BAE Proposes Type 26 vessel for US Frigate (FFG-X) competition.

Lets face it the LCS is a joke. Its delicate and undermanned. The US Coast Guard's Legend Class cruisers seem better equipped to survive combat that the iffy LCS's. (In fact Ingalls has proposed 2 variants of this ship for the the FFG-X)

As such the USN is looking at a new Frigate to help bolster the fleet. The Type 26 is interesting in thats its fairly well armed, can handle a Chinook of its deck, and is already in production. The question of offsets or US production would no doubt be the sticky wicket. On the otherhand you could get 3 for the price of a Burke class can.


www.defensenews.com...

a reply to: FredT

The question is, would they be built in The U.K or U.S. ?

a reply to: alldaylong

That's what would have to be decided. How much work do each get, where is the final assembly, etc.

Imagine US work share and equipment on the F26 design.

Not a bad idea. Cannot see the US politics accepting it though.

a reply to: paraphi

They might not have a choice. The shipyards are in piss poor shape right now, and just got hammered in a report. They might have to accept it and just become Boeing, and just assemble the bits.

Would be good for UK, I imagine there will be a lot of spare workers as the Prince of Wales carrier is being built.

What is US political position? Royal Navy ancillary ships are built in the Far East somewhere IIRC.

a reply to: Forensick

There's definite interest. Currently they're looking at an Amercanized version of the FREMM frigate, possibly the F-100, and a militarized version of the Legend. The Type 26 has been tossed around, but not until they have an idea of the track record of them. A lot of them are overbuilt for US needs though.

breakingdefense.com...

a reply to: alldaylong

They would likely be built in the US under license by US contractors', there may be some part's manufactured in the UK but the system's, US specific design tailoring and weapon systems as well as probably the ship itself would most likely be built by one of BAE's competitors stateside to keep the job's there, most likely the power plant/engines could be built in the US also, there would be some wish to keep some of the job's in the UK but that is down to the contract so most likely the US government IF they awarded it to BAE would want the job done in the US.

After the Falkland's war we learned a few short falling's in our destroyers, they are not more flame retardant for a start and we have always produced great ship's.

I doubt the contract will go to BAE though especially with Trump wanting to keep US job's in the US because it would cause a stink among his electorate but it may be possible they will be awarded a partial contract or subcontracted by whom ever win's it.

a reply to: LABTECH767

Is it really that simple though? BAE have radar systems that put US radar technology to shame. I know we are the closest of allies and all that but do we just hand over the specs like that?

Ingalls ship building in Pascagoula, MS.

Not sure how they are now, but back in 1986 I watched as they build AEGIS class cruisers like a car factory line.

Then you have the Newport News ship building by Ingalls too up in Virginia. That's where they build carriers.

a reply to: eriktheawful

GAO report on shipyards

They took a beating in the report. Everything is late, and subs are seriously late.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Not something I keep up with.

Be something else if we have to build our ships in non-US ports for the Navy.....that speaks volumes to me about the state our country is in.

a reply to: eriktheawful

If they go with foreign designs, they'll still be built in the US, but they'll change the way the yards work. One of them will split with their partner company and go direct to the Navy.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Not sure what they'll change?

The 3 ships I served on (USS Preble DDG-46, USS Coontz DDG-40, and USS MacDonough DDG-39) were build by laying their keel and up.

The ships I saw being build by Ingalls were sectional. Different pieces that were then put together in a floating dry dock. Once the hulls were together, they'd float the ship and continue adding on to the super structure (from pieces built on land).

As far as I know, this is pretty much how it's still done and is much faster than laying a keel and building it up.

Of course it's not something I've looked into since the 1990s, so it may be that things have changed a lot.

a reply to: eriktheawful

One of the things they'd change would be Marinette ending their partnership with Lockheed. If they go straight with the Navy, then they can change the way that things are done at the yard itself to make things go faster. Bath Iron Works has a previous partnership with the Spanish company that builds the F-100, so that'll help things out there as well.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Never been a big fan of "make it happen faster"

That's normally where mistakes come in and often lead to major problems.

Of course I'm old school on that. Seen too many times where rushing things almost always ends up in screw ups.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Yeah, it can lead to problems, but at the same time, they've got to do something to get stuff delivered on time. When 42 of 173 are on time for subs, and 25 of 53 for carriers, you have to do something.

a reply to: Wide-Eyes

Our Tech is actually shared, all our tech is at the US disposal these day's (maybe not so much the other way around though) and has been since WW2 (unless being in the EU meant' we withdrew from that which I can not see having happened).

We had better system's on our Harriers, better system's on our ship's, in our tank's so that is correct, in fact if you ever saw the gulf war footage of the cockpit missile guidance cameras our were also superior.

It is partially down to how the US fund's it's armed forces, they pay well over the price for there good's and it end's up being built as cheaply as possible by the contractor's meaning those tax dollars mostly end up in Corporate bank account's and there tax payers are constantly ripped off which often tragically contributes toward loss of US service personnel.

We have also started down that route though now but our problem is actually the other way around, our forces are not nearly well enough funded and have to make do with often antiquated or out of date equipment as best they can because it is there budget that always get's chopped first so our navy now has no aircraft for it's new air craft carrier, our superior but very old Harriers were needlessly retired when there was still plenty of life in them as were our sea king helicopters - ancient but still one of the best workhorse helicopters in the world - and we instead decided to buy substandard technology that is not as good as the harrier was even before it was in production.

But don't be surprised the Yank's according to a retired RAF engineer I knew had technology you still don't hear about today and in the late 80's he for example told me that he had seen high technology circuit's which included in there more recognizable component's solid state Diamond crystal Valves (tiny valves made inside artificial diamond just like a high tech version of those old valves in those old valve radio set's from back before Diodes and Transistor's took the work over) - sound's primitive doesn't it but remember Valves are more or less impervious to EMP so if these analogue valve system's were able to govern a planes avionic's or even just act as a back up in case the semi conductor circuit's failed there planes would just carry on ticking while less prepared aircraft would just drop from the sky.

Also remember the US stealth ship's and there optical camouflage paint, you only hear'ed of one but apparently they had or have several of them such as the original test bed Sea Shadow (which is really a hybrid aircraft stealth technology based hydrofoil) and the Zuwait class destroyers which to be frank may be a lot better than they are given credit for but seem like unnecessary when the US has excellent stealth capable submarines already, still that sea shadow still has great potential, amphibious landing craft potential with a few alterations to the design (think of it as the US equivalent of a better version of the Ekranoplane if they ever decided to adapt it thus - not as fast perhaps as the Caspian sea monster but a lot larger and with far greater range than a stub winged soviet sea plane ever had the potential to have) or as rapid missile destroyer deployment vessel capable of approaching that taking out an entire opposing fleet of conventional vessel's etc.

In fact that is why a lot of military technology was not the same high tech leading edge as most consumer electronic's, the consumer electronic's is simply too fragile, most military tech also uses lower scale integrated circuitry when and were solid state is used rather than the civilian equivalent, once again because it was more robust and can handle surges as well as potential EMP's better with a higher chance of the circuit surviving the experience.

But once again you are correct and the Yank's would be very surprised just how much of there own technology, some of which we don't even use in our armed forces ourselves (Cant afford it probably) was actually developed in the UK or is actually based on UK technology.

Well, I think the Australian SEA5000 Future Frigate programme may act as a template. Some good European designs trying to impress - the Spanish F100, the Italian FREMM and the UKs F26. The F100 and FREMM are in service, while F26 is still yet to be launched. However, F26 is being built with this concept of modular flexibility, so may be more future proofed. Plus F26 just looks nicer - that's got to count.

Big military procurements in the US are highly political, but it would be nice for a US variant of the F26, but I fear the mountain of dead bodies to get there would be too high.