Shipbucket

With the 2015 SDSR document the British MoD is talking about curtailing the Type 26 Frigates to 8 vessels and building 5 Light Frigates by the sounds of it to do the Guard Ship and Anti piracy/ Narcotics operations.
Various forums have talked about a variety of concepts from BMT Ventnor ships through a larger version of the river class opv to smaller Type 26. I do wonder what some of the designers on here would come up with?

couple of things to bear in mind are use of 5in gun and British missiles etc. but I would limit hull length to about 117M

Oh, maybe a very interesting "shipbucket challenge"
In reality this program is especially created to be useful to BAE (6000/7000 tons frigates being too expensive for export, there is a need to design a smaller 3500/4000 ton frigate that will be sold in South-America, in the Middle-East & Asia). Same for future French & Italian programs (3500/4000 tons light-frigates).



This 3000 tons design will be the "forerunner" for this challenge ?



Dubious to carry a 127mm, more likely a lightweight 76mm Oto-Melara

117 M frigate is perfectly capable of carrying a 127mm gun and NGFS on the Al Faw demonstrated the lessons learnt in the Falklands.

Well, it seems that you may have the part sheets of VERTICAL VIEW. Would you like share those?

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there is not one big parts sheet for these yet some people have drawn top views indeed, and some parts in part sheets have top views as well, but they are not organised in any way and there is also not an top view of all parts.

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Wouldn't the fastest and cheapest thing to do is strip the strike vls, artisan radar, and super sonar.

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Supreme Commander of the Astrofleets

Another quick thing would make a uk version of the sigma frigate.

This thread can be repeated with the French navy fti

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Supreme Commander of the Astrofleets

I don't recommend the shipyard (Norwegian frigates suffer from to many construction error and are very often in for service and repairs). But Navanti have an light frigate model going under the name: ALPHA 4000

http://www.navantia.es/ckfinder/userfil ... F-538).pdf

I doubt you'll be removing Artisan, It's too important of a component to do away with (Note, there are smaller variants of it). As for removing the strike cells and sonar, that leaves lots of wasted space on a hull which has already been deemed too expensive to build in the numbers required.

IMO there's a few ways to look at them.

A: Forgo the 'light' descriptor and buy Absalons to redeem some of the lost amphibious capability when Ocean goes (QE and PoW shouldn't have to run as Commando carriers).
B: Get involved with the French La Fayette replacement program
C: Give BAE MORE money to prop up its shipbuilding capability and buy something at inflated cost such as a follow-on Lekiu or Khareef class
D: Give BAE an RFI for a clean-sheet design and spend twenty years designing a ship that will become bloated and overly expensive for what it needs to be
E: Go MOTS and buy Venators

As of now my preferences would be as follows.

1: Buy BMT Venators (the 110m one) outfit them with the minimum necessary equipment fit to do their job safely (not like the Type 42s) and allot funds further down the line to give them more comprehensive capabilities (albeit containerised so no necessarily for all five). Note the Venator would be somewhat of a compromise being unable to operate Merlin or land a Chinnok, bringing a new calibre of gun into the logistics chain if unable to ship a Mk.45 as well as being unproven.

2: Buy Absalon or better yet a modified Absalon/Huitfeldt hybrid type vessels. They're in the same ballpark as the Type 26 size wise, posses an innate capability to employ the Mk.45, have the ability to ship a not inconsiderable landing force and equipment as well as the ability to land a Chinook and operate Merlin which no 'Light' combatant is comfortably capable of doing. STANFLEX offers the ability to be fitted for not with or share system modules between the five vessels allowing for MoD cost-cutters to be appeased. Other than their size and in the case of the base Absalon inability to meet fleet speed they would be my first choice.

3: Partner with France on the La Fayette replacement initiative and see where that takes ups (this would represent the highest risk choice) It would however give the possibility if factoring in things that we want that other vessels can't but as ever this is likely to drive up development and procurement costs as the French are unlikely to require or want niche capabilities employed by us.

~Mark.

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Blood and Fire

I think it is fair to ask if fleet speed is desirable but not strictly necessary in a so-called light frigate. To be sure, on a hull that size you run the risk of purchasing speed that is tactically available but not sustainable for any reasonable length of time, at which point you might be hamstringing a carrier task force more than you are supporting or defending it. If one finds that that is the case, speed might be found to be both expensive from a pure dollars standpoint as well as compromising the money-no-object fundamentals of the design (range, topside arrangement, noise, etc).