Originally Posted by
rattman
BAE released renders of the Type 83 concept. Interesting thing is that they they CEFAR radar masts and not the SAMPSON. Wonder if the a CEFAR is AUKUS agreement Renders also have 128 VLS tubes
To me looks like a panic proposal from BAE to compliment / replace the a hunter class disaster in the making. Naventia proposed another 3 hobart AAW destroyers and 6 alpha 3000 corvettes for the less than 8 hunters in price. 10 billion if navantia builds them in spain. While hunter budget has blown out to an expected 45 billion and still going for 8 ships. (also note for people who dont know its a not a fair apple to apple budget comparision as hunter class is using whole life accounting while the a navantia is using only initial purchase and not including life costing )
So the CEFAR radar is either a AUKUS program and actually aimed at the UK or a desperate attempt to keep the type 26 hunter class program alive
Much more likely to be AUKUS-related than an attempted response to any potential canning of Hunter class. That T83 image is a very, very early concept, whereas one of the criticisms of T26 was that, at the time the order for Hunters was placed, it wasn't a mature or proven design. So the chances of such an early concept seeing off a bid from, say, Navantia to replace a (hypothetically) binned Hunter class must be remote to the point of being non-existent. In fact UK interest in CEFAR predates AUKUS - back in 2018, UK MoD announced a feasibility study to look at the possibility of CEFAR being fitted to future UK warships, in the context of enhancing UK/Australian defence co-operation..