The hunter for Red October
HMS Glasgow praised as a ‘remarkable achievement’
SHIPBUILDERS behind the world’s leading antisubmarine frigate have been praised for their ‘remarkable achievement’ by the Defence Secretary.
The Type 26 frigate is now structurally complete and it has been slowly rolled from the BAE Systems shipyard in Govan, Glasgow, on to a barge for transport down river.
The 488.8ft warship will be taken to deeper water, where the barge will be submerged, allowing HMS Glasgow to float for the first time.
It is expected to enter service with the Royal Navy around the middle of the decade as its systems and weapons are still to be installed.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace visited the shipyard yesterday, where he saw the frigate roll on to the barge. He said: ‘I think it’s a remarkable achievement by the workforce here, who have built basically the world’s leading antisubmarine warfare ship.’
Mr Wallace said the first Type 26 ship was coming out of the shipyard late but not ‘catastrophically’ so, saying he is confident HMS Glasgow and the other frigates will enter service in time.
He continued: ‘The one thing (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is going to have left after his illegal invasion is a navy and an air force.
‘He uses his submarines, and they are good submarines, very well to intimidate. We’ve seen worries about critical national infrastructure, gas pipelines, internet cables.
‘We need ships that are going to hunt those submarines or deter them, and that’s the role the ships are going to take.’
Russian submarines will ‘stay away’ if they know a Type 26 frigate is in the water, he said.
HMS Glasgow currently has a displacement of 6,000 tonnes and will later have sonar, radar and weapons systems installed.
The second and third ships in the class, HMS Cardiff and HMS Belfast, are still under construction at the site in Govan.