HMS Astute
Junior Member
HMS Astute
Junior Member
A new Tornado patch...
Yep...looks amazingly like the X-47B which will become the US Navy production Unmanned Carrier-Launched Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) system, which will enter service by 2019
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
also looks like some early concept art for the Long Range Strike program.
Jura The idiot
General
WOW! Full load displacement now up to 8,000 tons. These are going to be, for all practical purpsoes, destroyers that are named frigates, and at that displacement and with the intended load-out, they will be powerful ones at that.
Currently the FREMM is at 6,000 tons and costs about $750 million US dollars. They would not be a bad choice for the UK...but would also hurt the UKs naval shipbuilding. If they could do a UK variant of the FREMM that is built in the UK, that might be a go deal. I would still rather see the Type 26 as has been contemplated.
I expect that an 8,000 ton Type 26 will come in at a billion each.
Jura The idiot
General
sorry to ask, Jeff, just want to make sure you're talking GBP? so the price would be about the same as of a Type 45 destroyer, right?
thunderchief
Senior Member
RN classifies ships as destroyers or frigates based on function, not on tonnage. For example Type 22 frigates (Broadsword-class) were similar and maybe even somewhat bigger then Type 42 class (Sheffield class)
Similarly , Type 45 destroyers have displacement of 8-8500 standard tons.
Mr T
Senior Member
Still, 8000t for a frigate is a lot. I would prefer a larger number of smaller ships, albeit still bigger than the Type 23, than a smaller number of extremely well-equipped ships. The fleet needs some numbers to provide flexibility. Also I doubt there will be any chance of an export market if each ship is fairly expensive.