With the recent sale of HMS Ocean to Brazil, we take this opportunity to examine the considerable number of RN and RFA vessels that have been sold on for further service with foreign navies and are still operational today.
Upholder class submarines
It is still a source of controversy and regret today but in the early 1990s it was decided to decommission the RN’s 4 conventional Upholder class submarines after just a few years service, as part of the Cold War “peace dividend”. After spending time in storage they were eventually sold to Canada but suffered a tortuous and difficult return to service, not helped by a fatal fire on board HMCS Chicoutimi during her delivery voyage in 2004. It took until February 2015 for the RCN to declare their submarine fleet was operational but the Upholders are now proving to be excellent boats and are deployed globally. HMS Upholder was re-named Chicoutimi and after lengthy repairs commissioned in September 2015. HMS Unseen became HMCS Victoria, HMS Ursula became HMCS Corner Brook and Unicorn became HMCS Windsor.

Type 23 Frigates
The sale of 3 modern Type 23 frigates was announced in the 2003 and was a precursor to many more cuts to the fleet in the 21st Century. Seen in a wider context, the sacrifice of these ships was partly to help fund the war in Iraq and in part the Treasury’s required ‘pound of flesh’ in return for the eventual order for the QE class aircraft carriers. The ships were converted for Chilean service in Portsmouth between 2006-08. HMS Norfolk recommissioned in 2006 as Almirante Cochrane. HMS Grafton recommissioned as the Almirante Lynch in March 2007 and HMS Malborough recommissioned as the Almirante Condell in May 2008. Lockheed Martin Canada has recently been contracted to replace the combat management system with their CMS 330. According to an unconfirmed Janes report in October 2017, Chile is interested in buying additional second-hand Type 23 frigates after the MoD suggested: “up to five ships may become available for sale”. (It seems likely this plan will be abandoned in the MDP 2018 review currently underway).

Type 22 Batch 1 Frigates
The 4 batch 1 Type 22 Frigates were sold to Brazil between 1995-97. Ex-HMS Broadsword became Greenhalgh, ex-HMS Battleaxe became Rademaker – both continue to serve today. Ex-HMS Brilliant became Dodsworth but was scrapped in 2012 and ex-HMS Brazen became Bosísio but was sunk as target in 2017.

Type 22 Batch II Frigates
The decommissioning of the 6 very young batch II Type 22s between 1999 -2001 was mired in controversy as the MoD failed to raise much from their sale, HMS Boxer & Brave were sunk as targets, HMS Beaver scrapped and the others sold at knock-down prices amidst a corruption scandal.


Type 21 Frigates
All 6 surviving Type 21 frigates were sold to Pakistan between 1993-94. Always seen as somewhat under-armed in RN service, they were quickly modernised and upgraded with new weapons and sensors and reclassified by Pakistan as ‘destroyers’. Ex-HMS Amazon, PNS Babur and ex-HMS Alacrity, PNS Badr have now been decommissioned but the remaining 4 ships are still operational.


Patrol ships
HMS Dumbarton Castle and HMS Leeds Castle were sold to the Bangladesh Navy in April 2010. These ships were upgraded between 2011-14 and given a new sensor fit, 4 Chinese-made C704 anti-ship missiles and an Ak-176 76.2 mm gun. They are now rated as ‘corvettes’.

Five of the six Island Class OPVs were delivered to the Bangladeshi navy between 2002-04. Ex-HMS Lindisfarne became BNS Turag, ex-HMS Shetland became BNS Kapatakhaya, ex-HMS Alderney became BNS Karatoa, ex-HMS Anglesey became BNS Gomati. ex-HMS Orkney was sold to the Trinidad and Tobago Coastguard in 2001 and served as TTS Nelson until she was decommissioned in 2015.

The 5 RN Peacock class vessels were built to patrol the waters of Hong Kong. When Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1999, 3 of the ships were sold to the Philipines in August 1999 for a bargain $20M. HMS Peacock became BRP Emilio Jacinto, HMS Plover became BRP Apolinario Mabini and HMS Starling became BRP Artemio Ricarte. The Philipines is very happy with the vessels which continue in service with upgrades planned. There were calls for them to be retained for patrolling UK waters but after a period laid up, the remaining two vessels were eventually sold to Ireland in 1989, where they continue to serve. HMS Swallow became LÉ Ciara and HMS Swift became LÉ Orla.


The 12 River class vessels built in the early 1980s were originally designed as minesweepers but were quickly converted to patrol duties and mostly manned by Royal Navy Reservists. In was decided in 1993 that all would be decommissioned and sold off. 4 were sold to Bangladesh, 7 to Brazil and 1 to Guyana. The entire class remain operational with their new owners.



Minehunters
In the last decade, the RN has been slowly reducing its fleet of modern plastic-hulled minehunters. These vessels are an attractive proposition for foreign navies and the 3 Sandown class SRMH and 4 Hunt class MCMVs are frequently seen serving in NATO Mine Countermeasures Groups.



Survey vessels
Just one of the Herald Class hydrographic survey vessels built for the RN in the 1960s survives in Indonesian service. 2 of the 5 Bulldog class survey vessels survive but are unrecognisable. Ex-HMS Beagle was completely rebuilt as a motor yacht Titan and ex-HMS Fox has been rebuilt as motor yacht Toy Heaven.


Auxiliary ships
One of the much-regretted decisions of the 2010 defence review was the sale of RFA Largs Bay to Australia for £65 Million. Costing a very modest £25M per year to run, the 3 remaining ships have proved versatile and able to perform all kinds of tasks beyond their primary amphibious role.





HMS Challenger

Around the world, the “ex-Royal Navy flotilla” consists of something like, an assault ship, 4 submarines, 12 frigates, 24 patrol vessels, 7 mine warfare vessels, 2 survey vessels and 5 auxiliaries. Sales of surplus vessels can generate useful income for the MoD and strengthen defence relationships but some vessels were valuable assets that were disposed of in haste. In the long run, the National Shipbuilding Strategy suggests that the RN offers its warships for sale to overseas buyers at a younger age and replace them with new vessels, providing regular work for UK shipbuilders.
The model works fine if you replace them ship for ship, otherwise retiring them early doesn’t bear fruit.
When ships are decommissioned at least some of them could be put into dry dock storage. They are an insurance policy pending resale or refit. Apart from a warranty for a further 20 years or more service, a condition of sale could also include an offer to rearm them as combat capable warships in British yards. Many will have been fitted for but never with these weapons anyway.
Is there a pattern here whereby RN ships sold to third world countries are actually up-armed with heavier weaponary like Anti-ship missiles?
Does that mean that RN ships have been under armed for years? Too many platforms but not enough money to arm them heavily or even adequately?
It’s true Pakistan has made good use of the Type 21s hulls which were built on the cheap for the RN in the 1970s but otherwise, only really the Castle class OPVs can be described as having been up-armed or significantly upgraded since RN service. One has to wonder what exactly are these “corvettes” for? They are too lightly armed and equipped to compete with frigate (or bigger) size warships but expensively over-armed for patrol duties.
The Batch2 Types 22’s were all uparmed and the Batch 3’s might all have been retained in similar circumstances by USN and French Navies. Instead they were maliciously sold by MOD for scrap.
The disposal of the 4 Upholders was a ridiculous mistake.
The disposal of the Harriers was stupid beyond belief.
Something wrong with our policy IMHO. Most serious of all was letting go personnel after 2010 Review. In other words the main problem seems to be a lack of will and strategic awareness at a most political and civilian levels.
Well done for publishing the article.
You mean like the USN kept all those Spruance class destroyers or those Oliver Hazard Perry’s…….oh wait. Sticking ships in reserve seems like a good idea until you look a bit closer. It took us 2 years to get an LPD reactivated and we had a crew for her, which we would not have for any reserve ships. The RNR are not set up to help with this anymore and we could never train enough specialists fast enough to make a difference. It also cost money to keep ships tied up alongside which could be better spent on active assets. Then there is equipment. Imagine we had kept some batch 2s and wanted to reactivate them now. They would need new radars and missiles and lots more besides. Much better to sell ships off as we do but crucially we need to actually replace them on time.
I don’t think the point of keeping them is to put them back in the front line. The idea would be to put them into patrol duties and free up T45s, T26s and T31s in an emergency. They won’t need modern weapons.
I’ll bet like the RN, the USN regrets selling the Oliver Hazard Perry’s which is why they are now building new Frigates that may actually work!
No issue with selling off hulls when they are at the end of our useful tier 1 life. Doesn’t mean they aren’t very useful to tier 2 navies.
Lots of issues selling off useful ones for short term financial reasons and not replacing them. T-23s and Bay really good examples of that.
Also the decision to remove the conventional submarines shows how near impossible it is to resurrect a capability once its gone. Will we ever get that back, I doubt it.
Will be very interesting to see what happens in MDP re submarines & escorts, IMHO, the two single most critical asset shortages across all the forces and that’s saying something.
We used to have mothballed ships up the trott, now we do not have many ships full stop!
It’s a real shame that we’ve lost so many good ships, although it’s definitely better than putting them permanently in drydock, like the Batch 3 Type 22s. I’d have rather lost some of the Type 23s and have kept the more capable Type 22s.
T22 instead of T23’s I think not. Both maybe but Type 23’s have to be some of the most capable ships with an excellent balance of weaponry we’ve had some time. Certainly a better weapon fit than even B3 T22’s.
I think it’d be really interesting if you did a piece on the variety of weapons that the Type 26 could carry in its Mk41 VLS, and what the optimum loadout would be (It’d also be interesting if you did the same with the Type 45 if they were fitted with the Mk41).
In an ideal world, if more than 8 Type 26s were being procured, some of them could be configured with SM-2 to take some stress off the Destroyer fleet (provided of course they were fitted with an advanced radar, like a SAMSON-lite or the APAR on German and Dutch frigates), but as it stands, a mix of ASROC, Tomahawk and an anti-ship missile (be it LRASM or the Joint Stike variant of the Norwegian NSM) would be the best fit for its intended mission as far as I can see.
Might be worth buying some back…
as a Canadian, you dont want the subs back, their total time at sea since purchase can be counted in months!!
When we had the River class in the RNR, they were definitely used for minesweeping. Both DATS and Oropesa sweeping was one of our main tasks. They had high pressure hydraulic winches, which sometimes covered the sweepdeck with extremely slippery fluid! But great ships and it is good to see them being looked after.
Arguably at the moment the RN doesn’t have the manpower to that many more platforms but you have to question how sensible it is to use something like a T45 for effectively patrol duties, with less platforms we effectively running a £1b asset into the ground.
All these royal naval ships sold to other country’s, Now after all the years of decline and our navy stripped down to the minimum, we now find our selves in a position where we do not have the naval ships to protect merchant ships. Gone are the days where we had 21 of 1 class, 12 of another and so on, and that’s just frigates all operating at the same time as well as destroyers.
Well should sell off some of our use less politicians. I doubt we would even get scrap value for them.
A real test as to whether a ship should be sold off is this:
1.It is part of an existing Class of ships the remainder of which will remain in RN Service for at least 10 years.
2.It was built in the last 10 years.
3.It was sold to cover a short term budgetary shortfall.
This covers the Bay class, the Upholders and Type 23’s.
Their replacement value should be the sum deducted from the pensions of the MOD Department responsible or of those politicians that sold them off.
If you haven’t got the money then unfortunately you have to sell. Most
of these were past their best. Biggest mistakes selling in my view were:
1. the bay class – versatile and if anything major had happened would have been sorely missed unbalanced the amphibious force
2. The Upholders – good for protection of SSBNs + freeing up SSNs for longer range duties
3. T22 batch 3 (possibly late b2 as well) although they were manpower intensive. They were large, good for C2, possibly up-arming (though that probably wouldn’t have happened)
Not sold – but possibly now seemingly a stupid decision the retirement of RFA fort George especially Vs retention of Rosalie & Austin.
The 2 Irish Peacock class Coastal Patrol vessels have now been retired and are awaiting disposal (awaiting scrapping)
There are many arguments about keeping ships, in reserve capacity. We were so desperate during the Falklands war that Bristol was taken out of reserve. The incompetence of polititions cost lives sending old and outdated warships in harms way, including lack of aircraft for carriers. They never ever learn. Sending the type 45 to sea with power packs that were not capable of doing the job. The biggest scandal is the time it has taken to rectify this problem. Polititions reduced the number of 45’s on order by half, once again showing a lack knowledge of what is required. One type 45 was used as a training ship alongside in Portsmouth. It was then towed away to have a new power pack fitted. In their lack of knowledge they fail to realise that ships require a refit and maintenance schedules, in addition to leave for the crew. By halving the number of 45’s they have put a huge strain on the operational capability of these ships. They talk about increasing the defence spending to 2.5% by 2030. Every time they talk about new ships the target date is years away. By which time they either do not get built or reduced in number. We have had 30 years of defence incompetence, by politicians, using the armed forces as an easy target.