Today at a ceremony in Rosyth, the first steel was cut for the fourth Royal Navy Type 31 frigate, HMS Bulldog.
Delivery of the Type 31s is getting into its stride. As work began on HMS Bulldog this afternoon, HMS Active was rolled out of the build hall shortly after (report here). This comes just 9 months after ship 1, HMS Venturer, was rolled out and floated off and the keel of ship 3, HMS Formidable, was laid down during December 2025.
The Type 31 frigates are known collectively as the “inspiration class”, bearing names selected from previous RN vessels that achieved feats of historical significance.
The 6th HMS Bulldog famously captured an Enigma machine and codebook from a German submarine. She also participated in the demanding and dangerous Arctic Convoys, escorting merchant vessels carrying supplies to Murmansk in Russia.At 1245 on 9 May 1941, a boarding party of eight men was dispatched from HMS Bulldog to capture U-110 that had surfaced and been abandoned in heavy seas after being attacked. Although requiring great courage to enter the enemy boat, the boarding party found it unmanned and silent. The control room was discovered deserted, fully lit, with equipment and books strewn about. Documents, charts and signal books were rapidly gathered and passed up in a chain as there was concern the boat might sink. In the wireless telegraphy office, the coding machine, cypher books, logs, and correspondence were also promptly packed up and removed. Rather fortunatly the U boat eventually sank under tow and the capture of the Enigma machine was concealed from the Germans. The strategic significance of the captured cypher material later prompted King George VI to say the seizure of U-110’s codes had been “the most important single event in the whole war at sea”.
The RN built four Bulldog-class Coastal Survey Vessels (CSV), all commissioned in 1968 and intended to work together in pairs. They were large enough to be deployed overseas but spent most of their careers surveying around the UK. The 7th HMS Bulldog is seen here flying her paying off pennant as she enters Devonport for the final time, July 2001.
The 8th HMS Bulldog will carry the pennant number F09 and will be affiliated with the cities of Manchester and Swindon. Assuming Babcock can keep to their promised delivery schedule of approximately one ship per year, Bulldog should be handed to the RN in 2030.