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During February 2006 the UK MoD chose three companies to work on the
next (assessment) stage of a project (MARS) to provide a new fleet of
naval support vessels. In time we would expect one of these companies
to become the programme integrator. The overall budget for the
complete assessment programme is £44 million.
The MARS vessels are intended to provide fuel, food and stores to
units afloat and a new seabasing facility to support forces ashore.
These MARS vessels will have some military equipment and will be
technically similar to specialist merchant ships. With the high
planned workload on the future CVF (carriers) and Type 45
(destroyers).
The project is expected to provide for replacement for some classes of
Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessels, including Rover and Leaf class tankers
and Fort class support. We would expect to see the first of the MARS
vessels entering service by around 2012.
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