Shape of Future Royal Navy Fleet Emerging
After many months of delays focused on the inadequacy of additional funding allocated, it appears that the United Kingdom’s Defence Investment Plan is to be published on June 30. The plan will be posted as part of the “legacy’ package” of the outgoing Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer, but he is one of the very few people who believe that the plan to be outlined will be sufficient to meet the rising threat.
The consensus in British political circles is that the plan is likely to receive a frosty reception domestically, from the NATO summit in Ankara in July, and from Donald Trump and the U.S. Administration. It may well transpire that the incoming prime minister, likely to be Andy Burnham, will need to find still more money to flesh out parts of the plan which remain underfunded.
In the process of trying to “socialize” the plan with good news leaks before it is announced, details of two ship procurement programs that are to be funded have been shared with sympathetic journalists.
The Royal Navy’s plan to replace the Type 45 air defense destroyers, a type with a very low operational availability rate, has been subject to radical surgery. The original scheme was for a like-for-like replacement, entailing an even bigger ship designated the Type 83. This program is to be dropped, and replaced instead with a frigate-sized replacement which will have an air defense capability but which will be optimized for autonomous drone operations in all environments – surface, sub-surface, and airborne. It is not clear what platform will be adopted, and the proposal does not even have a known name or type number as yet, but it appears that this “common combat vessel” could be a variant or development of the Type 31 frigate, the first of which, HMS Venturer (F12), is on track to enter service in 2027. As the new ship would be about half the price of the Type 83, which it is to supplant, there is potential for more than just a one-for-one replacement.
It also appears as if the Royal Navy will be getting replacements for the amphibious fleet, which has slowly been withdrawn from service in recent years, principally with the departure of HMS Albion (L14) and HMS Bulwark (L15), with the Bay Class landing ships operated by the RFA to follow. Again, the replacement vessels are likely to be smaller – but better armed. The plan apparently is to revive Project Catherina, an Anglo-Netherlands program dropped by the UK in 2024 but kept running by the Dutch. The envisaged ships would have a well deck from which to launch landing craft, side hoists to launch raiding craft, sea drones, and a flight deck for medium-sized helicopters. The Dutch program is drawing on designs developed by Damen Shipbuilding from their Enforcer designs. The fleet would be operated jointly, with British and Dutch marines having had a long-standing cooperation agreement. But the ambition appears to be a capability to land either raiding parties or a reinforced battalion-sized group, rather than a marine brigade as was previously possible.
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Both the “common combat vessel” and the amphibious ships would provide work for what is an expanding UK naval shipbuilding capability, with yards now active or being mobilised in Babcock in Rosyth, BAE Systems in Barrow and Govan, along with shipyards owned by Balaena/Cammel Laird, and Navantia/Harland & Wolff.
Also featuring in the leaks coming from the Ministry of Defence are indications that the UK will press on with the procurement of 12 nuclear-capable F-35As, and also with the Global Combat Aircraft Programme, a collaborative effort between the UK, Italy, and Japan to build a 6th-generation stealth fighter.