Shipbuilding Strategy and Type 31: it does not actually look like renaissance.

The strategy

In its Shipbuiling Strategy, the MOD claims to have accepted all of the recommendations put forwards by sir Parker, and this is a welcome surprise, although on several points their acceptance is tied to too many exceptions.

With a courageous decision, the MOD opens the gates to the possibility of building frigates away from the Clyde. This of course opens their flank to SNP complaints about “betrayals” of workers in Govan and Scotstoun, but having a workable shipbuilding alternative to the yards in Scotland is not just a political weapon, but a strategic must. The UK cannot possibly depend entirely on Scottish yards as long as nationalistic nonsense about independence remains such a real danger.

In addition, breaking the BAE Systems monopoly is pretty much the only thing left to attempt in order to reduce the cost of building ships in the UK. The pricetag for the Type 26 frigates is simply monstrous and the Royal Navy desperately needs a way out of the death spiral.

In an earlier article I argued that working to a 30 years horizon when defining future plans for entire capabilities (and thus entire classes of ships) was the single most important factor. I remain of this opinion: short termism and insufficient joined up thinking has ended up forcing a premature order for OPVs that are being paid an absurd amount of money to bridge an occupation gap and keep the workforce going. Further to that, it has generated the Type 31 itself, a ship that risks to be an extremely low-capability constabulary worker which in some ways overlaps with River B2s and arguably with what the MHC mothership should have been (and could still be).

I did not expect the government would accept the 30 years plan recommendation. The inclusion of this element in the strategy is a very welcome development, and in some ways a surprise. However, it is clear that the MOD “Master Plan” is not and will never be the kind of outlook that is necessary and that sir Parker argued for.

The Master Plan will not be public. It will be an internal document, guiding the actions of the “Client Board” chaired by the 1^st Sea Lord. The details will not be released. Industry should get some visibility on it, but the secrecy will ensure that the plan never translates in a commitment with any sort of assurance attached to it. Just like the Equipment Plan at large, it will remain subject to endless and stealth change. This negates much of its usefulness: I’m sure the Navy already compiles long-term plans of its own, after all. What was needed was a clearer direction, with a substantial degree of “certainty” attached to it. Something like the US Navy’s own 30 years ships master plan, in other words.

The UK’s Master Plan offers no real assurance. Where Parker argued for a “set and assured” outlook for budgets, the MOD responded by saying that the budget for a programme is set at Main Gate. And even then it remains subject to successive reviews. In practice, there is no real change from the current arrangement. The stability of funding lines, even at programme approved and underway, will be down to common sense and good will, with no additional assurance provided by “the strategy”. While no government is ever going to set definitive budget levels for such a long horizon, it is essential that the Navy and Industry have a good idea of what kind of budgets they’ll have to work with, well before the project reaches the technical maturity requested by Main Gate. 

The Client Board chaired by the 1^st Sea Lord will produce the Naval Ship Acquisition Master Plan and seek the endorsement of the “Sponsor Group”, chaired by the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Military Capability), which will own the actual shipbuilding strategy and refresh it periodically. The Sponson Group includes the Treasury, so the budget battles will be fought at this level. The Client Board will have to juggle the priorities within the Master Plan and allocate the budget to the various programmes, holding them to account. Project Teams will deliver the actual programmes.

The shipbuilding strategy reaffirms the intention to build all “complex” combat ships in the UK, but effectively throws everything else open for international competition. This includes the amphibious shipping as well as survey and MCM vessels, and all RFAs. This does not necessarily mean that the UK shipyards will not be selected for major programmes in this area, but it introduces a very big risk. It is difficult to win competitions with foreign yards that build more, more often and, were applicable, count on cheaper manpower. For the Navy this might not be bad news (the 4 Tide class tankers bring a lot of capability for a very good price), but it is hardly a welcome proposition for british shipyards. Clearly, the hope is that british yards will be able to benefit from Type 31 modular construction and become more competitive, but a return “to greatness” from the current condition of the sector is not going to be easy. Building 5 Type 31s in blocks is highly unlikely to suffice. Building large blocks for the carriers was one thing; the Type 31 is unlikely to have a comparable effect.

Building large ships, such as the incoming MARS Fleet Solid Support, would inject more energy into the yards. The government is promising to evaluate with favor the effects of building in Britain over building abroad, but there is no assurance that british bids for the FSS project will be successful. It is my opinion that a firm decision to assemble the large FSS vessels in Rosyth, using the No 1 dock and the Goliath crane to receive and weld together modules coming from other yards would have had an infinitely more tangible effect on the growth of british capabilities in the sector in the near future.

It is down to industry, now, to propose something similar and do it in a way that convinces the government. The FSS are likely to be ships of 40.000 tons or more, the largest by far in the fleet after the carriers themselves, and the nature of their mission dictates that they will be relatively complex systems. In turn, that means valuable and consistent work for thousands of people.

Similarly, future large amphibious ships would have a key role to play in keeping the yards going.

From a Royal Navy point of view, the draft master plan enables a series of observations. First of all, Type 26 is expected to take a long time to reach operational capability. According to the Master Plan, it’ll be 2026/27 before HMS Glasgow achieves IOC. According to a different table within the document, HMS Glasgow won’t even be delivered before 2026. That is a pretty incredibly slow pace, and does not suggest a great level of confidence in what the Clyde shipyards can do. In part, this is the fault of government which did not authorize and fund the development of the single site “frigate factory” development. The build of Type 26, a large and complex ship, inside infrastructure which is clearly inadequate is clearly not of any help. On the other hand, government is faced with the horrible risk of investing into a world-class shipbuilding facility which it might lose to a nationalistic pipe-dream; not to mention that going down from two yards to one, albeit more capable, would generate its own amount of moaning and bad press. It is not a problem of easy resolution, and we ought to accord government at least this one extenuating circumstance. Substantial investment in Faslane, in Lossiemouth and the building of the Type 26s themselves is already more than enough of a risk that they are taking. The consequences of losing all those investments to a future referendum would be nothing short of devastating for defence, first of all for the navy.

The schedule for the Type 31e is, instead, extremely ambitious. After a swift competition phase, the aim is to achieve Main Gate in the fourth quarter of 2018 and commence building in early 2019, with the first ship entering service in 2023 to replace HMS Argyll. The other four would follow at 12 months intervals, while Type 26s will only arrive every 15 to 18 months. The second Type 26 will be laid down in 2019, the third only in 2021. The timings work out acceptably due to the fact that the ASW Type 23s hit their OSDs later than the 5 tail-less General Purpose ones.

The Type 31, however, exposes even more the overall diffidence that government and navy feel for the shipbuilding industry: the Core Requirements outlined by the Royal Navy for the ship, which has a cost cap of 250 million pounds, are humiliatingly basic. The service didn’t even dare asking for a Merlin-sized hangar, or a gun of more than 76mm caliber, or a CAMM installation in its core requirements. This suggests that very few believe that british yards will be able to deliver any kind of meaningful capability within the price boundaries. Certainly the navy is hoping with all its forces that industry will be able to accommodate some of the extras (or “adaptable” features, in the document released at the industry day) within the RN design, but it seems like nobody dared putting it on paper.

Nobody will be able to complain about the requirements being too ambitious or gold plated: the list of core requests makes the Type 31e equally or less capable than some of the OPVs in service around the world. They could not possibly be any humbler and vaguer.

For the first time in many years, the MOD is doing what was done at the time of the Type 24 and 25 “Future Light Frigates” in the 70s (without generating any actual build, however) when the designers were given maximum freedom: “all you want if it does not cost more than 100 million”, write David K. Brown and George Moore in their “Rebuilding the Royal Navy – warship design since 1945”.  

The Draft Master Plan shows that the MCM and Hydrographic Capability (MHC) programme is still moving roughly on the same path as before, anticipating the IOC of a new ships for the period 2028 – 2032. The Capability Decision Point is expected before 2022: by that point the joint MCM programme with France should have been extensively trialed and the UK-only unmanned sweeping capability should also be (finally) mature. The expectation is that a number of Hunt-class ships will be modified to turn their “open” sterns into mission areas equipped for carrying, deploying and recovering the unmanned vehicles employed by the new MCM solutions. The Sandowns are not suitable for the same kind of conversion, on the other hand they are key, with their Type 2093 sonars, to mine hunting in deeper waters.

The MCM flotilla badly needs the unmanned systems to progress: the unmanned sweeping system is more than a decade late, considering that it was meant to replace the conventional sweeping capability of the Hunts, last deployed at sea in October 2005. The unmanned sweeping capability, born as FAST (Flexible Agile Sweeping Technology) became a rolling programme of demonstration and experimentation, but while it allowed to advance the future of MCM ops this prevented the Navy from re-generating a deployable sweeping capability in the times once planned.

Both Hunt and Sandown class MCM ships are receiving updates and life-extension interventions in their refits, but the two fleets are in the crosshair of budget cutting: the SDSR 2015 made clear that 3 ships would be removed from service by 2025, and the Times now report that 2 ships will leave service already next year. According to Deborah Haynes, defence correspondent for The Times, those two ships would be in addition to the 3 already earmarked for dismission, signaling a cut of 5 hulls.

It is clear that the entry in service of the novel systems cannot happen soon enough, and that shaping a way forward for the Mothership segment is a matter of increasing urgency. Removing the need for specialized, expensive GRP hulls for MCM ops opens the door to the adoption of larger, steel-hulled vessels with far greater sea legs and utility across a wider range of constabulary tasks.

Unfortunately, the Type 31 and the River Batch 2 have invaded the “patrol” sector and the P has been shaven off by MHPC. It would be a grave mistake, however, to not exploit the MHC mothership as a way to enhance the global presence of the Navy.

I never made any mystery about my opinion on the Type 31 / MHC matter: if the “Light Frigate” ends up being an extremely low-key patrol ship for constabulary tasks, the only sensible thing is to merge Type 31 and MHC and build a single class of self-escorting motherships for constabulary tasks.

Interestingly, a capability decision point for the post-Type 45 world is expected as soon as 2022, with the aim of achieving IOC with a future AAW solution in the 2033 – 2037 time window. Assuming that a new ship is implied, this would mean decommissioning the Type 45 at the end of its intended service life, without extension. The 25 years service life of HMS Daring would expire in 2034, in theory, and by 2039 the whole class would be gone. Replacing, rather than life-extending, is a key recommendation of the Parker report that the government, at least for now, seems to embrace.

There is every reason to doubt about the long term commitment to the approach, but that is another story. It is also going to look pretty weird to begin decommissioning the Type 45s before the last of the Type 23s is replaced!

Very vague indications come about Future Maritime Security UK and Overseas Territories. The Draft master plan doesn’t help in understanding whether the idea of losing all River Batch 1s in the next two or three years is still the plan, or if there have been changes. It also offers no clue as to what comes after the P2000s or the Gibraltar patrol boats, the latter supposedly due for replacement within two years.

By 2022 the Navy expects to decide on the future of the Amphibious flotilla, which will reach the end of its service life in the early 2030s. Jane’s reported recently that a pre-concept study, expected to report in early 2018, is evaluating a Multi Role Support Ship concept which could cover amphibious, forward repair and medical capabilities.

It seems too wide a spread of roles to be covered with the same hull. Clearly, medical capabilities would benefit from a ship with ample aviation facilities and a well dock for boats and crafts, but the Forward Repair capabilities offered by RFA Diligence until its untimely demise seem far harder to conciliate with the rest. It is at least comforting to know that something is moving.

Before 2022 is over the Navy also expect to have to take decisions about the replacement for the Auxiliary Oilers, also known as “Fast Fleet Tankers”, RFA Wave Ruler and Wave Knight. The replacements should achieve IOC around 2030, according to the table.

The navy is aiming to hit Main Gate for the MARS Fleet Solid Support programme in December 2019, with contract award by March 2020. The Draft plan confirms that the 3 vessels are meant to replace the “Auxiliary Fleet Support – Helicopters”, aka Fort Austin and Fort Rosalie as well as the Auxiliary Oiler Replenishment Fort Victoria. IOC is indicated in the late 2020s, while delivery was repeatedly promised “around the middle of the 2020s”. The two things are not incompatible, but the current OSDs for the three Forts will have to be extended if a colossal capability gap is to be avoided: Austin would bow out in 2023, Rosalie in 2024 according to earlier plans.

The future of RFA Argus remains a huge concern as well. The Draft plan puts the Medical Ship decision point in 2028 at the earliest, while the last OSD given for RFA Argus is 2024. IOC for the future medical capability is given close to 2040: frankly, the most puzzling element in the entire table.

The Type 31e

The document revealing the requirements for the Type 31e design distinguishes between “Core” and “Adaptable” features. Core is described as what is designed, integrated and assembled in the UK and represents what the Royal Navy absolutely wants to have.

The Adaptable features are described as “available for build under license overseas”.

As a consequence, it is to be assumed that at least a part of the “adaptable” features will not be available for the Royal Navy, not even as “fitted for but not with”. Even FFBNW has a cost, after all, and whatever doesn’t fit in the 250 million simply won’t be included.

The Core requirements include:

-          a crew of 80 to 100 with some room for augmentees and specialists.

-          Capable of fitting a hull-mounted sonar

-          6500 nautical miles at economic speed and 28 days logistic endurance

-          armour in key areas for the protection of personnel

-          hangar for a Wildcat and Rotary Wing UAS system, or alternatively for a single medium helicopter such as NH-90

-          Seaboats and ability to carry and operate unmanned vehicles

-          Interoperable with allies as well as joint forces and civil authorities

-          Sensors for operating area situational awareness

-          Medium gun and light guns for anti-FIAC use and maritime interdiction

-          Point Defence Missile System or CIWS and FFBNW point defence missiles

-          Ability to replenish at sea

-          Commercial shipbuilding standards are the default, with enhancements only where a clear need or benefit exist

Everything else falls in the “Adaptable” bracket, beginning with:

-          Flight deck and hangar suitable for Merlin operations

-          CBRN citadel

-          Command and Control for Maritime Task Unit and up to Task Force

-          Active hull mounted sonar for ASW

-          Towed array sonar and ASW weapons

-          Anti-ship missiles

-          Space of an embarked force of 40

-          Mission bay or deck space for 2 containers

-          A gun of caliber superior to 76mm, fit for Naval Gunfire Support

It is immediately evident just how basic the Core requirements are. The hull mounted sonar is not requested specifically; there just has to be the ability to install it.

CAMM is not mentioned, even though the Royal Navy will be able to recoup it from decommissioning Type 23s: while Sea Ceptor has local area air defence capability, the requirement specifically talks about point defence only.

Merlin operations are not envisaged. ASW is completely left out, as is anti-ship firepower. The RN is apparently fine with a main gun of max 76mm caliber, even though this means introducing a new gun system into service. In theory a DS30M 30mm gun, a 57mm MK110 as on LCS or a 76mm would all be accepted.

Dimensions are left to be driven solely by seakeeping considerations, and the RN does not detail what the “wide range of sea conditions” exactly entails. Industry is given pretty much complete freedom: it is almost impossible to write a requirement list any poorer and vaguer than this one.

In the run up to the Type 31e announcement, industry has revealed a number of designs for “affordable” frigates. Notably, BAE has proposed AVENGER and CUTLASS; BMT its VENATOR 110, Team Stellar its SPARTAN and Babcock its ARROWHEAD.

The brochures are impressive and show flexible ships with a good spread of capability, with the bottom represented by the BAE designs, CUTLASS and AVENGER, which also happen to be the least detailed offerings. The news of a very demanding price cap being placed on Type 31 have generated comments from BAE about the competition being a dangerous race to the bottom in which industry could end up making promises it can’t keep and end “out of business”. Nobody believes they won’t file an offer but they might actually elect to put very little effort in it. The MOD in recent years has been, at least in the Land sector, apparently following a “anyone but BAE” policy, and BAE might be about to sit this one out as a sort of revenge, letting the other yards bet their future on this dangerous race.

The other designs are well detailed in the brochures released by the respective owners:

BAE AVENGER 

BAE CUTLASS

BMT Venator 110

 Babcock ARROWHEAD

Stellar SPARTAN

All the proposals pre-date the announcement of the 250 million pounds price cap. The reasonably capable ships proposed by BMT, Stellar and Babcock will no doubt need a considerable strip-down to meet the cost target. The key question is just how much will have to be stripped out of the design. Even BAE’s AVENGER, effectively a stretched River OPV, a sort of “Batch 3” with helicopter hangar, a stack containing CAMM cells and a 127mm on the bow, exceeds the core requirements detailed by the Navy. The CUTLASS, which is a 117m extended Khareef corvette, itself a development of the River class, is also overspecced compared to the Core demands, as it includes a CBRN citadel, a 127mm and CAMM.

What price did BAE have in mind when it formulated those proposals? What kind of money do the other proposals require?

The decommissioning Type 23s could supply a number of systems (CAMM, most notably, but also 30mm guns, decoys and radars, from Artisan to the new Sharpeye navigation radars) for transfer, but that would negate entry in service of the first ship in 2023. HMS Argyll would necessarily need to bow out early and be stripped to enable the migration of the systems to the first Type 31.

In the long term, it seems the Navy will even have 3 precious Type 2087 sonar tails in excess, as 3 are being ordered for the first Type 26s exactly to avoid the need for early Type 23 decommissionings.

In theory, the Navy will have enough sonars, radars and guns for 16 frigates as a result.

As of now, it does not seem like the Type 31e programme is meant to take full advantage of this fact. Timelines negate the feasibility of the migration.

Considering that the Navy is effectively already one Type 23 down, due to manpower issues, I see no reason why the timelines could not and would not be adjusted to make the transfer possible. If such expensive equipment can be moved across, as is the plan for the later Type 26 units as well, the Type 31 will have a bit more of a chance to come together with some kind of capability. A temporary reduction to 12 or even 11 frigates is surely to be preferred over a reduction to 8 plus 5 “large OPVs”, surely…?  

The Medium Gun passage is particularly interesting. All designs proposed by industry include the 127mm MK45 Mod 4, as planned for the Type 26. This system, however, is a new buy and requires a significant amount of money. BAE might now be tempted to offer its Bofors MK110 in the 57 mm caliber. Others might include the Oto Melara 76mm, which in its Strales incarnation doubles up as a very capable CIWS thanks to radar-guided ammunition meant to explode in the path of incoming missiles.

The 76mm, in theory, would cover two requirements at once, that for a medium gun and that for a CIWS. It still comes with a non insignificant cost, however.

CAMM, one would think, will be one of the first things industry will try to maintain in the design, and this will probably generate wider discussions with the Navy about transfer of equipment from the Type 23s.

Merlin hangar should also, one hope, be high on the list of priorities, together with the EMF accommodation and extra spaces for boats and unmanned vehicles. ASW will sadly but unsurprisingly come dead last, despite the mission being back in full force on the international scene. 

The only hope is that designers will include enough space in the stern to enable the installation of a towed array… giving the navy a chance to later on install the extra 2087 tails.

All of these, however, remain just that: hopes.

Type 31e starts off as literally the most depressing list of requirements available worldwide. Bad news for the Royal Navy, and for the export hopes for this vessel. Hopes that I consider pretty laughable, since there is an overabundance of good corvette and light frigate designs, already well established, that a customer can select. Just why anyone would want to explore Type 31e territory when there are MEKO, Gowind, Belharra, PPA and South Korea, or Chinese, or Russian alternatives on the market which come with far greater capabilities and not necessarily greater prices? A depressingly incapable Type 31e is not going to export anywhere.

Literally everything now depends on what the british shipbuilding sector can come up with. “All you want, as long as it fits in 250 million”. The one bit of hope comes from the impressive RRS SirDavid Attenborough that Cammel Laird is building, in blocks, under the terms of a 200 million contract. The ship comes with impressive specifications and sits on the opposite end of the cost scale than the Type 26, at a hefty 1 billion pounds. We are left to hope that something good can still fit within a 250 million Type 31e.

What's a Type 31?

PART 1:  Are escort ships still up to their tasks?

The Seat of Purpose is on the Land. For British maritime power, the real focus of maritime strategy is on what you do once you have control of the sea; ‘the essence of maritime power is the ability to influence events on land’.

 This means that while sea control is essential, only the minimum level of effort, commensurate with the acceptable level of risk, should be employed in it. The rest of our resources should be used to influence events on land, both at, and from, the sea. This also requires sea control, of course, which enables the holder to use maritime power and, if required, denies an opponent that same ability. At sea, the military, diplomatic and economic impact will depend upon the opponent’s dependence upon the maritime

environment for its security and resilience; for many states sea dependency is growing. On land, the military, diplomatic and economic impact will depend upon the holder’s ability to influence its opponent from the sea; this influence could take a variety of forms from a low-level focused maritime blockade

(such as one focused on components for weapons of mass destruction), to an invasion of the opponent’s territory.

MOD Joint Concept Note 1-12 (JCN 1-12), dated May 2012

The promised second part of my reasoning on the future "Lighter Frigate" for the Royal Navy, apparently to be known as Type 31. My question, detailed in Part 1, is whether traditional escort designs can still do their intended job. Several developments suggest that they can't, or that at least they will not be able to do it in the near future. 

So the question becomes: what should Type 31 be? 

The answer, as we saw in Part 1, is "a ship meant to deploy a number of air, surface and sub-surface systems meant to expand its capabilities and allow her to survive, to protect other ships and to contribute to the widest possible range of missions.

Part 2 looks at some ship designs from around the world and details my proposal.

The two extremes

A growing number of designs, either built, planned or simply offered, are meant to embark and employ modular mission payloads. The list would includes vessels such as the American LCS, the Italian PPA, the Damen Crossover, the Black Swan concept, up to the Danish Absalon class.

The first observation to be made is that the importance of the modular payload varies from design to design: the capability of some ships depends almost entirely from the embarked payloads, while other vessels have a wide range of equipment which is only complemented and expanded by embarking payloads.

At the two extremes, we find Black Swan (entirely shaped by payloads) and the Absalom (a fully fledged and well armed warship which also offers a large cargo space). 

The Black Swan concept, which caused lengthy debates online when it was revealed a few years ago, was a deliberately provocative proposal which brought reliance on external payloads to the extreme. The briefing paper argues for the construction of “sloops-of-war” costing no more than 65 million pounds apiece; 2000 to 4000 tons in terms of size; built to commercial standards albeit capable of operations in marginal ice; armed extremely lightly, basically like a current River OPVs perhaps with the addition of a CIWS based on laser (once mature); crew as small as 8, with room for up to 60 more; low, extremely modest speed requirements to reduce costs and complexity; diesel-electric propulsion.

The Black Swan sloop is described as a mothership vessel which operates at stand off distances by sending unmanned systems in the contested, denied area. Its capabilities are entirely driven by the payload embarked and the ship is not meant to operate in isolation but in small groups (assumption is that 4 Black Swan plus mission payloads would be built for the cost of a traditional large escort vessel).

The Black Swan Concept

The Black Swan has a very basic sensors fit, and it is even described as having a rather basic communications fit, which feels contradictory and dubious since, depending on the force of the group and having to stay in constant two-way contact with multiple unmanned vehicles, the ship can be expected to have serious ICS and bandwidth needs.     

The notional design provided at the end of the briefing paper shows a 95 meters ship, a bit over the 3000 tons, with a core crew of 8 and space for 32 mission specialists, which would all live in SSN standard accommodations (HMS Astute being the benchmark). The payload would reach 400 tons and the requirement is for a volume equal to at least 20 containers. A large hangar (Merlin + rotary wing UAV) and a Chinook-capable flight deck complete the design. 

Black Swan Sloop

The design comes with a 600 square meters mission bay and a 370 square meters hangar bay. Each of the 20 containers on the mission deck is individually accessible and can be connected to ship services. A stern ramp for boats is provided aft, flanked by two container positions for modules that require direct access to the water, such as towed array modules.

The Black Swan is an extreme concept, which tries to ensure a large number of ships can be built, and that, however cheap, each is flexible and precious even in a high end warfighting scenario. However, the reliance on external systems is pushed to the extreme, and is arguably excessive. It will be very challenging (both technically and financially) to ensure that the Black Swan can constantly keep UAVs in the air to have sensors coverage and firepower at the ready. Costs will merely shift from the mothership to the vast array of UAVs and USVs and UUVs needed, especially since the authors seem to envisage particularly capable unmanned systems, able to strike enemy targets deep into contested space in a high end warfighting scenario.

Other evident bottlenecks are:

-          Power generation and supply. It is one thing to trade speed off to lower costs, but the mothership will have to provide power to its modular payloads, and this might require substantial amounts of electricity. It might be impossible to cut down the power generation.

-          Space. The tyranny of space imposes the choice of submarine-like accommodations for the crew, and reduces the space available for the specialist teams accompanying the unmanned systems. While they have no men in the cockpit, unmanned systems to this day remain far from “unmanned”, requiring a substantial crew back at the base for maintenance and mission control. We can assume that the systems will become more and more autonomous, but betting that 32 men will be enough for everything and specifying an 8 men core crew is very likely to lead to trouble. It will also put greater pressure on the unmanned systems, which will need to be much more autonomous and much more reliable, making their development riskier, more demanding and, inexorably, more expensive.

Of course, part of the Mission Deck could be used to add accommodation modules for extra personnel, but then the space for the systems is reduced, and finding the good balance might rapidly become challenging.

The Black Swan, in my opinion, chooses the wrong hull. I’d rather have fewer but larger motherships, individually more capable, than groups of small sloops. This because the availability of great space and weight margins greatly eases integration of new systems and evolution through life.

The LCS is just one step above the Black Swan, since it has relatively little capability unless it is carrying a specific mission package.

Much has been said of the LCS, a program which has repeatedly encountered serious difficulties and has thus gained a vast armada of haters which have by now poisoned the whole debate about their merits and shortcomings.

The critique I move to the LCS is that they are trying to be two things that do not mix too well: nimble, ultra-fast littoral “street fighters” and, at the same time, motherships.

The LCS ended up absorbing features of the “Street Fighter” ship envisaged in the 90s by Vice Adm. Art Cebrowski, head of the Naval War College. The “Street Fighter” was going to a cheap, small (less than 1000 tons), extremely fast and nimble, disposable ship meant to go in the littoral and fight off FACs and other anti-access threats in the challenging brown waters were, it was felt, the big Burkes would struggle badly.

In the early 2000s, under the tenure of Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, small ships and “transformational” approaches to warfare gained traction. The LCS was born, and the navy began to work on a mission and on a design for them. The LCS grew quickly as a result, to over 3000 tons, and the requirements piled on it included replacing minesweepers and Perry frigates as well as fighting back FACs in the littoral by means of speed and maneuver. It is not what the original Street Fighter was meant to be, yet it insists on extremely high speed (even if a lot lower than what was wanted from Street Fighter). The compromises that have had to be built into the design as a consequence are the root cause of most of the trouble and of the skepticism that surrounds the ships.

They have large mission bays, but the mission package must weight no more than 105 tons, which is proving difficult. Growth margins are almost inexistent. Accommodations have had to be expanded as more men are required to accomplish the missions. Autonomy is not very good, as the ships are thirsty race horses. And their armament, EW and sensors fit limits their warfighting capability. 

The LCS ASW module. Ship-mounted torpedo tubes are not included. Even the Type 26 might not have ship-mounted torpedo tubes, but there is no definitive confirmation.

Somewhat predictably, the US Navy is now working to make some of the modular payloads permanent components of the ships, particularly in the “Fast Frigate” evolution of the LCS which will represent the last batch of ships to be built. Anti-ship missiles will be added, as will a proper EW outfit. The Fast Frigate will also permanently sport light guns and a towed array, instead of having to add them as modules.

The US Navy so far is refusing to accept the evidence that, if the LCS is to become more fighting capable, it needs a capable lightweight anti-air missile fit. They are putting considerable effort into adapting a vertically-launched Hellfire missile variant as an anti-FAC weapon instead, but if the Pentagon was a bit more open to adopting foreign products they could just buy into Sea Ceptor and use it to give the LCS both decent local area air defence and anti-surface strike capability. The impossibility to mount bulky MK41 launchers would not be a problem with Sea Ceptor… 

From LCS to "Fast Frigate", several bits cease to be add-ons and become permanent features.

The rest of the problems with LCS are due to the immaturity of the modular payloads. The development of the payloads started after that of the ship, and in a period in which unmanned vehicles were still somewhat primitive. But developments in the unmanned world are becoming faster and I’m convinced that the mission bay will allow the LCS to stay relevant in all missions.

The lack of weight margin, though, is a problem. It goes to reinforce my belief that if you are going to build a carrier, you must make sure it is actually built to carry stuff.

The Italian PPA (Pattugliatore Polivalente d’Altura, which could be translated as Multimission Oceanic Patrol) is a completely new design produced by the Italian Navy’s own projects office in collaboration with Fincantieri, that will build them. The PPA is an innovative ship, introducing new systems and new concepts and it is meant to replace several classes within the Italian navy, from the 2 Durand de la Penne destroyers (due to be de-classed to frigates due to the removal from service of their old air area defence weaponry, still using the Standard SM-1) to the Minerva class corvettes, the Soldati-class “patrol frigates”, the Minerva-class corvettes and the OPVs of the classes Costellazioni and Comandanti.

The ship is required to carry out a wide range of tasks which go from disaster relief to warfighting, and will be procured in multiple configurations. Curiously the expectation is that there will be 3 levels of fitting-out: Light, Light+ and Full. The Full will, obviously, be fitted at build with all sensors and weapons, while the Light+ will have an intermediate fit and predispositions to accept the missing systems as required. The Light will have no missiles and will come fitted-for-but-not-with only in some areas. 

The PPA will be a large vessel with an empty weight just short of 5000 tons, 143 meters in length, but slender due to a beam of “just” 16.5. They are also required to be pretty fast: a maximum sustained speed of 35 knots was originally envisaged, although it seems the requirement has been relaxed to 32.

The PPA is equipped with a complex propulsion system, in an “evolved” CODLAG arrangement: at slow speed, two electric motors will give a silent, fully electric propulsion up to 10 knots; the use of one Diesel will allow cruising up to 18 knots, while adding the second Diesel is meant to give a speed of 25 knots. Engaging the gas turbine allows to keep speeds higher than 31 knots. General Electric MV300 drives will be installed on the ships, allowing them to generate and send ashore 2 MW of power when stationary in port, converting the frequency from 50 to 60 hertz to allow smooth shore connections whatever the location. The capability to generate electricity and potable water are part of the requirements for Disaster Relief: it is intended that one PPA will be able to cater for the immediate needs of a disaster-struck town of 6000 people.

The autonomy figure seen so far merely says that 5000 nm is the minimum required, but the information available is still incomplete and sometimes uncertain as the design is still being finalized. 

PPA Full, profile. Copyright team Forum Difesa (http://difesa.forumfree.it)

In terms of sensors, the PPA is intended to carry a newly-developed Dual Band AESA radar by Selex, employing two sets of 4 fixed faces: one set, in C band, works as the long range volume search radar while the other set, X-band, tracks surface and air targets for engagement. At the moment it is expected that only the Full variant will have both installed.

A new IFF with a fixed, circular array for 360° coverage is part of the design as well as a 360° IRST.

The ships will be armed with a new variant of the 76/62 mm gun, the “Sovraponte”, a non-deck penetrating CIWS turret containing its own ammunition. It will fire the DAVIDE / Strales guided shells for anti-missile, anti-aircraft and anti-surface self defence. The main gun will instead be a 127/64 with a fully automated magazine and Vulcano guided, long-range ammunition.

Two 25mm light guns are provided for close range engagements.

The ship comes with two Sylver A50 modules giving 16 cells for Aster 15 and 30 missiles. The Full variant should come with space reservation for 16 more cells and the possibility of installing the A70 launchers in place of the A50, enabling the use of cruise missiles.

The missiles will be carried by the Full and Light+, while the Light will be fitted for but not with.

All ships will be able to accept 8 Teseo anti-ship missiles, although they are not expected to be installed at build, not even on the Full. 

The schemes as shown on television by the italian navy. The scheme suggests that 16 A50 cells and 16 A70 cells could be installed at the same time.

The PPA will have two mission spaces: one is located in the stern, under the flight deck, and includes one launch ramp for a boat, flanked by two spaces for container-sized payloads. On the Full, these two spaces will be used for a towed array sonar and for two 533mm Heavy Torpedo Tubes facing aft.

There is space for 5 containers or mission modules and two side openings are also part of the design: these doors will add flexibility to the procedure to deploy unmanned vehicles and will also serve as Rescue Zones for taking aboard shipwrecked migrants, a task which unfortunately is a daily occurrence for the Italian navy these days.

Another modular space is located amidship, on the weather deck, and can take another 8 containers and/or RHIBs and boats up to 15 meters. A powerful crane is provided to handle the boats and containers.

The crew varies from 90 in Light configuration to 171 for a Full with complete crew and embarked force element.

The PPA will have an innovative cockpit, similar to that found on aircraft. Sitting two men side by side, and using augmented reality in the glass windows, it is meant to ensure unparallel control over the platform, enabling the ship to be fought by as few as 4 men on bridge.

The large hangar can take one AW-101 or two NH-90 helicopters. 

Towed array module and Heavyweight torpedo tubes plus RHIBs and potentially unmanned ASW vehicles give the PPA Full a powerful array of anti-submarine capability. Heavyweight 533mm torpedoes are increasingly common in industry offers (see also the DAMEN CrossOver): looks like an admission of the fact that ship-launched 324mm light torpedoes are not a credible ASW weapon anymore.

The Italian navy has signed a contract for the construction of 7 PPA, with another 3 options to be exercised within 2021. The 8 ships on order are expected to be Light, Light, Light+, Full, Light+, Light+, Full. The options are for a Full, a Light, a Light+.

The Italian Navy has expressed a requirement for 16 PPA in total, which in addition to the 10 FREMM frigates would make for an impressive fleet. Whether so many will ever be effectively procured is far from certain. The PPA is not exactly cheap, although the first 7 vessels are expected to cost no more than 4 billion euro, including a 10-year logistic support contract. They come as part of a massive 5.4 billion “Navy Law” which the current chief of Navy staff, admiral De Giorgi, has been able to obtain by campaigning tirelessly for new ships to replace the aging equipment of the navy. Intended as merely the first step in the renewal programme, the Navy Law funds 7 PPA, 1 LHD (costing over one billion) and 1 Logistic Support Ship (around 400 million), plus two small, fast special forces support boats. 

The Augmented Reality cockpit with HUD functions

The PPA clearly leans more towards a traditional frigate, putting a lot of focus on the ship’s own sensors and weapons rather than on modular payloads. This is to be expected, since the Italian navy still hasn’t put much work into those. Cost is contained by realizing variants with a simplified combat system.

The approach of multiple sub-variants is not what the Royal Navy needs, but the ship remains a very interesting product in its own way.

The Absalon is the hybrid of a frigate and an LPD, so much so that the danes gave her a L rather than F or D pennant. It was not really thought out for operating with modular ASW systems, but rather to transport troops and vehicles, or modular hospitals or headquarters. The vast space available could be exploited with future systems of unmanned vehicles if a suitable launch and recovery system can be installed in the stern. The current gauntry crane for boats is just a beginning. It has an excellent fit of sensors and weapons but commercial standards and CODAD propulsion have allowed the danes to keep the costs down.

The large door has a ramp which can take even the weight of MBTs like Leopard 2. The smaller door allows a gauntry crane to launch and recover large boats.

The Damen Crossover is a proposed design that mates frigate and LPD, offering more flexibility than the Absalon in terms of embarking and deploying offboard equipment, thanks to a stern ramp and side doors. 

It could be an excellent starting point for the Royal Navy’s requirement, although the flexibility of the stern area does not appear to be quite matched by the flexibility of weapon options up front. The number of missile cells seems to stay low in all configurations and the largest gun offered is the 76mm.

Moreover, the fear is that, since it is really impossible politically to build the “Type 31” anywhere else other than on the Clyde, going with a Damen design would not enable cost control. Probably its cost would end up swelling a lot when construction is done in Govan and Scotstoun. 

DAMEN CrossOver brochure

CrossOver configurations

I also want to mention the proposed BMD ship based on the LPD-17 hull. This monster is definitely not cheap and not something the Royal Navy could or should pursue. But it is an impressive example of how missions traditionally associated with destroyers and cruisers can be transferred, with serious capability gains, on top of the most flexible of all naval assets: the amphibious ship. The Ballistic Missile Defence ship is armed with a rail gun on the bow, meant to engage even ballistic targets. An enormous 4-face radar, far larger than the one that can be installed on DDGs or even current cruisers, offers increased search, detect and track at longer ranges. The ship carries an amazing 288 missile cells in a multitude of MK41 modules arranged along the sides, in peripheral way. The well dock is enclosed and has been turned into a below-deck hangar, with aircraft lift sized for MV-22 Osprey. 

The impressive BMD ship is a derivative of the LPD-17 design. Of course, it is not cheap.

Adapting an LPD to a more generic, loosely defined escort mission against surface, air and sub-surface threats would actually be a very good solution. The problem, of course, is cost, as LPDs are not cheap. 

Or are they? 

Algeria has procured from Italy a "command vessel" which is "just" an evolution of the "Santi" (Saints) class of mini-LPDs the Italian Navy has been using for many years. 
This derivative built for Algeria keeps all of the amphibious capabilities of the LPD, but adds a FREMM-like mast with EMPAR radar; a 76mm gun and a battery of Aster 15 missiles for local area air defence. 2 light guns and a comprehensive fit of decoys and sensors complete the vessel, creating a sort of hybrid between a frigate and a LPD.
While not quite as cheap as we'd need Type 31 to be, it was still delivered for around 450 million euro, initial crew training included. That is an LPD costing less than a frigate. 

Being so small, the ship is somewhat limited. There is no separate hangar deck: the helicopters and the vehicles end up parked on the same deck, which ends with the well dock at the stern.

This profile by Ennr shows an italian San Giorgio LPD. The algerian ship is a derivative.

At 143 meters long and some 8000 tons, this ship is directly comparable to a Type 26 (actually, it is even shorter!) dimensions-wise. The crew is pretty large, suggesting a low reliance on automation (150 men are the given figure) and Algeria will be embarking up to 440 soldiers on them.
Two helicopter spots, a sizeable cargo deck and a well dock make it a very flexible asset, and an interesting solution worth being mentioned.

How much modularity?

Systems Not Platforms. Much as torpedoes, submarines and aircraft changed the face of maritime warfare in the last century, unmanned systems will do the same in the 21st Century. In the future, unmanned systems could help to provide a solution to maintaining a balanced fleet by matching the required capability to future threats, available resources and mandated tasks.

This future concept would concentrate investment in systems, rather than the ship, and a change in emphasis to one that does not see the ship as the fighting platform.

MOD Joint Concept Note 1-12 (JCN 1-12), dated May 2012

The Danish STANFLEX approach sought to make even weapons modular and rapidly swappable. However, its success has been somewhat limited: there is no real reason, nor any real gain to be obtained, by swapping weaponry modules on a mission by mission basis, especially since each weapon requires personnel trained and current on its employment. The STANFLEX modules continue to be employed, but their benefit has reduced to ease of installation. The ships are normally fitted with their gun and missile modules, and only lose them at the end of their service life or when a new, improved system can be added. The change can be expected to typically happen during a refit and then last for a long time. The benefit is thus mostly felt in building the warship and in recovering precious sub-systems from it at the end of its life, to move them rapidly across to another hull.

The truth is that any warship has a minimum set of capabilities that are basic requirements and never really go away. There is no real point in seeking modularity at all costs.

It seems wise to give the mothership, at a minimum:

-          Its own air defence missile battery, with the appropriate suite of sensors and EW that goes hand in hand with it and that ensures the ship can protect itself and other units in the area. For the moment there does not seem to be any advantage to be gained by trying to offload the anti-air missiles upon the “parasite” platforms deployed by the mothership.

-          A main gun, for naval gunfire support. A mission that has never gone away and that seems set for an actual rebirth in a few years time if the rail gun will keep its promises.

-          Light guns for close range self defence

The mothership ideally would also carry land-attack missiles (a fundamental part of “influencing events ashore”) and at least an hull mounted sonar for obstacle and mine avoidance at a minimum. Adding anti-ship missiles, while not strictly indispensable, would complete it.

These are the mission bits that are pretty much always needed and that are most difficult to transfer onto offboard solutions.

The Black Swan and, to a degree, the LCS chose to simply ignore these requirements, leading to units that have serious survivability and capability gaps.

The Absalom and the PPA, and the CrossOver to a degree, come with the necessary “fixed” bits of capability installed on the mothership. Their approach is to be preferred: there is nothing in sight that suggests that unmanned vehicles will be able to provide distributed air defence in the near future, nor is it clear if it would be actually advantageous to try and do so. Years ago, the Skunk Works created the stealth ship, a Small Water Area Twin Hull vessel with a low RCS, great stability and good speed. The idea they put forwards was to lead it with 64 Patriot missiles and use it as an alternative or at least a complement to Aegis cruisers and destroyers. Exploiting stealth, the ship would sail hundreds of miles up threat, ahead of a carrier air group, and shoot down incoming air targets.

The prototype, the Sea Shadow, was a 560 tons vessel, 70 feet wide, and had no weapons aboard. The idea was fascinating, but it eventually did not materialize. The Sea Shadow was used for trials and tests and for RCS studies at sea, and ended up scrapped in 2012.  

The Sea Shadow at sea. In his memories, Ben R. Rich, then director of the Skunk Works, explains that the concept for an operational Sea Shadow derivative was to carry 64 Patriot SAMs and sail up-threat to form a stealthy SAM screen ahead of a carrier battlegroup. The stealthness of the vessel was meant to allow it to target the launching aircraft (especially the russian bombers, given that we were in the late 70s and early 80s), rather than the anti-ship missiles, like Aegis. According to Rich, during tests the problem was that the Sea Shadow ended up being too stealthy, and looked like a suspicious black hole in the background radar noise caused by the waves. The problem was eventually solved, but the Sea Shadow never progressed into the air defence ship that the Skunk Works office had imagined.

Much as aircraft allow an aircraft carrier to remain at range from an engagement, so will unmanned systems for the future warship. This means that the investment needs to be in the weapon systems, manned or unmanned, rather than the ship. While crew survivability is important, money should not be wasted on the ship. Instead it should be designed along cheaper commercial lines.

MOD Joint Concept Note 1-12 (JCN 1-12), dated May 2012

Distributing air defence on “small” stealthy offboard “systems” (boats / mini-ships) would have merits and seems to be what the authors of the Black Swan study bet on for the future. However, missiles are large and require a big platform. One big enough that it would have to deploy directly from the port, rather than be carried by a mothership (unless it is a big, dedicate Float On, Float Off transport!). Is it doable? Is it financially feasible? Isn’t it a needless complication? Won’t it end up requiring many small crews, which summed up will amount to even more manpower than needed for large “traditional” warships? What impact would it have on naval base infrastructures? The placement of adequate sensors on such a launching platform would also be challenging. So, for the “visible” future at least, I think evolution, rather than revolution, is to be preferred. While unmanned, distributed MCM and ASW are rapidly becoming a reality, air defence and anti-surface don’t yet show signs of major change, and pressing on with revolutions at all costs will immediately kill any hope of keeping the costs of the programme down.

The mothership should as a consequence come with the basic bits installed; yet with vast space available for “offboard systems”, intended in the widest possible sense, to include manned helicopters and boats and embarked troops.

At the same time, cost must be kept low. Impossible?

Maybe. But what about working with container ships?

Return of the escort carrier?

The future sloop-of-war will be more akin to an aircraft carrier, or an amphibious ship (albeit on a much smaller and less sophisticated scale), providing command, hotel services, maintenance facilities and a taxi service for a range of unmanned and manned systems. These systems would be deployed in the form of a range of capability packages that can be added to the ship to meet its required tasks.

MOD Joint Concept Note 1-12 (JCN 1-12), dated May 2012

A US Navy project gives us the latest visualization of the kind of capability that can be squeezed out of a containership if it is modified in the right way. The ship in question happens to be almost a twin sister of the Point class RoRo ships the MOD already uses, making it a particularly interesting example. The MV Cragside is being transformed in a “maritime support vessel” able to support an embarked force of 207 in addition to the crew, with an endurance of at least 45 days, a range of at least 8000 miles and the capability to keep a 20 knots transit speed for at least 5 days and transit at least 3000 nm in Sea State 5. The ship is being given the equipment to simultaneously launch and recovery 4 large boats (12.5 meters); a flight deck with 2 MH-60 spots and clearance to handle single spot CH-53, MV-22 and Chinook operations. A two-bay hangar is being added, sized to take MH-60 helicopters of the special forces (folding rotor, but no folding tail boom and refueling probe adding some to the length). Aircraft maintenance spaces, storage spaces, a workout area and mission planning rooms thought for the need of special forces (including secrecy requirements) are being added to the ship. Receiving stations for fuel and stores delivered via RAS and VERTREP are being provided, and the ship will be used to refuel the boats it deploys.

8 large boats plus 4 jet skis, 4 Zodiacs and one 10 meter craft are required to be carried, next to the launch and recovery davits.

The ship is required to have 4 separate fueling stations for aviation and another four for embarked crafts and vehicles, to be provided eventually employing containerized systems and filtering tanks protected by steel armor. The requirement includes carrying 150.000 gallons of JP-5.

Obviously, ample space for stores and spare parts is specified.

A medical space with 10 beds and 2 surgical tables and supports is also part of the project.

So is a full facility for the need of divers.

Built in 2011, the MV Cragside is owned by Maersk, and the US Sealift Command is buying her services on an annual basis. A first contract, worth 73 million USD, was placed to acquire her and have her modified for the new role. 

Maritime Support Vessel Requirements

The only photo I’ve found showing MV Cragside being re-built for the new role shows the massive enlargement of the original superstructure, the addition of the flight deck above what was the original top cargo deck and the construction of the large two-bay hangar. Large openings have been cut in the side walls of the top cargo deck, suggesting that the boats will be carried and deployed mostly from there.

The extent of the modifications is impressive, and so is the array of capabilities that the MSV will offer.

Photos by The ferry site. The MV Cragside is extremely similar to the Point ships. The base design is exactly the same.

The MV Cragside being rebuilt for her new role. Note the huge block of extra superstructure aft; the two-bay hangar forward, the flight deck added on top and the large openings in the now otherwise fully enclosed upper deck.

What if the “lighter frigate” was replaced by modern day escort carriers, built upon the Point class RoRo basic design?

There is a lot of space available, which would enable installation of a rail gun on the bow even if several containers of below-deck power storage equipment were required. A Flight deck would be added like on the Cragside, but instead of the two-bay hangar I would recommend a lift leading down to the Main Deck, which would become the main mission space of the ship. Its aft half would be mainly devoted to unmanned surface and sub-surface vehicles, while the first half could serve as the hangar. This deck is 6.8 meters high, the tallest on the ship, and would enable comfortable storage of any helicopter.

The lift should be large (say, 22 meters long, for full compatibility even with folded MV-22 Ospreys), but if installed perpendicularly, it would still leave a 60 meters flight deck, only marginally shorter than that of HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, which means that simultaneous operations of even two Chinooks should be possible.

Like on the Cragside, the enclosed deck obtained beneath the flight deck could take the RAS rigs, the davits and the ship’s manned boats plus the spaces for their maintenance.

MK41 launcher modules could be fitted along the sides, in a peripheral arrangement, like on the proposed BMD ship or DDG-1000 destroyers. This should help maximize survivability. The depth is not a problem, as even the strike-length modules would have plenty of room. Sea Ceptor canisters would be even easier to integrate, if, as it is very likely, that turned out being the most the MOD would fund. Ideally, as we saw in the first part of this discourse, a longer range and heavier surface to air missile would be required to make the ship a true escort. Sea Ceptor is good mostly for self-defence and even in that role the short range missiles like it are probably going to become less and less effective as faster and faster sea-skimming anti-ship missiles appear.

An integrated sensor mast would be added to provide the necessary sensors, and an EW and decoy fit would also have to be factored in.

Point class Ro-Ro ships

The Point class has a service speed of around 22 knots, which is not bad, and can travel 10.000 miles. It has also some capability in marginal ice and comes with enhanced stability and VERTREP clearances. Having been built with the MOD service in mind, they were given some extras right at build.

More power might be required, not for additional speed but for feeding all the new systems and the embarked modules.

Finally, a large and flexible launch and recovery system would have to be built in the stern. Using a wet dock is out of the question: it would require a costly redesign and would be a constant source of maintenance requirements. What is needed is a ramp leading to a “dry dock” system able to push-out and pull-in boats and unmanned vehicles also of important dimensions, as might be the future ASW drones that will give this novel “escort carrier” its wide-area anti-submarine capability. 

The Point class can carry a lot of stuff. It has vast, empty, strong decks which can take a lot of weight. There is much that can be done with a Point as the starting base.

The possibilities of such a vessel would be great and would cover requirements going from disaster relief to convoy escort, passing even by strategic sealift. It should be possible to keep the costs within acceptable values, and survivability would not necessarily be bad, even with the built happening at commercial standards: size has a survivability value in itself, and once adapted for her new role the ship would be separated in areas and compartments, rather than being made of completely open decks from bow to stern.

The MOD intends to soon award the contracts for the first prototype unmanned MCM system, jointly with France. What everyone is hoping is that the modular, unmanned systems for hunting, sweeping and clearing minefields will make it possible to migrate the MCM role to larger, steel-hulled ships. The US Navy is already going that way with LCS, while the Royal Navy has been forced to push the OSD of current minesweepers well to the right, and no new ship is expected before 2028.

If the MCM system of systems will keep its promises, the family of unmanned systems could well find its seabase on the “escort carrier”, removing the need for a separate, smaller class of motherships.

The “merchant escort carrier” could also be fitted out as a perfect replacement for RFA Argus, in both the auxiliary aviation and joint casualty receiving roles. This would reduce the number of separate programmes to be launched, and would release more funding for building a few more “escort carriers”, helicopters, unmanned systems and for resurrecting the Force Protection Craft effort of the Royal Marines. Imagine an Escort Carrier stationing just outside the brown waters, with its long-range missiles and its embarked helicopters, deploying and covering from behind a squadron of Royal Marines with their Force Protection Craft. It is a better way to control the Littorals then sending a “light frigate” or an LCS and engage in evolutions with smaller, faster FIACs which could still prove to be a problem. It influences a much greater area, too. 

I'm clearly not a naval engineer, but images are the best way to quickly explain an idea. This little graphic shows the general idea behind the Point Escort Carrier.

MHPC was initially going to deliver “OPV-like” motherships with some utility in constabulary tasks in addition to their main role of seabase for MCM and hydrographic unmanned vehicles.

Clearing a minefield in a contested area from a platform of that kind would be little better than doing it from a current minesweeper: intimate protection should be provided by well armed warships.

The Escort Carrier could have what it takes to protect itself while its drones accomplish the mission at stand-off distance.

The flexibility of the “Escort Carrier” is, in my mind, the real manifestation of the escort, and of the “general purpose” warship. You can find a good use for it in pretty much any scenario, from disaster relief to ASW hunting (provided, of course, that ASW unmanned boats and underwater vehicles receive investment over time) all the way to amphibious operations.