In the modernisation programme 2000 - 2015 of the Belgium navy they had the plans to buy a transport ship 2nd hand , later this turned in to a plan to build a ship like the dutch Rotterdam.
They started to study the posibilities and what they wanted, in this study a cooperation with the army of Luxembourg was agreed they costs would be split 75% for Belgium and 25% for Luxembourg, the budget would be arround 200 million euro's. The aiforces wanted a full helicopterdeck, theship would be able to carry way much more helicopters then both country's owned together, the navy wanted full amfibiouse capacities, the army's wanted a deck that could store a combination of upto 300 vehicles (MBT/APC/IFV's) or 1700 small vehicles, the medical components wanted a big hospital inside the ship. Due to these large capacities the length would come out up to 199m's and the costs for the ship would lay arround 246 million euro's, in 2003 the governments decided that that was to much and cancelled the project. The ship would have been build for almost 80% sure at Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding in The Netherlands and join the navy arround 2015.
Main info:
lenght: 199m
Beam: 30m
Crew: 185 (ship + standard flight crew for 6 helicopters)
Troops: 600 troops
Hospital would be a Role 3 hospital with upto 100 beds (20 IC), 2 Operation Rooms.
Helicopter hangar: 16 medium helicopters (NH-90's)
vehicle deck: 45 MBT's or 300 IFV/APC's or combination.
Dock: 2 LCU + 4 LCVP (carried in davids)
Weapons: 1x 30 mm Goalkeeper CIWS ,1x RAM CIWS , 6x 12.7mm HMG, 8 FN MAG.
On the base of news paper story's and other forum's i tried to build the ship as it possibly had looked if it was build.
Attachment:
BE_LUX_ATS.png