The Terran Sea ILU is to date the largest and most expensive upgrade programme the DDS have undertaken but that has now been completed and the DDS are now moving onto a programme that will be even bigger. The huge fleet of SUP (Standard Utility Platform) ships is to receive its ILU starting later this year.
The Missileer/SUP ILU includes the 10 Missileer 21Bs, 2 Tethys Ocean 65As, 19 Provider 71As, 28 Extender 73As, 2 Nightingale 88As and 5 Marconi 81As. The ILU will be applied differently on a ship by ship case due to the variety of ages, roles and conditions.
All ships will be re-engineed with a HS-740CE engine (a variety of variants of the 740 are used and the DDS are keen to standardise) which is more efficient and cheaper to run. The Missileers and selected Providers and Extenders will also receive W1AA worm drive. All ships except the hospital ships will receive armament upgrades though this will vary on the class. Communications, internal security and computer systems will also be upgraded. Older ships will also be refurbished though all ships will receive attention and be readied for another 8-10 years hard use.
The upgrade programme is expected to last 3-4 years and cost over 12 billion zarks. This will be spread over several budgets, the current DDS financial restrictions will not affect the start of the programme as this has already been funded though may do next year if the restrictions are not lifted.
