If you don’t follow RN news, their building program at the moment consists of a high end anti-submarine frigate (the Type 26’s) and a low end general purpose frigate, the Type 31. Up until now the armament for that frigate has been…somewhat anaemic – fitted with a 57mm gun, 2 40mm guns and otherwise a vague number of [CAMM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAMM_(missile_family)) SAMs that would have provided a level of self defence against air attack. The number of SAMs the ship was planned to carry was to my knowledge never confirmed but could have been as low as 12 or 24. The ship would have had no anti-ship or land strike capability.
Now that it’s confirmed to be getting 32 Mk41 VLS cells the ship’s firepower is greatly enhanced. CAMM can be quad-packed into a single cell, meaning 8 of the cells could be filled with 32 missiles to give better than planned defensive capability whilst still leaving 24 cells for anti-ship and land attack missiles – equivalent offensive firepower to the higher end Type 26.
The fleet’s come under some fairly reasonable criticism lately for a lack of offensive firepower, despite impressive defensive capabilities. It looks like they’re going all-in on reversing that trend – in addition to this news they recently confirmed they’d be fitting 8x [Naval Strike Missile each to 11 ships](https://www.navylookout.com/royal-navy-to-buy-the-naval-strike-missile/), which will mean the six Type 45 air defence destroyers will be able to carry an offensive punch too. The remaining 5 sets will be fitted to the approaching-end-of-life Type 23’s which will be replaced by Type 26/Type 31. It will be interesting to see what happens to those sets after the 23’s are retired; they may be doubled up onto the T45’s, or perhaps retained and fitted to Type 32 when it is built.
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If you don’t follow RN news, their building program at the moment consists of a high end anti-submarine frigate (the Type 26’s) and a low end general purpose frigate, the Type 31. Up until now the armament for that frigate has been…somewhat anaemic – fitted with a 57mm gun, 2 40mm guns and otherwise a vague number of [CAMM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAMM_(missile_family)) SAMs that would have provided a level of self defence against air attack. The number of SAMs the ship was planned to carry was to my knowledge never confirmed but could have been as low as 12 or 24. The ship would have had no anti-ship or land strike capability.
Now that it’s confirmed to be getting 32 Mk41 VLS cells the ship’s firepower is greatly enhanced. CAMM can be quad-packed into a single cell, meaning 8 of the cells could be filled with 32 missiles to give better than planned defensive capability whilst still leaving 24 cells for anti-ship and land attack missiles – equivalent offensive firepower to the higher end Type 26.
The fleet’s come under some fairly reasonable criticism lately for a lack of offensive firepower, despite impressive defensive capabilities. It looks like they’re going all-in on reversing that trend – in addition to this news they recently confirmed they’d be fitting 8x [Naval Strike Missile each to 11 ships](https://www.navylookout.com/royal-navy-to-buy-the-naval-strike-missile/), which will mean the six Type 45 air defence destroyers will be able to carry an offensive punch too. The remaining 5 sets will be fitted to the approaching-end-of-life Type 23’s which will be replaced by Type 26/Type 31. It will be interesting to see what happens to those sets after the 23’s are retired; they may be doubled up onto the T45’s, or perhaps retained and fitted to Type 32 when it is built.