Shipbucket

Hold on I thought the entire plan for the 26 was burying some of the upfront costs of the development in the 23 extension and it was always intended that the systems would migrate from the 23's to the 26's (both for the ASW hulls and for the GP hulls)? As such I don't see how that's different in going into the 31's instead. Now in terms of what other systems the 26 might have brought forward, given the price tag they have grown to this point I can understand there might be other systems that don't make it.

In terms of the Main Gun, what choices do they have, extra costs for more new 5", extra costs for a 76mm and it's supply chain or stick with the 4.5" for the time being?

hence why i used the term "futile"

250 mil is just not much to try and get a decent frigate out of

250 mil for those ships... I belive that when I see it, we used approx 400 mil * 5 for the Norwegians, and they was build in Spain, although we had everything new.

Fun fact one or several British shipyard was in the Norwegian frigate competition, the last round had, 1 British, 1 German, 1 Spanish and 1 US shipyard in the Finale round, with 1 Norwegian shipyard pre-qualified.

I have never managed to get hold of any of the drawings/illustration from that frigate competition.

Well the Norwegian frigates are substantially more capable then the Type 31s will be.

The T26s are so expensive because they morphed from what was essentially a newer hull for the T23 mission equipment, to a major surface warship on the same level as the T45s, just with an emphasis on sub-surface warfare.
They have extensive C3 facilities to allow them to lead and coordinate taskforces and expensive new combat and weapons systems, all of these things resulted in a larger more expensive ship. They're are essentially a T22 and T23 squished into a single hull.

The T31s need to at all costs avoid this kind of mission creep, what they need to be is a capable hull for the mission equipment taken from the GP fitted T23s, nothing more. By all means space should be set aside for new equipment, but it shouldn't be fitted or purchased upon initial entry to service.

from what i've see the t26 is getting a 5in gun as BaE are looking to withdraw support for the 4.5

they are

we were talking about the T31s

and in posts ut was mentioned about recycling the 4.5 to save cost on the 31. contributing to a 200+ page discussion on t31 on another forum I have seen all sorts of speculation . given 1 of the stated missions for the 31 is NGFS the choice of gun will need to be effective in that role so that eliminates a number of systems.

babcock Arrowhead
BMT Venator
BaE cutlass
BaE Avenger
stellar systems spartan
Vard 110

all concepts i've seen commented on in relation to the type 31e requirement so there is cgi images of potential vessels out there artists could work with

I think any system which is not currently in RN inventory will be automatically eliminated from consideration on T31 in an effort to keep to the hard price cap. I also think that gas turbine propulsion is out as well in favour of CODAD.

And keeping the 4.5 for the first batch is not as bad as it may first seem as support for it will continue till at the very least the T45 MLU(though it's looking like the T45s won't get the new 5 inch even then)

As far as more complex weapons go i imagine that the PDMS will be the converted Seawolf cells ripped directly from the T23s rather then the new build system planned for the T26s. And if any Anti-ship missile is fitted it will be the same tired old block one Harpoon that the T45s and T23s carry.

i have to say i am partial to the Venator 110 design.

Quite like Spartan or Arrowhead designs