Royal Navy support ship programme reaches key milestone at Appledore

Navantia UK’s Fleet Solid Support programme is reaching an important milestone, with the keel of the first vessel due to be laid at Appledore shipyard this week.

The three ships will provide vital logistical support to the Royal Navy carrier strike operations and are scheduled to enter service from 2030.

Three large ships will sustain the Royal Navy’s carrier force far from port

The Fleet Solid Support programme will provide three ships for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary, which supplies Royal Navy warships while deployed.

The vessels are designed principally to support the UK’s Carrier Strike Group, transferring ammunition, spare parts, food and other stores at sea. That allows the force to remain deployed for longer without returning to port for replenishment.

Each ship will be 216 metres long and displace more than 39,000 tonnes. That will make them the second-largest ships serving with the UK military after the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.

The £1.6 billion manufacturing contract was awarded to Team Resolute in January 2023, with Navantia UK as prime contractor alongside Harland & Wolff and naval architecture company BMT.

The UK identified the need for new support ships in its 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, meaning this week’s keel-laying comes 11 years after the requirement was formally recognised.

Construction is spread between Appledore, Belfast and Spain

Work on the first vessel, RFA Resurgent, is already under way. First steel was cut at Appledore, Devon in December 2025, while construction of modules at Navantia’s facilities in Cádiz began subsequently.

The programme uses several yards. Appledore will construct the ships’ bow sections, while modules built in Spain will be transferred to Belfast, where final integration will take place.

That industrial arrangement has become more complicated since the contract was awarded. Harland & Wolff entered administration before Navantia acquired the business and its four UK shipyards in early 2025, taking control of Belfast and Appledore and responsibility for delivering the FSS programme.

The Times reported that Appledore now has more than 200 workers and is close to full operation. Belfast has around 500 employees but requires another 1,000 before it is ready for final assembly of the support ships.

The challenge is particularly significant in Belfast, which has not built a ship since 2003, while Appledore last delivered a vessel six years ago.

New support ships will strengthen carrier strike operations

The FSS ships fill an important gap behind Britain’s two aircraft carriers. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary currently has only one solid-support vessel, the 36-year-old RFA Fort Victoria, which The Times reported is out of service undergoing refit.

Without sufficient replenishment ships, the endurance of a carrier strike group is constrained regardless of the capability of the carrier and its escorts. The FSS programme is intended to restore that logistical depth.