<p >The British Royal Navy on May 22 named the first of its new Type 26 Class frigates, HMS Glasgow, which is currently being fitted out and will be the first of eight such vessels to enter service. The frigate was laid down in June 2017, and launched one and a half years later in December 2022, with four more ships of the class having begun construction.&nbsp;The Type 26 is the first major program to develop a British surface combatant initiated in over 20 years, and will provide a much needed replacement to the increasingly <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/severe-shortage-british-navy-frigates" target="_blank">obsolete Type 23 Class</a> ships, and likely a more reliable counterpart to the troubled Type 45 Class destroyers. The significant shortcomings of the Type 45, including a very small arsenal of just 48 vertical launch cells, particularly <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/type45-withdrawn-yemen-technical" target="_blank">poor reliability</a> and <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/83-percent-type-45-destroyers-non-operational" target="_blank">availability rates</a>, and a lack of versatility due to the limitations on the kinds of armaments it can carry, has left a heavy burden on the Type 026 Class. The ships each displace 7,700 tons, and benefit from new levels of automation allowing them to operate with crews of just 157 personnel.&nbsp;The program is particularly important for the British Royal Navy due not only to the considerable limitations of the Type 45, but also due to the significant possibility that the Type 45 fleet could by the mid-2040s have been phased out of service <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/britain-s-royal-navy-may-never-field-destroyers-again-after-2038-why-the-type-45-could-be-the-country-s-last" target="_blank">without replacement</a>, leaving frigates as the heaviest class of surface combatants operated by the Untied Kingdom.&nbsp;</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/25/article_68328dce6fd5f1_11636087.jpg" title="British Royal Navy Type 45 Class Destroyer"></p><p >Type 26 frigates are significantly more versatile than the Type 45, as while the older destroyers’ 48 vertical launch cells can carry only surface-to-air missiles, and even with these <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/british-type-45-destroyers-cant-do-ballistic-missile-defence-small-arsenals-have-limited-versatility" target="_blank">lack an anti-ballistic missile capability</a>, the Type 26 integrates 24 cells for Tomahawk cruise missiles and 12 cells for surface-to-air missiles. The lack of multipurpose launch cells, however, leaves the Type 26 considerably behind the cutting edge, with American AEGIS destroyers, and the destroyers built by China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, all able to accommodate land attack cruise missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles, and a variety of surface-to-air missiles. A further major limitation of the Type 26 is that it carries only a single class of surface-to-air missile, the Sea Ceptor, which is a particularly small and short ranged design, leaving the ships vulnerable if not protected by other vessels to provide additional layers of air defence. The small size of the Sea Ceptor, however, allows them to be quad packed into the ship’s 12 vertical launch cells, allowing for carriage of up to 48 missiles. This mirrors the Chinese approach of integrating quad packed DK-10A short range surface-to-air missiles onto its modern destroyers, although these are integrated alongside HHQ-9, HHQ-10, and HHQ-26 missiles to provide a truly multi-layered air defence capability.&nbsp;</p><p ><img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/25/article_68328f3cc1f688_96363430.png" title="Launches of HHQ-9 Long Range Surface-to-Air Missile (left) and YJ-18 Anti-Ship Cruise Missile From Chinese Type 055 Class`s Multirole Vertical Launch System"></p><p >Many of the factors which have long hindered European surface combatants continue to affect the Type 26, in particular its limited versatility and low firepower for a ship of its size. At 7,700 tons, the frigates’ armaments are considered very light at just 36 vertical launch cells. To place this in perspective, North Korea’s <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/nkorea-frigate-54pct-firepower-destroyer-choi-hyon" >newly launched</a> Choi Hyon Class destroyers, displacing just 5,000 tons, integrate 74 vertical launch cells, including 20 much larger cells for ballistic missiles, while carrying a much <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/nkorea-testfires-full-spectrum-weaponry-destroyer" >more diverse array</a> of armaments. This amounts to more than three times the number of cells per ton of displacement, despite the Korean ships carrying heavier cells. Although the Choi Hyon Class is an extreme case of a ship with a particularly heavy armaments suite, the Type 26 sits at the opposite end of the spectrum. U.S. Navy <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/usnavy-replenish-destroyer-missile-stocks" target="_blank">Arleigh Burke Class destroyers</a> displacing 9,700 tons, or just 26 percent larger than the Type 26, integrate 96 vertical launch cells, or 267 percent as many as the British vessels. Like their Chinese and Korean counterparts, the American ships benefit from integration of much more diverse arsenals, including integration of multiple classes of surface-to-air missiles for a truly multi-layered and much more formidable air defence capability. Compared to other modern surface combatants, the Royal Navy’s Type 26 Class thus remains highly limited in its capabilities.&nbsp;</p>
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