Royal Navy welcomes mine-hunting mothership
The MoD has previously mentioned plans to acquire an additional three ships for mine countermeasures from 2025. (Photo: MoD)
RFA Stirling Castle, a 6,000-tonne vessel, will start operations later this year.
The Royal Navy has welcomed RFA Stirling Castle, a mine-hunting mothership, into its fleet.The ship will deploy systems to gather data, locate, identify and neutralise mines, as well as other underwater explosives.
Motherships function as a host vessel for remotely operated and autonomous systems used by the Royal Navy. RFA Stirling Castle was procured by the UK Ministry of Defence’s Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) as part of the Mine Hunting Capability programme (MHC).
Equipment capable of being operated remotely, including new autonomous surface vessels and uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUV), has also been procured by DE&S/ The ship will be able to carry the remote command centres for the unmanned vessels and vehicles, and will have the capability to store, prepare and deploy the vessels and vehicles.
RFA Stirling Castle was conversed at Devonport having previously operated as an oil rig support vessel under the name of MV Island Crown.
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