The Royal Netherlands Navy’s Joint Support Ship (JSS) Karel Doorman will be sold before commissioning and replaced by a smaller and cheaper supply ship as part of wider defence budget cuts, it has emerged.
The 2014 Dutch government budget, released on 17 September, announced €348 million in savings on top of the earlier announced €1 billion budget cuts.
JSS Karel Doorman was designed for the transport of heavy weapons systems, Chinook helicopters for implementation of the ship-to-objective-manoeuvre (STOM) concept, and the replenishment of ships.
After the Dutch MoD phased out Leopard 2 A6 tanks in 2011 as part of defence