The Type 45 Daring-Class Destroyer

In 1998, the British government led by Prime Minister Tony Blair released the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), in which it identified a requirement for twelve state-of-the-art warships for the Royal Navy (RN) to be configured for antiair warfare.1 This new naval platform was conceived as a replacement for the Type 42 destroyers, which had first entered service in 1978; its development was initially associated with the Anglo-French-Italian Horizon project that had replaced the NATO Frigate Replacement, from which Britain withdrew in 1989. That vision, however, had a very short shelf life. Some months after the SDR’s release, Britain withdrew from the Horizon project and launched an indigenous Type 45 destroyer program. Production of the first ship, HMS Daring, began in 2003