Feature 1 | UK ROYAL NAVY
If the programme proceeds on scheduled it is hoped to launch the first Type 26 in 2016.
FSC and has now been awarded a £127 million four-year contract to develop the FSC C1 programme, which will now be known as the Type 26 class which is currently envisaged as a class of 10 ships, although this might be cut to six. If the programme proceeds on
schedule it is hoped to launch the first Type 26 in 2016 with one ship a year being commissioned from about 2020. Tere is currently no schedule for FSC C2, although this is envisaged as a class of 6-8 general-purpose designs with the emphasis upon a multi-role patrol capability with the first possible being launched by 2020. FSC C3 has been replaced by the Future
Mine Countermeasures/Hydrographic/ Patrol Vessel (FMHPV) which envisages up to eight ships with a common hull of 2000-3000tonnes displacement. Te exact number which will be used for each of the three roles is unclear but probably two will be used for hydrographic work and the remaining six mine countermeasures and patrol ships may all be capable of mine warfare operations. No time scale has been revealed for
this phase but Australian and New Zealand interest in the programme could see it implemented in the latter part of this decade – the FSC programme has a strong emphasis on exports in an attempt to reduce the burden on the tax payer. There is also one other programme
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that needs to be borne in mind, and in many respects this is the most important. The government is planning to spend £20 billion on a new strategic missile force based in submarines, the Successor programme. Detailed concept work began in 2007 and it is envisaged that a contract for a detailed design would be awarded between 2012 and 2014 with the first ship being launched about a decade later. Politicians are notoriously short sighted and are human enough to take
the line of least resistance. Te £20 billion price-tag has been the proverbial red rag to the bull for those wishing to eliminate the strategic deterrent, even assuming they do not have strong ethical reasons for seeking this goal. In fact, part of the cost of the
Successor programme will be shared with Washington, indeed the missile compartment for the Successor is being designed by General Dynamics Electric Boat as a common unit with its American equivalent of SSBN-X.
Straightened finances mean that there is a strong feeling that the cynics’ name for the seventh ship, HMS Abandoned, will prove prophetic.
Warship Technology July/August 2010
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