Originally Posted by
Asturias56
I see they will be based on the Danish "Iver Huitfeldt" class which were being offered to the Indonesians at around US$ 360 million a vessel.
Now IF the RN can just let them build it and not keep adding and tinkering with the spec you might, just might, get them for the £ 250 million target price
I think the Danes crew there's at around 100 men - so quite good for the manning issue.
Who, precisely (by which I mean builder) was offering them to the Indonesians? You are aware that the designer (OMT) no longer has a shipyard with which to build them? The price is affected both by the specifications - from memory Iver Huitfeldt was built to DNV rules, T31 will be built to Lloyds Rules for Naval Ships and the UK safety standards applied to ANEP77 - and the efficiency and cost base of the build yard..
Of course, Rosyth isn't a shipyard either. It has built precisely zero ships. It
has assembled two very large carriers from large blocks fabricated and outfitted elsewhere, simply because there was nowhere else to build them in a oner. Building T31 from little blocks nailed together in pseudo-shipyards (H&W haven't built a ship in nigh-on 20 years and Fergies haven't built any warships) is not going to be efficient. It will be interesting to see how well Babcocks control the programme and commercial risk here.