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Donald McKelvy
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Artist's impression of Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Fleet Solid Support Ship.

Source:
http://www.rfanostalgia.org/gallery3/index.php/RFA-DRY-CARGO/Future-Solid-Support/NDP_FSS
 

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Team Resolute has been selected by the UK MoD to deliver 3 Future Solid Stores Ships which will be derivatives of the Tide Class/Aegir design from BMT. Construction will mainly be at Harland and Wolff at Belfast with some construction at Navantia in Spain.



Navy Lookout article


Team Resolute Design - The clear Tide Class design heritage can clearly be seen, should make life easier for the RFA in manning, training and maintaining. They're 16 metres longer than the Tide Class so appear to be in the region of 45,000 tonnes. Basically they're very similar in terms of size and capability to the USNS Lewis and Clark Class Dry Stores Ships of which the US has 14.

jdImMPX.jpg
 
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A really very good video from Navantia of FSS in operation...real pity they decided not to go with HRAS...

Tonnage is listed as 39,000 tonnes in the video. The same displacement as a fully loaded Tide Class Oiler. The Fort Class were 32,000 full load so shes a fair bit larger, the Fort Rosalie Class were 23,000 tonnes full load. So despite the fact we're replacing 4 ships with 3 (in practice 1 ship with 3...) the overall tonnage available is increasing from 108,000 tonnes to 117,000 tonnes.


All in all the RFA will start to be in a good place. 2 Wave Class, 4 Tide Class, 3 FSS, 3 Bay Class and the new RFA Proteus MROSS (with another to come) and MCM Mothership (conversion of MV Island Crown). All we need to be back in a really good place is manning....and a replacement for both Diligence and Argus....unfortunately the powers that be don't think Diligence needs a replacement as a repair ship (Island Crown could do the MCM mothership role in the Gulf) and Argus is going to soldier on into the 2030's...
 
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From back in June:

What a difference a few months make:

It appears that the current and previous governments were quite correct in withholding 200 million pounds of taxpayer money. The real question is whether Fleet Solid Support is going to get officially cut with the upcoming defense review. The 60% domestic UK content figure looks unworkable at this point and the RFA can’t man a single solid support ship let alone 3. Since the inception of FSS, two elderly Fort class ships were sold to Egypt, the 2 Wave class are laid up for eventually disposal and 1 Tide class is laid up, one is being overhauled and 2 are operational. It is doubtful that Fort Victoria can be crewed for the 2025 aircraft carrier deployment or will ever go to sea again. Even if the ongoing RFA strike is resolved, there is no guarantee that any settlement, no matter how favorable, will encourage enough RFA recruiting to cover the current fleet, let alone 3 FSS units.



Jobs fear over Spanish bid for Harland & Wolff (The Sunday Times, subscription or registration may be required)

Harland & Wolff races to keep its shipyards alive (ft.com, subscription or registration may be required)
 
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Harland’s most valuable remaining asset is arguably its share of a £1.6bn contract to build three support ships for the Royal Navy.

Large chunks of the ships were due to be fabricated at Appledore, with the rest of the work done by fellow contractor Navantia, the Spanish state-owned shipbuilder, in Cadiz.

The vessels would have then been assembled at Harland’s historic shipyard in Belfast.

However, the company’s financial troubles have plunged the project into crisis.

In recent weeks, bosses at Harland – assisted by Rothschild – have initiated talks with potential buyers who could take the business on, with Navantia emerging as the frontrunner.
 

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