From the magazine – Shipbuilders naturally prefer to build nice big ships for the Royal Netherlands Navy, such as the large transport ships HNLMS Rotterdam and HNLMS Johan de Witt. So for them it will take some getting used to, but apart from the necessary frigates, the future will be mainly in unmanned systems. A mother ship surrounded by all kinds of unmanned systems, read mainly small, autonomously sailing boats or drones.
In every issue of SWZ|Maritime, SWZ|Maritime’s editor-in-chief Antoon Oosting writes an opinion piece under the heading “Markets” about the maritime industry or a particular sector within it. For the February 2025 issue, he visited the PartnerSHIP symposium and found that the role of unmanned systems in the future Royal Netherlands Navy’s fleet will be substantial. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher, the SWZ Foundation, the KNVTS, or other editors.
We are in a transition towards more and more unmanned systems, Michel Janssen noted during the PartnerSHIP symposium “From Tideman to Dutch Naval Design” held on Friday 7 February in Amsterdam. Janssen, as deputy head of the Maritime Systems Division (afdeling Maritieme Systemen, AMS), the maritime engineering office of the Ministry of Defence, co-leads said transition.
The mission of AMS is to work with maritime partners, industry and knowledge institutes to provide the Royal Netherlands Navy with advanced and safe equipment on timely basis. The aim is to provide the best equipment that excels in innovation, safety, seaworthiness, sustainability, reliability, cooperation and timely response to naval operational needs.
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Successful naval construction cluster
The PartnerSHIP symposium organised by Dutch Naval Design at the Marine Etablissement Amsterdam (MEA) was not only meant to reflect on the fact that shipbuilder Bruno Tideman started model trials for the construction of the first steam-powered warships 150 years ago, but also on 150 years of innovation in the Dutch naval construction cluster.
That cluster of the Royal Netherlands Navy itself, knowledge institutes and industry has been quite successful, with the occasional highs and lows in that past century and a half, building fine naval vessels at Dutch shipyards. With its own construction of submarines and frigates in particular, that naval construction cluster has built top-class ships that perform excellently in the NATO context, especially over the past fifty years. The M frigate was a state-of-the-art top frigate according to experts.
However, the symposium was also a time to look ahead together as representatives of the navy, knowledge institutes like TNO and MARIN and shipbuilding industry to see how the Royal Netherlands Navy can be restored to full strength for the future and develop sufficient deterrence to keep us off the back foot of a belligerent Putin.
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it has become clear that we in Europe are not safe and need to bring our defences up to standard. Dutch politicians and government have also become aware that something really needs to be done now. Meanwhile, EUR 31 billion has been allocated for new auxiliary vessels, mine-countermeasure vessels, amphibious transport ships, frigates and submarines.
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The success of drones
So there is money, but then the question is what to spend it on. The course of Russia’s war against Ukraine has made it clear that the battle at sea, off the coast and even in ports will henceforth be very different from what was hitherto anticipated. Russian surface ships are proving extremely vulnerable in the face of Ukrainian attacks by drones equipped with hefty charges of explosives.
At the end of the PartnerSHIP symposium, COMMIT commander Vice-Admiral Jan-Willem Hartman also indicated in his closing remarks that the role and vulnerability of traditional frigates in modern threat scenarios is being critically examined within Defence. Traditional ships run far too high a risk as sitting ducks. Above water, ships are always visible, according to the Vice Admiral. Larger ships must therefore be much better protected, make do with far fewer people, and unmanned, autonomous response systems must be used more often for attack and defence.
It is therefore a challenge for not only the Royal Netherlands Navy itself, but also the knowledge institutes and maritime and defence industry to develop the required knowledge and systems. And for this, according to Hartman, Tideman’s lesson teaches that there must be early cooperation between the three partners in the naval cluster in what is called the Golden Triangle.
A partnership that, judging by the lessons of the morning session of the symposium, has been very successful, especially since the 1950s, but which has suffered a severe blow, especially due to all the cutbacks of successive cabinets over the past three decades. And working with tenders, such as for the new submarines, which leads to relatively low prices, did lead to the fact that no submarines will ever again be built in the Netherlands because the knowledge and expertise for this is now gone forever.
Completely new navy fleet
But after Minister Hans Hillen’s (2011) decimation of Defence and especially of the naval fleet during the first Rutte administration, there is now money for investment again and work is underway to almost completely replace the current fleet. Construction is underway on six mine-countermeasure vessels and the acquisition has started of four submarines, four M-frigates, which will mainly be submarine combatants, eight auxiliary vessels, six amphibious transport ships and four air defence and command frigates. The new Combat Support Ship Den Helder will have been christened as our magazine goes to press.
If units from the current fleet are kept in service for a while longer, the overall size of the Royal Netherlands Navy fleet could grow quite a bit again. The Joint Logistic Support Ship Karel Doorman dates from 2015, so it could last a while yet, as could the Ocean-going Patrol Vessels (OPVs) commissioned in 2012 and 2013. The Walrus-class submarines (1990-1994) and both M-class frigates date from the early 1990s and are thus at the end of their service lives.
Both the large amphibious transport ships date from 1998 and 2007, which means the HNLMS Rotterdam is now starting to get quite old (27 years). However, the biggest problem in keeping the ships deployable will be the availability of personnel.
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Communication is crucial
New ships will also mainly have to make do with fewer personnel while current Royal Netherlands Navy ships already sail with far fewer personnel than what is common in other NATO navies. Automation and integration of systems was and is therefore a high priority. And if a mother ship will soon be surrounded by unmanned systems (drones and/or vessels) in war situations, this will become even more crucial.
‘If we are going to distribute a ship’s capabilities across other unmanned systems, connectivity brings all kinds of challenges,’ says Peter van Terwisga, Director of Research, Development and Innovation at Damen Naval. When you distribute sensors and effectors, for example weapon systems, across different units, manned or unmanned, it very much comes down to good and stable communication. So far, communication can often still be disrupted very quickly, the Russian-Ukrainian war also teaches. Russians now no longer control their drones wirelessly, but with dozens of kilometres of fibre-optic cables that are harder to disrupt.
And of course, if autonomous systems are involved, you want to ensure that drones do not turn against their own ships as a result of faltering communications. Another issue is the launch and recovery of unmanned systems. Of course, this should not only be possible in calm seas.
A completely different issue is that of fuels. Currently, all ships still run on marine diesel, but in the fight against climate change, the navy must also look for alternatives. That is why the new auxiliary vessels will run on (green) methanol. For frigates and other ships that really need to be able to do battle at sea, this is not an option for the time being, says Agnieta Habben Jansen, Naval Architect at COMMIT-AMS. A warship must always be able to do what it needs to do, and for this the availability of fuels is crucial.
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Dutch Naval Design
So all those challenges must be answered by the cooperation between Defence, knowledge institutes and industry, or the Golden Triangle, now called Dutch Naval Design. In it, 38 companies, five knowledge institutes and six defence units are now working together. An important part of the PartnerSHIP symposium was the Maritime Festival where companies could show the first results of their research projects for, for instance, the modular design of naval ships or increasing the survivability of the new frigates. Key players in this include RH Marine, Damen Naval, NIM, TNO, MARIN, Flying Fish and Fugro.
One of the most tangible projects of Dutch Naval Design is the project to have a so-called unmanned surface vessel (USV) ready for the navy in four years’ time. The 12-metre-long vessels should be deployable for anti-submarine warfare. They will do their work from the Anti-Submarine Warfare Frigates to be delivered around 2030. For anti-submarine warfare, a helicopter accompanies the current frigates. Soon, this aircraft will no longer have to perform this task alone. The USV can do it too.
Respond to this article by sending an e-mail to Antoon Oosting, editor-in-chief and author of this article: swz.rotterdam@knvts.nl.
Cartoon by Hans de Wilde/SWZ|Maritime.
