Joint support ship

A joint support ship is a multi-role naval vessel capable of launching and supporting joint amphibious and airlift operations. It can also provide command and control, sealift and seabasing, underway replenishment, disaster relief and logistics capabilities for combined land and sea operations.

Background

The preliminary ideas for joint support ships arose from the development of "helicopter carriers", classes of vessels such as landing platform docks and landing helicopter docks designed for the operation of rotary-wing and other types of vertical take-off and landing aircraft. Unlike conventional fixed-wing aircraft carriers, these vessels do not require steam catapults for the launching of aircraft or arresting cables for the recovery or aircraft, and thus provided more space below the flight deck which could be utilised for other purposes. Some early LHDs were converted World War II-era aircraft carriers such as the United States Navy 's Essex-class vessels, but later designs often featured non-full length flight decks, usually at rear of the vessel.
While initial emphasis was placed upon airborne operations, as the need for combined forces capabilities grew, facilitating amphibious operations also became a requirement, and later designs such as the Royal Navy 's LPD emerged featuring a well dock to launch and recover personnel, vehicular and utility landing craft, and in the case of the USN's LPD, landing helicopter assault and other similar classes of vessels, tracked amphibious landing vehicles such as the AAVP-7A1.
To support the air- and sea-going craft these vessels carried, they often featured fuel bunkers with increased storage capacity, and were often utilised as supplementary auxiliary ships to provide underway replenishment to other vessels. Their absence of large calibre weapons on weather decks and with increased storage space below, they also proved very useful at sealift operations. Many also had onboard hospital facilities and the vessels served as casualty evacuation vessels. These multiple roles were demonstrated in 1956 during the Suez Crisis, where the helicopters of, a former World War II aircraft carrier repurposed to a helicopter carrier, were not only used to transport Royal Marines to the shore but supplies and other cargo as well, and return with wounded troops. With a combination of army and navy personnel and aircrew onboard, and often equipped with a wide range of sensor suites, these vessels were utilised as ad-hoc or formal joint command and control centres, as demonstrated during the Vietnam War, the Falklands War and the Gulf War.
With their multi-role capabilities, these vessels have also proven extremely useful in civil emergencies, providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief at times of natural disasters, and for peace-keeping duties providing logistical support for internally displaced persons, and this capability is often factored into tender requirements during procurement processes.
Examples of vessels of other classes that have undertaken multiple roles for which a JSS is intended to fulfil include:

In 1988,, an LPH of the RN, provided humanitarian aid to victims of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras and Nicaragua. In 2012 the vessel was moored on the River Thames at Greenwich to providing logistics support, accommodation and a secure helicopter landing site for the London Olympic Games.
From December 2001 to March 2002, a landing platform amphibious ship of the Royal Australian Navy, deployed to the Persian Gulf and conducted boarding parties to inspect ships transiting the waters for compliance with sanctions against Iraq, and served as the forward operating base for US Navy SEAL teams. In 2003 the vessel returned to the Gulf where it operated as a command and control ship during the invasion of Iraq, as well as providing logistical support to other coalition vessels in the conflict. The ship has also provided disaster relief and humanitarian aid in South East Asia and the Oceania region, including the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami.
In 2020, a LPD of the Indian Navy was used to retrieve Indian nationals stranded in the Maldives during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Various vessels of the USN's landing platform helicopter ships have been used for purposes other than amphibious and airborne landings, including:
* In 1962 USS Iwo Jima operated as a control ship during the Operation Fishbowl nuclear tests at Johnston Atoll and evacuated and later return non-essential personnel to and from the site
* between 1963 and 1971 numerous vessels of this class operated off the coast of Vietnam where their duties included mine countermeasures, search and rescue operations, underway refuelling of other task force ships, and with their 100-bed hospitals were often the primary receiving station for wounded personnel
* Between 1970 and 1972 five vessels of this class functioned as recovery ships for NASA's Apollo crewed lunar program, including Iwo Jima which recovered the crew and capsule of Apollo 13
* From 1972 to 1974 USS Guam was used as an experimental sea control ship
* In 1983 Guam acted as a command and control and logistic support ship for the Multinational Force in Lebanon and in October, survivors of the Beirut barracks bombing where airlifted to Iwo Jima, which acted as a hospital ship.
Vessels of USN's LHDs have conducted and coordinated disaster response operations for various natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina.

As a result of the multi-role nature of these operations, a new type of vessel emerged, the joint support ship, as a hybrid of two very different classes of vessels, amphibious assault ships and auxiliary ships.

Design features

While the specific roles that a JSS is designed to fulfil varies between navies, most vessels share common features to support the basic roles they provide for both navies and armies. Below are some examples of these common features:

Flight deck and hangars for helicopters or other VTOL aircraft for airlift operations and aircraft maintenance. Typically, a JSS would not feature a full-length flight deck like that of a helicopter carrier and some classes of LHDs.
Well dock for transporting, launching and recovering amphibious, landing or other sea-to-shore craft
Sealift space for transport and transfer of heavy equipment
Berthing space and ordnance lockers for military personnel and their equipment
Fuel storage tanks and dry storage for ammunition, food, and other supplies for replenishing other ships while underway.
Seabasing command rooms for mission coordination
Lifting equipment for the loading and unloading of deck cargo, or the launching and recovery of small watercraft
Greater emphasis upon self-defence weapon systems than dedicated auxiliary ships, making them better suited for operating in combat zones
Other support facilities e.g. hospital rooms.

Furthermore, to fulfil its missions a flexible modular design allows for configuration of temporary areas for different purposes as missions require. As such it is basically a combination of an amphibious warfare ship and auxiliary ships like replenishment oiler, transport ship, and hospital ship in one.

Vessels in service

Royal Canadian Navy

In 1999 the Canadian government sought to replace the Royal Canadian Navy's ageing of auxiliary oiler replenishment ships through the Afloat Logistic Support Capability program. The replacement program envisioned tanker ships with roll-on/roll-off sealift capability. These multi-role ships were envisioned to deploy mobilised forces directly to the beach.
In 2004, Public Works and Government Services Canada issued a request for proposal for the joint support ship to replace three AOR ships, although one AOR ship was already retired by the time the RFP was released. The RFP capped the bid price at C$1.5 billion. The RFP called for three multi-role ships capable of refuelling ships at sea, providing ship-borne helicopter support, heavy sealift capability, a mobile hospital, a joint force headquarters centre, and a strengthened hull for operations in sea ice.
PWGSC cancelled the program in 2008 after stating all the received bids were above the mandatory budget. The Canadian government restarted the JSS procurement process in the same year.
In 2013 Canada selected the replenishment ship design to replace the Protecteur-class fleet. The German design provides fuel, provisions, ammunition, and some materiel and medical capabilities, and can land up to two helicopters. The ships are to be built in Vancouver by Seaspan Shipyards under the National Ship Procurement Strategy.
Originally to be designated as the Queenston class with ship names of HMCS Queenston and HMCS Châteauguay, in 2017 the Royal Canadian Navy renamed the joint support ships to the former Protecteur-class designation, re-using the same ship names HMCS Protecteur and HMCS Preserver.
The cost of building the two replenishment ships was set at C$2.3bn with first delivery occurring in 2018. In 2018, the government's own review indicated the total cost was then calculated to be C$3.4bn, with first delivery not likely before 2022 or 2023. As of 2019, delivery of the first vessel was expected to occur in 2023 followed by the second vessel in 2025. Those dates were each reported in 2022 to have slipped by a further two years.

Royal Netherlands Navy

The Royal Netherlands Navy operates a single JSS, HNLMS Karel Doorman, which officially entered service in 2015 and replaced both of that force's existing replenishment oilers, and.
The vessel was constructed by the Damen Group, at their shipyard in Galați, Romania, although installation of weapon systems and final fit-out was undertaken in Vlissingen, the Netherlands. The vessel has the following design features:

forward superstructure containing bridge and operating stations, crew and troop accommodation, medical bay, helicopter hangar, etc.
rear weather and helicopter decks, with hangar and landing space for six and two CH-47 Chinook-sized helicopters respectively
port and starboard amidship underway replenishment stations
capacity RoRo quarter ramp
40-ton deck crane and a steel beach stern ramp for cargo transfer to/from landing craft, with stowage for two landing craft, vehicle, personnel and two rigid-hull inflatable boats launched and recovered by davits.
sealift capacity of with of general cargo space and for ammunition storage
bunker capacities of of fuel, of aviation fuel, and of freshwater.

In November 2014, despite the fact the vessel had only recently completed sea trials but not yet commissioned, it was sent on a three-month deployment to West Africa as part of the European Union's response to an Ebola outbreak, where it delivered ambulances, portable hospitals and medical supplies to Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
In 2016 the Dutch and German Ministers of Defence agreed that HNLMS Karel Doorman would be shared by both the Royal Netherlands Navy and the German Navy.