Type 31 frigates
Howard Mustoe – The Telegraph April 9, 2023
Britain’s next-generation warships are being partly made in Poland, despite a promise by ministers that the project would drive a renaissance in UK shipbuilding.
Polish shipyards are constructing blocks of hull for the Type 31 frigate, it can be disclosed, with final assembly then carried out at a yard operated by the defence contractor Babcock in Rosyth, north of Edinburgh.
Babcock sources insisted that Poland was only responsible for a “very small” percentage of the work by value, with the aim of helping Warsaw prepare to build similar vessels itself.
However, the arrangement is likely to raise questions about the Government’s plans to put the Type 31 at the heart of a revitalised British shipbuilding industry.
When the competition to build the frigates was announced in 2017 as part of the country’s National Shipbuilding Strategy, the then-defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon described it as a “huge opportunity” for yards that would help to deliver a “renaissance”. He added: “We have to get back to making things.”
Admiral Lord West, a former First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, said: “It just seems extraordinary, because we want to get as much done in this country as you possibly can and we need to build our industry out.
“I think we need to build up our shipbuilding industry, and that was one of the things they declared in the shipbuilding strategy.
“That needs lots of orders and lots of building work, and it’s no good getting the building work done elsewhere.”
It is not clear how much welding and construction work has been farmed out to Poland, a Nato member. Much of the value of a warship is in its weapons systems, radar and other sensors, propulsion, and control equipment, meaning the volume of work could still be significant even if the value is not.
Babcock won the contract to build the five Type 31 frigates for the Royal Navy in 2019, with a basic production cost of £250m apiece. The ships were heralded as much cheaper and more multipurpose craft than Britain’s other new frigates, the Type 26s, which will hunt submarines and each cost £840m.
The disclosure about Poland’s involvement follows a winning bid last year led by Spanish shipbuilder Navantia to build support ships for the Royal Navy’s aircraft carrier. Much of that work is going to Spain, prompting concerns over whether Britain’s yards are losing out.
The Government insists that at least half the work for the £1.5bn support ship deal will be done in the UK.
Last year, Babcock beat Germany’s Thyssenkrupp to win a £1.4bn contract to build three frigates for the Polish Navy named Miecznik, which means Swordfish.
The ships will be built in Poland’s yards with Babcock’s design. They will feature combat equipment from Thales and anti-aircraft firepower from missile maker MBDA, which is part-owned by Britain’s BAE Systems.
PGZ, the Polish defence company overseeing the project, said at the time that the purchase would significantly increase the capabilities of the Polish Navy.
In evidence to Parliament’s Defence Committee in January, Vice Admiral Paul Marshall, who is overseeing the Type 31 purchase for the Government, insisted construction was on track and there were no “ongoing issues”.
He added: “As with any complex shipbuilding programme, we have yet to navigate some of the tricky elements.”
Naval shipbuilding policy has been through a number of changes in recent years, with the National Shipbuilding Strategy authored by industrialist Sir John Parker suggesting work be given to a wider number of UK yards in order to break the dominance of BAE Systems.
He called for a “regular drumbeat” of work to keep yards operating.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “The assembly and integration of all Type 31 warships will take place at Rosyth and it is normal practice to source components of warships from the global supply chain.
“We understand that Babcock has contracted PGZ Poland to construct blocks for HMS Active, the second Type 31.
“This represents less than 1pc of the total value of programme build and is part of Babcock’s aim to maximise knowledge exchange to benefit both the UK’s Type 31 and Poland’s Miecznik frigate builds.”
It’s amazing how there is always money available for war machines and equipment.
WW1: limitless money available to do the killing and the dying.
1920’s/1930’s Depression and mass unemployment.
WW2: Limitless money available again to do the killing and the dying.
1945 onwards: Depression/Boom-Bust/Inflation/Mass unemployment.
How is it that the goyim never spot the pattern?
RETROGADE ADVANCEMENTS- Once I told my English friend that I intended to buy a Dodge Intrepid and asked for his opinion. He told me to ‘buy Japanese’. I asked him why and he said ‘because they know how to make cars’. I was baffled (not in the Covid sense) because I thought cars were invented in the West. Leyland, Bedford, BSA, Triumph, McLaren all gone down the drain. As far back as the 80’s the UK was inviting the Japanese to teach them how to make cars.
British Tories turning to Poland is no surprise. For all their talk about beware of communism they turned to communism to buy Polish coal to break the 1983-84 Miners Strike to finish off working class solidarity which enabled neoliberalism to take the p!ss with ordinary people for the next forty years. This was after western business had turned to Chinese communism to make goods for western markets at Chinese costs and wages, while forcing down living standards for some of us to appalling levels.
So the next time the bosses warn us about communism they need reminding they embraced communism before anyone else in the west could so they could fully exploit its profit-making potential. The bosses can probably quote more from Mao’s Little Red Book than any militant worker ever could.
Everything we build in the UK turns to shit. Our Aircraft carriers spend more time in dry dock than on the open sea, we barely have one ship operating as it is. Our ship building capabilities and design is a joke, no surprise we are contracting stuff out to be built. However I think maybe the costs are a lot lower in Poland to build things than the UK, since most stuff built here is waaaaaay over budget and doesn’t work properly.
NO comment required… 🙄
Polish builders…
Presumably if they haven’t already sunk they will be on launch…what with kaliningrad in spitting distance…
Which doesn’t really matter much anyhow because tugs like this are only useful for coastal patrol…
and would probably only find service making sure that ‘Pirate Rocks’ desperate inmates dont’t try to escape terminal boredom and their transhuman destiny in a purloined speed boat..
and of course to escort the third world criminals lined up 400 hundred deep on Froggy beaches making their way over on rubber rings and old beach balls..
for a crack at your sister.. and her teenage daughter… and a night at the Ritz..
No surprise, the British Establishment sold their sons and daughters into world jewery so why not jobs. Its immaterial whether ships are built here or Poland the builders will be Polish steel workers. My dad served seven years as an apprentice in a shipyard those days are long gone. The British Establishment only care about money it’s why they became such good bedfellows with world jewery. The imbeciles like Ellwood didn’t realize their leaderene Thatcher presided over the destruction of our manufacturing base. Oh dear those evil Ruskies down at the gas station are showing how it’s done.
NO MORE SHIP BUILDING ON THE CLYDE .
britain has no any respect for its workers . or
are there workers still anywhere or only welfare
collectors ? germany same : less+less skillet +
black parasit neighbour !
What is “Britain”? A dust-bin for the worst hominids of all the world