“From combating pirates and defending air attacks, to delivering humanitarian aid, these high-tech Type 45 destroyers are the pride of the naval fleet.”

In the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, the saying “The sun never sets on the British Empire” rang very true, and this was thanks in no small part to the Royal Navy (RN); as that one famous patriotic song goes, “Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves.” However, in the twenty-first century, the British Commonwealth and the Royal Navy don’t have anywhere near the size and power projection they once had.

That said, the RN’s present-day sailors still have plenty of indomitable fighting spirit, with a proverbial “Heart of Oak“ (the title of the RN’s official service anthem) even though the wooden sailing ships have long since been replaced by vessels of iron and steel. And lack of numbers notwithstanding, the RN’s present-day warships are still technological marvels that can pack quite a punch. Today The National Interest examines one of the newer warships in the RN fleet, the Daring-class (aka the Type 45 or simply the “D” class) guided missile destroyer (DDG).

Daring-Class History and Specifications in Brief

Appropriately enough, HMS Daring (Pennant No. D32) is the lead ship of its class and is thereby considered the flagship of the RN’s current generation of Area Air Defense Destroyers. Built by BAE Systems Maritime – Naval Ships, HMS Daring had its first steel cut (that’s the twenty-first-century-equivalent terminology of a ship’s keel being “laid down”) on March 28, 2003, launched on February 1, 2006, and commissioned on July 23, 2009. Her motto is “Splendide audax (Finely Daring).”

Subsequent to the Daring, five other warships in her class have been commissioned:

• HMS Dauntless (D33) (not to be confused with either the U.S. Navy WWII dive bomber or the current U.S. Coast Guard cutter of the same name), commissioned June 2010
• HMS Diamond (D34), commissioned May 2011
• HMS Dragon (D35), commissioned April 2012
• HMS Defender (D36), commissioned March 2013
• HMS Duncan (D37), commissioned September 2013

Daring-class warships have the following specifications (courtesy of Seaforces-online):

• Displacement: 8,500 tons (fully laden)
• Hull Length: 152.4 meters (500 ft)
• Beam Width: 21.2 meters (69 ft, 7 in)
• Draft: 7.4 meters (24 ft, 3 in)
• Speed: 30+ knots (56 km/h; 35 mph)
• Range: 7,000+ NM (13000+ km; 8,055 miles) at 18 knots (33 km/h; 20.7 mph)
• Crew Complement: 191 commissioned officers and enlisted sailors (with accommodation for up to 235)
• Armament:
  • Guns:
    • one 4.45-inch (113mm) / 55 caliber BAE Mark 8 Mod.1 gun
    • two 20 mm (0.8 in) Phalanx CIWS (Close-In Weapons System)
    • twoDS30B Mark 1 – 30mm machine guns
    • two M134 six-barreled machine guns (minigun)
  • Missiles:
    • “Sea Viper” Principal Anti-Air Missile System (PAAMS): currently integrated with one 48-cell Sylver A50 Vertical Launching System (VLS) for a combination of for a combination of forty-eight Aster 15 short-range missiles and Aster 30 medium-range missiles
    • twoMk.141 quad missile laucher for up to eight RGM-84 Harpoon SSMs

The Sea Viper is the principal weapon system of this warship class (hence the DDG designation), which is designed to protect against enemy aircraft and supersonic anti-ship missiles. It is comprised of long-range and missile-directing radars, a combat control center, and vertical missile silos, and can launch eight missiles in under ten seconds and guide up to sixteen missiles simultaneously.

Twp previous Royal Navy warship classes bore the Daring moniker: the Daring-class torpedo boat destroyers (“TBDs”) of 1892 to 1894 vintage, and the Cold War-era Daring– class destroyers built between 1949 and 1959.

Operational Performance

As the RN’s official info page on the Daring class proudly proclaims, “From combating pirates and defending air attacks, to delivering humanitarian aid, these high-tech Type 45 destroyers are the pride of the naval fleet.”

Regarding HMS Daring’s 2009 commissioning date, it didn’t actually achieve full operational capability until 2011, a fact that raised quite a kerfuffle in a 2009 House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report (which also noted that twelve of the ships had originally been planned, but “because of reduced threat, revised planning assumptions and an intended improved network capability, this number shrunk to eight and eventually just six”).

Be that as it may, the Type 45s and their high-tech missile systems have proven their worth in combat several times, specifically during the Red Sea campaign against the Houthi terrorist group in Yemen.

Most recently, on April 24, 2024, HMS Diamond used a single Sea Viper missile to shoot down a Houthi ballistic missile that had been targeting a U.S. container ship; this signified not only the Sea Viper’s first-ever real-world interception of a ballistic missile, but also the first time since the 1991 Persian Gulf War that the RN had intercepted any kind of missile in combat.

Going back in reverse chronological order, on January 10, 2024, Diamond used both its guns and missiles to shoot down seven drones in response to the “largest Houthi attack to date”; this was an operation carried out in tandem with the U.S. Navy warships USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS Gravely (DDG 107), USS Laboon (DDG 58), and USS Mason (DDG 87), resulting in the destruction of eighteen unmanned aerial vehicles, two anti-ship cruise missiles, and one anti-ship ballistic missile, with air support from F/A-18 Super Hornets launched from the Eisenhower.

Last but not least (or would that be “first but not most” in this sequential instance?), Diamond downed an attack drone on the night of December 15, 2023.

The Way Forward?

The proven combat effectiveness of the Darings notwithstanding, plans are already in place for their retirement: back in December 2020, then-Minister for Defence Procurement, Jeremy Quin, indicated that the Type 45s would be decommissioned between 2035 and 2038; fast-forward to January 2024, and Quin’s successor thrice removed, James Cartlidge, reaffirmed that the last of the 45s would indeed be retired by 2038.

Meanwhile, back in January 2024, Daring, Dragon, and Defender were “at various stages of the Power Improvement Project (PIP).”

About the Author: Christian D. Orr

Christian D. Orr was previously a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ) and 19FortyFive. He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). Chris holds a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California (USC) and an M.A. in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Last but not least, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS). If you’d like to pick his brain further, you can ofttimes find him at the Old Virginia Tobacco Company (OVTC) lounge in Manassas, Virginia, partaking of fine stogies and good quality human camaraderie.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

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