Norway Orders Five Anti-Submarine Frigates From UK for $13.5 Billion

Norway has selected the British Type 26 frigate built by BAE to meet a requirement for ‘at least’ five anti-submarine vessels.
The announcement was made jointly by Prime Ministers Sir Keir Starmer and Jonas Store on August 31, and is valued for the UK at $13.5 billion.
Ships for the Royal Navy and the Royal Norwegian Navy are to be built to identical specifications, so that in future logistic chains can be unified, joint crew training conducted and crews exchanged between ships. The decision comes ahead of the announcement of a new UK-Norway defense agreement, and builds on a particularly close naval relationship dating from the Second World War and continued through the Cold War. Royal Marines train annually in Norway to defend the far northern region, which borders Russia, and the HMS Prince of Wales (R09) carrier strike group on its deployment to the Pacific has been supported by the Norwegian Nansen Class frigate HNoMS Roald Amundsen (F311) and the logistic vessel HNoMS Maud (A530).
The primary task for the Norwegian Type 26s will be anti-submarine warfare. The weapons fits remain to be fixed, and will no doubt be adjusted for the ships destined for both navies to take into account the strength of Norwegian missile manufacturers such as Kongsberg. The frigates will have hangars to integrate an anti-submarine warfare helicopter into the ship’s surveillance and attack capability.
BAE’s Type 26 won out against stiff competition from Naval Group’s FDI, Germany’s F-127 and the American Constellation Class. The Type 26 has also been ordered for domestic manufacture by Australia (six Hunter Class ships) and Canada (fifteen River Class ships).