Albion-class landing platform dock

HMS Bulwark, Albion-class landing platform dock
Class overview
Name:	Albion class
Builders:	BAE Systems Marine
Operators:	Royal Navy
Preceded by:	Fearless class
Cost:	£225M per ship
Built:	2
In service:	2
Active:	1
Laid up:	1
General characteristics
Type:	Landing platform dock
Displacement:	19,560 t (19,250 long tons; 21,560 short tons)
Length:	176 m (577 ft)
Beam:	28.9 m (95 ft)
Draught:	7.1 m (23 ft)
Propulsion:	2 × Wärtsilä Vasa 16V 32E diesel generators 2 × Wärtsilä Vasa 4R 32E diesel generators 2 × electric motors bow thruster
Speed:	18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h)
Range:	8,000 miles (7,000 nmi; 13,000 km)
Boats & landing craft carried:	4 × LCU MK10 4 × LCVP MK5
Capacity:	67 vehicles
Troops:	405 Royal Marines (710 overload)
Complement:	325
Sensors and processing systems:	2 × Type 1007/8 I-band radars 1 × Type 996 E/F band radar 1 × Type 997 E/F-band radar (from 2011)
Armament:	2 × Goalkeeper CIWS (replaced by Phalanx on Albion, removed from Bulwark while in extended readiness for eventual replacement with Phalanx) 2 × 30 mm guns 4 × General purpose machine guns
Aircraft carried:	Two landing spots for helicopters up-to the size of a Chinook.

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.

The value of the two Fearless-class landing platform docks was highlighted during the Falklands War. Not only did the ships transport troops and vehicles to the South Atlantic, the commanders of the landing operations at San Carlos were aboard HMS Fearless, and once they arrived their flight decks were used to support airborne operations by helicopters and Sea Harrier jets.

As these ships were built in the 1960s, on 18 July 1996 the British Ministry of Defence awarded a £450 million contract for their replacements to Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd (VSEL) in Barrow-in-Furness.