HMS Albion is a landing platform dock of the Royal Navy, the first of the two-ship Albion class. Built by BAE Systems Marine in Barrow-in-Furness, Albion was launched in March 2001 by the Princess Royal. Her sister ship, Bulwark, was launched in November 2001, also from Barrow. Affiliated to the city of Chester and based in Plymouth, she is the ninth ship to carry the name Albion, stretching back to the 74-gun 1763 warship, and last carried by an aircraft carrier decommissioned in 1973 after 19 years service. Designed as an amphibious warfare ship, Albion carries troops, normally Royal Marines, and vehicles up to the size of the Challenger 2 main battle tank. She can deploy these forces using four Landing Craft Utility (LCUs) and four Landing Craft Vehicle and Personnel (LCVPs). A flight deck supports helicopter operations.
HMS Lancaster is a Duke-class Type 23 frigate of the Royal Navy, launched by Queen Elizabeth II on 24 May 1990. The ship is known as "The Queen's Frigate", the Duke of Lancaster being a subsidiary title of the Sovereign. Being the third ship in the Type 23 class, Lancaster was originally allocated the pennant number F232 until it was noted that the 232 is the Royal Navy report form for groundings and collisions and therefore considered unlucky. She is one of the few ships left in the fleet with some female officers but mess decks which are men-only.
The Albion-class landing platform dock is a class of amphibious warfare ship in service with the Royal Navy. The class consists of two vessels, HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark, ordered in 1996 to replace the ageing Fearless class. Both ships were built by BAE Systems Marine at the former Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering yard in Barrow-in-Furness. Albion was commissioned in 2003 and Bulwark in 2004. Each of the ships has a crew of 325 and can accommodate up to 405 troops. Thirty-one large trucks and thirty-six smaller vehicles and main battle tanks can be carried inside the vehicle deck. To disembark troops and vehicles, the vessels are equipped with eight landing craft. As of 2024, both vessels were in reserve.
Standing Royal Navy deployments is a list of operations and commitments undertaken by the United Kingdom's Royal Navy on a worldwide basis. The following list details these commitments and deployments sorted by region and in alphabetical order. Routine deployments made by the Navy's nuclear-powered submarines and their location of operations is classified.
HMS Quorn, the third ship of this name, was a Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessel of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 23 January 1988, as the last ship of her class.
The Hunt class is a class of thirteen mine countermeasure vessels of the Royal Navy. As built, they combined the separate roles of the traditional minesweeper and that of the active minehunter in one hull, but later modifications saw the removal of mine-sweeping equipment. They have a secondary role as offshore patrol vessels.
The Commander-in-Chief Fleet (CINCFLEET) was the admiral responsible for the operations of the ships, submarines and aircraft of the British Royal Navy from 1971 until April 2012. The post was subordinate to the First Sea Lord, the professional head of the Naval Service. In its last years, as the Navy shrank, more administrative responsibilities were added.
HMS Kirkliston (M1157) was a Ton-class minesweeper of the Royal Navy, built by Harland and Wolff and launched on 18 February 1954. In a brief episode from 1956 to 1960 she was temporarily renamed HMS Kilmorey and was assigned to the Ulster division Royal Naval Reserve (RNR).
HMS Duncan is the sixth and last of the Type 45 or Daring-class air-defence destroyers built for the Royal Navy and launched in 2010. Duncan is named after Adam Duncan, 1st Viscount Duncan, who defeated the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Camperdown on 11 October 1797. The destroyer has served in the Mediterranean, Black, and Caribbean Seas, and in 2019 was deployed to the Persian Gulf in response to increased tensions with Iran in the region. In May 2024, she deployed to the Red Sea to protect international shipping from the ongoing Houthi attacks.
HMS Grimsby was a Sandown-class minehunter of the British Royal Navy, serving from 1999–2022, and the second ship to bear the name.
HMS Ledbury, the second ship of the name, is a Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessel of the Royal Navy. She was launched in December 1979 and commissioned on 11 June 1981, the second ship of her class. She cost £65 million at time of building, which was at the time the most expensive cost-per-metre for any class of ship built by the Royal Navy. Most of this cost went into the research and development of Ledbury's glass reinforced plastic hull.
HMS Cattistock, the third ship of this name, is a Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessel of the Royal Navy. She was launched in 1981 and commissioned on 5 March 1982, the third ship of her class.
HMS Walney (M104) was a Sandown-class minehunter of the British Royal Navy. She was the fourth of the Sandown-class minehunters, and the second ship to carry the name, which comes from the island off Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria on the north-west coast of England.
HMS Ramsey was a Sandown-class minehunter of the British Royal Navy. Like other vessels of the Sandown class, Ramsey was built of glass-reinforced plastic and other non-magnetic materials so that her hull does not trigger naval mines as easily as standard warships.
HMS Shoreham was a Sandown-class minehunter of the British Royal Navy. She was the fifth vessel to bear the name. From 2018 to 2021, Shoreham was deployed at UKNSF Bahrain together with three other mine countermeasures ships as part of 9 Mine Countermeasures Squadron on Operation Kipion. In 2022 she was decommissioned and was transferred to Ukraine.
HMS Middleton is a Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessel of the British Royal Navy. As of 2021, she forms part of 9th Mine Countermeasures Squadron operating out of HMS Jufair in Bahrain.
HMS Chiddingfold is a Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessel of Britain's Royal Navy. She was launched in October 1983 by her sponsor, Lady Anne Kennon, and formally entered the service of the Royal Navy in October 1984. Chiddingfold is a minehunter, and her purpose is to find and destroy mines, not only in a time of war but also in peacetime. There are about a quarter of a million mines still active from the Second World War alone and they pose a major threat to both military and civilian ships. Chiddingfold is able to enter some types of minefields without magnetic mines detonating because she is made of glass-reinforced plastic, and all fixtures within the ship are made of non-ferrous metals, keeping the ship's magnetic signature to the bare minimum.
EML Admiral Cowan (M313) is a Sandown-class minehunter. Formerly HMS Sandown, lead ship of her class of the Royal Navy, she is now an Estonian Navy ship. Renamed EML Admiral Cowan, she is the flagship of the Estonian Navy and part of the Estonian Navy's mine sweeping flotilla. Admiral Cowan is the lead vessel of the Estonian Navy Mineships Division and also the first of the three modernised Sandown class minehunters received.
In 1989 the Royal Navy was under the direction of the Navy Department in the UK Ministry of Defence. It had two main commands, CINCFLEET and Naval Home Command.
United Kingdom
