The UK Royal Navy's Type 31 frigates are being equipped with the TACTICOS Baseline 2 combat management system. (NAVYPIX/Richard Scott)

The first Type 31 integrated combat system is on course to undergo factory acceptance testing (FAT) in the third quarter (Q3) of 2023, Thales has confirmed.

Speaking to media at Thales UK's facilities in Templecombe, UK, Julie Martin, naval senior account director, said that delivery of the first Type 31 mission system was on schedule.

“The key focus for us right now on the Type 31 is the fully integrated combat system FAT, which we've got coming up in late September this year,” she said. “We've got a number of FATs for individual equipments and individual subsystems in the run up to that – all of which are goingto plan and on schedule at the moment,” she added.

UK shipbuilder Babcock is delivering five Type 31 Inspiration-class frigates, based on the Arrowhead 140 design, for the Royal Navy (RN) under a GBP1.25 billion (USD1.59 billion) contract awarded in November 2019.

US lawmakers raised no official objection to the decommissioning of LCS USS Jackson . (Michael Fabey)

In its National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year (FY) 2024 mark, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee detailed its desires during a 13 June hearing of the mark to retain most of the vessels the US Navy (USN) is seeking to decommission soon.

The USN's FY 2024 budget proposal sought to decommission 11 ships: Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships USS Germantown (LSD 42), USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44), and USS Tortuga (LSD 46); Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers USS Vicksburg (CG 69), USS Antietam (CG 54), USS Leyte Gulf (CG 55), USS Cowpens (CG 63), and USS Shiloh (CG 67); Independence-class littoral combat ships (LCSs) USS Jackson (LCS 6) and USS Montgomery (LCS 8); and Los Angeles-class attack submarine USS San Juan (SSN 751).

Bucha has been assigned to the river flotilla based on the Dnipro river in Kiev region. (Ministry of Defence, Ukraine)

Ukraine has commissioned its eighth Gurza-M (Viper-M) missile-armed riverine patrol boat into service.

The new boat, named Bucha (P 181), has been assigned to the river flotilla based on the Dnipro river in Kiev region, which was established in 2022.

Bucha started construction at Kuznia na Rybalskomu (previously Leninska Kuznia) shipyard in Kiev in 2019 and was launched on 30 September 2021. Following the completion of its factory and state trials earlier in 2023, the boat was commissioned into service on 26 May, according to Ukraine Ministry of Defence's (MoD's) press service Armyinform .

Bucha forms part of a series of up to 20 planned Gurza-M patrol boats that started entering service from 2016 for deployment in the Danube River Basin and in the coastal zone of the Black and Azov seas.