Hi Bryan, I seem to remember when I was working in the MoD the 2 Forts in qusetion where supposed to have been motherships to the type 23's as originally envisaged at 1900ton frigates, so I and alot of the people where lead to believe at the time. But alas these two ships suffer a lot of design problems including weak tanktops in the cargo holds when first built, I remember loading the George's first load of seadarts, her side cargo crane was so slow and restricted in arc of movement I insisted on using my own cranes, otherwise I would have been there all week, the Chief Mate was not pleased, but thats life. Two weeks later she had a emergency deammo etc for an emergency docking and survey, she had hogged so bad that there was fears she may have broken her back. But the other ships you have named where excellent built and designed, no wonder the Yanks wanted some of them.