27-05-2025
Another example of two-tier Britain: the Royal Navy's Type 31 frigate
Today marks another important milestone in the regeneration of the Royal Navy. Last week it was the naming of HMS Glasgow, our new Type 26 anti-submarine frigate. Today, it is the roll out of HMS Venturer, the first Type 31 general purpose frigate: a class of ships that, if we get it right, could form the backbone of the Royal Navy for the foreseeable future. That we have two major Defence Primes building ships on both Scottish coasts at the same time is good news on many levels.
To understand the Type 31 two things must be noted from the top.
The first is simple – there is a severe lack of cash. The Strategic Defence Review (SDR), due any minute, will talk in lofty terms about the sorts of things this ship will be needed for, but will also not uplift defence spending beyond 'increasing to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027'. This is not enough money to fix our current woes, much less prepare for war. There will be further in-year cuts between now and then.
The second thing is more conceptual but equally important. Navies spend 98 per cent of their time not fighting. Assuring the trade on which our country depends for its survival is a long game of influence, policing, diplomacy, allied cooperation and so on. Ideally the entire job would be done by fully capable war-fighting platforms: carriers, Type 26 anti-submarine frigates, destroyers, nuclear submarines etc. But these things are very expensive and we cannot afford enough of them to do everything. So we need something more affordable to give us some more hulls.
The special forces count their most expensive and exquisitely trained operators – the SAS, the SBS and the Special Reconnaissance Regiment – as 'Tier One'. But nobody would suggest that their second tier, the Special Forces Support Group, are not extremely impressive. If a fully equipped destroyer or anti-submarine frigate is a Tier One warship, a Type 31 is Tier Two; and just as with the SFSG, we'll be very glad to have them.
The notion of a cheap, modular and exportable warship had been floating around Whitehall for some time but accelerated when the 2015 SDR determined that only eight Type 26 Frigates would be built to replace the thirteen Type 23s. Pitching for a class of ship one tier below the highest made some in uniform nervous. This mentality has been around for as long as we have had no spare cash and is understandable. The problem is it leads to having some lovely kit, but not enough of it – where we are today.
Mid 2019 saw the idea leap forward under a new PM who generally backed shipbuilding and two equally new ministers, one in the MoD and one in the Treasury, who saw the problem outlined above and simultaneously agreed that this was the solution: a class of affordable second-tier frigates, the Type 31. A Treasury approval letter followed shortly thereafter. With the right relationships in place, sometimes it really is that simple.
So now, five years on, and with HMS Venturer being rolled out of her build hall and getting ever closer to going in the water, how many will we get?
So far five are on order for the Royal Navy, half what the team in 2019 determined was the right amount. However, given the cash situation and perceived threat back then I think this was fair enough. Then, add the promised pace of production, low cost and innovative build methods – all a departure from previous projects – saying 'let's order five and see how they do' is reasonable now. It's now down to Babcock to build the ships on time and to budget to build the trust required for the second batch to be ordered. So far, the signs are good.
The key now will be to avoid the plague of most new defence programs – constant tinkering and gold-plating that sees prices and timelines balloon out of control. Get the ship out there, get the basics working and work out what to do with it next. This counters what I said last week about the importance of the Type 26 being able ready to fight from day one and hopefully further underlines how these two ships, whilst they both look like frigates, are conceptually very far apart.
Then there is the export market. This has huge potential. Poland and Indonesia are already signed up with Poland building three (possibly increasing to eight) and Indonesia two. I understand Babcock is lobbying New Zealand hard and rightly so. This ship would fit their requirements very well and with both them and Indonesia in the club, provide some infra and support efficiencies in the region into which others might be tempted to join. Babcock's aspiration to build 31 Type 31s by '31 is as ambitious as it is catchy, but why not? For many countries, billion-pound ships are not what they want or can afford: this is.
The original requirement was for a ship costing £250m per hull (compared to c.£1.2 – 1.5bn for the Type 26). This has crept up now to about £300m. You're still getting about five for the price of one. And you can tell: the Type 31 has no gas turbines for sprint power, and no silent and stealthy electric drive option. There's no sonar for hunting submarines either, though the ship can easily act as a base for a sub-hunting Merlin helicopter.
The ship itself will displace around 5,700 tonnes and have a length of 138 metres. Armed with a 57mm Bofors main gun, 40mm secondary guns, Sea Ceptor air defence missiles, and fitted for but not with strike-length Mk 41 vertical launch missile cells, it is designed for flexibility. It features the Thales TACTICOS combat system, a decent radar, and multiple electro-optic and infrared sensors. The flight deck and hangar will take a Merlin (relatively unlikely) or the smaller Wildcat helicopter (likely) and like the Type 26, the Type 31 has a large mission bay to deploy boats, drones, and unmanned systems. Crew size is around 105 which is lean. A Type 23 of today has over 200 people onboard when deployed and is notably smaller.
This is a really important point. You cannot wax lyrical about new build platforms these days without acknowledging that the Royal Navy is critically short of people. They are working to rectify this and whilst recruitment is showing signs of improving, retention is not. Both of these are a global maritime issue that must be overcome but also, must not be used as an excuse to slow the rate of build. One thing I am sure of; build a load of these frigates then set them away around the world doing demanding and fun things, and retention will improve. I suggested the same with small, cheap, diesel-electric submarines to complement our nuclear powered fleet. Build them and the crews will come, if you will.
What we should do with them depends on many things. The easy/lazy solution is to say that they replace the five Batch 2 Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) one-for-one. These are currently in the Falklands, Caribbean, Gibraltar and two in the Indo-Pacific and doing tremendous work, but are essentially unarmed. All of these tasks would benefit from being up-gunned to a Type 31.
But they have potential to do so much more. Type 31s of the future, fitted with the versatile Mk41 vertical launch system – and properly networked – could make a serious contribution to the Royal Navy's firepower, accompanying fully-equipped destroyers or anti-submarine frigates and adding another 32 missiles and another helicopter to the mission. You could also use them to launch and recover the vast array of emerging anti-submarine and mine countermeasures technology currently under development. These ships have huge potential.
Type 31s alone would be no good for stealthily hunting an adversary nuclear submarine, or protecting a task force against incoming ballistic missiles. They'd be ideal for escorting Russian or Chinese ships through UK waters, patrolling Critical Underwater Infrastructure, fighting pirates, intercepting sanctions-busting merchant ships, shooting down or sinking drones, showing the flag and many other tasks. Five won't be enough.
Defence effect and influence is a continuum from peace to war, and not the one-zero proposition the online debate would have you believe. These ships sit smack in the middle of this continuum bridging the gap between the exquisite and the unarmed. They are comparatively affordable, available now and ultimately adaptable. We should back them.
Serendipitously, General Sir Gwyn Jenkins takes over today as First Sea Lord: the first Royal Marine to become head of the RN. His in-tray will be piled high, but hopefully 'how to increase naval influence with no extra cash' will be near the top, with a note on the Type 31 stapled on underneath.
