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Whale Island Zookeeper

Though I am not at all happy with the systems fit out I am so pleased this Danish design was selected. Great hulls. They will be a popular draft.

leh

32-cell Mk41 is pretty good, especially for a European frigate.

Supportive Bloke

Particularly if it is augmented by 8 canister mounted NSM and some soft launched Sea Ceptors. Then it looks like a heavy missile load out with excellent self defence.

Order of the Ditch

Exactly. The newest French frigates have just 16 Asters and 8 canister mounted Exocet. The ability to quad pack SeaCeptor with in a single MK41 VLS cell is a great capability.
16 x 4 SeaCeptor + 8 land attack + 8 anti-ship is quint the fit out for the role they are intended for.

ATH

Non of this is planned or in the budget. The NSM buy is for T23/45. At the moment I don’t believe the RN has anything on order for either the T26 or T31 Mk41 except the new Anglo French anti ship/land attack missile due late 20’s/early 30’s. This includes Quad packed Sea Ceptor which don’t think the RN has ordered.

SailorBoy

As T23 goes out of service the ides was that NSM would be transferred to the T31s as at the time they were only going to have 12 CAMM. With mk41 they will probably still get them but not so vital as FC/ASW will be able to be carried.

ATH

FC/ASW may or may not come to T31. It’ll depend on both budget (integration and weapons) and what the ships are used for. Originally they were all supposed to be used on semi permanent deployments, primarily in the Gulf and Indo Pacific. We may see an update on this plan in the defence review.

AlexS

Keep dreaming

BB85

I nearly chocked on my coffee when I saw the 32 cell Mk41 in the video, I know there is space for it, but I’d be amazed in the MOD would even order 16 cells never mind 32.

Maybe the drone attacks from Yemen made the MOD realise the missiles are not just for decoration. Was the original contract for 12 CAAM launchers? If so that would be as good as useless when protecting tankers in the red sea. The BAE turrets are only good for protecting the ship from incoming missiles I don’t believe they would be effective at defending other ships from incoming drones and missiles.

AlexS

The initial number is 12 VLS cells for CAMM. I am not aware of any change. I think it was 1SL said it was an objective to have MK41 in T31 but i am also not aware of any FMS, but i am not following FMS closely.

Duker

https://www.navylookout.com/royal-navys-type-31-frigates-to-be-fitted-with-mk41-vertical-launch-system/
Seems pretty affirmative to me in the 1SL comments. FMS approvals for RN would be just box ticking and done in a week

Duker

Try reading the features on T31 in Navy Lookout , perhaps you have heard of it

Whale Island Zookeeper

🙂

Whale Island Zookeeper

Just counting VLS cells isn’t really an in-depth analysis of combat capability is it really?

leh

No, but it is still standard across Europe. The class’s biggest issue will likely be sonar.

Colin

I can’t help feeling that “HMS Formidable” is something of a misnomer for a lightly armed frigate. I’m not at all surprised that the Type 32 project is receding. We’ve heard nothing of it and the politicos show little, or no interest, in the navy at all. Sadly our great navy will continue to shrink.

Supportive Bloke

Well Labours paymaster unions would, rightly, be very angry if a decent modern shipyard was closed because of lack of a relatively low value order.

T31 only cost a tiny amount per year.

Nobody can really argue that RN doesn’t need a bigger surface fleet.

Before we get bogged down in the manpower arguments there is eight years to fix that before a T31B2/T32 hits the water.

Duker

Paymaster unions …Lol
After 13 years of the Tories run by city financial wideboys …some even became Defence Secretary

Theres only 11 out of 124 unions affiliated to Labour, incl Musicians Union, Fire Brigades, Shopworkers etc
https://labour.org.uk/about-us/affiliated-unions/

Last edited 4 months ago by Duker
Thomas

Am DEFFINATELY in agreement. well said.

Thomas

Come on… PLEASE. Let’s keep and the “Great” in GREAT BRITAINS sea power.
Dropping to #5 will be a utter DISCRASE ! to us.

Barry from Barrow.

Not sure it is receding.

Will

I never understood the reasoning for the T32 in the first place. Why have three (3) separate classes of frigate when there will only be 13 (or at most 17-18) in the entire navy? Just keep building more T31s. If the next batch needs to be modified, just do that. Why is this so difficult?

Paul T

That would make sense, but Venturer has to be extensively trialled first – if it ticks all the boxes then yes order another batch,if she turns out to be a complete Lemon i’d have thought the RN would rather just the 5 and not 10.

Darryl2164

The type 32s were always an aspiration , now the labour party are in I fear they are dead in the water . Wouldnt it be cheaper though to build more t31,s as the design and knowhow are already there and adapt them as necessary .

chris de pole

I think you are wrong with regards Labour, from a purely political position, Labour will want to show high value jobs for Scotland, so even if Type 32 does not go ahead, if Type 31 is going well, I suspect they will add to the Type 31 build out. Expect announcements closer to the next election.

Theoden

We might hear sooner than that what the plan is when we get the SDSR.

Jonno

I’m not sure people understand it was the Conservatives that ordered both the type 26 and Type 31 for build in Scotland under their national ship building plan. I’ll also give them credit for a lot more especially the AUKUS for SSN’s and the Dreadnaught SSBN’s.
I dont think there is benefit though in making a big issue out of who did what. We just want the RN to be strong and capable offering a good career. These are dangerous times.

Craig

Probably, but Babcock’s proposal for the T32 was an evolution of the T31, so would come with most of that benefit and offer two options for sale.

Theoden

Minister for the Armed Forces Luke Pollard said: 
“A key element of the Type 31 programme is the potential to work with the UK Government to secure a range of export opportunities, further supporting the UK economy and jobs. Arrowhead 140, the base design of the Type 31, has already been successfully exported to the Indonesian and Polish governments, with both programmes already in build in the respective countries.”
The only news/speculation on potential exports i’ve heard is Chile and RNZN. With RNZN the only one likely to be built in whole or in part in UK. The competition from Italy, S.Korea and France for contracts in this class are intense. Unless HMG has a plan to give 31 an edge we’re are going to need a plan B for work at Rosyth.

ATH

I suspect nothing will be decided until the H&W/FSS mess is sorted out. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that that may need to come to Rosyth.

Duker

Not at all. The Rosyth dock is earmarked full time for carrier maintenance.

James

Nice to see the Formidable name being used again. My Grand Dad was a petty officer on HMS formidable in WW2.

Brian Morris

My dad served in the last Formidable too. Great to see that the name will be back

Ivor N'idea

With regards to the photo of the ships in the build hall it doesn’t exactly look like a hive of activity, I suppose the photo was taken early Sunday morning. If it wasn’t it might explain why the ship which should have been in the water by now looks far from getting it’s rudder wet.

Irate Taxpayer (Peter)

Ivor N’idea

All of the earlier photos that have previously been posted here on Navy Lookout show exactly the same level of activity inside this shed…

Thus, to use the correct term for this “activity”, requires the addition of a two-letter prefix: to make up the correct word, which is “inactivity”….

Furthermore, if these photos were taken on Sunday morning – obviously when the entire Rosyth workforce will be down at their local church, singing in their vicar’s huge choir – then it is quite bleeding obvious that they totally forgot to tidy up anything before they went home on Friday afternoon.

This workplace is littered, quite literally, with debris: plastic sheets, old pallets, cables, trip hazards etc etc.

Also, please note the “very-iffy” scaffolding.

However the really big issue in here is the one that you have not pointed out…..

…….there is insufficent safe headroom / clearance underneath those two big yellow cranes to be able lift anything up onto the top of this ship’s ever-growing superstructure …that constraint alone will be a major impediment to making any faster progress….

Somebody in Babcock’s senior management should be hauled over the (carbon-neutral) coals for this unnecessary level of untidyness.

regards Peter (Irate Taxpayer)

PS. Mind you: it is tidier than Devonport Dockyard and also BAe Upper Clyde Shipbuilders!

Duker

Problem solved to lift the upper superstructure onto the ship

Rosyth-shipyard-1536x7881
Supportive Bloke

Ok, housekeeping is dreadful which is as we both know an indication of management priority/capacity and incapability.

However, I don’t think a radar mast or VLS cells would be installed indoors anywhere in the world? Or have I missed The Magic Dockyard?

Irate Taxpayer (Peter)

Supportive Bloke

Are you the very same “Supportve Bloke” whom – just over a week ago writing on a very obscure and little known website called Navy Lookout – gaave us the following very profound words of wisdom on a tablet of stone?

“A point I was making years ago is that humans work a lot better when they are in a consistent working environment in terms of temperature and rain, or lack of it. Cold and wet humans are not as productive as warm dry ones. …”

If you are the same bloke, then let me be quite clear here = you are quite correct!

The often under-rated biological intelligence is always far more productive when working in warm and dry conditions.

I would further add that – when there is also proper lighting and ventilation of the workplace; decent changing rooms; toilets and a canteen nearby; plus somewhere pot-hole free (note 1) to park their cars and plug-in their mobile phone charger – workforce productivity will always improve, usually quite dramatically……

—————————

So, to move onto your next phrase, spoken earlier today:

“Ok, housekeeping is dreadful which is as we both know an indication of management priority/capacity and incapability”.

Again, spot on. We totally agree. That is precisely why I pointed it out…

Simple fact of the matter is that this is a brand new frigate building facility = and, as of today, it is not being nearly as productive as it really ough to be….-

So, just to be clear here: I am not “pouring scorn” on the workforce….

The key issue up at the Rosyth dockyard today is quite clearly one of management capability……. or rather, their lack of it….

So, as one of my former colleagues used to say to me on a quite-regular basis, the following phrase from the management guru textbook applies:

“When you blokes in the office F***** it right up: we poor b******s working out here have no chance….

.——————-

So, there is nothing new under the sun…..

To quote the author of Barlow Report into British shipbuilding, writing a memo on parchment with a quill pen on the 27th July 1942:

“….there is a degree of complanacy that … permeates the whole field of Productions”

The more detailed Bentham report into British shipbuilding, published a few months later, in the summer of 1942, recommended huge improvements in cranage and shipyard yard layouts = all designed to improve materials handling and workforce productivity.

Babcock’s senior management at Rosyth really needs to sit down, and read, from cover to cover, both of those eighty-year-old reports into how best to improve their “very traditional” British shipbuilding practices.

———————————-

So, finally, I ask you about the proposal for a magic shipyard –

  • instead of doing these fit-outs up in the air – in the middle of a cold and howling Scotish winds and also whilst the congested fitting-out quay is being being attacked by both waves and swarms of hostile drones (note 2) ..
  • why not install VLS cells and mast-top radars inside a warm shed?

Or does your key point – the fact that the workforce needs to be warm and dry to really do a proper job – not apply to the fitting out of the two most expensive and complex bits of any new warship?

Even better, the first hull inpsection would not come due nearly as quickly…

regards Peter (Irate Taxpayer)

Note 1

A big hint to BAe at Barrow about the rather large (cavernous) potholes in their car park…..green wellies are required….

Note 2

I believe that drones used to be called midges in Scotland.

..
Postscript:

so after they have finished being tested on their knowledge of the now-ancient Bentham and Barlow reports, the Babes in the Wood management team can then move up to the really advanced “A-level” grade engineering – namely the 100-plus pages of:

Haynes Owners Workshop Manual for “Asture Class Nuclear Submarines”

This very detailed manual is available now from all good bookshops.

A few copies might come in very useful at both Rosyth and especially down at Devonport – so that our RN submariners can actually get to practice their underwater skills at a depth of “slightly more” than two fathoms….

However, because Rachael’s austerity budget is due out later this month, it may be “very diplomatic” to buy a preloved copy on Ebay

Astute Class Nuclear Submarine Haynes Owners Workshop Manual Hardback Book New 9781785210716 | eBay

Note to Ebay Vendor:

This needs to be checked out with gieger counter before it can be safely posted out….. otherwise you will be investigated by the elite undercover unit established by Paula Vennells: the Post Office Special Team Investigating Edexcel (POSTIE).

Duker

Yes. The T26 on the Clyde used a crane outside the shed too

t26GLASGOWmast1
Irate Taxpayer (Peter)

Duker

Thank you for providing all of us reading NL over the weekend a very nice photo of very long-standing, and thus very very traditional, UK shipyard construction practices…. .

Unusually for Scotland, this photo shows;

  • a very sunny day
  • no wind
  • no rain
  • no snow
  • no midges

The photographer, and indeed the entire shipyard workforce, must surely have waited ages ….

….Also the quayside is far less cluttered than it usually is….

….and I am quite sure that somebody else reading Navy Lookout will point out to you that there is not a single worker – not even one wearing a hi-vis jacket and a colour-coordinated matching hard hat – to be seen anywhere in sight…

You really need not have bothered….

….because the beautifully illustrated photographic appendix to the official Bentham report of 1942 is much better illustrated,,, even if it is in black and white……because it has pictures of much larger RN warships….ones that took far less time to build “back then”….

——————

I would add the observation that there are always some very considerable costs involved in hiring, then building one on site, a large crawler crane of this particular size and type. This is not an easy, nor quick type of crane operation to set up properly… (please see next / below).

(Note: If you are reading this over in the good old US of A – then the local lingo for one of these types of big cranes is often a “ringer” crane)

and also there are very big costs to hiring a purpose-made heavy-lift multi-wheeled transporter – and these cost more to hire in yellow (rather than red). These are however essential to be able move the heavy prefabricated main mast a very short distance: i.e. that short hop from the fabrication shed over to the fitting-out quay.

Not counting the delays caused to all other fitting-out operations when any big lift like this one is being undertaken…. i.e. “everything else has to stop inside” ….which is why shipyards in the aforementioned good old US of A often do their very big crane lifts (of big modules) at weekends, or on nights

—————

My key point was that, if the brand new purpose built shed at Rosyth had orginally been built “a little bit taller” = then our new T31 frigate’s new mast could have been put onto the top of the ship’s new hull indoors

Thus this type / size of a T26 mast should, ideally, have been, quite-easily lifted up using the overhaed crane inside the shed.

(note: the crane which should have been used is the very same one that is prominently visible, painted yellow, in the nice photo provided by the editor).
.
That would make the overall build, for our much-needed new warships, both quicker and cheaper..

… however, as that well-known expert on British military technology, Private Baldrick, probably would have said in very-simiar circumstances:

  • a cunning plan, one ultimately sytimied only by the very simple fact that the brand new frigate buildng shed at Rosyth has been built, by Babcock, with not enough headroom to build a frigate inside it….”

Rosyth ought to be renamed “The bottom half of a frigate shed”

—————-

This is not the first time that Babock have been caught out making what is often known in the trade as “making a hash of” a “big lift” crane operation:

This incident was very well publicised back in in 2018. It (ultimatly) involved an RN warship…

In total, this lasted less than thirty seconds (note 1).It involved 5T of crawler crane weights….

Can you please note that this video nasty was orginally first broadcast just after the 9pm watershed.

Viewer discession advised…..not to be viewed by baby sailors.

Devonport nuclear sub docker dodged falling weights – BBC News

Yes….., you lot sitting on your a***s at home have guessed right…..

– those crane weights shown on the BBC video are the very same type of crawler crane weights which Duker has just showed us in his colour photo!

Babcock were subsequently fined, in the dock (note 2) of their local criminal court, two-thirds of a milion quid.

Yes, that right, a fine of £667,000

No prizes for guessing which bunch of mugs will have, ultimately, have to paid out for that big fine…..

That’s right = the very same buch of us mugs who are currently paying out for the very protracted build time on these much-needed new T31’s…..

regards Peter (Irate Taxpayer)

Note 1.

  • A key lesson as to why your CCTV security camers should always be aimed pointing outwards: i.e. out towards the outer perimeter….

Note 2.

  • Pun definitely intended:
  • and I understand that this was the closest that some senior management had ever got to walking over to the dock”.
Barry from Barrow.

Regarding T32 hopes receding, I have recently read that T32 continues to be in the design stage and that nothing has been decided yet.

Adam

Based on the picture in the link below, it looks to me like there is a bow sonar after all on the Type 31.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/now-seven-royal-navy-warships-being-built-in-scotland/

Barry from Barrow.

How can you tell ?

Duker

Thats just the normal hydrodynamic bulbous bow. A bow sonar is much different shape

This is what the bow sonar on T23 looks like

31
Barry from Barrow.

She’s a very sorry sight now.

Phillip Johnson

Is anybody worried by the level of progress shown in released photo’s?
The photograph I attach below was purported to show progress to April 2024. If the title photo in this article is recent, I would say that the level of progress over the last 6 months is snail like.
The level of visible outfitting in the latest photo is abysmal and bland statements about the roll out of the first ship being put off to achieve a greater level of equipment fit is simply cover for a failure to stick to contracted schedule.

HMS-Venturer-under-construction-1536x788
Barry from Barrow.

Apparently, the delay is now down to much more work being carried out inside which is obviously invisible here. I also read that the paint can be applied in a week or so. Paint does give a more finished look I guess.

Barry from Barrow.

It just needs some paint.

Irate Taxpayer (Peter)

Phliip

You may well be correct….

However, you are being very insulting to snails…..they can move much faster….

Regards Peter (Irate Txapayer)

Duker

How can you tell from looking at the ( unpainted deliberately) outside to know what level of inside fitting out is done ?

Phillip Johnson

If you blow the picture up and look at the various openings you would expect to see some indication of outfitting, but you don’t.
If you look at the rear of the superstructure you can see the opening for the hangar door and other openings which are either openings for water tight doors or ducts. You would expect to see some prep work like the frames for watertight doors and other internal work, you don’t.
On all the openings you would expect to see evidence of prep work like internal initial coats of paint to allow for equipment fitting, you don’t.
You can leave external painting to last but you can create a right mess if you don’t get internal painting up to near completion before you start fitting out.
Warships are Km of cabling, ductwork and plumbing, trying to paint round those is a real pain requiring a ton of prep simply because paint coats are controlled down to the micron level (fire risk and weight).
Economic shipbuilding is about one thing, getting structure and equipment fit to the highest level before you zip the hull up. They haven’t.

Sunmack

Not very formidable if you’re a submarine given the lack of a sonar. To me a sonar is a much higher priority than NSM

Barry from Barrow.

Not all of the T23’s had them but I’d rather agree that they should all have this capability given so few numbers.

Paul T

All of theType 23’s had a Sonar ( 2050 Bow Sonar ) but some were never equipped with the Type 2031Z/2087 TAS .