Navantia ATHLAS Class, designed for Amphibious Operations
According to Greek mythology, Atlas was one of the most outstanding of the Titans, those powerful deities that preceded the twelve Olympian gods headed by Zeus, in governance of the world.
In their fight for divine supremacy, Atlas led to the Titans in a war against the Olympian gods, but were defeated and made prisoner. Zeus, the victorious Olympian god, then imposed upon Atlas a special punishment, holding the heavens upon his shoulders so as to keep the Earth and Heaven separated for eternity. According to legend, Atlas did this extraordinary task at the western most extremity known to the Greeks, which is regarded as being near the Strait of Gibraltar.
Navantia too, which is one of the world’s leading naval designers and builders, has facilities near the Strait of Gibraltar, and thus inspired to design a class of ships with extraordinary capacities for amphibious missions: the ATHLAS class (Amphibious Transport Helicopter Landing Attack Ship).
The ATHLAS class vessels are designed for amphibious and aircraft operations during times of crisis but also for humanitarian aid, in disaster relief or refugee evacuation.
The ATHLAS class has been designed for maximum flexibility in operational configuration, and is made of three different families of ships, being the ATHLAS LHD/LHA, ATHLAS LPD, ATHLAS LKA. The ATHLAS family offers Navies flexible platforms adapted for their requirements.
Navantia is a world leader and has long experience, as exemplified by the fact that it “has already built and delivered 3 ships for the Spanish Navy”, LPD Castilla, LPD Galicia and LHD Juan Carlos I. Thereafter were exported similar ships to the Royal Australian Navy which order two LHDs in 2007. Based on the LHD Juan Carlos I, both the HMAS Canberra and HMAS Adelaide are presently in service, giving excellent performance. The Turkish Navy thereafter selected the Juan Carlos I type for their fleet as well and is building one unit at the Turkish shipyard SEDEF, through transfer of technology. In both these countries, collaboration with local companies in on programmes, has been very successful.
As for India, Navantia has partnered with Larsen & Toubro to compete in the tender for construction in country of 4 new vessels based on the Spanish design and tailored to meet Indian Naval requirements. This ship would provide unrivalled capability in its class, as demonstrated to the Navy in June 2018 when the Spanish Navy LHD Juan Carlos I visited Mumbai, and senior Indian Navy officers given presentation on the ship’s capabilities.
Navantia is fully committed to ‘Make in India’ and offers the Indian Navy the most capable, affordable and low-risk of such platforms, being not only a well proven and flexible design, but also bringing comprehensive transfer of technology and technical support in the areas of design, production, operations and life cycle maintenance.
