UK commits to new assault ships in joint effort with Netherlands

Britain will invest in a new class of larger amphibious transport ships to support Commando Force operations, with the stated aim of integrating them with the Netherlands into a combined fleet, according to the Ministry of Defence.

The vessels form one strand of a wider programme to convert the UK Commando Force into what the department calls the Future Commando Force — an effort now weighted towards the High North and backed by a commitment of more than £500 million.

New Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis, appointed earlier this month, has spent his first fortnight reshaping the Defence Investment Plan around equipment for frontline units. The amphibious ships sit in that package alongside new high-speed insertion craft and uncrewed systems.

Jarvis tied the spending directly to the Commandos’ equipment needs:

"We’re investing in new lethal strike drones, high-speed boats and amphibious transport ships to give our Commandos the equipment they need to stay ahead of adversaries and defend us."

Rebuilding a diminished amphibious fleet

The announcement would go some way to rebuilding an amphibious fleet that has thinned considerably. The Royal Navy has been without a dedicated landing platform dock since HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, the two Albion-class flagships, left service in 2025.

Their planned successor had been pursued under the Multi Role Strike Ship programme — a project for up to six vessels intended to replace:

• The Albion-class ships
• The three Bay-class landing ships
• The aviation support ship RFA Argus

The first hull was expected in the early 2030s, with the effort moving from its concept phase into assessment during 2026. It is unknown whether this new announcement replaces that project.

Anglo-Dutch cooperation

British and Dutch marines have operated together in the UK/NL Amphibious Force for more than fifty years. In 2023, the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding, known as Project CATHERINA, to study a shared amphibious ship design.

That joint-design ambition was set aside in 2024 once the two navies judged their requirements and budgets too far apart for a single hull. Work was redirected towards interoperability and common subsystems such as landing craft, cranes, dock doors, and propulsion.

The Netherlands is already planning six Amphibious Transport Ship vessels — a concept pictured above — to replace its Rotterdam-class landing platform docks and Holland-class patrol vessels, with deliveries planned from 2032.

A combined fleet of the sort the Ministry of Defence now describes would draw those two national programmes into closer alignment than the subsystem-level cooperation the navies had most recently settled on. It would put shipping able to move marine raiding forces through the contested waters of NATO’s northern and Baltic approaches under a shared Anglo-Dutch design philosophy.

Upcoming defence plan

The refreshed Defence Investment Plan is expected to be published before NATO leaders meet in Ankara on 7 and 8 July — a summit at which allied defence spending and industrial capacity are set to dominate.