Navantia and L&T team up to offer Juan Carlos I-based assault ships to India's navy

Spanish state shipbuilder Navantia and India's Larsen and Toubro have signed a memorandum of understanding in Madrid to work together on the Indian Navy's planned programme for four amphibious assault warships, known in India as the LPD programme, the companies said.

The partners plan to base their offer on Navantia's landing helicopter dock designs, the family that includes Spain's Juan Carlos I and the Royal Australian Navy's Canberra and Adelaide. The ships would support amphibious operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and other naval missions, according to the announcement carried by Naval News and the Daily Excelsior.

Construction would take place in India. The memorandum combines Navantia's experience designing and building surface warships and submarines with L&T's engineering and shipbuilding base, and is meant to develop local capacity to build large ships, the reports said. Escudo Digital noted that Spain's share would therefore lie in design, engineering and support work rather than steel cut at Spanish yards.

Arun Ramchandani, who heads L&T's precision engineering and systems business, said the tie-up would support what he called a highly complex programme and help advance India's ability to build such ships itself. Gonzalo Mateo-Guerrero, Navantia's director of operations and business, said the Spanish company would provide long-term support to L&T and the Indian Navy throughout the ships' life cycle.

The navy's 2021 request for information called for four vessels of about 200 metres with electric propulsion, room for 900 troops and a through flight deck for helicopters, which makes the design a landing helicopter dock rather than a classic landing platform dock. It also asked for a heavy armament of 16 anti-ship missiles and 32 vertical-launch short-range surface-to-air missiles, the Daily Excelsior and Naval News reported.

India's Defence Acquisition Council approved the need for the ships on 23 October 2025, and no shipbuilding contract had been placed as of late August 2026, according to Baird Maritime. Naval News cited a navy description of ships about 220 metres long and displacing around 29,000 tonnes that would also act as mother ships for uncrewed vehicles.

The Spanish-Indian team faces competition. France's Naval Group has signed memorandums with Hindustan Shipyard to back its own bid, and Italy's Fincantieri is also among the contenders to supply a design, Escudo Digital reported. An earlier attempt to buy such ships stalled for years and was cancelled in 2020, and the same Navantia and L&T pairing lost out with its S-80 design in India's P-75I submarine contest, the outlet added.

The programme would rebuild a thin amphibious force. The navy's only landing platform dock is INS Jalashwa, a former US Navy ship, and just four tank landing ships remain in service: three Shardul-class vessels commissioned in the late 2000s and INS Gharial, commissioned in 1997, supported by eight Mk IV landing craft utility, according to Naval News.

If the bid succeeds, India would become the fourth navy to operate a ship from the Juan Carlos I family, after Spain, Australia and Turkey, whose Anadolu was built in Istanbul to a Spanish design. The memorandum itself is not a contract, and no value or timeline for an award has been made public.