The keel has been laid on Australia’s first Hunter-class frigate. A ceremony to mark the milestone was held on 24 August 2026 at Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia, where the ship is being built by BAE Systems Australia.
Attending the traditional keel-laying ceremony, in which a coin was laid under two ship blocks that form part of the frigate’s keel, were senior executives from BAE Systems Australia as well as Australian Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy MP and the chief of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Vice Admiral Matthew Buckley.
The Hunter class is based on BAE Systems’ Type 26/Global Combat Ship frigate design. This was competitively selected in June 2018 and initially nine ships were to be ordered under Australia’s SEA 5000 programme. However, this was subsequently reduced to six ships under the Australian government’s 2024 surface fleet review, the first three of which were ordered on 21 June 2024, when the first steel was officially cut for the programme.
In a company press release David Shepherd, Managing Director of BAE Systems Australia – Surface Ships, was quoted as saying, “Today’s ceremony is the culmination of years of hard work by our people and partners in the pursuit of delivering a world-leading, warship to the Royal Australian Navy.
“The Hunter class will form the backbone of the Royal Australian Navy’s fleet for decades to come, with its unique capabilities, weapons, sensors and modular mission bay enabling it to undertake a wide range of missions in addition to hunting submarines,” said Shepherd. “While today we have physically laid the keel of the first Hunter class frigate, the Hunter program itself has laid the foundations of a Continuous Naval Shipbuilding & Sustainment capability in Australia.”
Hunter class characteristics
With a displacement of 8,200 tonnes (light shipweight), the Hunter class will be heavier than the baseline Type 26/Global Combat Ship design, which has a light shipweight of 6,900 tonnes, and slightly longer (151.4 m compared to 149.9 m), with a beam of 20.8 m.
Powered by a combined diesel electric or gas (CODLOG) propulsion system, the Hunter class will have a speed of 27+ knots (50+ km/h) and a range of 7,000 nautical miles (12, 964 km).
The class will be armed with SM-2 and Evolved SeaSparrow surface-to-air missiles and BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles firing using a 32-cell Mk41 Vertical Launching System, two-four canister Naval Strike Missiles, two 21-cell RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) launchers, two twin torpedo launchers firing MU90 missiles, a Mark 45 Mod 4 127 mm main deck gun and two 30 mm Nk44 Bushmaster II Typhoon Mk-30C remote-controlled weapon station. The Hunter class will also embark an MH-60R Seahawk helicopter that can be armed with Mark 54 lightweight torpedoes and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.
The Hunter class will feature a CEAFAR-2 radar suite developed by Australia’s CEA Technologies, the US-developed Aegis combat management system, the Saab 9LV tactical interface, the Chess Dynamics SeaEagle FCEO electro-optical system, an Ultra S2150 hull-mounted sonar and a Thales Captas-4 variable-depth sonar.
In RAN service the Hunter class will perform numerous missions, including anti-submarine warfare, air defence, surface warfare, surveillance and intelligence, interdiction, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.
The first-in-class frigate, to be named HMAS Hunter, is expected to be commissioned in 2032. The second and third ships, to be named HMAS Flinders and HMAS Tasman, do not yet have a set commissioning date.
