Plans Clarified For Britain’s Type 83 Next Generation Destroyer: Can It Improve on the Problematic Type 45?

British Defence Minister Luke Pollard has provided new details on plans to commission a new generation of destroyers, the Type 83 Class, into service, as questions have increasingly been raised regarding the future of the country’s small destroyer fleet. The minister highlighted that the Type 83 will be a “minimally (or optionally) crewed” vessel, and is “planned to enter service from the mid-2030s” with an assumed 25 year service life. The ships will form the centre of the Royal Navy’s Future Air Dominance System alongside the uncrewed Type 91 ‘Missile Ship.’ He added that the Future Air Dominance System is currently still in its concept stage, with prevailing uncertainty regarding whether the Type 83 will have an uncrewed operating mode indicating that development is still in its relatively early stages. The British defence sector’s ability to bring a new generation of destroyers into service within the next decade remains in serious question, particularly in light of the trend towards very serious delays and performance issues that have consistently plagued the country’s major weapons programs since the end of the Cold War.

Although it was previously uncertain whether the Type 45 destroyer currently in service would have a successor, or whether the Royal Navy would transition to a surface combat fleet formed exclusively of lighter frigates and corvettes, a surge in defence spending from 2022, an the escalation of tensions with Russia, have strengthened support for increasing funding for the Navy. The Type 83 is excited to displace up to 10,000 tons, and carry a much expanded arsenal of between 70-128 vertical launch cells, compared to just 48 cells on the Type 45 Class ships. To place this arsenal in perspective, U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke Class destroyers integrate 96 vertical launch cells, while Chinese Type 055 Class destroyers integrate 112. The Type 45’s carriage of missiles relative to its weight is the poorest of any modern destroyer class in the world.

The Type 83 will reportedly continue to be heavily focused on air defence duties, and lack the versatility of AEGIS destroyers fielded by the United States, Japan and South Korea, or by Chinese, Russian and North Korean ships which use similar multi-role vertical launch systems. The warship class will instead continue to rely on the European Mk.41 system and the Aster-30 surface-to-air missile, which is significantly less costly than its American counterparts the SM-3 and SM-6. It is expected that the ships will be able to contribute to ballistic missile defence efforts, which is something the Type 45 Class cannot do. The new warships will also integrate the Sea Ceptor and CAMM-ER missiles for short and medium range air defence. An inability to carry ballistic or cruise missiles will leave the ships highly restricted in land-attack or anti-shipping roles. The new destroyer class is reportedly being designed to be able to integrate directed energy weapons, which is expected to significantly influence the design of its power generation and management systems.

The affordability of the next generation destroyer program remains in serious question, with the older Type 45 costing over $1 billion per ship due to considerable cost overruns, making it far more costly than rival American and Chinese vessels despite its much more limited capabilities. Other than the $9 billion American Zumwalt Class stealth destroyers, of which only three were built, trends in the British defence sector and the high requirements for the new warship raise a significant possibility that the Type 83 will be the most costly destroyer class ever commissioned when it enters service. Significant questions also remain regarding Britain’s ability to produce a large warship with high reliability, with the availability rates of the Type 45 having been notoriously poor as the ships have been prone to frequent breakdowns particularly when operating in warm waters. The more recently built Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers have also suffered from serious performance issues including multiple instances of breakdowns and flooding.