The Royal Navy is to acquire new offshore support vessels alongside Norway to serve as motherships for its growing fleet of autonomous minehunters, as part of a wider investment in mine warfare, the Defence Investment Plan said.
The plan set aside £90 million to procure, in its words, “offshore support vessels (OSVs) in conjunction with Norway,” part of a wider Mine Hunting Capability programme worth around £1.3 billion over the next four years, most of which, some £1.1 billion, is going on the next phase of the autonomous system that the UK is procuring jointly with France. It described the longer-term goal as “a transformed mine hunting capability based on uncrewed systems and AI.”
The money continues a shift the Royal Navy has been making for several years, away from sending crewed minehunters into a minefield and towards remotely operated and autonomous systems that do the dangerous work in their place. The service has been retiring its Hunt and Sandown-class minehunters and replacing them with uncrewed surface vessels and mine-disposal systems delivered under a programme run jointly with France.
Those autonomous systems still need a ship to carry them to the minefield, store and maintain them and control them once they are in the water, and that is the job of a mothership. The Royal Navy’s first, HMS Stirling Castle, began life as the offshore oil-rig support vessel MV Island Crown before the Ministry of Defence bought her in 2023 for around £40 million and converted her at Devonport, and she commissioned as a warship last year after a period operating with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. At 6,000 tonnes she can host the uncrewed boats and underwater vehicles, carry their portable command centres and launch and recover them at sea, working mainly in home waters.
Stirling Castle was always meant to be the first of a small class, with the Ministry of Defence having said it planned to acquire up to three more ships for the mine countermeasures command and support role.
The choice of Norway leans heavily on closer naval ties with Oslo under the Lunna House agreement that also underpins the planned combined fleet of Type 26 frigates, while the autonomous minehunting systems the new vessels will carry remain a joint effort with France.
Ah, good, this hasn’t vanished into the ether.
MROSS No2 seems to have, though?
No ‘it” singular hasn’t vanished into the ether it is called RNMB Ariadne and is onboard Lyme Bay and headed for the Gulf.
Part of me wonders if the money for that has been quietly used to keep Scott going into the next decade.
This one I agree with. Very good solution
You dont buy anything relevant for 90M