The United Kingdom is to abandon its bespoke Multi-Role Strike Ship and instead pursue a joint amphibious fleet with the Netherlands, building the future of the Royal Marines’ Commando Force around the Dutch-led Amphibious Transport Ship programme, the Defence Investment Plan said.
The plan said the Multi-Role Strike Ship “was too complex and did not reflect the UK Commando Force we are now pursuing,” and that the department would therefore pivot to explore opportunities for the United Kingdom with the Netherlands-led Amphibious Transport Ship programme.
The Ministry of Defence has cast the move as an investment in new amphibious assault shipping for British commando operations, aimed at creating a joint fleet with the Netherlands, and Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis said the government was “investing in new attack drones, high-speed boats, and amphibious assault ships” to give the commandos what they need to stay ahead of adversaries.
The commitment forms part of the wider Future Commando Force transformation, backed by more than £500 million, which has reoriented the Royal Marines towards operations on NATO’s northern flank and in the Arctic.
The Netherlands is already building towards six Amphibious Transport Ships of its own, intended to replace its two Rotterdam-class landing platform docks and four Holland-class patrol vessels, with deliveries planned from 2032, and bringing the British requirement into that programme would draw the two national efforts into far closer alignment than the subsystem-level cooperation the two navies had most recently settled for.
Retire, retire, retire, what’s replacing it… Replacing it, nah, we’re not bothering.
A intergenerational system of systems with cutting edge next gen AI system that have a module ecosystem, but built for but not with reality, then cancelled due money and stupidity, errrr sorry, didn’t match evolved threats, must start new 10 year concept phase and rise and repeat😊👍
This is shameful ,we are perfectly cappable of building assult ships , we have effectly giving the falkland islands.
MRSS never existed so it can’t be retired.
There is a big picture above of what they are look at to meet the requirement.
They scraped the requirement to save money and and went for something less capable. Same with fleet air defence.
I find it so funny that they cancelled the original project with the Netherlands and replaced it with MRSS, then changed the acronym, then cancelled it and gone back to the Netherlands 😂
Sounds a bit like Boxer.
Sounds like someone finally got the admirals by the scruff of the neck and beat some sense into them. Exactly like Boxer but thankfully this one was caught early on.
But with Boxer, it was the right choice for front line roles (taking the underfunded and tracked arguments out), with the cheaper less capable Cavs now providing less protected vehicles in roles where Boxer isn’t necessary/not affordable, how it should be, will the navy be getting the same hi/lo mix with the MRSS replacement ?
Boxer was not the right choice. A very expensive armored truck.
Yeah but Boxer only makes sense if like the Germans, Aussies the Dutch and pretty much everybody else you put a decent turret and gun on top ( my preference being for a John Cockerill or similar unmanned type so we can keep all eight dismounts in the back ) and it can fully replace Warrior as an IFV.
Pretty certain they won’t be “investing” diddly squat until they have finished “exploring opportunities”. And we all know how that usually works out.
I am finding this all very hard to follow. To be clear, is this a shared *design* with the Dutch, or the ships themselves will be shared?
Hopefully it’s a shared design and the UK will order 3-4 (5-6 would be better) for ourselves to cover Commando and wider drone use.
I’m hoping the shared bit is the ship-to-shore connectors i.e. the minimum size of the well dock. I think the RN would prefer bigger capacity LPD’s rather than the ‘modest’ flat top LHD depicted. I’d say Bay class + hangar is the minimum benchmark. If it’s working don’t fix it. The Bays have been terrific investments.
Agreed although I would like a full-length flight deck to give you the option of both helo and drones , maybe even a lilly pad for F35. Also agree however that it needs to be bigger than the one in the image which I believe is the Portuguese design so if can have a bigger floodable wel deck than the Bays giving you more options and flexibility when it comes to multi rolling such as switching from amphib assault to UMCMV , disaster relief etc and as currently being demonstrated si brilliantly by Mounts Bay.
Sorry trying to contribute from my phone while on a train and predictive text isn’t helping me much but you get the drift !
….was going to say, take a little water with it 😂
How do you start off a joint program, leave it because it doesn’t meet the requirements you’ve set, to then go back to the program that didn’t meet your requirements ?
Is this new ship going to be able to do what is needed, or will requirements take back over and push back towards MRSS original targets. Obviously there is no link to funding levels!
This is ridiculous thses ships were meant to replace Argus as well as a hospital ship.
Plus they were meant to support the carriers.
Honestly what was the point of the SDR?
This is the worst cuts exercise since Cameron, Stanmer should resign and so should the next defence secretary.
He has resigned
This is confusing, are we buying 6 ships still but smaller or are we buying less and borrowing the Dutch’s ships?
All will be perfectly clear when the drips are cut, not delivered or scrapped.
The only certain thing is that MRSS is cancelled. In just six years (2018-2024) the UK and RN went from having an amphibious warfare capability second only the USN, to almost zero. Even Commando/Battalion level amphibious warfare by the UK has now moved from being a capability gap to defunct. The DIP provides £250 million for amphibious shipping, but given that the Damen ATS design may cost up to Euro 500 million per ship, it’s unclear what is intended. The DIP narrative provides no detail.
Sharing design might not sound so bad but why would I advise my kids to do engineering when the UK government gets rid of engineering jobs? Where will the ships be built? Where will the engines come from… Yup, abroad, so we are again stuffed and losing jobs.. we need to design and build in the UK and if it is complex then so much the better.
CUT CUT CUT CUT, this is an absolute disgrace! I suspect the time will come when personnel shortages will mean it’s impossible to mak tain any kind of armed forces. There us nothing to encourage young people to join and veterans to stay in post after constant betrayal by our politicians. Starmer has played into Putins hands