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The suicide bomber who killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester last year had been rescued from the Libyan civil war by the Royal Navy. [snip] It has now emerged that in 2014 Abedi, his brother Hashem and around 100 other British citizens were evacuated from Tripoli by HMS Enterprise as the security situation in Libya deteriorated. They were taken to Malta before returning to the UK. A government spokesman said: "During the deteriorating security situation in Libya in 2014, Border Force officials were deployed to assist with the evacuation of British nationals and their dependants." It...

Arrowhead frigate design for Royal Navy Type 31E competition. Babcock Photo LONDON — Plans to build five Type 31e frigates for the Royal Navy have been thrown into disarray after Britain’s defense chiefs decided to pause the procurement competition. At least three industry teams are vying to build the new maritime security-focused platforms, the first of which was supposed to enter service when the late 1980s-era Type 23 frigates start to leave the fleet in 2023. With a fast-track acquisition contest heating up this summer, the Ministry of Defence has now abruptly halted the $1.64 billion effort due to what...

Top: Artist’s concept of Royal Australian Navy Hunter-class guided-missile frigate. Bottom: (left to right) U.K. Royal Navy Arrowhead Type 31e design, Austal USA FFG(X) design and Lockheed Martin FFG(X) design CAPITOL HILL – The U.S. Navy is in talks with Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom in the hopes that all four navies will design and field frigates with common combat systems – or at least interoperable ones – the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for ships told USNI News. Jay Stefany said the four navies have quadrilateral talks every six months, and a recent focus of those talks...

Britain’s F-35B stealth fighters are set to achieve initial operating capability at the end of this year. But that is only from land bases, with nine aircraft. It will be another two years before No. 617 Squadron can fly operationally from the first of the country’s two new QEII-class aircraft carriers. HMS Queen Elizabeth is due to set sail from Portsmouth naval base in the fall for the eastern seaboard of the U.S. There, two American F-35Bs flown by British test pilots will embark for the first time. They will do at-sea takeoffs from the carrier’s ski-jump for the first...

Britain's six Type 45 destroyers, described as the backbone of the Royal Navy, spent 80 per cent of last year in dock. The ships, costing £1billion each, need a multi-million pound refit after repeatedly breaking down in the Persian Gulf. But the work is not due to start until 2020. Two of the cutting-edge warships, HMS Dauntless and HMS Defender, did not go to sea at all during 2017 – which had been hailed by officials and ministers as 'the year of the Navy'. All six warships, which entered service from 2008, were made with an engine system which cuts...

HMS Queen Elizabeth has arrived back in Portsmouth following successful First of Class rotary wing trials in the Atlantic. Royal Navy Photo LONDON – Earlier this month, Britain’s national security adviser declared that the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers would be unlikely to ever deploy on high-end combat missions without support from friendly forces. The two new flattops would “inevitably be used in a context of allied operations of some kind, if used in a contested environment”, Mark Sedwill told the House of Commons’ Defence Committee on May 1. The London press suggested that the U.K. government would be...

Back in November 2010, then-Lt Cdr James Blackmore became the last pilot of a BAE Systems Harrier to launch from the flightdeck of the Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, bringing to an end three decades of shipborne short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) operations from the service's three Invincible-class carriers. In a circuitous arc, now Cdr Blackmore will in five months oversee the re-birth of fixed-wing aviation in the RN, as HMS Queen Elizabeth – the first of its two new 65,000t aircraft carriers – begins first of class flying trials (FOCFT) with STOVL aircraft of an altogether...

Britain's 'depressing' array of ageing ships and fighter jets unable to fire cruise missiles meant that France took the lead in striking Syria, it was revealed today. The UK fired eight Storm Shadow missiles out of 105 used to punish Bashar al-Assad for his chemical attack in Douma last Saturday - fewer than the French and the Americans. The Royal Navy's Type 45 Destroyer HMS Duncan played second fiddle to the French ship The Languedoc who fired missiles at Syrian targets while the British type-23 frigate was moved away. The £1billion ship has a space on the deck where a...

Andrew Matthews—PA Wire/PA Images There are an endless number of opinions regarding the relevancy, operational feasibility, and overall opportunity cost of the UK's two new Queen Elizabeth class supercarriers, and the ship's capabilities are always part of this debate as well. But one thing seems glaringly clear—these massive vessels are woefully lacking when it comes to their ability to defend themselves from an anti-ship missile barrage. These mighty ships displace 70,000 tons, will deploy with over 1,500 souls onboard, and will carry dozens of aircraft that collectively cost billions of dollars, yet they are only equipped with three Mk15 Phalanx...

It was more than 70 years ago, in the closing months of the war in Europe, that Princess Elizabeth launched her first warship at the age of 18. Then it was the mighty battleship Vanguard, the last of its kind to serve in the Royal Navy. And yesterday, aged 91, the Queen commissioned Britain’s biggest ever warship, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, into the Royal Navy. In a moving speech to the crew while stood in the hangar of the 65,000 ton aircraft carrier at Portsmouth naval base, she said it embodied the ‘best of British’. The Queen said: ‘The most...

Secret talks have been held about selling vital Royal Navy warships to save money in the Ministry of Defence, it was claimed yesterday. A number of Type 23 frigates plus two amphibious assault ships would be sold to Chile and Brazil under the plans. But last night sources within the department reacted with fury and dismissed the claims, denying there was any such plan to sell current ships to the South American nations. The Government is currently conducting a security and capability review, which is largely seen as a cuts exercise. Service chiefs have been told to find billions in...

The damage to HMS Sheffield after it was struck by an Exocet missile in May 1982. Photograph: PA/PA Archive/Press Association Ima The British public became fascinated by the Exocet missile after one sunk HMS Sheffield shortly after the outbreak of the Falklands war in 1982. Before long, the word Exocet was being used as a metaphor for anything that was suddenly and unstoppably destructive: a winning argument, for example, or a footballer’s shot on goal. Although Argentina possessed only five of the missiles, Margaret Thatcher’s war cabinet was also fascinated by them, because they knew a successful strike on...

This proud RAF pilot is hoping to be the first to fly an F-35 fighter jet off HMS Queen Elizabeth, Britain's brand new aircraft carrier. Squadron Leader Andy Edgell, one of Britain's top airmen, is currently testing our 11 new F-35s in the United States ahead of their sea trials on the warship next year. In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, the 37-year-old father of three said he is 'exhilarated by every flight' in the 1,200mph attack planes equipped with bombs and heat-seeking missiles. 'She's marvellous,' Edgell said of the F-35 from the air base in Maryland where the testing...

The Royal Navy could be stripped of its ability to attack enemy-held beaches under cost-cutting plans. The Senior Service could see its two amphibious assault ships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, taken out of service in a new round of cuts to the Armed Forces, the BBC's Newsnight claimed. It said such a move, which the Ministry of Defence described as "pure speculation", would save money and free up crew for the two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. It comes days after Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, used a speech at the Conservative...

BMT Defence bid for the Royal Navy Type 31E Frigate LONDON — The Royal Navy’s planned Type-31e light frigate will transform the dismal export record of U.K.-based shipbuilders, a senior government minister told attendees at the DSEI exhibition in London. U.K. defense secretary Sir Michael Fallon said that Britain’s shipyards have not built a frigate for another country since the 1970s. “We’re changing all that”, he declared in a keynote speech on Wednesday. “This frigate will rock the exports boat and it’s a model for the way we will approach shipbuilding in future.” The U.S. Navy is among potential overseas...

The launch this week of Britain’s national shipbuilding strategy, with an order of five vessels to be designed and built in English shipyards, sees the UK’s aspiration to compete in the global warship export market. The British government this week launched a national shipbuilding strategy with an order for five new vessels for the Royal Navy to be designed and built across English shipyards. The core design of these new ships is called the Type 31 export (T31e) frigate, although there are already questions as to whether the type is a frigate or a corvette. Either way, the proposed price...

The CAMM missile is seen on its first flight from HMS Argyll. The missile’s clean aerodynamic design provides it with improved performance in the air, while also making it highly compact for installation onboard ship. Photo: MBDA The Sea Ceptor weapon system recently completed its first successfully firings from HMS Argyll. The frigate is one of three Royal Navy Type 23 frigates being modified with the Sea Ceptor system, replacing the older Sea Wolf. The test is a major milestone for the life-extension program of Type 23 frigates. HMS Argyll is the first Type 23 to undergo the life-extension program....

Perseus, an earlier concept missile Royal Navy ships will lose anti-ship missile capability in 2018 when the Harpoon missile is withdrawn with a replacement not due until ‘around 2030’. We reported today, incorrectly, that the new frigates would more than likely have anti-ship weapons ordered to fill this gap before they enter service. We were mistaken and have since amended earlier articles to reflect what is written in this article. While the Royal Navy will still have an anti-ship capability via the submarine fleet and embarked helicopters, this will still be a significant capability gap and even then, no Royal...

In 2023, the Royal Navy hopes the first of its new Type 31 frigates will hit the waves to replace HMS Argyll, the first of 13 Type 23 frigates scheduled to begin retiring that year, with another to retire every year until 2035. The new vessels will add desperately needed modern warships to the United Kingdom’s depleted fleet. However, that’s the hope. It’s not realistic, according to program officials cited in a report from Defense News. The compressed timetable will likely delay the Type 31, and worse — tight budgets are forcing compromises with the vessel’s weapons and capabilities. The...

ngineers working with the Royal Navy have let their imaginations run wild designing what submarines of the future could look like and have come up with stunning concepts which mimic nature. Vessels shaped like manta rays, eel-like drones and swarms of fish-shaped torpedoes are just some of the ideas proposed for revolutionising underwater warfare. Eel-like drones could be deployed from the submarines “With more than 70pc of the planet's surface covered by water, the oceans remain one of the world's great mysteries and untapped resources,” said Commander Peter Pipkin, the Royal Navy's fleet robotics officer. "It's predicted that in 50...