Royal Navy Type 26 Frigate

I always thought it would have merit to produce a CAMM-SR (short range) to provide a RAM alternative with VLS.
 
I've always been fascinated by the decision not to fill in their current slipway or a couple of the older ones to use as a level assembly/transfer area, and press forward with a plan of "nah we're just going to cram it into the staged area in front of our assembly halls." Leading to them having to swing the stern of the frigate into said hall in order to align with their floating drydock.

Hope they size the new assembly hall and transfer area adequately to avoid such awkwardness in the future.
 
Wondering why they haven't completely plated over the bridge wings.
Let's water drain away instead of accumulating and causing corrosion. They'll be plated when the SS becomes watertight.
 
Didn't know that the Type 26s were going to come with composite armour.

 
Didn't know that the Type 26s were going to come with composite armour.

CVF has it, Type 45s have it... USN CVNs have had Kevlar armor installed in bulkheads for at least 30 years... and so on.
 
I guess the definition of frigate has gone the way of destroyer. 500 feet long and 8,000 tons full displacement seems like a big overlap with current destroyers while DDG 1000 is poaching hard into cruiser size. Maybe we can blame the Japanese with their 800 foot long helicopter destoyers. It is more than annoying to see political word games drive the programmatic funding process because sometimes this can bleed over into actual design considerations. And then there are all those ships named after politicians. I wonder if there are any congressional types with the fortitude to introduce legislation to ban any further naming of ships after politicians?
In the specific case of the Japanese, they don't build anything bigger than a "destroyer" due to Article 9 of their constitution. A destroyer is a defensive escort ship.

Ironically, the USN was building nuclear powered Destroyer Leaders and Destroyer Escorts before they got renamed to Cruisers in 1975. Because the USSR had a bunch of Cruisers and the US had very few.
 
"Frigate" especially is a historically tricky word. The use of the term "frigate" to refer to small escort ships is actually a novel usage from roughly WW2. In the age of sail through the mid-1800s, frigates were one step below ships of the line (aka Line of battle ships, aka battleships). Early US frigates were especially powerful, not too far off the weakest SoLs.

And just to confuse matters, "cruiser" was not a specific type of ship before about 1870. Before then, frigates, corvettes, and sloops-of-war were classed as "cruisers" because they cruised independently rather than sailing as part of a battlefleet.
 
It was the Treasury that nixxed the "frigate factory" plan and insisted on minimum investment in infrastructure. Not Bae.
As usual, the most dangerous threat to HM military is HM Treasury...
 
"Frigate" especially is a historically tricky word. The use of the term "frigate" to refer to small escort ships is actually a novel usage from roughly WW2. In the age of sail through the mid-1800s, frigates were one step below ships of the line (aka Line of battle ships, aka battleships). Early US frigates were especially powerful, not too far off the weakest SoLs.
The American 44s are the one time the Battlecruiser concept of "fast enough to outrun anything that could kill them, and gunned enough to kill anything that they can catch" seems to have worked as written.

The American 44s are arguably closer to 64 gun ships of the line than to the British 36-38 gun frigates, between bigger guns (minimum of 24pdr cannons on the American ships), heavier planking (live oak and white oak make for a very solid ship, even before you get into the fact that the frames were 16" wide and 16" on center so there was no space between frames, or the extra diagonal stringers added) and excellent lines (the Constitution could make 12-14 knots running downwind).

And just to confuse matters, "cruiser" was not a specific type of ship before about 1870. Before then, frigates, corvettes, and sloops-of-war were classed as "cruisers" because they cruised independently rather than sailing as part of a battlefleet.
yup.
 
And yet, we have the F-35. Evidently massive problems can be overcome when there is a common objective and the will to see it through. The US and UK work "very" closely on the submarine front as well.
No, they do not.

No shared plans aside from the Trident missile compartment, which was basically done because the UK bought Polaris and then Trident missiles. The entire missile compartment is part of the Trident missile system. IIRC, the US got the pumpjet propulsor design in return.

No shared ship designs.

Completely different habitability standards (the US abhors hot-bunking, while the RN hot racks as a normal thing on their SSNs!)
 
And yet, we have the F-35. Evidently massive problems can be overcome when there is a common objective and the will to see it through. The US and UK work "very" closely on the submarine front as well.
No, they do not.

No shared plans aside from the Trident missile compartment, which was basically done because the UK bought Polaris and then Trident missiles. The entire missile compartment is part of the Trident missile system. IIRC, the US got the pumpjet propulsor design in return.

No shared ship designs.

Completely different habitability standards (the US abhors hot-bunking, while the RN hot racks as a normal thing on their SSNs!)
I was under the impression that the RN has switched to one man one bunk in the Astute class?
 
And yet, we have the F-35. Evidently massive problems can be overcome when there is a common objective and the will to see it through. The US and UK work "very" closely on the submarine front as well.
No, they do not.

No shared plans aside from the Trident missile compartment, which was basically done because the UK bought Polaris and then Trident missiles. The entire missile compartment is part of the Trident missile system. IIRC, the US got the pumpjet propulsor design in return.

No shared ship designs.

Completely different habitability standards (the US abhors hot-bunking, while the RN hot racks as a normal thing on their SSNs!)
I was under the impression that the RN has switched to one man one bunk in the Astute class?
They may have, but it took them 50 years to realize that hot racking leads to lower crew morale and performance...
 
They may have, but it took them 50 years to realize that hot racking leads to lower crew morale and performance...
RN crew habitability standards are in a different league from the USN. T45, QE Class and T26 are luxury cruise ships in comparison to USN vessels....and the RFA are like luxury yachts in comparison. But in SSN and SSBN its more similar. Vanguard Class onwards habitability in RN Subs is basically the same as USN. USN only really got a brief advantage for a few years with the Ohios and Los Angeles Class.
 
RN crew habitability standards are in a different league from the USN. T45, QE Class and T26 are luxury cruise ships in comparison to USN vessels....and the RFA are like luxury yachts in comparison. But in SSN and SSBN its more similar. Vanguard Class onwards habitability in RN Subs is basically the same as USN. USN only really got a brief advantage for a few years with the Ohios and Los Angeles Class.
Hot racking was standard up until the Astutes in UKRN fast attacks. Hot racking in the USN is to be avoided at all costs, and never happened on my Tridents even when we had inspection teams onboard taking up extra bunk space.
 
Hot racking was standard up until the Astutes in UKRN fast attacks. Hot racking in the USN is to be avoided at all costs, and never happened on my Tridents even when we had inspection teams onboard taking up extra bunk space.

Must be a bomber thing. Even the LA SSNs had hot racking for junior ranks.
 

"The order is - engage the silent plughole!"
 

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