Amphibious Transport Ships for the Royal Navy

On 6 March, the State Secretary of Defence presented the plan for the construction of 6 Amphibious Transport Ships to the House of Representatives. In a few months, the House of Representatives will decide whether this project can be launched.

The "Politics and Technology" working group of the Defence and Security Department analyses current political developments in the defence sector. It provides independent facts and interpretation from the technological knowledge and experience of engineers. The working group has comments and suggested questions on the DMP-A for the construction of 6 Amphibious Transport Ships (ATS) to replace 4 OPVs and 2 LPDs, which State Secretary Christophe van der Maat presented to the House of Representatives on 6 March 2024.

The DMP-A seems well designed, based on an existing concept from Damen Naval. However, the working group is surprised how many different naval tasks are now being combined in one type of ship.
Also, it seems, that the ships will not be equipped with sufficient armament and self-protection for the higher part of the violence spectrum, while this is very important in new and larger conflicts that are now imminent.
Furthermore, the development and construction should not look at "proven" systems, but at the technology of the future, which will be available in 10 years' time.

The working group therefore has nine questions about this DMP-A. Download the questions via this link.

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The Hague, 2 April 2024
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^{Illustration: Damen Naval}