HMS Daring: Royal Navy sends destroyer to fight Isis despite concerns over warship’s reliability

Navy admits £1bn destroyers are prone to breaking down in warm waters

HMS Daring is one of six Type 45 destroyers in the British fleet (PA)

The Royal Navy is sending a destroyer to help in the fight against Isis, despite concerns that the warship’s advanced engine system could break down in the warm waters of the Persian Gulf.

The £1bn HMS Daring will be tasked with protecting American aircraft carriers during bombing raids on militant targets, according to the Defence Secretary, and sets sail from Portsmouth on Friday.

Michael Fallon said the deployment showed all three branches of the Armed Forces were “making a real difference around the world”.

Daring will take over the responsibilities of HMS Defender, another of the UK’s six Type 45 destroyers, which returned to Portsmouth at the start of July following a nine-month operation.

As well as its defensive role in the Gulf, it will be expected to perform reconnaissance missions reporting back to the coalition headquarters for air strikes against Isis.

And, if HMS Defender’s record is anything to go by, it will play a part in protecting some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes from pirates and smugglers. In June, Defender made headlines when it intercepted more than a tonne of hash (estimated street value £5.6m) being trafficked across the Indian Ocean.

Mr Fallon said: “All three armed services are making a vital contribution to defeating Daesh.

“RAF aircraft are hitting the terrorists daily on the ground; the Army is providing counter-explosives training to Iraq troops; the Royal Navy helps protect coalition carriers in the Gulf as they launch strikes.

“With the biggest defence budget in Europe and the second biggest in Nato, our Armed Forces are making a real difference around the world.”

HMS Daring, which has a crew of 190, has had a troubled past with technical issues. Built by BAE Systems, it broke down in the mid-Atlantic in 2010 and again in Bahrain in 2012.

The Royal Navy has since admitted that the Type 45 destroyers’ innovative gas turbine engines, which are supposed to provide propulsion and electricity for on-board systems at the same time, are prone to breaking down in warm conditions.

Instead of some systems shutting down gradually as the waters around the ship got hotter, the engines “degraded catastrophically” in very warm seas, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Philip Jones told the House of Commons Defence Committee in July, leading to a total electric failure.

All six destroyers have been scheduled for a multi-million pound refit starting in 2019 – essentially to bolster their more old-fashioned diesel engines. In the meantime, Sir Philip said the Royal Navy had accepted it would not be able to operate the ships “all the time in every place on every day of the year”.