Designed as a cutting‑edge shield for UK carrier groups, the destroyer HMS Daring has instead become a symbol of delay, cost and frustration for the Royal Navy, after spending more than 3,000 days out of action at the quayside.
The £1.3bn destroyer that barely leaves port
HMS Daring is not just any grey hull. She was the first of the Royal Navy’s Type 45 air‑defence destroyers, laid down in 2003, launched in 2006 and commissioned in 2009.
From cutting the first steel to official entry into service took 2,307 days. That is a long build for a sophisticated warship, but still shorter than the time she has now spent inactive.
HMS Daring has been laid up for more than eight years — longer than it took to design, build and commission the ship in the first place.
She left frontline service in April 2017. Since then, the calendar has rolled through more than 3,000 days, with Daring languishing in dockyards instead of escorting carriers or patrolling global sea lanes.
That means the destroyer has now spent roughly as much time inactive as she did deployed, an unprecedented balance for a modern British combat ship.
From joint European dream to British solo headache
A shared requirement that split in two
The roots of this story go back to the early 1990s, when France and the UK both concluded they needed modern anti‑air warfare destroyers. Italy joined the conversation, and in 1993 the three launched the Horizon programme, a shared project that could have delivered up to 22 ships.
On paper, it was a smart idea: common design, shared costs, and three navies fielding compatible high‑end escorts.
Then, in April 1999, London abruptly walked away. British officials complained the cost of the joint programme was escalating and opted to go it alone, though the UK stayed on board for the PAAMS missile system that underpins both fleets.
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At one stage, Washington dangled an alternative: second‑hand Ticonderoga‑class cruisers fitted with the Aegis combat system. The Royal Navy said no. It wanted brand‑new ships built in Britain, not refurbished US cast‑offs.
BAE Systems won the contract for what became the Type 45 destroyer in 2000. The original plan: twelve ships. Budget squeezes cut that to eight in 2004 and then six by 2008.
France and Italy kept faith with the more modest, joint Horizon design. Britain chose a more ambitious national route with the Type 45 — and absorbed the full cost and risk when things went wrong.
A technical marvel with teething troubles
The Type 45s were meant to be statement pieces. They carry the SAMPSON multi‑function radar, Sea Viper missiles and a powerful combat system able to track and engage multiple airborne threats far beyond the horizon.
On paper, they outclass many peers. In practice, their biggest weakness turned out to be buried deep in the engine room.
The engine that wouldn’t behave
WR‑21: clever idea, messy reality
The Type 45s use a unique gas turbine, the WR‑21, with an intercooler and recuperator intended to save fuel and space. It sounded elegant in theory. At sea, especially in hot climates, it proved fragile.
High temperatures exposed limits in the power and cooling system. Crews reported blackouts, propulsion failures and sudden loss of power — exactly the sort of drama a navy does not want on a billion‑pound warship.
These recurring problems forced the Ministry of Defence into a major retrofit effort, the Power Improvement Project (PIP), designed to rebuild the ships’ electrical heart.
Surgery in steel: the Power Improvement Project
PIP sounds simple when described on paper: remove the original two diesel generators and fit three more powerful and reliable units instead. In reality, it means cutting open a completed destroyer and rebuilding large parts of her internal machinery spaces.
- Cut access openings into the hull and superstructure
- Remove old generator sets and associated systems
- Install three new diesel generators and updated power management
- Reconnect the system to existing propulsion and ship services
- Rebuild and test almost every major electrical circuit
HMS Daring underwent this work at Cammell Laird shipyard, finishing her technical refit at the end of 2022 before returning to Portsmouth in early 2023.
By the time sea trials are expected to restart in early 2026, Daring will have spent close to nine years without operational deployment.
The ship is now in a long “regeneration” phase: reactivating systems, running harbour trials and, just as critically, rebuilding a crew for a vessel that many sailors have never actually taken to sea.
When half your top destroyer fleet is offline
Six ships, many in the yard
HMS Daring’s saga is not isolated. All six Type 45 destroyers are in line for the same PIP upgrade. That means a rotating pattern of availability, with some ships in dock while others try to cover global commitments.
As of 2025, the situation across the class looks roughly like this:
- HMS Dauntless – PIP complete, back in service
- HMS Daring – refit done, preparing for sea trials
- HMS Dragon – undergoing conversion
- HMS Defender – next in line for yard time
- HMS Diamond and HMS Duncan – waiting their slots
- Target: all six upgraded by around 2028
Parliamentary answers in London stress that upgraded ships are performing well and that no fresh technical issues have emerged with the new generators.
Official messaging from the Royal Navy is calm: commitments are being met, ships are sailing, flags are flying from the Red Sea to the North Atlantic.
Yet the uncomfortable reality is that for several years, only a fraction of the UK’s premier air‑defence destroyers have been fully available at any one time.
French comparison: fewer ships, more days at sea
Two Horizons against six Type 45s
Across the Channel, France operates just two Horizon‑class destroyers, Forbin and Chevalier Paul. On paper, numbers favour Britain. In practice, availability tells another story.
| Criterion | UK – Type 45 (HMS Daring and sisters) | France – Horizon class |
|---|---|---|
| Number of ships | 6 | 2 |
| Service entry | 2009–2013 | 2010–2011 |
| Operational status in 2025 | 2 fully operational, 4 in modernisation or regeneration | 2 operational |
| Main radar | SAMPSON rotating AESA | EMPAR (being replaced by Thales Seafire from 2026) |
| Missile system | Sea Viper (Aster 15/30) | PAAMS (Aster 15/30) |
| Range at 18 knots | Approx. 13,000 km | Approx. 7,000 km |
| Logistic endurance | About 45 days | About 30 days |
| Known issues | Major propulsion unreliability before PIP | Ageing sensors, due for upgrade |
France opted to modernise its pair of Horizons with new radars and software from 2026 while maintaining steady availability. The ships are smaller, with shorter range, but highly focused on protecting the carrier Charles de Gaulle and operating in key theatres like the Mediterranean.
British destroyers have greater reach and endurance, but French Horizons have quietly kept a higher proportion of days at sea while London wrestles with engine refits.
What this means for naval power and planning
Capability on paper versus reality at sea
Naval strength is often measured in tonnage, missile cells and radar ranges. Yet the most basic metric matters even more: how many ships are ready to sail today, next week and next month.
The UK’s choice of a complex national design produced impressive capability but condensed risk into a small, very specialised class. When the propulsion concept faltered, the entire high‑end escort fleet felt the shock.
France, by contrast, spread risk through a joint programme with Italy, accepted a slightly less ambitious hull, and avoided a single‑point failure in its destroyer fleet.
Some key terms, briefly explained
For readers less familiar with naval jargon, a few concepts help make sense of this story:
- Air‑defence destroyer: A warship whose main job is to shoot down enemy aircraft and missiles, protecting other ships nearby.
- AESA radar: An active electronically scanned array can track multiple targets quickly and resist jamming, giving modern destroyers their “eyes”.
- Aster missiles: European surface‑to‑air missiles used by both British and French ships, capable of intercepting aircraft and some ballistic threats.
- Availability: The percentage of time a ship is actually ready for operations, as opposed to being in refit, training or repair.
Risks, scenarios and what comes next
One immediate risk is strategic “hollowness”: on paper the Royal Navy fields six world‑class air‑defence destroyers; in a crisis, only two or three might be fully deployable. That creates awkward choices if the UK faces simultaneous tensions in, say, the North Atlantic, the Gulf and the Indo‑Pacific.
A second risk is crew skill. Long periods alongside can blunt hard‑won experience. Officers and ratings posted to Daring have had to maintain complex systems that rarely go to sea, which is not ideal preparation for high‑tempo operations under threat.
On the positive side, if PIP delivers as promised and the class emerges with robust power systems, the Type 45s could serve effectively into the 2040s, just as new British frigates like the Type 26 and Type 31 come online. A fully healthy Type 45 fleet, paired with those escorts and the Queen Elizabeth‑class carriers, would give London a strong, flexible surface force.
For NATO planners, the saga is also a cautionary case study. Ambitious technology, especially around power and propulsion, can unlock impressive performance but also create fragile single points of failure. Incremental upgrades to proven designs may look less glamorous, yet they tend to keep more ships actually at sea — something France’s Horizon class quietly demonstrates.