The Royal Navy of Great Britain has put up for sale an auxiliary vessel Argus - the only one of its kind.
Until 1981, the ship built in Italy was a peaceful container ship MV Contender Bezant. On the eve of the Falklands War, it was mobilized and converted into a floating hospital. Then Bezant was returned to the owners, but due to the decline in shipping, the container ship turned out to be not the lot and in 1984 the British Admiralty finally acquired the 190-meter ship.
The recruit was named Argus, a flight deck was installed to receive helicopters - the main mission of the ship was to be the training of naval aviation pilots. But in 1999, the Gulf War broke out and the former container ship hurried there to receive the wounded. Radiological, intensive care and surgical departments were deployed in its holds, a CT scanner and 100 beds for patients were installed. At the same time, the status of Argus is strange - it cannot be considered a full-fledged hospital ship, since it is not painted white with red crosses on the sides and is armed (four 7.62 mm machine guns and two 20 mm automatic guns).
Nevertheless, the strange ship brought a lot of benefits to the Royal Navy, as a small helicopter carrier participating in NATO operations in Bosnia and Kosovo, and then - as a hospital - off the coast of Sierra Leone, where Ebola was raging. In 2020, Argus was repaired and sent to the Caribbean to help fight drug trafficking, eliminate the consequences of hurricanes and COVID-19.
This trip or the next one may be the last in the military service of the 41-year-old ship, writes Forbes. And Argus' place in the Navy will remain vacant - having invested in the construction of two aircraft carriers, the purchase of Typhoon fighters and other high-tech weapons, the British Admiralty exceeded its budget by $ 14 billion until 2029.
Anton Valagin
