Study This Picture: Britain Is Getting New Frigates

David Axe

Security, Europe

How good are they?

Key point: London wants new frigate for the Royal Navy.

The U.K. defense ministry has tapped a builder for the Royal Navy’s latest class of frigate.

The ministry on Sept. 12, 2019 announced that U.K. engineering firm Babcock will receive a $1.5-billion contract to build five Type 31 frigates.

Babcock beat out several competitors including BAE Systems, which in 2016 won a contract to build eight new Type 26 frigates.

Together, the eight Type 26s and five Type 31s eventually will replace the fleet’s 13 Type 23 frigates, which entered service beginning in the late 1980s.

Babcock’s Type 31 design displaces 5,700 tons of water and is 460 feet long. The Type 26 is bigger at 7,000 tons of displacement and 490 feet in length.

Babcock based its design on the Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate that’s in service with the Danish navy. Using an existing design should help to drive the cost of the Type 31s to around $300 million apiece, compared to $1 billion apiece for the Type 26s.

The defense ministry requires that the Type 31 “operate globally with sustained forward presence” with “the speed for interdiction of commercial vessels and maintaining station with adversary warships in U.K. waters.”

According to U.K. Defense Journal, that translates into a top speed of 28 knots and an endurance of 9,000 miles at 12 knots.

The Type 31 will boast a five-inch-diameter main gun plus 40-millimeter guns for close-in defense. The type will come with mission bays for small boats, drones and boarding parties. The frigate’s flight deck and hangar can accommodate a single Merlin helicopter or two Wildcats.

Additional equipment could include an eight-canister launcher for anti-ship missiles, a 32-cell vertical launch system for air-defense, land-attack and anti-submarine missiles, additional close defenses such as the Phalanx gun and a towed sonar array.