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.
Harland & Wolff is set to help build three crucial support ships to the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, after being selected as a preferred bidder in a £1.6 billion contract.
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.
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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