Type 26 frigate
The Type 26 frigate, also known as City-class frigate, is a class of frigates and destroyers being built for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy, with variants also being built for the Australian, Canadian and Norwegian navies. The programme, known as the Global Combat Ship, was launched by the British Ministry of Defence to partially replace the navy's thirteen Type 23 frigates, and for export. Its primary role is to conduct advanced anti-submarine warfare missions while supporting air defence and general purpose operations. The type is the first naval platform shared between Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom since the pre-Second World War Tribal-class destroyer.
The programme began in 1998, under what was then known as the Future Surface Combatant. By March 2010 however, this procurement programme had evolved to become the Global Combat Ship, following the announcement of a four-year, £127 million design contract being awarded to BAE Systems Maritime – Naval Ships. The primary development phase started on 1 April 2015 and in August 2015, the first long lead time items for Type 26 were ordered, with manufacturing then expected to begin in 2016 and the first Type 26 to be delivered in 2023. Subsequently, the commissioning date for the first ship of the class slipped to late 2026, with initial operating capability now anticipated from 2028. The frigates will be built at BAE Systems' Govan and Scotstoun yards on the River Clyde in Glasgow. The contract award to manufacture the Type 26 was announced by BAE Systems on 2 July 2017, with steel cut for the first of class, HMS Glasgow on 20 July 2017.
In June 2018, the Australian Government announced that it had selected a modified version of the Type 26 platform as the planned replacement for its. The Royal Australian Navy will procure six
On 8 February 2019, the Canadian government awarded Lockheed Martin Canada a C$185 million contract to design a fleet of up to 15 warships based on the Type 26, with a total program cost of $60 billion. The amount of the contract will increase as the design work increases. The initial design contract is with Irving Shipbuilding of Halifax, Nova Scotia.
On 31 August 2025, the Norwegian government confirmed plans to acquire at least 5 Type 26 frigates in a deal worth £10 billion.
Development
Future Surface Combatant
The Global Combat Ship started development under the original Future Surface Combatant programme intended to replace the Royal Navy's Type 22 and Type 23 frigates. Planning for a replacement escort vessel started in 1998 with the ordering of a research vessel,, to study whether a trimaran design was practical for such a large and complex vessel. More conventional designs however, were ultimately preferred. In March 2005, plans were released for a two-class solution, a cheaper "Medium Sized Vessel Derivative" entering service in 2016–19 and a more capable "Versatile Surface Combatant" entering service around 2023.In early 2006 the MoD started a Sustained Surface Combatant Capability programme which explored synergies between the FSC and other needs, for minesweepers, patrol ships and survey ships. By early 2007 this had crystallised into the three requirements; C1, C2 and C3. The C1 was to be an anti-submarine warfare task group-enabled platform and would displace around 6,000 tonnes. C2 was to be a more general purpose platform displacing somewhere in the region of 4–5,000 tonnes, and C3 was to be a Global Corvette to replace a larger number of smaller vessels in service, such as minesweepers, patrol and survey ships. The Global Corvette was to displace around 2–3,000 tonnes.
The C3 concept began in early 2004 when the MoD issued a Request for Information for a smaller class of ship known as the Global Corvette. Low running costs and the ability to operate forward in shallow, coastal areas where larger ships cannot were both important. BAE Systems, VT Group, Thales and Rolls-Royce responded in the autumn of 2004 with concepts ranging from a well-equipped Offshore Patrol Vessel of 1,500 tonnes to an advanced and very capable "corvette" of 3,000 tonnes, along the lines of the USN's Littoral Combat Ship programme.
The FSC concept was brought forward in the 2008 budget, at the expense of options for two Type 45 destroyers not being taken up. In 2009 BAE Systems received a contract to design the C1 and C2 frigates with a planned 25-year life. A total of 18 vessels were planned to enter service from 2020, at a pace of roughly one per year. In early 2010 the C3 variant was dropped in favour of the Mine Countermeasures, Hydrography and Patrol Capability programme.
Global Combat Ship
Official mention of the Future Surface Combatant had all but disappeared by 2010, and on 25 March of that year, BAE Systems were given a four-year, £127 million contract by the Ministry of Defence to fully design a new class of warship, the "Global Combat Ship", previously C1 of the FSC. Expectations at the time were for the first ship to be "in service" by 2021. The October 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review reaffirmed the government's commitment to the Global Combat Ship, saying; "As soon as possible after 2020 the Type 23 will be replaced by Type 26 frigates, designed to be easily adapted to change roles and capabilities depending on the strategic circumstances". As part of the defence review it was also announced that the remaining Type 22 frigates would be decommissioned without replacement, reducing the Royal Navy's escort fleet from 23 destroyers and frigates to 19.BAE Systems' original working baseline for the Global Combat Ship design was a vessel 141 metres long with a displacement of 6,850 tonnes and a range of 7,000 nautical miles at 18 knots. On 30 November 2010 however, it was reported that the specifications had been pared down, in effort to reduce the cost from £500M to £250–350M per ship. Subsequently, new specification details began to emerge of a smaller 5,400 tonne ship emphasising flexibility and modularity.
Unlike the FSC, the Global Combat Ship has only one hull design. Like the Franco-Italian family of FREMM multipurpose frigates however, three versions are proposed for export: a design optimised for anti-submarine warfare, an anti-aircraft warfare variant and a general purpose variant.
Although a decision was made in November 2010 to reduce the specifications and capability requirements of the Global Combat Ship design, BAE Systems' design concepts by 2014 had returned to their original working baseline of a large 6,900 tonne warship. In February 2015, the MoD and BAE Systems signed a £859 million contract to continue development and progress towards manufacturing. A 12-month demonstration phase began on 1 April 2015 and, after a 12-month extension in March 2016, was scheduled to be completed in June 2017.
Primarily due to the costs of the ship, the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review reduced the planned procurement of Type 26 vessels from 13 ships to 8. The resulting gap would now be filled by a new class of cheaper frigate designated Type 31.
On 2 July 2017, BAE Systems announced it had been awarded a £3.7 billion contract by the UK MoD to manufacture the first three Type 26 ships. The statement said that steel would be cut for the first ship in Glasgow "in the coming weeks."
In September 2015, the programme cost was estimated at £11.5 billion, for what was then assumed to be for 13 Global Combat Ships. The cost for the current eight ships was quoted as £8 billion in 2016. Three ships were ordered in 2017 for £3.7 billion.
In July 2021 it was revealed in response to a Parliamentary question that it was intended that the Type 26 frigate would be equipped with a new Future Cruise/Anti-ship Weapon from 2028.
Partnerships
The Global Combat Ship has been designed from the outset with export in mind. During a House of Commons debate on 31 January 2011, it was revealed that Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Turkey had all expressed interest in collaborating on the Global Combat Ship.Australia
The governments of the United Kingdom and Australia had previously been exploring the potential for cooperation on the C1 and C3 designs of the Future Surface Combatant, which corresponded closely to the Royal Australian Navy's requirements in replacing its s with a new class of frigate. The two countries signed a defence cooperation treaty in January 2013 and Australia pledged cooperation on the Global Combat Ship design in order to investigate its suitability for their own procurement programme. In April 2016, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull confirmed that the Global Combat Ship was one of three designs shortlisted for the replacement of the Anzac-class frigates.In September 2016 the Australian government awarded BAE Systems a contract to further refine the design of the Type 26 Global Combat Ship for the Royal Australian Navy under the SEA 5000 programme. Australia issued a request for tenders in support of the programme in late March 2017. The programme is valued at AUD35 billion. On 10 August 2017 BAE Systems announced it had submitted its bid for the SEA 5000 programme. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced in June 2018 that BAE had won the contract and Australia would build nine units of a modified version of the Type 26 concept vessel in Adelaide.
On 20 February 2024 the Australian government announced the Hunter class order will be reduced from nine to six ships. Another class of 11 new general-purpose frigates would be selected to serve alongside the Hunter class.
Canada
During the House of Commons debate of 31 January 2011, it was also disclosed that the Canadian government was interested in collaborating on the Global Combat Ship and that the UK and Canada were in "close discussion". However, a Canadian union campaigned that the Global Combat Ship threatened Canadian shipbuilders, and in the run-up to the May 2011 election a spokesman for Peter MacKay, at the time Canadian Defence Minister, ruled out involvement with the British programme. Turkey also later rejected the design in 2012 as not meeting its requirements.Although Canada had previously ruled out partnership with the British programme, in May 2016 IHS Janes reported that the Global Combat Ship was still one of the contenders for the Canadian Surface Combatant requirement. Indeed, in November 2017, a Lockheed Martin-led consortium put forward their "CSC Proposal", based on the Type 26 design by BAE Systems, for the Royal Canadian Navy's future frigate project.
On 19 October 2018 it was announced that BAE-Lockheed Martin was selected as the 'preferred' bidder in the Canadian Surface Combatant programme and that the Canadian government would begin negotiations to award a contract for 15 ships worth CAD$60 billion with BAE and Lockheed Martin Canada, the primary contractors. The preferred bid beat out offers from Alion Science and Technology and their proposal based on the Dutch De Zeven Provinciën air defence and command frigate and Navantia/Saab/CEA Technologies with their proposal based on the Spanish Navy F-105 frigate.
On 21 November 2018 Alion Science and Technology asked the Federal Court for a judicial review of the decision, claiming the winning bid was "incapable of meeting three critical mandatory requirements" of the design tender, including the mandatory speed requirements set by the Royal Canadian Navy.
On 27 November 2018, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal ordered the Government to postpone the finalising of the deal to purchase the ships, while the complaint from Alion was investigated. On 11 December 2018, the CITT gave the government a green light to proceed with the Lockheed contract, but its inquiry into the compliance of the Type 26 with Canada's requirements continued. The Tribunal dismissed the case entirely in February 2019.
The Canadian Surface Combatant design contract was signed on 7 February 2019 by the Liberal government. The design contract with Irving and the Lockheed Martin-BAE consortium was negotiated in near record time, taking only three months.
On 28 June 2024, the construction of production test modules for the first three ships began, with the new ships designated as the River class; the names of the first three ships were also announced as HMCS Fraser, HMCS Saint-Laurent and HMCS Mackenzie. The ships were designated as Destroyer as defined in NATO STANAG 1166, a NATO-level ship designator system. Full rate production was expected to begin in 2025 with the first ship planned for service entry in the early 2030s.