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The Royal Navy yesterday, Thursday 9 November 2006, unveiled her latest amphibious landing ship, Royal Fleet Auxiliary Largs Bay, which is undergoing sea trials off the south coast prior to entering service later this year.
This state-of-the-art 16,000 tonne landing ship is more than twice the size of her predecessors. At 177 metres long, she can carry two Chinook helicopters as deck cargo whilst operating a third from her flight deck.
Specially designed to deliver vehicles, troops and equipment ashore – even when there are no harbours available – she can travel up to 8,000 miles at 15 knots and can accelerate to speeds around 17 knots.
Her vast storage decks, almost the size of a football pitch, are able to carry 32 Challenger II Main Battle Tanks as well as over 350 fully armed troops, landing craft and supporting stores.
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RFA Largs Bay is one of a new class of four Bay Class amphibious landing ships. They will replace the RFA Sir Tristram, Sir Geraint, Sir Percivale and Sir Galahad, and will operate in the front line in close support of the Landing Platform Dock, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark and the Landing Platform Helicopter, HMS Ocean.
With no rudders she manoeuvres with special propellers and bow thrusters to help give increased stability during operations. The advanced design of the Landing Ship Docks (Auxiliary) will enable her to offload/onload at sea in conditions up to Sea State three, without the need to anchor adding to her flexibility.
The Commanding Officer of RFA Largs Bay is Captain Ian Johnston:
“The Ship's senior staff and I have stood by RFA Largs Bay through the build, the planning, process and conduction of sea trials, both as a shake down of the ship and demonstration and identification of the capability of RFA Largs Bay in the amphibious role,” he explained.
“The trials on 9 November were the culmination of much effort by many departments as well as the ship's staff. The demonstration of multiple, concurrent, amphibious activity shows the RFA Largs Bay as a highly cost effective and capable force multiplier in the amphibious role. I am very proud to be the first Commanding Officer of the RFA Largs Bay, and it will greatly enhance the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, which is already an extremely capable, flexible and cost effective service.”
Although capable of delivering Armed Forces into warfighting operations, these ships are also ideally suited to low intensity operations; such as providing a platform for peace support operations – as in Sierra Leone – or in humanitarian and disaster relief missions – such as the Tsunami relief effort. The huge capability these ships provide is already being demonstrated by RFA Mounts Bay, which has recently taken part in Deployment VELA operating in close support of HMS Albion off the West Coast of Africa.
The head of the Royal Navy, First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Jonathan Band said:
“The introduction into service of the Bay Class ships marks the completion of the programme to replace the UK's amphibious shipping. These ships represent a major uplift in the Royal Navy's war fighting capability. RFA Largs Bay will allow us to deploy more people and equipment more quickly to trouble spots around the world.
“This Landing Ship Dock (Auxiliary) Programme has seen an important capability introduced into the Royal Navy against a challenging timeline. I look forward to following their progress on operations.”
