Using Ship AIS, we watched Daring, the first of the British Navy’s new Type 45 Destroyers - the Daring class - doing periods of her sea trials in the Clyde waterway.
We saw the tight turns, the hair-pin curves, the accelerations, the speed trials from the end of the Mull of Kintyre to the mouth of Loch Ryan.
We reported on her every move, including her arrival at her home port and her acceptance into service.
We went to the launch of her sister, Dragon, the fourth in the class of six (each costing £1 billion +), now fitting out in the Clyde.
It’s hard not to feel we have a relationship. Ships are like that.
Tonight (31st May 2010 at 7.30pm) Channel 4 television aired a documentary it has been making on Daring, from the end of March 2003 when the first steel was cut, to her working up exercises: Building Britain’s Ultimate Warship.
The design philosophy was fascinating, the engineering was breathtaking. (We’ve forgotten how awe-inspiring real manufacturing is.) The pride in the ship from the Scotstoun’s BVT shipyard workers and the navy crew was patent – and the images were stunning.
Some of these images were bizarre, surreal even – like the radar tower, 36 metres-odd high of it, making its way north to Scotstoun by barge, through heavy seas; like pre-fabricated 700 tonne bow section of this ship being moved almost immeasurably on a massive wheeled platform and slotted into the next section like an Ikea flatpack.
Learning about the technical and fighting capability of this ship with its 14 massive warhead silos, the extent to which it lives up to the Navy’s assessment of it as a step change in warship design akin to the move from sail to steam – this was compelling television.
There were innovative sector cross-overs, like taking from F1 motor racing the carbon fibre housing for the Samson Radar, immune to icing up in any conditions.
We saw Daring refuelling at sea, a process seemingly not much evolved from the days of the Bismarck – which never got time to meet up with her own oiler. This period must see ships more vulnerable than they used to be during this operation, given satellite surveillance, highly developed long range missiles and other tools unknown in the glory days of the surface raider.
Fellow ship-freaks who missed the show are advised strongly to take to Channel 4′s 4 On Demand ( 4OD) player in the next few days.
An enjoyable, but almost fictional film about HMS Daring, a type 45 destroyer has never fired a missile. However the truth is different, hugely expensive, grossly under armed and equipped with a missile system that may never be fully operational.
The Type 45 programme has been a disaster for the Royal Navy and the UK taxpayer. At the end of the documentry I felt hugely disappointed at the lack of truth, it was more of a recruitment film for the RN than anything else
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For Mike: Daring was certainly over budget and we have published an article on deficiencies in Dauntless – http://forargyll.com/2009/12/40-of-hms-dauntless-doesnt-work/
What’s the story on the under-arming and the missile system – which, reading between your lines, sounds as if there are faults damaging its capability.
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Type 45 has no long range anti ship capability (Harpoon) no anti missile close in weapon system (Phalanx) no anti submarine capability other than a helicopter. Its current armament comprises of a 114mm gun designed in the sixties, 2 30mm cannon and machine guns.
The missile part of the Sea Viper system, Aster15 and 30, has never been test fired from a RN warship, Aster 30 has never been successfully fired at all! The missile launches shown in the TV programme were from a French warship and test barges and we paid £6bn for 6 of these? At the moment these ships could not be deployed in an operational environment and we have no timescale when they will be able too.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/DDG-Type-45-Britains-Shrinking-Air-Defense-Fleet-04941/
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For Mike: Thanks. Sharp intake of breath. Absolutely see why you said what you said on your first comment. No anti-submarine capability? How did they do that?
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Costs start to spiral out of control, commonsense goes out the window and we end up with equipment that is not combat ready. Classic peace time thinking. Isolated incident? Hardly. Too many incidents to list.
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