British Type 45 and Russian Udaloy Destroyers Face Off in the North Sea

The British Royal Navy Type 45 class destroyer HMS Duncan has conducted a forty-eight-hour shadowing mission of the Russian Udaloy class destroyer Vice Admiral Kulakov between the North Sea and the English Channel. The incident occurred at a time of particularly high tensions between Russia and the Western Bloc, and represented the first time a Royal Navy surface combatant operating under NATO control in UK national waters during a third party passage. Transiting of the English Channel has posed dangers to Russian ships in the past, with the country’s oil tankers having been boarded and seized by NATO members in the past. During the latest encounter, HMS Duncan reportedly maintained a clean air picture, and served as a communications and data node for the Recognised Maritime Picture. Although carrying particular large sensor suites, Type 45 class ships lack any kind of anti-ship armaments, and carry very small arsenals of just 48 launch cells for Aster 15 and Aster 30 surface-to-air missiles.

Neither type of destroyer benefits from high versatility, with the British ship being heavily specialised towards air defence duties, while the Udaloy class is a Soviet era design specialised in anti-submarine warfare roles. The Udaloy class benefits from carriage of a larger arsenal, however, including 64 vertical launch cells for surface-to-air missiles, eight anti-submarine missiles, and 20 anti-submarine rocket launchers. It is nevertheless the most lightly armed destroyer class in the Russian fleet, with even newer frigates such as the Gorshkov class being much more heavily armed. The encounter between the two ships highlights the increasingly limited capabilities which both Russian and European surface combatants have suffered from, particularly compared to the much more heavily armed and versatile AEGIS-type destroyers deployed by the United States, China, Japan and the Koreas.