Olympic swimming pools and London buses all in one press release from Truth Central
 

A new generation of 37,000-tonne tankers have been ordered for the Royal Navy fleet, the MoD announced today. The new Military Afloat Reach and Sustainability (MARS) tankers will maintain the Royal Navy’s ability to refuel at sea and will provide fuel to warships and task groups.

At over 200 metres long, the four tankers will be approximately the same length as 14 double decker buses and can pump enough fuel to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools in an hour. :\

Built in South Korea. Although:

"Despite being built in Korea, the UK has won £150m of associated contracts to assist the project.
These include £90m on UK contracts for equipment, systems, design and support services.
There will be a further £60m investment in the UK to be spent on customising the ships for the Royal Navy, trials and specialist engineering help"

BBC News - South Korea wins Royal Navy tanker deal worth £452m


UK firms took part in the tender, but the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said none made a final bid to take part.

Presumably this
BMT Defence Services - MARS Tanker

"Flight deck for 1 medium helicopter" + hanger
Does that mean no Chinook capability? Seems short sighted

Marketing blurb for the Aegir range, on which its based
http://www.bmtdsl.co.uk/BMT/bmt_medi...For%20Web1.pdf

Our navy seem to have a fixation about Olympic pools as the linked interview confirms:

You wouldn't think that a ship of that size would keep up with a Tristar. :}

what the heck is an organic helicopter?

One definition of "Organic" is " Constituting an integral part of a whole; fundamental."

Or,

"Assigned to and forming an essential part of a military organization. Organic parts of a unit are those listed in its table of organization for the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, and are assigned to the administrative organizations of the operating forces for the Navy."Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. US Department of Defense 2005."

yeah, it does sound daft

So it is not MOD speak for full of natural sh!te and no unnatural fertilisers used in the procurement.

Suppose your answer is more PC though :ok:

Organic helicopter = sycamore.

A tree that size would look good in a big grey tub.

What size are the tankers in comparison to Wales?

JJ - why is that important - or are we planning on trading Wales in against the new vessels? (now that's not a bad idea..) :E

I think he means whales.....

You couldn't make it up.

Oh, they did :(

Mind you given the drought could they get a tanker in time to dump a load of sea water in the pools? That would play havoc with the Olympic swimming records. Now there's a thought, is there a standard chemical mix for Olympic pools?

Well the Bristol Sycamore had wooden rotor blades so I suppose it was part organic.

4000 ish cubic metres of fuel an hour. Really?

CG

Ah so they could fill my pool in 9 seconds. Not bad.

Who the hell needs tankers when you don't have a fleet?


Let alone a task force!!!

perhaps they converted it here: Weird Converter - Translate Babies to Blue Whales to Polar Bears

But Wales is a measurement of area, where 1 nanoWales = 20.78m2

Maybe the plan is fill the tankers with water from the water rich north and porridge land and transport it to the drought ridden south east.

Oddly enough that is not as stupid as it sounds, Gibraltar when isolated from Spain used to get a tanker full From the UK at regular intervals to supplement the rain catchment slope on the back face of the rock. I don't know if it still does it.