UK to acquire three support ships from Norway
The United Kingdom will procure three offshore support vessels (OSVs) through Norway’s P1118 programme to launch the Royal Navy’s uncrewed mine-hunting systems. The ships will serve as motherships under Block 2 of the Mine Hunting Capability (MHC) programme.
What will the ships do?
The three ships will carry, launch and control uncrewed mine countermeasures craft, which are replacing crewed minehunters. They are planned as commercially designed offshore support vessels, minimally modified, able to host a full mission system.
The Royal Navy’s first mothership, HMS Stirling Castle, followed the same route: it began as the commercial offshore vessel Island Crown, bought in 2023 and converted for naval use.
The Norway link
The UK formally joined Norway’s programme to develop OSVs for autonomous mine hunting under the Lunna House Agreement. Norway’s P1118 Standardised Vessel programme includes a larger ocean-going variant, and the Royal Navy has baselined that larger variant for its requirement of three motherships.
Funding and open questions
Sources give different figures. One reports that the plan set aside £90 million to procure the OSVs with Norway, within a wider programme of about £1.3 billion over four years. Another cites £1.3 billion for MHC Block 2 across 2026-2030. How much redesign the ships will need for British service remains unclear, and a commitment to a larger fleet will not be made until the concept is tested with the first three ships.
