Royal Marines To Get 6 New Warships

The Royal Marines (RM) will receive 6 new warships courtesy of the British government, said Secretary of State for Defence Grant Shapps following Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement that the United Kingdom would raise its defence spending by 2.5 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) a year by 2030, amounting to USD94 billion over the next 6 years.

The new vessels, called the Multi Role Support Ships (MRSS) will be built in Britain by main contractors BAE Systems and Babcock to replace the Royal Navy’s (RN) current amphibious flagships, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark which will remain in service until 2033-2034. The ships would deliver the revered Royal Marines Commandos (RMC) onto coastlines around the world to carry out special operations.

An RN statement read, “MRSS will be extremely versatile warships, able to deploy on a wider variety of operations, and designed to carry vehicles, aircraft, insertion craft and a broad range of uncrewed systems for complicated missions. They will also be able to act as primary casualty receiving ships, providing urgent medical care to British forces wherever they are deployed.” Now in the concept phase, the Defence Ministry will now work with the defence industry to develop the vessel design.

The ships are part of the RN’s new Golden Age of shipbuilding with as many as 28 ships and submarines consisting of the Type 26, Type 31 frigates and Astute as well as Dreadnought-class submarines.-shp/adj/dl (Pix:UK MOD)