The Type 26 frigate , also known as City-class frigate , is a class of frigates and destroyers being built for the United Kingdom 's Royal Navy , with variants also being built for the Australian and Canadian navies. In June , the Australian Government announced that it had selected a modified version of the Type 26 platform as the planned replacement for its Anzac -class frigate. The amount of the contract will increase as the design work increases.
Planning for a replacement escort vessel started in with the ordering of a research vessel, RV Triton , to study whether a trimaran design was practical for such a large and complex vessel. More conventional designs however, were ultimately preferred. In March , plans were released for a two-class solution, a cheaper "Medium Sized Vessel Derivative" entering service in β19 and a more capable "Versatile Surface Combatant" entering service around By early this had crystallised into the three requirements; C1, C2 and C3.
The C1 was to be an anti-submarine warfare task group-enabled platform and would displace around 6, tonnes. C2 was to be a more general purpose platform displacing somewhere in the region of 4β5, tonnes, and C3 was to be a Global Corvette to replace a larger number of smaller vessels in service, such as minesweepers, patrol and survey ships.
The Global Corvette was to displace around 2β3, tonnes. Low running costs and the ability to operate forward in shallow, coastal areas where larger ships cannot were both important. The FSC concept was brought forward in the budget, at the expense of options for two Type 45 destroyers not being taken up ships 7 and 8.
A total of 18 vessels 10 C1 and 8 C2 were planned to enter service from , at a pace of roughly one per year. Expectations at the time were for the first ship to be "in service" by BAE Systems' original working baseline for the Global Combat Ship design was a vessel metres long with a displacement of 6, tonnes and a range of 7, nautical miles at 18 knots. Subsequently, new specification details began to emerge of a smaller 5, tonne ship emphasising flexibility and modularity.
