Type 26 updates

The Global Combat Ship is rapidly becoming the new "big thing" in the Navy's procurement, despite the ongoing Queen Elizabeth mega-project, and with Type 45 procurement far from over. This is actually a good news, and reassuring almost as much as the promise of safeguarding and financing the Global Combat Ship. 

In the last few days, some more information emerged about the vessel, which post-SDSR changed a good bit to move towards much more conservative price tags, necessary to fit within constrained budgets. For Type 26, the requirement specifies eight ships capable of ASW and five ships equipped for more general duties. This is the latest evolution of the original C1 and C2 approach to what was known, for many years, as Future Surface Combatant. At the times of the C1 and C2, we were looking at 10 ships of an ASW-optimized, high-end design for complex operations, and 8 "C2" vessels for stabilization ops, involving less fighting, but lots of presence, counter-piracy and other roles. 

Now we are looking at a single class, the Type 26, which will deliver 13 hulls of the very same design, but with only 8 of them fully kitted out, with towed, variable-depth Thales sonar 2087 and all the rest of the most expensive equipment, while 5 will be (at least at build) "General Purpose", without the expensive ASW suite. This is, overall, consistent with the current situation, which sees 8 ASW-specialized Type 23 with the world-beating sonar 2087 and Merlin helicopter ship flights, plus 5 frigates without the expensive Thales "tail". 

The common hull will allow each frigate to be converted to full ASW specs in refit if and as required. Overall, it makes sense, and it has good chances of delivering more savings than building two different types of hulls, no matter how much cheaper the C2 hull could (eventually) have been made (realistically, not much). 

BAE Systems won the 4-years, 124-million contract for the assessment phase of the Type 26 project last year and is now approaching the important halfway point of the project, known as the Capability Decision Point and scheduled for November of this year. This marks the dividing line between the strict concept and design phases of the project. Currently, the team of around 200 engineers on the project is fine-tuning issues of the ships’ capabilities in a complex trading exercise, prioritising the various systems, fittings and functions on board in order to arrive at a description that fits the requirement but also comes in line with the budget for the project assigned by the government.

The second part of the programme, will involve detailed design work to price the ship  up accurately and to deliver, at the end of the assessment exercise, a 3D CAD drawing that will show exactly what the ship will look like and what will be there. That will be the moment in which Main-Gate decision has to be taken. At that point, the planning of the build itself will start, along with purchasing some of the major pieces of equipment (long-lead items orders), and first metal cut could follow maybe nine months to a year after that.

In November, in other words, we should know if the Navy will design a ship with MK41 Vertical Launch System and Tomahawks (it is an option) and if the adoption of a new medium caliber gun (with the deletion of the 155mm TMF MK8 Mod 1 upgrade, the new gun would almost certainly be the excellent 127/64 Oto Melara Lightweight gun, offered by a Joint Venture of Oto Melara and Babcock) is seen as possible within funding constraints or if the "future" will be, once more, in the ancient 114. 

It has also been confirmed that for the first few Type 26s entering service, the plan is that much of the equipment on board will be transferred from Type 23s as they go out of service. This "equipment" actually isn’t even on the Type 23s yet; it is a “future legacy”. Essentially, these items are the CAMM missile and ARTISAN 3D radar. CAMM was (and should still be) planned to replace Sea Wolf missiles in 2016. Being radar-agnostic, the CAMM will work with the ARTISAN radar for finding its targets, without having dedicated sensors, thus keeping down costs, and allowing the removal of the current two fire-control radars that Type 23s use for direction Sea Wolf, removing a good bit of items and related costs and maintenance issues from the vessels.

Sonar 2087 and Stingray torpedoes might also migrate, and possibly the 30 mm Light guns too. In the worst case, if money can't be found for a new, more powerful medium gun, the MK8 guns could migrate as well. The systems commonality with the older hulls is seen as a great factor in reducting the risks of the Type 26 project, and its costs.

The Harpoon might well be a different, and very interesting story, since by 2020 the old Harpoons currently in use might really be too ancient to maintain, and their replacement choice will be very, very interesting. 

The US are thinking about following the Russians, Chinese and Indians on the path of supersonic anti-ship missiles, but they are also thinking about a less ambitious and innovative return of the anti-ship Tomahawk. Differently from the Tomahawk Anti Ship Missile (TASM) of the 90s', the TLAM IV would not be purpose-designed, but would have an added capability to engage and kill ships. This upgrade was announced by Raytheon already in 2009. In practice, the TLAM will receive a sensor head capable to seek, lock and follow moving targets on a 30-miles wide area, with a sea-skimming attack profile and high ECM resistance, for hitting ships moving at 30 knots at 500 or even 1000 naval miles away. The TLAM with moving target capability will have a range partially reduced to the space "eaten" by the sensor, but will expand the range of targets the missile can hit, on water and on land, and is a possible future solution for the RN. The US Navy is starting studies about this capability, and might order a first 40 missiles soon, with a requirement for production of 200 to 400 missiles.

Its greatest advantage for the UK would be its useability against land targets, and its push in the direction of adoption of MK41 VLS systems and expansion of the UK's small but invaluable TLAM arsenal. 

I find this hypothesis very suggestive.

In terms of requirements that appear to be now firm, we know that the design of Type 26 went down from 6800 to 5500 tons as part of "gold-plating removal" to draw down costs. The hull is to be 145 meters long and 19 meters wide, with the ship having an at sea endurance of 60 days and a range requirement of 7000 naval miles at 15 knots, with a maximum speed of 28 knots being requested. Previous experiences, including with Type 45, suggest that both range and maximum speed will be higher than this, and the RN is said to be very keen on getting high endurance and range capacity to reduce need for RAS while still keeping up deployability. 

Crew is expected to be in the range of 130, with space for at least 36 more for an embarked force or specialists. 

The GCS design supports three variants (Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW), Air Defence (AD) and General
Purpose) that are capable of global operations. Versatile and modular in design, all variants will share the common, acoustically quiet hull and realise economies of scale from a rationalised build and procurement process as well as substantial through life cost savings, especially in training, maintenance and logistic support. The Air Defence variant has not the eye of the MOD/Royal Navy, but is indispensable to aim at export markets and compete with the FREMM FREDA (French Air Defence variant of the FREMM, announced after the cut from 4 to 2 "Forbin" (Horizon class) AD destroyers.

In the imminence of the DSEI show, the Defence Equipment & Support unit of the MOD has released an introduction document about significant MOD programmes that will be shown during the event, and the article contains a couple of bits of additional, new info.

The Type 26 is described with the words "GCS will take full advantage of a modular approach to design and capability: missile silos and the medium calibre gun will deliver a range of munitionsdependent on the desired effect; a flexible mission space can accommodate a range of boats, Unmanned Underwater Vehicles, Unmanned Surface Vehicles, containers and helicopters, while additional accommodation to that required for the core complement, can be used to embark other government department personnel or other military capability teams."

This essentially confirms that the Navy and BAE are still maintaining the flexible mission bay/deck as part of the design, even after the cost-cutting exercises, while the "missile silos", "medium gun" and "range of ammunitions" give hopes for the future choices. 

The most interesting bit however follows, saying: 

These options are enhanced by aviation facilities that can support a heavy lift helicopter, while accommodating a 2 x light or 1 x medium lift helicopters in the hangar. These capabilities and capacity for four boats mean that the GCS is versatile across the full range of operations, including maritime security, counter piracy, counter terrorist related activity, humanitarian and disaster relief work and homeland security. Its Unmanned Airborne Vehicle will support this activity through improved Intelligence, Surveillance, Targeting and Reconnaissance.

The 'Support' to the Heavy Lift helicopter is, in practice, the already known and expected Chinook capacity of the flight deck. The new part is the bit about 1 Medium (AW101 Merlin) or 2 Light (Wildcats) helicopters. This helicopter capacity is the very same one of the Type 45 destroyer, and seems to suggest that the rear of the GCS will resemble that of Type 45 by a good bit. 

It should also mean, i believe, that the original 'hangar + dog kennel bay for UAVs' design option was, finally, binned for a more rationale, single larger hangar. No new images have been released so far, though, so for the moment there is no visual proof. 

One of the original images released by BAE, showing the smaller hangar door leading into the "dog kennel" space for embarked UAVs, near the main hangar. The suggestion of a 2 Wildcat capacity, coupled to the 19 meters width (against 21 m + for the Type 45, which has the same capacity) suggests that the dog kennel might have been abandoned in the meanwhile. 

 

A difference that instead is already visible in image releases from some time is that the 2 Phalanx CIWSs have already become, as overall largely expected, "Fitted For, but Not With"

The modification to the hangar and aviation requirement is more than welcome. I have been advocating for such a change for a long time, and in the Royal Navy section of this blog, this is most evident. In a drawing, i've shown my own idea/wish for a single, large hangar (ideally two-Merlin capable, but this is fantasy fleet stuff, admittedly!) and for a revised, better position for the aft CIWS. 

Did BAE see my drawing...? : )

The four boats hint (11 meters RHIBs or similar, i'm guessing) is also interesting, as all concept arts so far showed stealth recesses for 2 boats, Type 45 style. Space for two more might be inside the Flexible Mission Bay aft, or in another change, not yet shown, of the notional design. Either way, it follows the lead of the german F125 frigate design in this regard, and recognizes the usefulness of ship's boats in current operations, in boardings and counter-piracy. 

Two Offshore Raiding Crafts with weapons and armor, carried in the Mission Bay, would be a perfect addition for a Type 26 deploying in Piracy patrols, after all. 

 

A RM Offshore Raiding Craft: with armour, high speed, 2 .50 heavy machine guns and a double Minimi 5.56 mount, this monster can sail almost 300 miles, and seriously ruin the day of pirates. Launched, supported, refueled and directed by a Type 26 frigate, 2 of these could expand the area coverage by a good bit.

 

Twice the amount of felines: 815 Squadron embarked 2 Lynx helicopters on HMS Dauntless D33, second in class of the Type 45, during July-August as it cruised to the US for an exercise, and took the chance to write the manual for dual helicopter operations with the Type 45 class of ship. Type 26 seems set to have this same chance.

 

Welcome news overall. Now the next point of interest is, again, DSEI later this month, and then this November, when we'll know even better what we are looking at.