UK Navy to buy six vessels, enter new ‘golden age’ of shipbuilding

BERLIN — The British Royal Navy plans to buy up to six new multirole support ships and give its future frigates the ability to attack land-based targets, the defense secretary announced Tuesday.

The offensive capability comes as the military learns lessons from recent operations in the Red and Black seas, Grant Shapps noted, with the former involving a fight against Yemen-based Houthi militants and the latter related to the nearby war in Ukraine. Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.

In full, the service is seeking 28 new ships to turn the tide on a shrinking fleet, Shapps said at the Sea Power conference in London. The 2017 National Shipbuilding Strategy first formalized the goal, which the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson refreshed in 2022.

Under the strategy, the U.K. seeks to become “the world’s most competitive maritime nation by 2050,” Sarah Kenny, then-chair of the industry association Maritime UK, said at the time.

The push to build new ships also comes a month after the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced a £75 billion (U.S. $94 billion) increase in defense spending over the next six years, raising British military expenditures to 2.5% of gross domestic product amid an economy just beginning to recover from a recession and struggling with stubbornly elevated inflation rates.

Shipyards across the U.K. are sure to be abuzz in the years to come, as Shapps pledged to have the new entrances to the Royal Navy constructed domestically during a new “golden age” for British shipbuilding. Type 26 and 31 frigates will be built in Scotland; Astute and Dreadnought submarines assembled in Barrow-in-Furness in northwestern England; and fleet solid support ships produced in Belfast and Devon, the service stated in a news release Tuesday.

The six multirole support ships for the Royal Marines are to be versatile platforms that can carry aircraft, vehicles, insertion craft and unmanned systems. They are also expected to serve as mobile infirmaries to treat battlefield casualties. They are set to replace all of the Royal Navy’s current amphibious support ships in the early 2030s.

Meanwhile, the newly built Type 26 and 31 frigates will feature land-attack capabilities, Shapps said, following a recent trend among European blue-water navies. The Netherlands previously announced it will equip four of its frigates with Tomahawk missiles between 2025 and 2029, and France recently conducted a synchronized test-firing of naval cruise missiles from a ship and a submarine about 250 miles apart.

“Our operations in the Red Sea have proven that to meet the rising threats to freedom of navigation we must be able to destroy targets at sea, in the air and on land,” Shapps wrote on X shortly after announcing the addition of the weapons systems.

To support the upcoming “golden age” of British shipbuilding, there would need to be a “very big expansion” in domestic capacity, Shapps said.

As part of this, the Royal Navy is negotiating with BAE Systems to sell to the company the HMS Argyll, a Type 23 Duke-class frigate that has already served for twice as long as initially intended, to the company. The aim, Shapps said, is to establish a shipbuilding academy in Scotland where attendees can use the vessel for training.

Defense readiness has received new urgency from the British government in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There, British weapons have contributed to significant battlefield victories for Kyiv, including reportedly sinking Russian ships in the Black Sea.

Linus Höller is Defense News' Europe correspondent and OSINT investigator. He reports on the arms deals, sanctions, and geopolitics shaping Europe and the world. He holds master’s degrees in WMD nonproliferation, terrorism studies, and international relations, and works in four languages: English, German, Russian, and Spanish.

柏林——英国国防大臣周二宣布，英国皇家海军计划购买多达六艘新的多用途支援舰，并使其未来的护卫舰具备攻击陆基目标的能力。

格兰特·沙普斯指出，这种进攻能力的提升源于美军从近期在红海和黑海的军事行动中吸取的教训。红海行动涉及打击也门胡塞武装，而黑海行动则与邻近的乌克兰战争有关。俄罗斯于2022年2月对邻国乌克兰发动了全面入侵。

沙普斯在伦敦举行的海权会议上表示，海军总共计划建造28艘新舰艇，以扭转舰队规模不断缩减的局面。2017年《国家造船战略》首次正式确立了这一目标，首相鲍里斯·约翰逊领导的政府在2022年对其进行了更新。

英国海事行业协会（Maritime UK）时任主席莎拉·肯尼当时表示，根据这项战略，英国力求在 2050 年前成为“世界上最具竞争力的海事国家”。

推动建造新舰艇的举措也发生在现任首相里希·苏纳克宣布未来六年国防开支增加 750 亿英镑（940 亿美元）一个月之后，此举将使英国军费开支占国内生产总值的 2.5%，而此时英国经济刚刚开始从衰退中复苏，并且正努力应对居高不下的通货膨胀率。

未来几年，英国各地的造船厂必将热闹非凡，因为沙普斯承诺，在英国造船业迎来新的“黄金时代”之际，皇家海军的新舰艇将在国内建造。皇家海军周二发布的新闻稿称，26型和31型护卫舰将在苏格兰建造；“机敏”级和“无畏”级潜艇将在英格兰西北部的巴罗因弗内斯组装；舰队支援舰艇将在贝尔法斯特和德文郡建造。

为皇家海军陆战队建造的六艘多用途支援舰将是多功能平台，可搭载飞机、车辆、登陆艇和无人系统。它们还将作为移动医务室，用于救治战场伤员。这些舰艇计划在2030年代初取代皇家海军目前所有的两栖支援舰。

与此同时，沙普斯表示，新建的26型和31型护卫舰将具备对陆攻击能力，这符合欧洲远洋海军近期的发展趋势。荷兰此前宣布将在2025年至2029年间为其四艘护卫舰配备战斧巡航导弹，而法国近期也进行了舰艇和潜艇在相距约250英里（约400公里）处同步试射海军巡航导弹的试验。

“我们在红海的行动已经证明，为了应对日益增长的航行自由威胁，我们必须能够摧毁海上、空中和陆地上的目标，”沙普斯在宣布增添这些武器系统后不久在X上写道。

沙普斯表示，为了支持即将到来的英国造船业“黄金时代”，国内产能需要“大幅扩张”。

作为该计划的一部分，英国皇家海军正与英国航空航天系统公司（BAE Systems）谈判，拟将“阿盖尔”号（HMS Argyll）——一艘23型“公爵”级护卫舰——出售给该公司。该舰服役时间已是最初设计服役时间的两倍。沙普斯表示，此举旨在苏格兰建立一所造船学院，供学员使用该舰进行培训。

在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰之后，英国政府更加重视国防准备。据报道，英国武器在乌克兰战场上为基辅取得了重大胜利，包括在黑海击沉俄罗斯舰船。

林努斯·霍勒是《防务新闻》的欧洲记者和开源情报调查员。他报道影响欧洲乃至全球的军火交易、制裁和地缘政治。他拥有大规模杀伤性武器不扩散、恐怖主义研究和国际关系三个硕士学位，并精通英语、德语、俄语和西班牙语四种语言。