firing a defensive missile?
I agree that EW use is highly likely for the first round, but would the RN fire back before 2nd round, that is the uncertainty!
I am explicitly stating it. Missiles are expensive.
And then there is jamming too. The RN are world leaders in it.
There is a story about a USN commander given a tour of T42. As he left the ship he turned to his hosts and said, ‘Gee you guys know exactly when you are going to die…..’ He had been shown all manner of electronic wizardry, but actual hard kill kinetic systems to him were too few.
Ideally you would have some system to threaten the archer not just deflect the arrows.
I won’t try to argue the details because I freely admit I don’t have the technical knowledge. The thing that worries me about the type 31s is that yes, they are constabulary ships – and perhaps they are adequately armed for patrol work… but one fights a war with what is to hand.
Even if these ships have adequate defences they seem to lack a real capacity to do harm to others. And surely that is what a warship is ultimately for… not merely to survive, but to do damage. I don’t subscribe to the ‘pile every possible weapon on’ school of thought but I do think type 31s should have several more sea ceptor and a limited but credible anti ship missile capacity.
Totally agree with your points.
The T21 were supposed to be patrol frigates but were deployed to the Falklands because we needed ships. Their already obsolete SAM system meant that two of the ships and a couple of dozen sailor’s didn’t come home. T31’s have every risk of the same fate with their total lack of ASW capability and only 12 SAM’s
I agree. To me it is about local and area systems. You could have say a second rate ship with Sea Ceptor, hull sonar, rafted propulsion, a helicopter and a medium gun. Then a first rate ship would have an area capability. So Sea Viper for destroyers and TAS and extra helicopters and torpedo rockets for frigates. But the destroyer would still have a decent sonar. And the frigate would still have Sea Ceptor. You can bolt AShM to decks and hang them under helicopters for ASuW work. The thing is today with tech getting better we really need 12 plus ships that have first rate AAW and ASW. The future RN fleet will be a mix of under armed ships.
Yes. You need something like that even if you are just ‘pottering around in Gulf’
The best thing you need to do is list the countries we are expecting to go to war with. Europe? North America? South America … how powerful is the Argentine Navy? Any Commonwealth nation? Japan? South Korea. North Korea (really?).
Any NATO country… they are allies, how many asian counties are not our allies?
And where we find serious enemies, well we have 2 giant aircraft carriers, several AS frigates and several AA destroyers. And stealth jets.
Formidable amount of balls
Great piece on the historical context for each name but you have mixed up the insprational value for Active & Venturer, it should read:
Forward deployment of ships around the globe to protect UK interests – HMS Active
Operations in the North Atlantic – HMS Bulldog.
The Future Commando Force – HMS Campbeltown.
Aircraft carrier operations – HMS Formidable.
Technology and innovation – HMS Venturer.
Apologies. Fixed
Might be worth mentioning HMS Formidable (the carrier) making a key contribution to the Battle of Cape Matapan, and surviving some fairly heavy bombing in the Mediterranean as well as the later Kamikaze.
Some good names, some I think a bit weaker, I’d have liked more consistency – you could have ticked a lot of the boxes with ‘F’ names for instance, kept Formidable or used Furious for a carrier nod, Fearless for the Assault Ship connection/Commando, Faulknor, Foresight for innovation, heck if you want to illustrate forward-ness the RN’s had a simple ‘HMS Forward’ in the fleet in the past.
I was hoping for some ‘F’ destroyer names, Faulknor, Fame, Fury, Foresight, etc; These names all feel jumbled up…..
The MoD/RN should be sued for libel/slander in calling T31s frigates, they are long range OPVs
Yes. Can’t even be called sloops reasonably with no ASW kit. Need more cannon on each beam and they will be OK for pottering around the Gulf.
Let the Gulf nations buy their own warships bristling with firepower, they can afford it
5000 tonnes?
They would be an alphabetical class (A,B,C, F) with D and E missed out due to type 45 names and Echo and Enterprise if some bright spark hadn’t opted for Venturer. A ‘G’ name would have completed the set – perhaps HMS Gorgon, Goliath or Gladiator, or perhaps even HMS Gibraltar just to annoy our hispanic NATO allies
Historical name using G , has to be HMS Glowworm
It’s also worth noting that the German garrisons from the Channel Islands officially surrendered onboard HMS Bulldog.
Some very good choices of historical names, I thought the first in class would be HMS Inspiration.
Individually the names are all sound and thoughtful choices but my personal preference is still for alphabetical naming conventions and it’s disappointing this seems to have been abandoned since the T45’s.
Calling them the Inspiration Class is pretty cringe worthy though and I hope it’s quietly dropped in favour of the Active Class or something else.
The T23 weren’t alphabetical. T26 ‘frigates’ having ‘cruiser’ names is more problematic to me. 😉
I agree about the class name. But we live in an age where the military runs adverts that tell us it alright to fail.
But at least they were a single theme, existing Dukedoms, some of which included historic names- Ironduke
In terms of tonnage T26s are heavier than WW2 light cruisers. T26 HMS Cardiff at 8,000t compares with it’s WW2 cruiser forebear at 4,200t. As the RN is never likely to have official cruisers again, these names would otherwise be lost, and many were used for T42s which were destroyers and also smaller than T26s.
Well I got 1 out of 5 right (Formidable)…
Each has its own particular role so will we see this reflected in their fit out?
Eg should
HMS Active – get some EW snooping gear and carry cruise missiles?
HMS Bulldog – get some ASW sensors/weapons for North Atlantic?
HMS Formidabile – fit out for aircraft carrier goalkeeper role or increased aviation fuel storage for lily pad duties to increase range for chinook on COD?
HMS Campbeltown fitted to support the Royal marines eg raiding craft handling or dare I suggest a 5 inch gun to support marines ashore?
HMS Venturer – trials ship for new systems and new tech?
What planned connection with aircraft carrier operations will a Type 31 have? The class and individual names are a bit silly. How many flag officers were involved in coming up with something so unimaginative? Desperation might be a more apt class title.
That had me wondering too, T31s have no stated mission anywhere near a carrier, except in passing. That’s the RN justification for concentrating all the expensive gubbins in T45 and T26!
As pointed out, the names ate linked to the history and ethos of the Royal many.
Gordon Bennett, they are names Get over it. The T31 is built do it’s job. It can be further adaptable as needed.
Hi Trevor, I’ve nothing against the names specifically.
My issue is that the names are not just nods to great historical RN warships (I like that), but also references to “key themes of future missions” of the vessels specifically, not of the RN in general. Or at least that’s how I understand the good Admiral, anyhow.
That is what the issue is; the T31 is not intended to be involved in carrier ops. I’m fine with the T31 for its stated GP purpose, but it is not supposed to be a fleet escort for our carriers, and so naming it for that future “carrier operations” mission is a bit of a red flag.
The alphabet, where is D and E?
lack of imagination, why not Walker,Vain , Amethyst or Electra
As has been stated below, what role is the T31 supposed to play in relation to aircraft carrier operations?! It’s specifically intended to cover all the basic roles in order to free up T45 and T23/T26 to handle the defence of the CSG. Or did I miss an anouncement somewhere?
Otherwise, I like the use of the names, but join many others in feeling a bit embarrassed/awkward about “Inspiration” Class…
HMS Active seems an odd choice as it implies a member of the Astute class?
Very much agree! Very odd as well!
What a random bunch of names with no class ID whatsoever. The only inspiration I can see is that they were pulled out of a hat! There are some famous names there that will fade with usage on a T31. What a shame, but the RN has more iconic names than any other navy in the world. Perhaps they can afford it.
Hmm. Not 100% convinced by this. All good names in themselves but as someone already said, the class name is a bit Star Trek and ‘Formidable’ is a capital ship’s name which seems slightly ludicrous for an lightly-armed frigate. Was quietly hoping that Leander class names would be used.
Historic names, yes, and deserve remembering. However, a puzzling mix, and a puzzling tenous link to possible future taskings and locations. I thought the 31s were going to be GP assets, and therefore no specific location or role? Yes they are underamed, and its a sad thing to say most RN ships on delivery were underarmed (the FFBNW grates on me) but at least they are built with both size and a large percentage of power/capabilty which make future improvments in both weapons and tech a much easier possibilty. Still bloody confused about the naming thought process though….sounding a bit woke to me!
Judging by the comments here “BullS**t” class might be more appropriate!
The “U” class.
Underfunded
Underequipped
Undermanned
Useless
Unsatisfactory