Future Surface Combatant
The Future Surface Combatant Program (FSC) is a project by the British Navy to develop a new generation of guided missile frigates . They were originally from 2013, the frigates Broadsword - and the Duke class to replace. The program was canceled in its original form in March 2005 and realigned, which will delay entry into service by several years.
history
Triton
The program was launched in 1994 under the name Future Escort Vessel . A total of 20 new frigates for anti-submarine combat (ASW) should be developed. As part of the Strategic Defense Review , it was renamed Future Surface Combatant in 1998 . At the same time, it was decided to significantly expand the range of tasks of the frigates, as the defense against submarines has increasingly lost importance since the end of the Cold War .
The core of the project was the Trimaran Triton , which was put into service in August 2000. The aim was to test whether the construction of a trimaran was suitable for use as a warship. The highlight of the series of tests on board the ship was the first landing of a helicopter on a trimaran in September 2001. The development of a trimaran frigate was described as the most important development in military shipbuilding in 100 years. Alternatively, however, a concept was also pursued which envisaged the development of a frigate based on the destroyers of the Daring class . The main advantage of this design was significantly lower development and construction costs.
The original plan was to make a final decision on the construction of the new frigates as early as 2002, but due to several delays the date was postponed to 2005. On March 7, 2005, the Ministry of Defense (MOD) confirmed that the project had been canceled in its previous form. The innovative trimaran concept will therefore not be pursued any further.
Global Corvette
After the abandonment of the original concept, a concept of a consortium of British shipyards under the leadership of BAE SYSTEMS and Vosper Thornycroft , which was referred to as the Global Corvette , was the focus . It planned to build up to 26 corvettes . The designs for these corvettes ranged from conventional monohull designs to trimaran concepts. The tonnage should be between 1,500 and 3,000 tons. The costs per ship should, depending on the size, be between 70 and 200 million US dollars and thus well below those of the originally planned trimaran.
Breakdown of the program
At the end of 2005, however, the Ministry of Defense announced that it was now planning to replace the previous frigates with two different classes of ship, which meant that the design for the Global Corvette was also dropped. The Broadsword class should be replaced from 2016 by the Medium-sized Vessel Derivative (MVD) , the Duke class from 2023 by the Versatile Surface Combatant (VSC) . This division was based on a study by the Royal Navy, according to which the Duke- class frigates with appropriate modernizations can still be used economically and effectively until the end of the 2020s, while the Broadsword-class frigates will be retired between 2015 and 2020 due to their age Need to become. The MVD should be based on an already existing design, that of the Daring class, while the VSC should be a completely new design.
Sustained Surface Combatant Capability (S2C2)
In October 2006, the Ministry of Defense moved away from designing two different classes of ship. The MVD and VSC programs were merged again under the name Sustained Surface Combatant Capability (S2C2) . In January 2007, the MOD announced that 18 frigates will now be developed on a common basis and put into service from 2018.
Ten of the planned frigates (project designation C1 ) were to be designed with heavy armament for submarine hunting and operations against enemy units at sea and on land, while eight of the ships (project designation C2 ) were intended primarily for patrol and escort tasks. Both classes should be based on a largely uniform design and differ mainly in terms of equipment. This standardization should accelerate development and save costs. The British systems house BAE Systems called its design a Global Combat Ship , a reference to BAE's export ambitions. The two projects finally culminated in the construction project for eight units of the larger "Type 26" or the city class and six smaller units of the "Type 31e" in the 2010s . BAE achieved its first export successes of the "Type 26" in Australia and Canada at the end of the 2010s.
In addition, another element was integrated into the program at the time. Another class of ship is to be developed under the project name C3 , which combines the properties of mine-hunting boats and corvettes and can thus be used in a variety of ways. Initially, it is planned to purchase at least eight units to replace the current 16 mine-hunting boats. In the long term, it is planned to procure at least six more units to replace the River class and the Echo class . The extent to which the C3 ships can be developed on a common basis with the two frigate classes is currently being evaluated.
Hunter class
The Australian Navy is planning very similar ships to the City-class under the name Hunter-Class .