THOR is the brain-child of CTruk’s Military and Security team, who between them have amassed approximately 200 years of military experience, skills and knowledge.

Realising that new designs must be right first time, the company has established a Military Design Advisory Panel (MDAP), which acts as an advisory body, steering design to ensure that vessels are fit for task.

The result of all this expertise, not to mention CTruk’s proven offshore support vessel designs, is THOR, a composite, 11m proof-of-concept demonstrator vessel, designed to fulfil a number of roles, including force protection of the amphibious sea lanes, casualty extraction from a beach, carrying and deploying a pre-landing force, riverine patrol, protection of harbours and offshore installations, unmanned surface vessel operations (for protection and mine countermeasures) and disaster relief.

Fitted with a remote weapon station and other crew served weapons, THOR is designed to be rapidly deployable via a number of assets, both existing and future (including C17/A400M + CTruk 50T mother ship).

THOR is built from modern, advanced composite materials to give a strong and robust structure, which reduces overall vessel weight and saves time spent on operational and maintenance routines, as well as offering significant cost savings in through life maintenance. Reduction in weight translates directly into greater payload, range and speed. 

THOR incorporates a range of high-tech equipment, provided through the CTruk Collaborative Amphibious Project (CAP), a consortium of key subsystems manufacturers that have joined forces to deliver an innovative vessel design with high-tech options. Core to THOR’s capability is the systems integration work undertaken by SCISYS.

Andy White, CTruk Chairman, commented:

“We have designed THOR to meet the changing needs of the global market for defence and security equipment. Global defence budgets are being squeezed like never before and emerging nations most often cite affordability as the major obstacle in their maritime procurement programmes. Many navies have lost, or are losing, the ability to deploy appropriate and proportionate capability to respond to a myriad of low-level threats, with the result that billion dollar ships are routinely being used for ten dollar tasks.

“Providing value for money and versatile capability is the current challenge, which is ably met by THOR.”