Type 31 frigate
The Type 31 frigate, also known as the Inspiration class, formerly known as the Type 31e frigate or General Purpose Frigate, is a class of five frigates being built for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy, with variants also being built for the Indonesian and Polish navies. The Type 31 is intended to enter service in the 2020s alongside the eight submarine-hunting Type 26 frigates and will replace five general-purpose Type 23 frigates. The Type 31 is part of the British government's "National Shipbuilding Strategy".
Under construction by Babcock International, it is based on the Odense Maritime Technology frigate hull and is marketed under the name Arrowhead 140. The design has been sold to Indonesia as the four ship Balaputradewa-class frigate in September 2021, and to Poland for the three ship Wicher-class frigates in March 2022''.''
Development
The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review authorised the Global Combat Ship programme, which would replace the Royal Navy's thirteen Type 23 frigates. Earlier that year, BAE Systems was awarded a four-year, £127 million contract by the Ministry of Defence to design the new class. It was planned that two variants of the class would be built: five general purpose frigates and eight anti-submarine warfare frigates. There was to be little difference between the two variants, except for the Sonar 2087. Initial expectations were that construction would start in 2016 and the ships would gradually replace the Type 23 frigates by the mid-2030s. The 2015 Defence Review decided that only the eight anti-submarine warfare Type 26 frigates would be ordered and five general purpose frigates to an altogether different design would be ordered to give at least 13 frigates in RN service.General Purpose Frigate
The resultant General Purpose Frigate was to be a lighter, flexible and more affordable general purpose frigate class. According to the 2015 SDSR, the lower cost of these frigates could lead to the Royal Navy acquiring more than five, therefore increasing its overall numbers of frigates and destroyers. During a defence and security lecture in July 2016, GPFF was referred to as the Type 31 frigate by the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Philip Jones, who also stated that Type 31 frigates could permanently operate "East of Suez"—from the Persian Gulf region to the Asia-Pacific. During the same month, BAE Systems revealed two general purpose frigate designs: the "Avenger class", which was based on the "Amazonas-class/River-class Batch 2 offshore patrol vessel", and the "Cutlass class" that was described as a "significantly stretched and enhanced derivation of the Al Shamikh-class corvette design". The Sunday Times stated that Babcock International and BMT had also submitted one design each. Jones described the GPFF as "to be a much less high-end ship. It is still a complex warship, and it is still able to protect and defend and to exert influence around the world, but it is deliberately shaped with lessons from wider industry and off-the-shelf technology to make it... more appealing to operate at a slightly lower end of Royal Navy operations." IHS Janes described it as a "credible frigate" that will cover "maritime security, maritime counter-terrorism and counter-piracy operations, escort duties, and naval fire support... between the high-end capability delivered by the Type 26 and Type 45, and the constabulary-oriented outputs to be delivered by the five River-class Batch 2 OPVs."A September 2017 graphic released by the Royal Navy stressed modular adaptability and flexible construction of the design for export opportunities. Core requirements of the Type 31e frigate included a medium calibre gun, point defence systems, hangar and a flight deck for Wildcat or ten tonne helicopter operated by a crew of around 100 with space for 40 more personnel. The British government released a Request for information in September 2017, detailing the desired characteristics of the Type 31e. The RFI provided greater details such as a "Medium Calibre Gun" of greater than, a point defence anti-air missile system and the optional ability to launch and recover unmanned aerial vehicles.
National Shipbuilding Strategy
In October 2017, the Financial Times stated that "officials inside the Ministry of Defence, the Treasury and Royal Navy have long resented the obligation, set a decade ago, to maintain skills and shipbuilding capacity at BAE's shipyards on the Clyde regardless of naval needs. It quoted Francis Tusa, a defence analyst, who argued that the competition appeared to be designed to break BAE's hold on naval shipbuilding; "were they to have bid as BAE Systems, they wouldn't win. That is absolutely obvious. The fact is that the Type 31 is slanted probably to exclude any bid that includes BAE." However, this was denied by the MoD, which stated that the competition was designed to improve speed of delivery and reduce cost.In order to maintain national shipbuilding capacity, the 2017 national shipbuilding strategy proposed ordering an initial batch of five Type 31e frigates with an initial in-service date in 2023, with their cost limited to a maximum of £250m each, to be followed by a second batch order of Type 31 for the Royal Navy.
The refresh to the National Shipbuilding Strategy published by the UK Government in March 2022 stated: Type 31, the pathfinder project of the 2017 strategy, got to contract on schedule and for the headline price demanded, with the capability exceeding many expectations.
Design tenders
Throughout 2017, several designs from different companies were suggested as contenders for the Type 31. BAE submitted two designs, "Avenger", essentially an improved Batch 3 River-class OPV, and "Cutlass", a significantly stretched and enhanced derivation of the Al Shamikh-class corvette. BMT submitted a design called "Venator 110", with Steller Systems putting forward project "Spartan", and Babcock offered a design named "Arrowhead 120".In October 2017, BAE Systems announced that it would withdraw from the Type 31e competition as a main contractor, citing the capacity constraints of its shipyards on the Clyde, which were full with the work on the new River-class patrol vessels and Type 26 frigates. Instead, BAE announced a partnership with Cammell Laird, whereby BAE would provide its expertise in design and systems integration, while Cammell Laird would be the prime contractor and be responsible for the assembly of the ships at its yard at Birkenhead. The planned design was named "Leander", a reference to three previous classes of ship in the Royal Navy.
In November 2017, it was announced that BMT and Babcock signed a co-operation agreement for the Type 31. They did not choose between their respective "Venator 110" or "Arrowhead 120" designs, but instead would explore their designs to determine the best possible option. In late May 2018, Babcock, partnered with BMT, and Thales Group announced the "Arrowhead 140" design, based on the hull of the Danish s.
The competition was suspended on 20 July 2018 due to 'insufficient compliant bids' being received; however, The Times claimed this was due to a "funding crisis". The competition was restarted in August 2018.
Competitive design phase selection
On 10 December 2018, three groups were selected for the competitive design phase:- BAE Systems/Cammell Laird with their planned Leander design
- Babcock/BMT/Thales with their Arrowhead 140 design
- Atlas Elektronik UK/ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, which was likely to be based on the MEKO A-200 design
It was announced on 12 September 2019 that the Arrowhead 140 design had been selected as the base design for the Type 31 frigate. A contract was formally awarded to Babcock on 15 November 2019, for an average production cost of £250 million per ship and an overall programme cost set to be £2 billion with £1.25 billion value to Babcock.
On 20 January 2020, the Public Accounts Committee was informed by the Permanent Secretary for Defence that the first ship will be launched by 2023, but the in-service date will be in 2027. Earlier statements had been for an in-service date would be in 2023. In September 2022, John Howie, chief corporate affairs officer for Babcock International, stated that all five ships would be "delivered" to the Navy by 2028, though other sources suggested that the actual "in service" date might be somewhat later.
Arrowhead 140
The AH140 design submitted by Babcock, BMT, and Thales is a development of the s in service with the Royal Danish Navy.The Type 31 frigate, developed from Babcock's Arrowhead-140 design and based on the Royal Danish Navy's Iver Huitfeldt class, is not a direct copy but a significantly reworked platform. It has been extensively redesigned to comply with modern standards, including Lloyd's Register Naval Ship Rules, NATO's ANEP-77 Naval Ship Code, and a broad range of UK defence requirements such as DefStan 02-900. This redesign delivers enhanced survivability, system redundancy, and resilience compared to older Royal Navy escort ships like the Type 23 and Type 45, which were built to earlier generations of standards.
- General Purpose – default option.
- Anti-air warfare – Leverages the existing anti-air capabilities of the parent design through use of an additional long range radar such as the SMART/L or S1850M enabling wide area air defence and ballistic missile defence.
- Anti-submarine warfare – additional acoustic reduction measures such as the rafting of machinery spaces as well as provisions for a towed array sonar to the stern.
- Mine countermeasure / amphibious warfare / Multi-Mission platform – In 2023 Babcock revealed their Multi-Role Naval Platform, a variant of the AH140 with mission modularity in mind and likely as a contending design for the Royal Navy's Type 32 frigate program. The design features a stern boat ramp connected to the existing mission bay under the flight deck, a side hydraulic ramp, an enlarged hangar with capacity for up to 2x AugustaWestland Merlin AW101 sized helicopters, directly connected to a full-width mission bay replacing the 32-cell VLS complex amidships capable of supporting up to three 11-metre craft or containers. The design is also compatible with SH Defence's CUBE system for the embarkation and movement of container stores on board.
Another major characteristic of the AH140 is that it has dedicated accommodation for more than 180 personnel but only requires a crew of less than 100, allowing for both lower sustainment costs but also for a large number of mission specific personnel such as flight crew, remote system operators, marines / special forces to be embarked, or refugees in the case of humanitarian operations.