My understanding is that the Type 83 will complement the Type 26 and type 31

The forebear of the Type 83, the Type 82 Guided Missile Destroyer was designed to escort the CVA01 carrier project (all the bells and whistles) which was cancelled in 1966 leaving only HMS Bristol as a tech testbed. It's thought the Type 83 will fulfill the same dedicated escort air defence role, if Labour don't cancel it, and the Frigate lineup will expand to include the Type 32 but only if the RN and Govt can manage to tell the same lie at the same time. Nothing is known about Type 83 besides the MoD statements, there was an image of an unnamed very large warship estimated at 15-20k tons leaked from a BAe Systems powerpoint slide about "onboard safety systems" or something but was similar to their unreleased proposal to fulfill the Type 83 request. I hope that the UK and Japan will work together for innovation and cost saving in the spirit of Tempest program, no USA because if the USN get's involved it will be LCS / Constellation Frigate 3.0 imo.

Its not an addiction, its a necessity because they are bankrupt and if they don't stop the borrowing for social welfare the country will implode. This is across the western world. Socialism has failed because they tried to do it while no one pays taxes. Income taxes have got to be north of 60% if you want socialism to be financially viable. That said, if the government wasn't stealing our money to pay for all the social stuff we wouldn't need the social stuff.

Terminology, or Designation, is down to the Country NOT a fixed concept. HMS Belfast (River Thames I.W.M.) was a Light Cruiser at 10,000 Tons. Modern Frigates are now heavier than many WW2 Destroyers or even Post WW2 such as the Darling Class which at Full Load was shy of 3,900 tons.

A few days ago I would have completely agreed with this. But a recent article seems to suggest that Japan at least considers their current small style railguns are sufficiently ready and by the time the new Destroyers are deployed, they could have solved many of these issues as Railguns are stated to be part of these new platforms. And considering that this is a joint venture with the US, it means that the US could have a Railgun on its own ships when its new Destroyers enter service (though not the behemoth 60 megajoule one they where developing, but a more moderate 20 megajoule one to begin with)

what??? catamaran is terrible on large ship. the disadvantage at larger tonnage far outweigh the advantages

HMS Triton was the first Trimaran Warship built and the experience was so NOT GOOD that it was sold off and last seen with a Private Owner in Australia many years ago. Catamaran even worse than Trimaran. Type 83, BAE Shipbuilding are promoting themselves for their Long Term future NOT for a specific design which has NOT been agreed even in outline. My concerns is that they have NO MONEY actually allocated at all for any Type 83 development at the moment.

@@nguquaxanguyen5224 100% Correct.

Is this idea the basis of China's drone cruiser / drone carrier?

Q. Do you mean "politically" NOT called a "Cruiser"? The RN Light Aircraft Carriers/Harrier Carriers were called "Through Deck Cruisers" because it was believed that they would NOT be approved with the correct designation BUT all 3 of the 4 originally agreed carried the "R" designation for a RN Aircraft Carrier NOT the "C" for a Cruiser. NOTHING IS CHEAP.

@trevorhart545 yes I mean politically. The ships that are doing a destroyers job today are frigates. And the ones doing cruisers job we call destroyers. A destroyer is defensive while a cruiser is offensive. The second you put asm on a destroyer it becomes a cruiser. True destroyers would be asw/aa oriented with little offensive capability against anything bigger than it.

Call them Destroyers, Frigates (in the pre 1975 US Navy sense), Cruisers, Fast Fleet Escorts or Large Surface Combatants, modern terms are entirely irrelevant. The last proper cruiser built to traditional cruiser standards was Long Beach. Destroyers aren't supposed to be small and cheap, they're supposed to be fleet escorts. In the past that might have meant something small and cheap, but these days the requirements of high seakeeping speed, need to give radars a high radar horizon and LO shaping all drive up size considerably. As for cost, size is not directly correlated with cost, the combat system is main driver of cost, and modern threats require very capable and expensive combat systems. Small and cheap is not possible these days, not since the Second World War. Combat system costs required to deal with even 1950s submarines made single-purpose mobilisation designs like the Dealey class or Type 14s impossible to mass-produce in peacetime, and nuclear submarines made that problem even worse. Nowadays every surface combatant more capable than an OPV or USV requires local AAW capability, and AAW capabilities make up 90% of combat system cost.

​​@@ADobbin1ASMs don't make a ship a cruiser, especially given how minimal a ship impact they can have, otherwise every FAC would be classed as a cruiser. What makes a ship a cruiser, before they stopped being built, was capability of performing independent operations. This meant long endurance via large stocks of stores, workshops to provide self-maintenance without dependence on a depot ship, certain levels of passive protection and redundancy, and flag facilities. Post War they were also expected to have significant fighter-direction capabilities. This was obviously beginning to break down post war, Long Beach was basically just a fleet escort armed with SAMs (although Talos and Terrier had decent anti-surface capabilities and ASROC plus SQS-23 enabled independent operations in the face of enemy submarines or in the dispersed formations required in the face of nuclear weapons).

​@@trevorhart545The Invincibles were called cruisers because they were cruisers, and descended from a long line of helicopter-equipped cruisers from the late 1950s onwards. ASW Helicopters and SAMs offered far greater ability to operate independently in the face of modern threats, plus they required flag facilities to control other surface ships.