HNLMS Karel Doorman

So on Friday I had a chance to visit Karel Doorman a Dutch Navy vessel (their version of the joint support ship), not exactly wargaming related but I thought it was interesting so here are some pictures anyway. We had a nice tour, and they allowed us to take any pictures we wanted, and then dinner was served in the hangar with drinks. Was a very nice outing. The basic functions of the ship are replenishment at sea, seas basing, and strategic transport.

Here she is in Montreal. A pretty big vessel at 204.7m length, 27,000 tons displacement.

Bridge and Goalheeper CIWS to shoot down incoming missiles.

Flight  deck.

RAS towers and the aft end of the superstructure.

Steel beach at the end of the vehicle deck, I guess I didn't get a picture of the vehicle deck but they have 2,250m2 of space, they had tons of keep in there. I beleive someone said that this is rated to be used up to sea state 6.

They have a triage center, a ward, and 2 operating rooms. A big part of their mission is foreign aid. The operating rooms are large enough that you can rotate the beds at any angle to minimize the effects of ships motions.

Galley.

View from the bridge, they have a huge fully enclosed bridge, including the wing which overhang. There is a window in the bottom of the wings so you can get a view of the waterline, provides a great line of sight when doing RAS or mooring operations.

View aft from the flight control room.

Views from one of the RAS control room, as you can see they have 3 large hoses to pass oil, water, and helicopter fuel, and a hook up for passing solid cargoes across. Their maximum reach is 90 meters for the RAS depending on the sea state, but we were told that around 45m is the usual maximum. We were told that a replenishment may take up to a couple of hours including half an hour to set up and 10 minuets to take down, and they have the capacity to handle 1 ship either side. Their are elevators in the flight deck that go down to the vehicle deck and ammunition store so they can easily move things over to the RAS area to pass accross.

Very nice ship, really enjoyed this tour.

Thanks;
Mike