The Enforcer is a ship design created by Royal Schelde (now Damen Schelde Naval Shipbuilding) following the design and building of HNLMS ''Rotterdam''. HNLMS ''Rotterdam'' was jointly developed by the

Royal Netherlands Navy The Royal Netherlands Navy ( nl, Koninklijke Marine, links=no) is the naval force of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. During the 17th century, the navy of the Dutch Republic (1581–1795) was one of the most powerful naval forces in the world an ...

and the

Spanish Navy The Spanish Navy or officially, the Armada, is the maritime branch of the Spanish Armed Forces and one of the oldest active naval forces in the world. The Spanish Navy was responsible for a number of major historic achievements in navigation, ...

. Development began in the 1980s, when the Royal Netherlands Navy began investigating ways to provide an amphibious transport capability. In 1994, preliminary design work began. The Spanish government proposed in 1990 to collaborate on the design. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed in June 1992. Development of the base design occurred during 1993, after which the navies turned to local companies for further design work and construction:

Royal Schelde The Damen Group is a Dutch defence, shipbuilding, and engineering conglomerate company based in Gorinchem, Netherlands. Though it is a major international group doing business in 120 countries, it remains a private family-owned company. Dame ...

in the Netherlands, and Bazán (which became

Navantia Navantia is a Spanish state-owned shipbuilding company, which offers its services to both military and civil sectors. It is the fifth-largest shipbuilder in Europe and the ninth-largest in the world with shipyards around the globe. The heir to t ...

in 2005) in Spain. Royal Schelde completed one ship to the ''Rotterdam'' class, with constructed between 1995 and 1998. Bazan/Navantia completed two ships to the ''Galicia''-class design. After building ''Rotterdam'', Royal Schelde developed the "Enforcer Family": four variants of the Enforcer design intended for export sale. Increased modularity, less powerful propulsion systems, and allowed the company to offer the export variants at lower prices. The Enforcer design also served as the basis of a second ship for the Royal Netherlands Navy; , which was laid down in 2003 and commissioned in 2007. The design was used for the British

Bay-class landing ship The Bay class is a ship class of four dock landing ships built for the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) during the 2000s. They are based on the Dutch-Spanish Royal Schelde Enforcer design, and replaced the logistics ships. Two ships each were ...

s. Four vessels were built for the

Royal Fleet Auxiliary The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) is a naval auxiliary fleet owned by the UK's Ministry of Defence. It provides logistical and operational support to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. The RFA ensures the Royal Navy is supplied and supported by ...

by two shipyards between 2002 and 2007, with one sold in 2011 to the

Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the principal naval force of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (CN) Vice Admiral Mark Hammond AM, RAN. CN is also jointly responsible to the Minister of ...

. The Enforcer design was considered a contender for the

Indian Navy Multi-Role Support Vessel programme The procurement of Landing Platform Docks (LPD) by the Indian Navy, formerly known as the "Multi-Role Support Vessel Program" (MRSV) - is an initiative of the Indian Navy to procure a series of landing platform docks, specific vessels dedicate ...

Ships based on Enforcer design

Here is a list of ships that are based on the Enforcer design.

References

{{Reflist Amphibious warfare vessels