Royal Navy Type 26 Frigate

Scott Kenny said:
Like hell is rail not mission critical to a railroad! If a rail breaks you have a train that derails!

Modern rails are two separate types of metal welded together during manufacture, a very tough and relatively hard upper rail while the web of the rail is softer and springier.
Click to expand...

Derailments are rarely a result of a rail that "breaks" as you so simplistically put it. I can only think of a single passenger train derailment in all of the North America where previously undetected wear of the rail itself was the cause.
 
Grey Havoc said:
A Daily Telegraph editorial on the mess:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion...ot-lose-the-ability-to-produce-primary-steel/
Click to expand...

I can't imagine why anyone would think that a new open pit coal mine in Cumbria was a good idea when the only likely customer is a lone failing steel mill. The Chinese owners were quite correct in thinking that a higher value rolled steel capacity was a path to viability, although the level of investment was just too high. Moreover, it's very difficult politically to justify a major taxpayer funded investment that results in a net loss of jobs and the extinction of a particular industrial capacity.

The easiest answer for the current government is probably the simplest and cheapest. Do nothing, let the coke and iron ore stocks run out and then announce a worker retraining scheme in a a well controlled media event. You can demonstrate empathy at a fraction of the price. In all fairness, the workers in the dyatopian steel sector have had a good 5 decades to prepare themselves for the inevitable.
 
TinWing said:
Derailments are rarely a result of a rail that "breaks" as you so simplistically put it. I can only think of a single passenger train derailment in all of the North America where previously undetected wear of the rail itself was the cause.
Click to expand...
OTOH the Hatfield crash in the UK is possibly the defining moment of the UK's post-privatisation rail-network and forced a restructuring of the entire industry.
 
DWG said:
OTOH the Hatfield crash in the UK is possibly the defining moment of the UK's post-privatisation rail-network and forced a restructuring of the entire industry.
Click to expand...
The photograph of the shattered rail I posted above was the one from Hatfield.

And that wasn't undetected wear. The replacement rail was there on site. It just wasn't installed yet, because the industry was being run by people who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.
 
Announced this evening. Parliament is being recalled tomorrow Saturday to pass legislation to save the Scunthorpe steel plant
 
Almost as if making stuff is important....

Globalisation as we know it is coming to an end. That much Peter Zeihan gets right.
 
TinWing said:
Derailments are rarely a result of a rail that "breaks" as you so simplistically put it. I can only think of a single passenger train derailment in all of the North America where previously undetected wear of the rail itself was the cause.
Click to expand...
Yes, the more usual cause of derailments is a failure of the sleepers or the method attaching rails to sleepers. If any railroads are still using non-welded rails the link plates are another failure point.

All of which are still part of the rails in the generic.
 
Yellow Palace said:
The photograph of the shattered rail I posted above was the one from Hatfield.

And that wasn't undetected wear. The replacement rail was there on site. It just wasn't installed yet, because the industry was being run by people who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Click to expand...
Yep, and it demonstrates how just detection isn't the sum of the problem, it needs to be part of an integrated safety management system that finds, fixes and monitors both issues and itself. With a regulator with teeth to make it do it.

Which of course didn't stop Grant Shapps as Secretary of State for Transport claiming a couple of years ago that safety monitoring could be done with drones. I've yet to see an explanation of how a drone flying overhead is supposed to do eddy current crack detection....
 
Does anyone know what the typical speeds are for deploying RIBs from davits on frigates, or whether the ship has to slow down at all? Sources would be really helpful.
Thanks in advance!
 
Last edited:
Norway picks the Type 26 frigate as their ASW frigate in preference to their other selected alternatives, the French FDI, German F126 and USN Constellation. Limited competition as the FDI was not a dedicated silent ASW frigate, Damen with the F126 is in major problems with its software design input to the German shipyards and the less said about the USN management of the Constellation the better, did see recently NAVSEA had made 20,000 design change orders since keel was laid and design still not 100%.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/08/norway-selects-british-type-26-frigates/
 
Cordy said:
Norway picks the Type 26 frigate as their ASW frigate in preference to their other selected alternatives, the French FDI, German F126 and USN Constellation. Limited competition as the FDI was not a dedicated silent ASW frigate, Damen with the F126 is in major problems with its software design input to the German shipyards and the less said about the USN management of the Constellation the better, did see recently NAVSEA had made 20,000 design change orders since keel was laid and design still not 100%.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/08/norway-selects-british-type-26-frigates/
Click to expand...

awesome!
what ship will Norway use for air defense roles?
 
https://www.theguardian.com/busines...-deal-for-anti-submarine-warships-built-in-uk
"The deal also signals a strengthening of a long-term strategic relationship with Norway, as part of which a combined fleet of 13 frigates will operate jointly in northern Europe.

Eight of the frigates will be British and “at least” five will be Norwegian, with the joint operation designed to “significantly strengthen Nato’s northern flank”.

“This historic defence deal deepens our strategic partnership,” said John Healey, the defence secretary. “With Norway, we will train, operate, deter and – if necessary – fight together. Our navies will work as one, leading the way in Nato, with this deal putting more world-class warships in the north Atlantic to hunt Russian submarines, protect our critical infrastructure and keep both our nations secure.”"
 
DWG said:
Eight of the frigates will be British and “at least” five will be Norwegian, with the joint operation designed to “significantly strengthen Nato’s northern flank”.
Click to expand...

With the Project Cabot work, T26, P-8's and Protector the GIUK gap should be in good hands...

But...the UK not getting more P-8 is troubling to say the least...we need another 9
 

Attachments

  • G06y2VuWAAApQk1.jpeg
    G06y2VuWAAApQk1.jpeg
    408.9 KB · Views: 23
  • G06zKAiXkAASUWd.jpeg
    G06zKAiXkAASUWd.jpeg
    446.5 KB · Views: 24
Reuben James said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1967708383227814017
View: https://x.com/Gabriel64869839/status/1967708383227814017


Some commenters over on Navy Lookout put me onto this, and I noticed it hadn't been posted here.

It's the Type 26 with a new Artisan NG radar. Looks to be dual-faced, and significantly larger and more powerful. Reminds me of the NS100 and its derivatives.
Click to expand...
Not double faced, you can see in this side view that the radar is asymmetrical and has a big square face and rounded back, a bit like the radar equivalent of the 40mm mk4.
1758737670749.png
See also this later video from GM that shows the radar rotating to show the big hexagonal radar face:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1967708952977871315
The thing really is a heck of a lot bigger than base Artisan, compare the above with the setup on T26:
1758738318995.png
 
Reuben James said:
Ah, that's a shame then.
Click to expand...
It's still one THICC radar, comparable with Herakles or the larger Giraffes.
This would definitely allow A30 integration, if that's what we are going to use as the long range SAM.
PS I wonder if it is integrable into Tacticos, so that we have unified radar systems across the surface fleet? It could also form the smaller of the fixed arrays on T83.
PPS The model on the table has the same bar across the top of the casing that base Artisan does. Does anyone know what that is, and what is so important about it that it has stayed the same across a near total redesign?
 
Last edited:
Hopefully a faster rotation speed compared to the Artisan then. That said, it's still an impressive looking system.

I suspect BAE may have shown it to the Norwegians as well.
 
Reuben James said:
Hopefully a faster rotation speed compared to the Artisan then. That said, it's still an impressive looking system.

I suspect BAE may have shown it to the Norwegians as well.
Click to expand...
Have you ever seen videos of Herakles rotating? Very funny, and it isn't even centred!
Agree that the promise of Artisan NG will have gone a long way to dissuading the Norwegian fears that T26 would be inferior in air defences relative to FDI and whichever the German offering was- F126?
 
SailorBoy said:
Have you ever seen videos of Herakles rotating? Very funny, and it isn't even centred!
Agree that the promise of Artisan NG will have gone a long way to dissuading the Norwegian fears that T26 would be inferior in air defences relative to FDI and whichever the German offering was- F126?
Click to expand...
Yes, Herakles does look as though it's about to go flying off of the ship at any moment. I think the Singaporean frigates have a similar look.

I think it was the F127 by the end of the contest. I think the Germans might have realised they couldn't compete with the Type 26 for pure ASW performance and tried to reframe the competition to suit a more multirole vessel.
 
Reuben James said:
Yes, Herakles does look as though it's about to go flying off of the ship at any moment. I think the Singaporean frigates have a similar look.

I think it was the F127 by the end of the contest. I think the Germans might have realised they couldn't compete with the Type 26 for pure ASW performance and tried to reframe the competition to suit a more multirole vessel.
Click to expand...
More likely is that they knew Damen couldnt deliver (given the problems F-126 has) and choose to use there only viable alternative....
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom