The Future of the Royal Navy and the 'Hybrid Navy' Initiative - News, Platforms, Development and Speculation

[Reuben James]

What carries the radar allowing for counter-hypersonics and BMD then? Aster B1NT will be right at the limit of what SAMPSON can do and the threat will only evolve in 50 years' time when the CCVs leave service. If even the Houthis were firing AShBMs in 2024 high altitude, high speed and manoeuvring targets are likely to become widespread; the Russians already have Zircon and will evolve it. Radar performance isn't just about range.
Artisan-NG is just the demonstrator for the NGTRM, which is scalable but has 4 rectangular modules in that case. Each module seems to be almost exactly a 1m by 0.5m (higher than they are wide) so slightly larger in area than an SPY-6 RMA. A 2x2 array seems to have been decided as compact enough to replace Artisan but the vast arrays on FAWCS, assuming that those and not the higher panels are based on NGTRM, are 5m square and so would be made up of 50 modules. Anything in between would be possible but bigger is better IMO.

Apologies for the delay on a longer response, I was on holiday .

I think it's unrealistic to assume that any modern warship will be able to cover the entire tracking profile of a hypersonic cruise missile or ballistic missile alone. The US MDA assumes a plethora of ground-based radars providing assistance to its destroyers during missile defence operations.

The DIP funds a significant investment in similar ground-based radar systems for the UK (and homeland air defence missiles as well).

With a unwritten (but all too obvious) shift to Atlantic operations, the RN could flood the North Atlantic with long-range search radars (S1850M type systems), working in tandem with the Russia-facing land-based radars and ground-based interceptors to provide constant off-board tracking all the way to interception.

If the Sampson/S1850M combination is achieving MRBM tracking capability on what is essentially a 90s technology base, I imagine the 2020s base that will support the future radars of the 2030s will offer significantly more capable baselines for the same footprint.

The individual CCV should still provide a localised capability for operations in the Middle East.

The Pacific would probably be out of bounds during a conflict. British surface assets would need American escort (and that would probably be fine, to be fair - there's no credible situation in which the UK goes up against China without the USA, Japan and Australia).

In short, I'm saying that the North Atlantic can rely on ground-based radars and prepositioned long-range search and fire-control radars onboard LUSV to provide instant and continuous tracking of a missile threat, rather than needing a single massive naval radar to do the job. The CCV just becomes an additional radar in that group. The trick will be fusing guidance and tracking data from disparate sensors into a single stream of information that an interceptor can use.

When withdrawn from the North Atlantic, the CCV should have a radar capable of operations in isolation (though perhaps similar ground-based radars should be considered for upgrading the current Cypriot installations), especially in the Middle East and Indian Ocean.

In the Pacific, reliance on allies is pretty much a given.

I would like to see the QEs upgraded with the control system and radars from FADS or whatever it is called now for exactly that reason. They are the tallest and largest ships in the fleet and would easily be able to host whatever radar the CCVs or T94 would carry, while the mission planning and ops room spaces could host spaces for commanding USVs. If the CCVs are as lightly equipped as some have suggested there is very little point having them in a CSG when such a large and flexible platform, which is already critical to the task group, can host the decision-making facility anyway.

I agree with this. They already have a large long-range search radar, and we should make more use of it.

 

[DWG]

The DIP funds a significant investment in similar ground-based radar systems for the UK (and homeland air defence missiles as well).

I'm not convinced the air defence element is any more extensive than Rapid Sentry and Skyhammer reinstating the RAF Regiment's air defence role for UK bases. The Sky Sabre batteries will deploy wherever the Army goes.

 

[Reuben James]

I'm not convinced the air defence element is any more extensive than Rapid Sentry and Skyhammer reinstating the RAF Regiment's air defence role for UK bases. The Sky Sabre batteries will deploy wherever the Army goes.

It's vague, and probably unfunded, but the aspiration is there for a THAAD-type system.

 

[zen]

If we roll out NGRD radars to upgrade Type 26, Type 31, QEs, CCV and Type 94, and in parallel using the same basis roll out such for the Army and RAF sites.
We indeed disperse enough to cover swathes of the North Atlantic.

Arguably a force could be assembled to deliver a more limited version of this elsewhere, such as South Atlantic, and with Army/RAF bases in the Middle East.

What would ultimately be a game changer is being able to intigrate allied radar picture into this system.
Such as say Swedish, Danish and Polish radars.

Or even with the US and Australia.

What will be critical is the common standards of data exchange that allows any radar to input into the system and ideally a system scalable by additional processing servers.

 

[Reuben James]

This is on Babcock's website, I don't think I've seen this before. Clearly targeted towards the Danish contract, but demonstrates the rough size of array Babcock think they can get on the AH140 hull.

https://www.babcockinternational.co...develop-and-manufacture/the-arrowhead-family/

 

[TorpedoJ]

View attachment 817476
This is on Babcock's website, I don't think I've seen this before. Clearly targeted towards the Danish contract, but demonstrates the rough size of array Babcock think they can get on the AH140 hull.

https://www.babcockinternational.co...develop-and-manufacture/the-arrowhead-family/

https://www.babcockinternational.com/what-we-do/product/design-develop-and-manufacture/armor-force/
Also the vessel shown here is very clearly not the CCV that Babcock initially revealed in December. It's practically identical to the much earlier MNP, with the hangar area extended and connected to an amidships mission bay, stern boat ramp and forwards 40mm replaced with 16 mk41.
Has the more capable but expensively modified CCV been abandoned?

There's also the ridiculousness in the Armor Force video of the 'Bastion' USV itself deploying a smaller USV which deploys a tiny towed array. Undermines the point really.

 

[Reuben James]

Do you have an image of the two designs you're talking about, particularly that first one?

Has the more capable but expensively modified CCV been abandoned?

I wouldn't read too much into Babcock marketing material beyond the surface level possibilities. Pollard did mention that they've yet to actually design the CCV, let alone move to industry with the idea.

 

[TorpedoJ]

Do you have an image of the two designs you're talking about, particularly that first one?


I wouldn't read too much into Babcock marketing material beyond the surface level possibilities. Pollard did mention that they've yet to actually design the CCV, let alone move to industry with the idea.

They're in the video on the Armor Force page, I'm currently not in possession of a computer so I can't get them out easily.

I just noted the shift from the very loose but ambitious CCV concept of last December to this much more detailed refreshing of the MNP, there would be no need for it if that design was progressing even accounting for the capricious nature of Babcock marketing.

 

[Reuben James]

I'm a little confused. The CCV concept of last December is the same one being shown on the website today, is it not?

https://navyleaders.com/news/babcock-reveals-common-command-vessel-type-31-concept/

This article from September 2025 shows a still from the video playing on the current website for the Armor Force.

It's the same one that was shown in December as well:

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-new...r-royal-navys-autonomous-ambition-on-command/

There's the weird Navy Lookout render in their December article, in which they mention additional boats bays and forward positioned VLS, but that's the same in these other articles.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't think the Armor Force CCV design has actually changed since it was revealed.

 

[TorpedoJ]

I'm a little confused. The CCV concept of last December is the same one being shown on the website today, is it not?

https://navyleaders.com/news/babcock-reveals-common-command-vessel-type-31-concept/

This article from September 2025 shows a still from the video playing on the current website for the Armor Force.

It's the same one that was shown in December as well:

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-new...r-royal-navys-autonomous-ambition-on-command/

There's the weird Navy Lookout render in their December article, in which they mention additional boats bays and forward positioned VLS, but that's the same in these other articles.

What I'm trying to say is that I don't think the Armor Force CCV design has actually changed since it was revealed.

Here is the December CCV as provided to Navy Lookout. Note the extended B position for 32 VLS, the higher flight deck and the four funnels in an inboard, square arrangement.

Here is the CCV as shown the Armor Force video today. It retains the small B position with 16 VLS, the two staggered, outboard funnels and the low flight deck level with the hull chine from T31.
Here is the Arrowhead Multi-role Naval Platform, as shown at DSEI 2023 and photographed by Navy Lookout. Barring the model-specific removable 57mm and other minor tweaks it is identical to the vessel shown in the Armor Force video.

We can also compare the mission bay/hangar interface. Here it is on MNP:

And here it is in the Armor Force video today:

Even the panels on the side of the mast above the hangar are the same.

 

[zen]

Navantia has said they can run off two LUSV from Appledore per year.

 

[Reuben James]

I'm 90% sure that this is a Navy Lookout AI-enhancement of the video linked on the Armor Force page, rather than a Babcock render. Look at the smaller sensor ahead of the main radar mast, for example.

The article it's from credits the image as 'Based on Babcock imagery', which to me suggests these are edited screenshots of the video on the website. No other outlet is reporting these images, for example.

This is the big issue with their ridiculous use of AI, though.

 

[TorpedoJ]

View attachment 817493
I'm 90% sure that this is a Navy Lookout AI-enhancement of the video linked on the Armor Force page, rather than a Babcock render. Look at the smaller sensor ahead of the main radar mast, for example.

The article it's from credits the image as 'Based on Babcock imagery', which to me suggests these are edited screenshots of the video on the website. No other outlet is reporting these images, for example.

This is the big issue with their ridiculous use of AI, though.

I can't say I'm very well acquainted with what the latest AI models can do, but the consistency across the two images in that article suggests to me that it isn't just a massive extrapolation of the video we have access to. The differences between them and the current CCV video are hugely greater than the differences, if indeed there are any, between the two perspectives we were given in December.
For completeness' sake here is the other December image of 'CCV' from the NL article and the zoomed-in header image from the Babcock press release at the time:

In both images we see the side opening beneath the higher flight deck, the greatly stretched B position, the smaller forwards funnels and the large sliding (not rolling garage-style) mission bay doors. The forwards 40mm is also clearly retained ahead of the VLS.
So the unique features of the December CCV article are not an artifact of Navy Lookout AI treatment, though the images themselves may be, and the CCV as presented in Babcock's initial announcement of Armor Force is significantly different from the one that can be seen on their website today.

 

[Reuben James]

Fair enough - it might just be an extended version of the current video we have, rendered in a different style.

My concerns are that:

- Despite other outlets such as Naval News reporting on the Armor Force at the same time as Navy Lookout, I cannot find any other articles using this imagery. Several do use the current video though.
- That main image of the CCV launching a small attack boat is identical in its framing to the current video, but there are several oddities in various areas of the image that suggest it has enhanced or altered by an 'AI'-powered tool.

But you're right, it could just be that NL have used an AI to enhance the same video that everyone else has received, and that's what has resulted in this weird look. Either way, I'm not particularly jazzed about their 'enhancements' at the NL publication.

On the original question about whether they're trending towards a slightly modified T31, I expect that is the overall intention. We'll just have to wait and see.

However, I doubt BAE are best pleased if that is the case, given the investment they've made in radar technology.

 

[TorpedoJ]

The Naval News article from December also uses the Babcock header image containing what I call the December CCV.
https://www.navalnews.com/naval-new...r-royal-navys-autonomous-ambition-on-command/
The Armor Force web page- not the press release- does not date from December. I scoured the Babcock website pretty thoroughly when AH120 was revealed in February and it wasn't there then. I don't know if there are tools that would allow you to find exactly when it was added?

So the timeline as I understand it is that in 2023 Babcock came up with the MNP to try to meet the Type 32 requirement. That was set aside and then following the SDR they developed a new, stretched 'CCV' design which was revealed in December. At some point between December and now the Armor Force concept changed to revisit the MNP as the base platform and at some point between February and now the Babcock website was updated to include Armor Force, now with imagery using MNP and calling it the CCV, the December version of which has disappeared.

However, I doubt BAE are best pleased if that is the case, given the investment they've made in radar technology.

I don't care if Babcock build it, if BAE don't provide the radar for the CCV and T94 I am going to be very unhappy as it would mean the end of British radar development when Sweden and the Netherlands, far tinier navies, are able to carry on happily.

 

[Reuben James]

I mean, the thing that's missing from both the December and current (June?) versions is a large radar, which is not reassuring.

 

[zen]

I don't think BAE Systems will turn down money for work and Systems production.
If Babcock win the ship design and build, BAE Systems can still provide the radar and CMS.
Win-win for them if they play their cards right.

 

[zen]

Meanwhile USV surveillance developments continue....

https://www.navylookout.com/pi...-maritime-surveillance-concept

This seems to be the future of at sea maritime surveillance.
Mk2 will have endurance of several weeks

 

[DWG]

We can also compare the mission bay/hangar interface. Here it is on MNP:

Moved up a metre or two, though. There's also an extra panel on the inboard side of the mast (funnel?) to port that isn't on the upper image. Meanwhile the two ladders on the right of shot have moved inboard and are now level with the change in deck height, plus protected by a bulwark outboard. They're definitely different iterations of the design, with a lot of changes at the detail level.

 

[TorpedoJ]

Moved up a metre or two, though. There's also an extra panel on the inboard side of the mast (funnel?) to port that isn't on the upper image. Meanwhile the two ladders on the right of shot have moved inboard and are now level with the change in deck height, plus protected by a bulwark outboard. They're definitely different iterations of the design, with a lot of changes at the detail level.

The bay door is still marginally above the hull chine? Here's another angle showing the same CUBE containerised davit system as was shown in December.

More generally I have now got a computer and have found a suitable angle for a 'spot the difference' between Navy Lookout's reported CCV and the currently visible concept:

EDIT on review of more media:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1998769006841405943

https://lnkd.in/p/eu9Qm7FH
Comparing the video that came with Babcock's initial social media posts about ARMOR Force and the website from the video we can see that most of the shots are actually identical; the images above come from the same sequence which is why the angles are similar.
The only change is in the design of the CCV, which is why I noticed and drew attention to it.

 

[DJK]

Type 45 Destroyer may get life extension after all https://share.google/MlBORJroR973DqR0G

I cant see any way to avoid the life extension...

 

[Brett Davidson]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-outlines-thinking-behind-binning-plans-for-new-destroyers/

“The decision to move to this hybrid approach was taken after detailed analysis of current and future threats, including lessons from ongoing conflicts,” Pollard said. “The specific analysis is necessarily classified, but the mix of crewed and uncrewed systems will produce a more flexible force, with greater missile capacity while also improving mass. The alternative, an expensive, exquisite platform such as the Type 83, would have resulted in too few ships to cover all the Royal Navy’s tasks, increasing risk.”

The maritime air defence role currently delivered by the Type 45s will in future fall to “a mix of crewed Common Combat Vessels and uncrewed, autonomous missile (Type 91) and sensor (Type 94) ships,” the minister said.

 

[Brett Davidson]

That's fast:

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uncrewed-missile-ship-prototype-to-join-british-fleet-by-2030/

“By 2030, we aim to have brought the first large autonomous vessels into service, including a prototype uncrewed missile platform and extra-large uncrewed underwater vessels (XLUUVs), with payloads developed through AUKUS.

 

[Brett Davidson]

News and analysis on Excalibur XLUUV.

https://www.navylookout.com/xv-excalibur-royal-navy-learning-to-fight-with-autonomous-submarines/

For now, the Navy wants one thing above all, which is reliability, with data gathered over an increasingly long period. The test is whether the pumps, generators and batteries hold to fine tolerances while the boat remains on station for periods up to a month. Only once this foundation has been established do more advanced payloads become worthwhile. It has not been confirmed, but Excalibur has likely already conducted several long endurance missions. The work aligns closely with the RN’s emerging Atlantic Bastion concept where the Type 92 ‘chariot’ XLUUV will take its place as a key part of the suite of systems deployed to counter Russian submarine activity.

It's not the prototype for the Type 93 but it's on the direct evolutionary path.

 

[Brett Davidson]

Shipyards vying for work.

Navantia:

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-shipyard-gearing-up-to-build-drone-warships/

According to the company, its production and build strategy engineers have established a manufacturing plan at Appledore for delivering large autonomous vessels at pace and scale in support of the Royal Navy’s hybrid fleet, bringing together digital design, modular construction and advanced production methods with the industrial capacity being established across its four UK yards, and providing what it described as persistent, cost-effective capability compared to comparable crewed platforms.

The LASV75 is Navantia UK’s UK-designed large autonomous surface vessel, designed from the keel up as an uncrewed platform and combining size, range and speed with a modular, open-architecture design. Since its launch at the Combined Naval Event, the company says it has matured the concept and demonstrated the platform’s modularity, with configurations developed spanning anti-air warfare, anti-submarine warfare, naval fires against land-based threats, and sensing, operational or combined roles, with the open architecture allowing a single vessel to be re-roled, even at sea, as operational demands change.

Navantia is also pushing the Harland and Wolff yard to build all eight of the Amphibious Transport Ships.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-to-build-all-eight-anglo-dutch-assault-ships/

News on the yard here:

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/navantia-is-remaking-harland-and-wolff-for-a-new-era/

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waKh1WdVOws


Babcock wants to build the CCV in Rosyth following on from the Type 31, maybe somewhat based on the Type 31.

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/navys-new-hybrid-warship-could-be-built-at-rosyth/

Babcock has promoted concepts derived from its Arrowhead 140 design for future ‘command vesselx requirements, and the comments sharpen the written answer Pollard gave the same week, in which he said options for the vessel’s hull form are being explored. They bear directly on the industrial timing question, since the five-ship Type 31 order completes in the coming years and the yard’s follow-on steelwork demand depends heavily on Denmark’s pending frigate decision, a dependency the Scottish Labour MSP Paul Sweeney highlighted to the UK Defence Journal this week in warning that core surface shipbuilding sites need a sustained drumbeat to avoid a return to boom and bust.

The article mentioned above (every silver lining has a cloud):

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/shipbuilding-boom-risks-another-bust-sweeney-warns/

Speaking after the UK-Netherlands amphibious ship agreement added another programme to a growing order book, Sweeney said the sector is “getting into a position where we potentially introduce an overcapacity,” and that balancing capacity against the demand signal is “the key challenge we’re really facing, and that’s what the National Shipbuilding Strategy was trying to address, and we seem to be drifting from that coherent approach with a series of disruptive decisions around shipbuilding programmes.”

The government, he argued, is announcing faster than it is planning, because “I think the government needs to step up and be clear about where the build locations for these programmes are going to be and how it plans to maximise all shipbuilding procurement through the Defence Investment Plan into British shipyards.”

A caveat - nothing has been signed yet!

I am surprised at how quickly news is coming out now. The DIP was infamously delayed for months, annoying NATO allies. I suspect that it wasn't foot-dragging or incompetence, but that the time was taken up to get as many ducks in a row as possible before making public commitments. After it was decided some time last year that the Type 83 was not going to be suitable, and recruitment was in crisis, the hybrid navy had to be the new paradigm. They needed to have substance to justify a shift to what would be otherwise dismissed by the opposition as vapourware and platitudes.

 

[Brett Davidson]

A bit of context: while it's disappointing to lose the big, 'exquisite' Type 83 and MRSS, what sees less press attention at this moment is the commitment to the nuclear submarine force. Steel starts getting cut for the SSN-AUKUS subs next year, of which there will be 'up to'* twelve, and a sovereign warhead and concept definition has already begun for the Dreadnought successor before the first of them has even got slightly damp.

*How to understand treasuryese: 'no less than' means 'no more than' and 'up to' means 'something possibly more than zero and certainly no more than.'

 

[Scott Kenny]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/uk-outlines-thinking-behind-binning-plans-for-new-destroyers/

“The decision to move to this hybrid approach was taken after detailed analysis of current and future threats, including lessons from ongoing conflicts,” Pollard said. “The specific analysis is necessarily classified, but the mix of crewed and uncrewed systems will produce a more flexible force, with greater missile capacity while also improving mass. The alternative, an expensive, exquisite platform such as the Type 83, would have resulted in too few ships to cover all the Royal Navy’s tasks, increasing risk.”

The maritime air defence role currently delivered by the Type 45s will in future fall to “a mix of crewed Common Combat Vessels and uncrewed, autonomous missile (Type 91) and sensor (Type 94) ships,” the minister said.

I still think someone is in for some serious sticker shock when they see the pricetags for completed Type 94s including all GFE. Not to mention that I still think we're talking about a radar roughly the size of the Type 45's radar(s) on the Type 94s, which drives the size of the Type 94s way up.

Has someone asked Babcock et al how big a ship would be required to carry the Type 45's radar mast? I'm suspecting something a good 300ft long even as a trimaran, if not the size of a US Independence-class LCS.

Also, for my own edumacation, would the Type 94 not need both the SAMPSON and the S1850M radars? Or can it get away with just the S1850M

 

[Ainen]

Has someone asked Babcock et al how big a ship would be required to carry the Type 45's radar mast? I'm suspecting something a good 300ft long even as a trimaran, if not the size of a US Independence-class LCS.

Well, in principle you can cut the mast, but it'll make distribution even worse.

 

[Brett Davidson]

someone is in for some serious sticker shock when they see the pricetags for completed Type 94s including all GFE. Not to mention that I still think we're talking about a radar roughly the size of the Type 45's radar(s) on the Type 94s, which drives the size of the Type 94s way up.

Indeed. It's not one radar system divided among multiple drone ships, its multiple systems duplicated on drone ships - and for each, that's not to mention power and cooling requirements also driving cost and size. Perhaps someone has realised that and that's why they've suggested a life extension programme for the Type 45s.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Well, in principle you can cut the mast, but it'll make distribution even worse.

Yes, you can cut it down a bit since you'll have more ships out there. Wider coverage area due to more radars, though cutting down the mast makes the Type 94s more vulnerable to sea-skimmers.

 

[Ainen]

Yes, you can cut it down a bit since you'll have more ships out there. Wider coverage area due to more radars, though cutting down the mast makes the Type 94s more vulnerable to sea-skimmers.

Knowing RN, at best there will be same number of radar ships as was planned for the 83s.

 

[Brett Davidson]

US Independence-class LCS.

Well, if you don't want them...

 

[TorpedoJ]

Also, for my own edumacation, would the Type 94 not need both the SAMPSON and the S1850M radars? Or can it get away with just the S1850M

We know that the RN will not use SAMPSON or S1850 for FADS (whatever that turns out to be) but will instead replace them with new radar. The current frontrunner is BAE's future developments based on their S-band Next Generation Transmit Receive Module. This is scalable like SPY-6 from the size of the planned demonstrator, which will be able to replace Artisan on T26, up to a full sized destroyer radar as seen on the FAWCS concept.

 

[TomS]

Remember that a typical ASROC response is 3 weapons into a circle around the contact. A dozen ASROC/LRAW is only 4 engagements.

Source? I can't find anything suggesting this is the case.

 

[zen]

Again?
https://www.navylookout.com/the-royal-navys-next-generation-radars/

The Next Generation Radar Demonstrator (NGRD) is now well into development. NGRD is not a research curiosity but a near product, intended to produce a scalable S-band multi-function radar suitable for fixed panel or rotating configurations. The demonstrator is targeting world-leading performance against missile threats, ballistic targets and smaller UAVs in cluttered littoral environments. It incorporates element-level digitisation and high-speed processing pathways that vastly exceed current systems.

And

The Sampson reference radar antenna on the tower at Cowes. This is used for development and testing and has participated in the Formidable Shield series of exercises, tracking targets over the north-east Atlantic. It has also participated in multi-static radar trials with the Sampson at the Maritime Integration and Support Centre (MISC) on Portsdown Hill (Photo: BAE Systems).

 

[Sintra]

Also, for my own edumacation, would the Type 94 not need both the SAMPSON and the S1850M radars? Or can it get away with just the S1850M

It wont use (or need) either Sampson or S1850M
Both are legacy systems that while still relevant are starting to look a bit (a lot...) dated.
Think of multiple fixed GaAN arrays that work on several different bands.

 

[DJK]

Looks like this would be the perfect containerised match for am ASW drone. Fibre optic might be the next generation of towed array.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-new...cts-optics11-for-new-asw-in-a-box-capability/

 

[DJK]

I also agree with the hull sonar but we have other USVs for minehunting and sweeping so it would just be ASW.

More for mine avoidance. Cant order the mine sweepers in unless they are in expected locations.

 

[zww11455]

Is it possible to use AH160 as a template for CCV？

 

[TorpedoJ]

Is it possible to use AH160 as a template for CCV？

You mean AH140?
AH160 is a throwaway comment in an interview with Babcock and has never been referred to again.