Norway to Deploy 28 Modular Naval Vessels as New Multi-Role Fleet Under P1118 Program.

Norway has awarded Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and Salt Ship Design a contract to design a new standardized fleet of up to 28 naval vessels.

Announced March 30, 2026, the contract launches Project P1118, one of Norway’s largest naval recapitalization efforts, with the first delivery targeted for 2030. The design phase will inform a competitive shipbuilding process expected in 2026 to 2027. The fleet will combine common hulls, shared systems, and modular payloads to support patrol, surveillance, mine warfare, and crisis response missions across the Royal Norwegian Navy and Coast Guard.

Read also: Norway orders 2 more Type 212CD submarines from TKMS to increase its presence in the Arctic.

Kongsberg and Salt Ship Design have secured the contract to shape Norway’s future standardized naval vessels, a modular fleet program designed to give the Royal Norwegian Navy and Coast Guard more flexible, cost-effective maritime capability for patrol, surveillance, mine warfare, and crisis response (Picture source: Kongsberg).

Announced on March 30, 2026, the contract follows a prequalification process launched in January and supports one of the largest maritime recapitalization efforts in Norway’s current long-term defense plan. Oslo wants the first vessel delivered in 2030, with the design phase feeding a shipbuilding competition planned for late 2026 into 2027.

The program’s confirmed structure is unusually ambitious for a navy of Norway’s size. According to the qualification basis for Project P1118, the fleet would comprise two hull sizes and four variants: an ocean-going platform of about 90 meters with 35 to 45 permanent crew, and a coastal platform of about 55 meters with 23 to 33 crew, both designed for 18 to 20 knots. The notional split is four ocean-going and 12 coastal ships for the Navy, plus six ocean-going and six coastal ships for the Coast Guard, replacing seven non-helicopter-capable vessel classes within a fleet structure that today spans more than ten classes.

The most important armament detail is that Norway is not pursuing a heavily fixed combat fit on every hull. The qualification basis explicitly calls for modular weapons and sensor systems, and for interoperability with autonomous and unmanned systems under a “system of systems” concept with remote operation, AI-based decision support, and potential crew reduction over time. In practice, that means the combat value of these ships will come from reconfigurable payloads rather than from a single permanent weapons suite, allowing hulls to shift between constabulary, mine warfare, surveillance, escort, and limited combat-support roles faster than traditional naval vessels.

That modular logic is tactically significant. A standard hull with container-compatible mission spaces can carry a lower-signature peacetime fit for fisheries protection or sovereignty patrol, then receive additional sensors, unmanned vehicles, mine warfare equipment, or weapons as tensions rise. Kongsberg’s public Vanguard material, while not a confirmed P1118 weapons list, shows the company’s design philosophy: baseline integrated radars, antennas, sonar interfaces, combat management architecture, and deployable modules that can include weapons, sensors, vehicles, salvage gear, and mission support equipment through standardized interfaces.

This is why the armament question should be understood in layers. The fixed layer is likely to center on combat management, navigation, communications, surveillance, and self-protection enablers that every ship needs. The mission layer is where Norway can tailor effectors and payloads to role: patrol and ISR fits for daily presence, mine warfare modules for sea denial and route clearance, unmanned systems for standoff scouting, and selected naval variants with a higher military ambition for deterrence and limited warfighting. Norwegian documents stop short of naming specific weapons, and that restraint is revealing: the state is buying adaptability first, then capacity packages around it.

Operationally, these vessels are meant to fill a real gap in Norway’s force structure. The country is recapitalizing its fleet along three lines—new Type 26 frigates, new submarines, and these standardized vessels—and the P1118 ships are the workhorses that can generate routine maritime presence without consuming scarce high-end frigate hours. They will not replace the anti-submarine punch of the future frigate force, but they can widen the Navy’s surveillance envelope, support mine warfare, reinforce coastal control, and give the Coast Guard and Navy a far more interchangeable fleet during crisis mobilization. This broader recapitalization cycle also includes Norway’s Type 26 frigate selection, the 212CD submarine program, and the continued relevance of the Naval Strike Missile family.

The project’s development path also explains why Oslo chose a national design team. The design contract is intended to create a neutral technical baseline accessible to all shipbuilders in the next phase, reducing risk before construction contracts are signed. Norway’s government and FMA have repeatedly stressed resilience, security of supply, industrial capacity, and the need to develop vessels “as civilian as possible, as military as necessary,” using commercial standards and commercially available technology wherever feasible without compromising military function. That approach promises lower cost and faster build cycles, but it also demands disciplined systems integration so that civilian-derived hulls can survive operationally in a contested environment.

Strategically, the program may matter beyond Norway. The revised long-term plan states that deliveries of standardized vessels to the United Kingdom are part of the strategic agreement linked to Norway’s frigate procurement, while Lithuania has also agreed on vessel delivery, and other nations have shown interest. If that ambition holds, P1118 could become more than a domestic fleet renewal effort: it could become a Nordic-British template for lower-cost allied naval mass, built around shared logistics, training, and modular mission packages.

What Kongsberg and SALT have therefore won is not just a ship-design contract, but the chance to define how Norway intends to generate maritime presence under pressure in the 2030s. The deeper meaning of the project is that Norway is moving away from a fragmented small-ship inventory toward a scalable fleet architecture in which hull commonality, payload modularity, and manned-unmanned teaming matter as much as raw displacement or top-end firepower. If executed well, the standardized vessels could give Norway something many European navies now lack: affordable numbers, rapid role adaptation, and a credible bridge between peacetime constabulary duties and wartime maritime operations.