HMS Cardiff (F89): The Royal Navy's Next Submarine Hunter Takes Shape on the Clyde

HMS Cardiff (F89)

A Ship Still Being Born

HMS Cardiff is being built by BAE Systems Maritime at the Govan shipyard on the Clyde, with first steel cut on 14 August 2019, the beginning of a construction process that reflects just how much has changed in shipbuilding since the earlier ships to carry the Cardiff name. She is the second of the Royal Navy's new Type 26 Batch 1 frigates, following the lead ship HMS Glasgow, and is part of a £3.7 billion contract covering three ships in total, with HMS Belfast to follow behind her. Unlike every previous HMS Cardiff, whose full service histories can already be written from beginning to end, HMS Cardiff's story is only just beginning: this account describes a ship still being fitted out rather than one whose career can yet be assessed in full.

A Purpose-Built Submarine Hunter

HMS Cardiff floated off her barge at the Glen Mallan jetty on 30 August 2024, moving to BAE Systems Maritime's Scotstoun shipyard for fitting out. She is designed from the keel up as a multi-mission warship built around anti-submarine warfare, air defence and general purpose operations, fitted with 48 Sea Ceptor anti-air missiles across twelve quad-cell launchers, a 24-cell Mark 41 Vertical Launching System capable of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles, ASROC anti-submarine rockets and Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles, and hangar space for either a Wildcat helicopter, armed with anti-ship missiles or torpedoes, or a Merlin helicopter carrying anti-submarine torpedoes. Her sensor suite includes the Type 997 Artisan 3D radar and the Sonar 2087 towed array, among the most capable anti-submarine sonar systems in service anywhere in the world, driven by a combined diesel-electric and gas turbine propulsion system designed specifically to keep her exceptionally quiet while hunting for enemy submarines.

A Name With a Proud Naval History

HMS Cardiff carries a name already well established in Royal Navy service, following the First World War light cruiser HMS Cardiff, which famously led the surrendered German High Seas Fleet into internment in 1918, and the Type 42 destroyer HMS Cardiff, which served in both the Falklands War and the Gulf War before decommissioning in 2005. As she completes her fitting out and moves towards sea trials and eventual commissioning, this newest HMS Cardiff inherits a name with a genuinely significant legacy to live up to, and a design built to keep the Royal Navy's submarine-hunting capability at the leading edge of naval technology for decades to come.