Type 31 GPFF

TomS said:
I don't think Storm Shadow would fit in a Mk 41. If it did, the French would not have gone to the trouble of turning SCALP into MdCN to fit the similar-sized Sylver launchers.
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MdCN is sized for torpedo tube launch from submarines. That repackaging would have been done regardless of SCALP fitting or not fitting a VLS.
 
swerve said:
MdCN is sized for torpedo tube launch from submarines. That repackaging would have been done regardless of SCALP fitting or not fitting a VLS.
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Good point. I finally found a drawing that shows the fuselage width of Scalp/Storm Shadow as 48cm, which actually should fit in a 21-inch surface ship VLS cell (but as you say, not in a torpedo tube).
 
View: https://twitter.com/Babcockplc/status/1755917075220947436

Delivery of Royal Navy’s new Type 31 Frigate Achieves Key Milestones

Thales is proud to be part of Type 31 project for the Royal Navy, for which the first frigates are currently being built in Rosyth by Babcock. Within this collaboration, Thales is responsible for the delivery of the Mission System (MS) for the Inspiration Class Type 31 frigates…
www.thalesgroup.com

Thales completes factory acceptance tests for Type 31 frigate mission system

Thales has successfully completed factory acceptance tests (FATs) for the first Type 31 mission system, the company announced on 28 February.
www.janes.com
View: https://twitter.com/HMSVenturerRN/status/1764867905014133136
 
Oberon_706 said:
Whilst i understand the supposed range/min-engagement performance, launch signature reduction and hull structure benefits for CAMM in soft-launch 'mushroom' cells - I don't agree that these benefits stack up against the opportunity costs of not integrating Mk41. This irks me as T45, T26 and T31 were (at the very least) designed for Mk41 on a 'fitted for but not with' basis anyway and recent developments in CAMM/Sea-Ceptor evolution will serve to negate the performance and range loss that soft-launching was supposed to ameliorate anyway. To my mind, why bother with a bespoke launching system when there was already a program to integrate CAMM (and possibly Aster/Sea-Viper) with Mk41 (or ExLS - which is nigh on the same thing) - just do that for naval applications from day one and reap the flexibility of hosting a plethora of other US-origin weapons (the catalogue is growing all the time), thereby future-proofing your platform and maximising bang for your buck!. Mk41 is a flexible, high volume, multi-user system so ongoing costs would be relatively reduced compared to CAMM-only mushroom farms (or aster-only hot-launch tubes - as an aside) which are (i believe?) comparatively low-uptake systems (notwithstanding gestating or new integrations of CAMM New Zealand and Canada, as well as proposed Brazilian, Polish and Indonesian future installations etc - which incidentally may well use ExLS rather than soft-launch tubes anyway (not 100% sure on this I must admit)).

Everyone in RN officialdom is harping on about FCASW, but the way that's tracking it'll end up just like Storm Shadow/SCALP: years late, high cost, low volumes (That's difficult to justify in the current fiscal environment - the arguments about maintaining a sovereign industrial and design capacity for such systems notwithstanding). Mk41 opens up the possibility of TLAM, VL-LRASM (when that comes online - being worked on in a US/AUST joint project right now), SM-3, SM-6 and VL-ASROC. There's even talk of integrating Aster-30 now... What's there not to like!
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Storm Shadow/SCALP "Years late, high cost, low volumes"?!

What are you talking about?!

Contracted in February 1997, being used in anger in March 2003. On budget. More than 2500 built till now, with a hot production line still churning them out in Saint Selles Denis (more than) two decades after the first one being delivered. Incredibly sucessfull operational history in at least four different war scenarios (arguably five, with Yemen). AND it was the program that quick started MBDA.
You couldnt have picked a bigger success story if you tried (well, unless it was the Matra Exocet).

By comparison the LM JASSM development was nothing short of a disaster.
 
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What has been said in the telegraph article is so true Grey Havoc, Britain must increase it's defence spending now to get out of the problems that it has found itself in ever since the 2010s. Ordering the new Ballistic missile submarines and the GCAP/Tempest fighter is a start but not enough as far as I am concerned.
 
Ambitions and needs must first be met by the fundamental requirement of having a large enough body of trained personnel.

Immediately that hits a priority gradient. How much of a population should the military employ?

Type 31 at least has the merit of being lean in crew numbers.
 
zen said:
Ambitions and needs must first be met by the fundamental requirement of having a large enough body of trained personnel.

Immediately that hits a priority gradient. How much of a population should the military employ?

Type 31 at least has the merit of being lean in crew numbers.
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With the general trend in birth rates, getting enough personnel to crew an enlarged fleet, a larger army, and a more powerful air force may require measures such as increases in military pay, at least after completion of recruit training.
 
1635yankee said:
With the general trend in birth rates, getting enough personnel to crew an enlarged fleet, a larger army, and a more powerful air force may require measures such as increases in military pay, at least after completion of recruit training.
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Demography is certainly going to have a profound effect as a driver of the increased use of automated and autonomous systems.

The Black Death upended the feudal agricultural system, making labour both more mobile and better paid. While comparison with a pandemic of that scale may seem hyperbolic (though we couldn't rule one out), developed countries - even China - are projecting demographic crises with sharply declining birth rates. Global population is projected to reach a peak of about 10 billion by the end of the century (it's 8 billion now) and thereafter decline with a far greater proportion of the elderly.

A number of political and military figures are talking about reintroducing conscription. Initially it's in reaction to the perceived 'post Cold War to pre-war' transition in Europe, but overall demographic trends are increasingly highlighted. It's not just 'kids these days' but 'there aren't enough kids.'

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZHo1Iv_Qz8


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPBUAsoUeMk

In the Asia-Pacific:

China's falling population threatens its industrial and military might

Economic engine at risk with workforce set to shrink an estimated 9% in 10 years
asia.nikkei.com

Japan’s Changing Demographics and the Impact on Its Military - Association for Asian Studies

Modern Japan has long been a prosperous country with a growing population, but over the past couple of decades, its economy has struggled and its birth rate has been declining while its population is rapidly aging. Japan’s population reached a peak of 128,057,352 people in October 2010, but it...
www.asianstudies.org


So, put you investments in robots and automation. The RN is certainly aware of its manpower issues and expects them to continue. Type 31 requires a crew of about a hundred and even a reduction to half that in the Type 32.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Babcock's corporate affairs chief John Howie discussed how how they were looking at significantly reducing the number of crew onboard future warships like the Type 32, stating that “People talk about a Type 32 frigate – we like to refer to it as Type 31 batch two. We’re doing a crew of about 105 on Type 31, so realistically we should be aiming to half that number for batch two.”

Type 32 frigate - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Scroll down to "A radical solution for Type 83":

Options for the Royal Navy’s Future Air Dominance System and the Type 83 destroyer | Navy Lookout

www.navylookout.com

Otherwise it's...

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'Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Putin/Xi...?'
 
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Scott Kenny said:
Steel is cheap. Steel is really cheap.

Build a ship with space and topweight reserves for upgrades, or you're stuck with something like the US Ticonderoga class, which were basically not upgradeable as soon as they were launched. Oh, you could add software, but anything that actually added weight needed something else taken off.
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The RN is very familiar with this, its why the Type 45, Type 26, QE Class, River Batch II and Type 31 are larger than they really need to be. They all have spare accommodation and empty areas that can be used over time, plus the spare hotel services etc to cope.

The RN got massively stung with the Leanders, T21 and T42. Great ships, but as a result of the Treasury insistence on smaller sized vessels to 'save money' they were built with little margin for extra kit or developments in service life. The T21 were retired partly because of this. Leander refits were curtailed followingt he epic costs involved. T23 got some margin, but they had to wait for T45 before they could really go full bore on better accommodation and really leaving space, power generation, chilled water etc in abundance.

Hopefully neither the Navy or Treasury will forget that lesson as institutional memory fades...so far so good.
 
timmymagic said:
The RN is very familiar with this, its why the Type 45, Type 26, QE Class, River Batch II and Type 31 are larger than they really need to be. They all have spare accommodation and empty areas that can be used over time, plus the spare hotel services etc to cope.

The RN got massively stung with the Leanders, T21 and T42. Great ships, but as a result of the Treasury insistence on smaller sized vessels to 'save money' they were built with little margin for extra kit or developments in service life. The T21 were retired partly because of this. Leander refits were curtailed followingt he epic costs involved. T23 got some margin, but they had to wait for T45 before they could really go full bore on better accommodation and really leaving space, power generation, chilled water etc in abundance.

Hopefully neither the Navy or Treasury will forget that lesson as institutional memory fades...so far so good.
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As long as someone keeps beating Treasury over the head about needing the space for upgrades and refits over the 20+year life of the ship...
 
zen said:
Just get Treasury mandarins to fix something on a ship at sea at 03:00 in a violent storm and they will soon appreciate the need for elbow room.
;)
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Try and get a matelot to do that these days and you will soon get to know what an elbow in the face feels like ;-)

To be fair to the treasury, I’ve found them very good, they see right through the self licking lollipop BS fhe MoD spouts in desperate attempts to square its own circles.

They seem mostly interested in long term benefits and genuinely cost effective plans. That they push back and reject stuff reflects that most of what goes to them is short term thinking (to paper over the consequences of the previous round of short term decisions) and that the MoD cannot judge cost benefits because it is inherantly outcome biased, ie. a cheap war lost is terrible, an expensive war won is awesome. It only really wants to win. Yet ironically it is self defeating because to try and get there against the context of massive overwhelming uncertainty which pushes it to try and do as much of everything as possible, it is obsessed about being cheap and sadly that hasnt led to us winning much recently. Hopefully that makes some sense!
 
Purpletrouble said:
Try and get a matelot to do that these days and you will soon get to know what an elbow in the face feels like ;-)
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I have found that my arms don't bend like an octopus nor hands grip like one and they definitely don't have the strength of 20 oxen.

They certainly don't have eyes that see in near perfect darkness either....if you could fit eyes through a gap that requires a cephelopod's flexibility......

Yet oddly ship designers and builders can in the name if 'saving money' build and install systems on ships....or indeed my car....or my house....that requires just such arms....

Obviously I charge extra for the Hindu god level maintenance ability and this seems to come as a surprise to designers, builders and financial people.

Though there be worse occasions when my responce is something equivalent to "not even Shiva, on a good day, could fix that...it's done buy a new one"
 
Hood said:

The development of a lean crewing solution for the Royal Navy’s Type 31 frigate | Navy Lookout

www.navylookout.com
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Okay, that paper actually gave me a much better feeling about the RN being at least not-stupid about their levels of manning. When I first read "110 instead of 156" my thought was "great, overworked crew again" but not as bad as the LCS.

But it sounds like they really did sit down and say, "we need 27 blokes on watch at any one time just cruising around, and we need 4 watch sections to make the ship work." 3 watch sections for getting people off watch and time to do other things, and the 4th for either nonquals and/or training team.

And they really need to decide to dual crew ASAP, before the ships hit the water
 
aonestudio said:
View: https://twitter.com/Gabriel64869839/status/1695213960713109716
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1000012777.jpg

Edit: The infographic below does not actually cover all the sensors and weaponry of Turkish origin on this ship (such as the Mar-D radar) but it is still informative considering it covers the most major ones.

1000012776.jpg

https://turdef.com/article/aselsan-provides-mete-han-mfr-to-indonesia-s-future-frigates?fbclid=IwY2xjawIX dRRleHruA2FlbQIxMQABHW77XW9mORjco7dwn2N3P_Ut2fRyX2DoyUKgxqBmYjNLmV9uUJcuEVEZ4w_aem_S_0RJbD1eHg7qYedNfik-Q
 
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On something of a tangent:
Grey Havoc said:
Regarding the Polish Navy's planned new Miecznik-class frigate:
Infographics of the Polish Navy's new Miecznik-class frigate. [Album]
by u/Odd-Metal8752 in WarshipPorn
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarshipPorn/comments/1iy3kgz/infographics_of_the_polish_navys_new/


MIECZNIK-class Multi-Role Frigates, Poland

MIECZNIK-class multi-role frigates are being built to modernise the Polish Navy's fleet. Service entry expected in 2029.
www.naval-technology.com
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Scott Kenny said:
As long as someone keeps beating Treasury over the head about needing the space for upgrades and refits over the 20+year life of the ship...
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For 4 centuries, royal navy was built for fleet strength over nice ways to spend money for inessential capability. There is no replacement to hull numbers.
Victory over treasury is flawless - but it resulted in a 3rd tier surface fleet.
 
Ainen said:
For 4 centuries, royal navy was built for fleet strength over nice ways to spend money for inessential capability. There is no replacement to hull numbers.
Victory over treasury is flawless - but it resulted in a 3rd tier surface fleet.
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Disagree.

Treasury forced entirely too many "fitted for but not with" moments.
 
BlackBat242 said:
That ended up "fitted for but NEVER with"!
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Oddly enough, no modern surface combatant has ever been lost, or nearly lost, because of the "fitted for but not with" economy measures. The Type 21s and 42s lost in the Falklands were full fitted out with equipment, as was the USS Stark and USS Cole. Moskva might not have been full operable in terms of her fitted systems or even watertight doors but that's a separate issue. ROKS Cheonan had a generously specified equipment fit for her era, all of which was fully operable when she was torpedoed.
 
TinWing said:
Oddly enough, no modern surface combatant has ever been lost, or nearly lost, because of the "fitted for but not with" economy measures. The Type 21s and 42s lost in the Falklands were full fitted out with equipment, as was the USS Stark and USS Cole.
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Lightweight SeaWolf on T42? What was the timeframe on that again?
 
Sintra said:
Seawolf light was only imagined after the Falklands, got ordered for T42 Batch III in the late eighties and canned in the nineties.

Cheers
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There was a two-round Seawolf launcher with automatic reloading at least as early as 1980. I don't know if they ever proposed putting this on the T42s — below deck space would be a problem.

Post in thread 'Sea Wolf and Sea Dart: Unbuilt Derivatives and Cancelled Applications' https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...ves-and-cancelled-applications.218/post-22045
 
TomS said:
There was a two-round Seawolf launcher with automatic reloading at least as early as 1980. I don't know if they ever proposed putting this on the T42s — below deck space would be a problem.

Post in thread 'Sea Wolf and Sea Dart: Unbuilt Derivatives and Cancelled Applications' https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...ves-and-cancelled-applications.218/post-22045
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Oh, THAT thread, thanks.

ps - In that thread there was this old chap, Mercurius Cantabrigensis, he wrote on a few aerospace forums, and dont know quite why but i always suspected that he was Roy Braybrook. Guess that´s something that i´ll never discover.

Cheers
 

OCCAR Delivers First MMCM System to the United Kingdom - Naval News

On February 27, 2025, OCCAR (Organisation Conjointe de Coopération en matière d'Armement / Organisation for Joint Armament Co-operation) announced the first delivery of the MMCM (Maritime Mine Counter Measures) system to the UK.
www.navalnews.com
OCCAR press release




OCCAR is proud to announce the delivery of the first MMCM System (Maritime Mine Counter Measures) to the UK.




The first milestone was reached in 2021 with the delivery of two prototypes/demonstrators to OCCAR Member States France and the UK shortly after its production launch. Industry, National Experts, Managers and OCCAR (Organisation for Joint Armament Co-operation) faced a number of challenges during the development of this cutting-edge technology, which will ultimately allow the rapid destruction of sea mines in a more cost effective and safer manner than in the past, successfully avoiding human intervention during dangerous operations.




The Royal Navy has been trained and is now ready to further develop this new concept, using this technology of drones remotely controlled from a Portable Operation Centre. This First Capability will allow the Royal Navy to conduct operations in complex environments including uncrewed sonar survey missions up to Sea State 4 to maintain precise mapping of the sea floor.




Capability to conduct identification and then training of mine neutralisation at sea is also provided with the delivery of the dedicated Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV).




OCCAR delivered the first MMCM System to France in December 2024.


– End –
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