The decommissioned frigate HMS Argyll will not go to the Clyde to be used as a training platform for apprentices as previously announced and may be sold overseas.
In May 2024, the then Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, announced that HMS Argyll would be the next Type 23 frigate to be decommissioned, essentially due to shortages of sailors. The RN needs to prioritise its slim personnel resources to ensure the first of the Type 26 and Type 31 frigates can build up their ship’s companies.
In a surprise move, Shapps also said at the time: “To ensure we have the skills needed, we are in negotiations to sell HMS Argyll which has served so brilliantly but, it has to be said, for about twice the lifetime expected, to BAE Systems for them to use as a training facility for apprentices.” BAES will soon be officially opening their £12M Applied Shipbuilding Academy on the Clyde and the initial plan was that Argyll would be alongside at the Scotstoun shipyard, serving as ‘hands-on’ training facility.
Neither the MoD or BAES would comment usefully on the change of course. A BAES spokesperson offered this statement: “We continue to work with the Royal Navy to explore opportunities for our workforce to understand, connect and apply their expertise in a real-life environment and to further enhance their skills.” The Type 23 frigates were designed in the mid-1980s and have diminishing commonality with modern platforms such as the Type 26, a product of the digital age. Together with the considerable demands of looking after a static warship, it is perhaps unsurprising that BAES have had a re-think.
Argyll was the first of the Type 23 frigates to start a post-LIFEX upkeep period and she entered dry dock at Devonport in August 2022. Her refit was suspended before completion, although the ship emerged from the sheds, looking externally immaculate but her primary radar and a lot of upper deck equipment had not been put back.
Recent MoD figures show £5M was spent on refitting HMS Northumberland in 2023-24 before it was discovered her keel was so rotten she was beyond economic repair. The new government admitted in November she would also be scrapped, saving an estimated £120M in refit costs. There was a short-lived plan to replace Northumberland with Argyll but this was also abandoned as cost-saving measure.
There now are unconfirmed reports the RN is offering to sell HMS Argyll to the Chilean Navy, either if her refit is completed to be an addition to their fleet, or as a donor ship to provide spares for the three ex-RN Type 23s they have in service. Argyll now differs slightly to the Chilean ships which have had their own LIFEX refits, now equipped with Lockheed Martin CMS330 combat management system and Hensolt radar.
I wish we had a powerful navy like Chile – just IMAGINE if Britain was able to put 8 frigates and 2 tankers to sea AT THE SAME TIME! That would be awesome, maybe the MoD can pay a consultancy for some renderings of what it’d look like?
Yes, or an amphibious squadron like Brazil…..
How long those could stay at sea is up for debate
The chilean navy is in perfect operative state, the 8 frigate are the best of the entire latin america region. Is a nato standard navy well know by the excelence maintenance and readiness of their ships.
Argyll is the third oldest Type 23 after Norfolk and Marlborough. She was launched in April 1989.
If Argyll is fully seaworthy, why in God’s name are we considering selling her to Chile? We are desperately short of ships right now and if she can be made fully operational we should get on with it!!
Seeing as they’re considering selling it for parts I doubt it’s particularly sea worthy, also we don’t have the crews.
She won’t be used for spares. She only needs her refit to be completed to be fully operational again. The Chileans will get a bargain and we as one of the world’s poor relations will just see the RN shrink further.
Fully operational is a stretch, all the T23s are on their last legs
We don’t have crews because we keep getting rid of ships without replacement which causes personnel to head for civvie street – simples
No crew, I’m afraid. Many of today’s generation are just too woke to even consider serving in our armed forces….we reap what we sow.
Yep.
The deal just isn’t that good either though, can blame a portion of it for Wokeism but, there needs to be some incentive to serve. Joining to “see the world” doesn’t cut it anymore.
Just generally sorting recruitment would also go a long way to getting things sorted.
NATO first in talk.
Read the article, they don’t have enough sailors to crew the thing.
That was the PR… after all it started the Post LifeEx refit
They don’t have enough sailors because they keep scrapping ships without replacement!
Perhaps they will recommission her and rename ‘Her’in honour of an ancestor of mine who would be instrumental in forming their ‘Navy’ ??
If the Chilean Navy were to name one of its ships after MacFarlane, it would have to be one that carried out Antarctic operations, since Andrew MacFarlane was the captain in command of the Dragon of Valparaiso, a Chilean-flagged ship whose crew, on a sea lion hunting expedition, was the first to set foot on the continental mainland of the Antarctic Peninsula in 1820, further south than any previous expedition of any flag, which until then had only visited the South Shetland Islands.
Kind regards.
Make sure you put the money to good use. Not given away to some others countries so stammer get into some other country good books and steeling from the British people
If argyll (or any other military asset) must be decomissed, the best to uk is that go to Chile. Is 200% times better than scratch. Chilean navy is not only important as ally because the falklands and argentine, is also very usefull to uk in polinesia and also a value ally to all the commonwealth.
The point is if argyll is usefull to Chile. It can be a replacement for t22 frigate alm williams, and can be fited with the same refit of the others chileans t23s (hensoldt trs4d radar, cms330 from lockheed martin, sea ceptor missiles, etc), and/or have some work in british yards.
Or Become the 9 frigate in chilean fleet.
Or even be just donor ship.
The chilean navy is a very well know modern navy, NATO standart, the best in latin america, and a important friend to every commonwealth country.
Must also remember than the new chilean frigate program must choice in a few years if is the t31 the new frigate (or the japanese mogami or a meko), uk need chile as t31 user.
Always is better than scrapped, even with the chilean flag at least argyll can serve uk a few more years. This is specially important with the human resource problem in the royal navy, uk need allies that help in not hot zones to concentrate their assets in the hot zones.
Excellent spelling skills, amazing use of capitals.
We do need Chile on side – especially with Argentina discussing a Chinese base at Ushaia.
Why do we need apprenticeship ships? Allow CPOs to provide coaching, mentoring, training and knowledge transfer to apprentices onboard ships (save a lot of money). The RN needs to look at industry. That’s one of many reasons why I may be leaving the RN – too many workforce gaps!
Wow,can’t man ships can’t get enough ships to sea but can send Ukraine another 2.5 billion and donate some more systems and munitions…
To fight our enemy without putting a single one of our servicemen in danger?
Absolute bargain!
HMS Argyll should be used as a floating museum just like Belfast is on the Thames, but just like every other ship that was built on the Clyde their history is being erased. The Navy should show a bit of recognition to the Clyde ship yards and repatriate at least one of their ships or Subs (boats).
Reports are ex HMS Ambuscade heading there from Pakistan.
I never knew that Barrow was on the Clyde.
But DEI is important!
I think they should offer the frigate to the Philippines
That would offend China, not happening under the current government.
Has to be a country with the type already in service. An ‘orphan ship’ is unusable
Agree the Philippine Navy have never operated ships of British design, this would make it very difficult and expensive to operate. That said when you look at Ukraine, clearly when there is sufficient will, often there is a way.
Given the discussions the Australian navy had with them about selling ANZAC class boats, I would suggest they would not be interested.
They operate 3 of the Peacocks.
How the hell will we ever get enough crew for the 13 on order plus all the other ships if we struggle so poorly now ?
Conscription.
Or Press Ganged.
Jim
Please can you attribute your comments to the correct source
I made the very same “Press Gang” joke a few months ago…
Peter (Irate Taxpayer)
I……. wasn’t joking !!!!
We recently junked Northumberland. By the end of this year, I believe we’ll lose two more frigates, Lancaster and Richmond. I don’t believe that Argyll can’t be crewed. If it can be fixed, it should be kept for the Royal Navy for a few more years until we start getting the Type 26s.
The costs of maintaining T23s are down to the choice of the Conservative governments who delayed and slow-built batch 1 of the T26s. When they chose to delay money for the replacements they chose to spend money on the originals instead, ten to fifteen years later. Cutting both ends is something the Treasury shouldn’t be allowed to get away with or they always will. They have to be made to understand that their actions have financial consequences, and not simply the destruction of public services that they don’t care about.
That’s not quite true, for sure HMS Lancaster is due to be decommissioned late this year/very early next year when she is due to return from the Gulf. HMS Richmond is (suppose to go for refit and Lloyd’s rectification early next year) “that could be brought forward a few months on return of her suspected deployment with the CSG” but is currently planned to return to service, I appreciate we’ve heard that before.
I’m not for keeping old knackered ships around [I am for keeping some newer ships around that are RNR crewed with skeleton RN crews so we have a mobilisable reserve*] but if Argyll’s hull is sound then she should be kept as insurance just in case on of the remaining T23s is unable to pass hull certification.
*I’m generally fed up with the nonsense that this ‘can’t be done’ – as my old carpentry teacher used to say ‘there is no such word as can’t’…..yes a salt environment isn’t kind to electronics but the distinct difference here is that the ship needs to be kept fully shore powered, so the environmental systems are running and kit is powered, with the skeleton crew living aboard and going to see with reserve crew every month or two. I think a lot of ex service would love that way of keeping in touch with a part of their lives.
They’re not gonna let reservists go for a toddle in the frigates every so often.
And seeing as some of the ships keels are literally rotten it becomes wholly uneconomical to repair
I wasn’t referring to keeping T23 for that purpose.
If T23 passed her hull inspection then she should be kept as a spare.
I meant having T31 type vessels that are RNR crewed so there is proper surge capacity.
Perfectly possible.
Whilst RN is historically small there are a lot of qualified people who left in the last not-so-long many of whom would keep their hand in.
Agreed most of the T23s don’t seem to be economic to repair..If Argyll can be refitted and put back in service it should be..by the late 2020s crews may not be the issue, the number of viable frigates may be the problem.
Richmond was built as the last of a series of three at Swan Hunter’s after Westminster and Northumberland. She is due for refit, just like Westminster and Northumberland were the previous two years, and I believe that just like them she will be found to be irreparable. For exactly the same reasons.
Unlike Westminster and Northumberland, HMS Richmond has already had her PGMU on her last refit so I would hope that extra effort was put into making sure she was fully ship shape but like you say her age plus the increased work load for each T23 due to the lack of them then she may well be found to be rotten when she enters dry dock?
Problem is that we have been running borrowing ‘hot’ since Flash Gordon ‘We saved the world’ in 2008.
So the margins that we have to keep the UK lendable, in the money markets, are small.
Most of that is the total inability to grasp the welfare bill that the UK is addicted to. Universal Credit Asa’s another Flash Gordon creation.
When you talk to HMT bods you are talking to very clever people but they have no commercial experience so a lot of the arguments they put up aren’t valid in the big wide world. But they have the arguments about ‘not moving money’ off pat.
Over the top of that you have no political interest in anything longer than an election cycle. And certainly zero interest in taking the genuinely hard decisions that take a term to enact and two terms to bear fruit. So there is no drive to tell HMT to get out of its doom loop short term thinking.
That unfortunately is the problem with the death of clear policy platforms that were in evidence with Thatcher [with some clarity – even if you fundamentally disagree with it] and Blair [if you believe the 3rd way ever logically hung together]
What’s an ASA ?
I agree about the issue of money markets. I can’t blame that on welfare; most of that is a consequence of the aging demographic. I can and do blame it on the Treasury.
A few days ago November’s UK growth forecast for this year was halved, from 1.5% to 0.75%. If the current one is accurate (and I’m not suggesting it is) the forecast from 3 months ago was wrong by 100%. If they can be out by 100% in a forecast of only 3 months, how can it not occur to them that their models are unfit for purpose? How smart do you have to be to figure out that running a consistent growth slump over 17 years means you are getting something wrong? There has to come a point where somebody admits “I don’t know”.
Even I can figure out that investing in London infrastructure (yet again) won’t work, as it hasn’t worked the previous times. There is no trickle down. How can we expect continued investment in 15% of the population to support the economy of the whole country? We need to invest in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow, because there the investment won’t be sucked up by stupidly inflated house prices. But the Treasury says you need to invest where productivity is already high and make people move, completely ignoring how much it costs to live in London and what happens when you sever familial and community support structures.
These economists are voodoo priests and it really doesn’t matter if they’ve sacrificed a blacker cockerel this time as their voodoo professors taught them. We’d be better off obeying a magic 8 ball.
“These economists are voodoo priests and it really doesn’t matter if they’ve sacrificed a blacker cockerel this time as their voodoo professors taught them. We’d be better off obeying a magic 8 ball”
Say that again ?
Perhaps the metaphor was trifle strong. However it sometimes feels like these guys are reading chicken entrails.
“The OECD said the global economy had remained resilient in 2024, but “risks are casting a shadow” over the outlook. The OECD lifted its forecast for UK GDP growth in 2025 from 1.2% to 1.7%, boosted by an increase in public spending announced at the Autumn Budget.”
This was Jan 2025
The Bank of England is notoriously ‘unreliable’, being too high or too low. When the forecast is 1-2% total but they are often out by 1%
The Chilean Navy should acquire one of the Wave replenishment ships, in the process of being decommissioned. I think this would be a better addition to the chilean fleet.
Have to say that I’ve never seen so many new posters on here in all my years !!!!
Likely all have the same IP address
More Russian and Chinese trolls. Or at least that’s the party line.
Maybe there are other ways. Perhaps stop the politically correct bulls**t about diversity and just employ those that are applying, you know being a white hetrosexual man is not such a disgrace.
Then of course if you realised that you don’t need to be 10 years old to be fit and adjusted your age limits there might even be more applicants.
Providing the right protective equipment and stopping the prosecution of our armed forces for daring to fire back at enemies might also help. After all, when I see the SAS prosecuted for killing a couple of hardened PIRA terrorists because apparently they should have taken the murdering bastards out to lunch instead I question the sanity of anyone signing up to put their lives at risk with this sort of behaviour.
And finally, perhaps if you stop cutting the armed forces back every defence ‘review’ then people might see it as a long term career.
At the very least why can’t she be a replacement for HMS Bristol.
She’s not exactly much more modern
If government and mod come together so army navy etc paid large wages and proper equipment then maybe they would get more personnel signing up. I meant all armed forces every day protecting us .Oh and the Government that doesn’t give a fuck about the lives of these men . Its a Fucking disgrace!!!!!
At this rate I won’t be surprised if Chile puts in a proposal to purchase the PoW.
She needs to go into refit and rejoin the RN
There is no crew
there is – B2 Rivers plus ex pax from Albion/ Bulwark/ Montrose/ Northumberland
No, there isn’t. B2 Rivers are still in commission. And neither Albion class or Those frigates we retired had crew.
In fact we only have around 7 frigate crews currently
As a Chilean, we welcome any UK seaworthy ship to our Navy that can help guard the Southern oceans with our Kiwi and Aussie friends across the pacific. We may not belong to the Commonwealth, but through our history and actions we are probably the strongest allied you guys have in Latin America.
Given the events of the last few days it is safe to say that the MOD will get some extra money this year. Whilst the DE&S would undoubtedly love to use it all on equipment projects such as Tempest, those won’t delivery anything until well in to the 2030’s. Surely the priority is boosting our military strength immediately, in a naval context reversing (if possible) recent cuts such as the loss of Argyll, Bulwark, Talent and Fort Victoria surely makes sense. If the problem is then a lack of crew, maybe it is time to selectively mobilise 1000 RNR reservists?
As the world has just completely changed we now need to recommission and keep this ship until it is replaced by an operational 26 or 31.
Totally agree